The role assignments are a very interesting part of GC3 that to this point I haven't taken much advantage of. It seems all I need to do (at challenging) is build faster, bigger boats with high fire power. Don't see any need to build escorts. Perhaps this would change if I would start building more support craft. Anyhow the point came to med while reading another carrier OP thread that there is a problem that results from the big ships being just too tough to take down. One might prefer that one can build big guns, but that they have to be seriously protected. Question is how to do that, while still making those big ships worth building.
Of course I am strongly influenced by WW2 and other recent conflicts. Three Japanese fleet carriers at Midway were taken down by a half dozen bombs in a few minutes because their fighter cover was chasing American torpedo bombers that they had murdered. Some carriers in WW2 were sunk with a single submarine attack. In one of the few battleship to battleship encounters, the HMS Hood was hit with a single,albeit lucky, shot from the Bismarck, and blew up. Well, the Hood class battle cruisers had a serious design flaw (deck armor) but I digress.
The thought actually hit me that maybe carriers should have a designation as a support craft and roughly the HPs to go with it. Perhaps too radical, I dunno.
First thing I think of is that the bigger ships in GC3 have too many HPs. Perhaps other vulnerabilities might be introduced, such as the additions of defenses be limited. I don't think large ships should necessarily be glass cannons, but they shouldn't be so tough they don't need cover. And if it is useful to build smaller ships one could argue that the 1 ship per turn output gets in the way. Well, i suppose one could design colonies that used their full output to crank out one escort a turn and the rest of the colony's production went to wealth or research, so I don' think that is insurmountable.
Anyway, the point is that there should be more incentive to use the ship roles. How, I can only suggest at the moment.
And it is very true that if I actually min/maxed the creation of my fleets that this would already be happening. But so far I don't need to, part of the problem I suppose.