CV's at low level seem to suck - suggest way more bombs/rockets/torps, way less damage, make CV's DoT kings +support (debuffs - damage weapons/rudder etc)

As heading.

IMO I like CV's as a concept, but not really the current implementation so much, I would personally prefer if they were more hands off, like if they were more of a RTS element thing. Overall if I had my way I would suggest you make CV's able to send out multiple squads, replenish planes so they are hampered but not useless without planes, and then have areas/zones of the map visible to both sides where they replenish at 2-3x the rate. I.E top left enemy Air-replenish zone - Bottom right allied air replenishment zone - do you go there and aggressively spam aircraft? or do you be less aggressive with aircraft, and try to conceal your position? So you have a small area with a nice benefit, but it means the enemy will likely look for you there.

Then, because it sucks as a CV to be useless, but it also really sucks as a ship to die to an easymode carrier who you can't even target. So I would make CV's extremely annoying, but less powerful, very very low direct damage. Rockets - large spread, very low damage, high chance of fire. Bombers, low damage, decent chance of disabling weapons/AA. Torpedos - low/very low damage, extremely high chance of causing flooding, decent chance of disabling rudder/propeller. Also allow carrier planes to show status of enemy ships if we can't see it (I know it shows if you damage it, but not sure you can see if allies damage stuff)- so your allies can see the enemy ship has no rudder/etc.

Carriers could be relatively weak, but due to the high effect chance it would make them still deadly in sustained attacks, as 1v1 if the carrier can hit you with torps, it will be easier to continue to hit you with torps, or bombers could have a chance to disable AA- which would make it safer and easier for the planes to make multiple runs, doing more damage, and being more annoying. While those sustained attacks would be far far weaker against groups of enemies due to their collective AA. But disabling an enemy rudder/weapon or burning their repair in a group fight can be very powerful to your team.

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So if it were up to me - CV's RTS style ship - multiple play styles mean players can alternate, or attract people who prefer different play styles. CV's would be more consistent (way more torps/bombs/rockets per attack - my pref AI controlled), they deal less damage, basically not dealing much damage unless they can sustain burn/flooding on a target, but are deadly support giving area intel and suppressing enemy effectiveness.

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IMO planes should take damage over 5-10 seconds, and a ship should typically be able to do about a squad of damage in closing distance/time, so that if you focus and have high AA you can wipe out a squad and some before it gets to you, but that squad will probably be able to make one attack. So ships can still be powerful against air like they are now, but the squads aren't useless. The DPS over time makes the planes stronger against groups of ships, which allows you to make them weaker against solo ships - if they are tough enough to be good against groups of ships then a solo ship would probably have no chance. If you balance them against a solo ship then they will be garbage against passive AA of ships in a group. Timed means they can be balanced for 1v1 and not be useless against groups. It also makes some sense as aircraft (at least then) could be shot down but if it didn't suffer complete catastrophic damage (A strike to the engine or fuel supply could disable the engine) the plane could still maneuver/drop bombs.

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TLDR: Make CV's planes tougher in group fights without making them OP 1v1 (damage is over time, or they die a few seconds after taking fatal damage), make it much easier to hit stuff particularly with low level CV's (i.e. more torps/etc), massively reduce the damage per hit, and make the hits much more likely to disable/status effect stuff. It's not fun being useless on either side, make it easier for CV's to hit - but the player hit has more control in how to react with the CV dealing more disable or DoT than direct damage. So make it so CV's can't snipe people, but they are annoying, and can sustain decent damage if their target has their repair on cooldown.

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Anyway none of this might matter after tier 4. Thanks for attending my TED talk.