Carrier Command 2 is a punishing game, where a single mistake can easily result in loss of precious units, equipment, or a soft game over. The game plainly tells you to 'invent your own strategy' at the end of the tutorial, and suggests you to pay attention to logistics, but knowing what to do to operate effectively is a process of trial and error.

This guide should hopefully teach you how to best use your equipment, cover some pages missing in the manual, and help you avoid common pitfalls.

As you arrive at your carrier, you will receive some starting equipment, some of which will be in the warehouse, and some will be in your carrier inventory.

The starting equipment is enough to deal with any threats and capture any, even max difficulty island, but there is a problem - at the start of the game, you have no way to replenish your ammo, vehicles, or fuel. This means that you must make your shots count, conserve valuable ammunition until it is needed, and avoid losing vehicles and equipment that you cannot replenish.

To replenish your supplies, you must capture islands.
Each island unlocks blueprints in its logistics category - you can check which ones using the logistics map.
Based on what islands are closest to you and what blueprints you get after capturing them, you will formulate your future strategy.

Your top priority target is:
- Fuel. With no fuel, your carrier can't move to capture new islands, which is a soft game over. It costs 50 units of fuel to fully refuel a carrier, and a full fuel supply lasts for around 3 islands. You can stockpile backup fuel in your carrier's inventory even if your tank is full.
2025 edit - A diffuculty-1 fuel factory now spawns next to your starting location, so get it first.

Other high value targets are:
- Large Munitions. These are the things most effective at killing things fast. These factories will have a large impact on what you will use as a primary weapon. By default, this manufactures BOMB (LIGHT).
- Small Munitions. Small munitions include not only ammo for small surface craft, but also (very importantly) 160m shells for your main gun. By default, this manufactures AMMO (30MM).
- Barges. Having multiple barges speeds up your rearmament significantly and keeps all of the other factories (especially the fuel one) running.

Secondary targets are:
- Surface Chassis. Surface chassis are required to capture islands and are very versatile. Some of these award the BEAR-class tank blueprint, which is needed to use heavy surface guns. By default, this manufactures SEAL chassis.
- Air Chassis. Default air chassis are enough to fulfill their role, but if you lose them, you will want one of these. By default, this manufactures RAZORBILL chassis.
- Turrets. If you manage to secure BEAR-class tank blueprints from your surface chassis factory, definitely consider capturing a turret factory to get the heavy guns for them.
[2025 edit] - There used to be empty warehouse islands that you could use to remotely centralise your logistics around, but these don't exist anymore apparently.

Utility factories are bottom priority, as your initial supply of camera equipment and virus bots should last you the whole game, and special equipment you get from them is not necessary to succeed. If you have MANTA blueprints, you might want a utility factory to produce an AWACS radar for it.

Now that we have an idea of which targets we want to hit, we need to know the capabilities and limits of our carrier, our units, and our gear in order to make good use of the limited resources we have and avoid wasting that which is precious.

In order of importance and value are the following capabilities:
- Aerial observation and target ID - fulfilled primarily by fixed-wing ALBATROSS/MANTA UAVs
- Anti-ship warfare (ASW) - fulfilled by torpedoes, main gun, and various other methods
- Suppression of enemy air defence (SEAD) - fulfilled by main gun and ground units
- Anti-air warfare (AAW) - fulfilled by AA launchers, CIWS, and if desired, AAW equipped aircraft
- Anti-ground warfare (AGW) - fulfilled by a wide variety of methods

Loss of the above capabilities makes the campaign progressively harder, and incurs significant delays in terms of how quickly you can capture islands.

Following is a list of all starting equipment that your carrier receives, roles of said equipment, its capabilities, and a general idea of how long it will last.

SMALL MUNITIONS

AMMO (FLARE) - [Observation and target ID] - 300 - Carrier flares are wide-area illumination rounds that can be used to illuminate islands during night time. This is mainly used to spot enemy turrets, which don't have headlights that reveal their positions unlike mobile units. Lauched from the bridge, or as a support call. 300 flares will usually last throughout an entire campaign.

AMMO (20mm) - [AAW, AGW, CIWS] - 40000 - 20mm ammunition which is used in CIWS guns both carrier-mounted and ground unit mounted, as well as aircraft chainguns. 40k is more than enough unless helicopter strafing runs are your preferred method of dealing with masses of unprotected ground units.

AMMO (100mm SHELL) - [ASW, AGW, Anti-CIWS] - 100 - 100mm gun ammunition, used in BATTLE CANNON mounted on BEAR-class chassis - useless until both blueprints are acquired. Fires HE shells with heavy bullet drop, which deal heavy damage around the point of impact, and can penetrate even enemy ship hulls. 100 shells can do a lot of damage, but beware as the AI will automatically spam them if given the opportunity.

AMMO (120mm SHELL) - [ASW, AGW, Anti-CIWS] - 100 - 120mm gun ammunition, used in ARTILLERY GUN mounted on BEAR-class chassis - useless until both blueprints are acquired. Requires aerial observation for accurate fire. Has a range of roughly 5km, which is enough to hit ships and any ground unit without being detected. 100 shells will last a decent amount of time if used sparingly to take out high-value targets.

AMMO (160mm SHELL) - [ASW, AGW, Anti-CIWS] - 100 - 160mm gun ammunition, used in the carrier main gun. Requires aerial observation for accurate fire, especially against enemy ships. The main gun's immediate availability, power, and versatility make it a premium instrument for removing enemy CIWS and a reliable fallback weapon to use against ships. Has a range of 6km, but shells will spread more at longer ranges and take longer to travel. One volley will fire 5 shells, meaning that it can only destroy 20 targets on the starting supply, making 160mm a precious resource.

AMMO (30mm) - [AGW] - 9000 - 30mm gun ammunition, used in 30mm ground unit turrets. 9000 shots will last a decent amount of time, but if you use massed ground units which will waste many shells, you'll need more eventually.

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LARGE MUNITIONS

BOMB (LIGHT) - [AGW] - 10 - A small bomb that is roughly equivalent in power to standard missiles. Has no homing and may not inflict full damage on fast targets. Will get shot down by CIWS.

MISSILE (IR) - [AGW] - 120 - The bread and butter anti-ground weapon that is very easy to use, if a bit unreliable. Has a range of ~4km, and can be fired without a target lock or even target detection, homing in on the enemy ground unit in range and dealing moderate damage. One missile will severely damage enemy ground units, a second one will finish them off. Will get shot down by CIWS.

MISSILE (LASER) - [AGW] - 30 - Laser-guided missiles are used via support call from an observer camera or ship scope (GUIDED MSL option). Once called, a missile will be fired from the nearest vehicle, and home towards the crosshair of the observer camera. Will get shot down by CIWS.

MISSILE (AA) - [AAW] - 120 - Used in the carrier's AA turret system, or mounted on aircraft, this is an IR homing missile which currently has a tendency to get distracted by enemy ground units and miss the air targets you fire it at. Will get shot down by CIWS.

CRUISE MISSILE - [AGW] - 18 - Large, slow, laser-guided missile with a massive range, used via support call from observer. The observer must maintain aim at the target to ensure accurate hits. Large splash radius and damage allow it to destroy large clusters of enemies in a single hit, but just like regular missiles, it will get shot down by CIWS.

MISSILE (TV) - [AGW] - 2 - Funky missile that you can only launch in manual mode, and then manually pilot.

TORPEDO - [ASW] - 36 - Torpedoes are the premium way to remove enemy ships. Use the viewing scope to find enemy ships, note down the bearing, set bearing, load torpedo, and fire. Has a huge detection range and radius after activation delay, which may result in torpedoes fired at different targets to all home in on the nearest one. Fire slowly to avoid wasted shots. Beware, torpedoes have no friend/foe recognition - setting delay below 20 seconds or carelessly firing multiple torpedoes at ships equipped with decoys may result in friendly fire.

TORPEDO (NOISE) - [Ship defences] - 12 - Panic countermeasure for when an enemy ship is firing torpedoes at you. Only lasts a few seconds, so fire it when the enemy torpedo is close enough to miss you, and aim away from self - if fired too soon, the torpedo will have time to re-lock onto you again. Pray that it works.

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TURRETS

TURRET (30mm) - [AGW] - 10 - Low power, low penetration, inaccurate in auto mode, this is the cheapest and slowest way to get anything done in Carrier Command 2. SEALs armed with this tend to die a lot before getting much done, unless manually piloted.

AIRCRAFT CHAINGUN - [AGW, AAW] - 4 - Aircraft can use these both to strafe ground targets and dogfight other aircraft. Very good on manually piloted helicopter drones. Uses 20mm ammo.

TURRET (CIWS) - [AAW, CIWS, AGW, ASW] - 2 - Once, CIWS turrets used to be the terror of the seas, with unlimited armour penetration they could kill any tank or even sink ships. You can deploy them to cover ground assaults, or yourself during naval battles. You only get 2 at the start, do not lose these. Uses 20mm ammo.

TURRET (IR MISSILE)/MISSILE ARRAY - [AGW] - 2 - A missile rack carrying 4 shots. Same as aircraft IR missiles, tends to ignore target lock and get shot down by CIWS. Can no longer aim upwards, making these ATGMs rather than missile artillery.

FLARE LAUNCHER - [Countermeasure] - 8 - Used by vehicles to attempt to confuse IR missiles. Keyword is 'attempt', because it usually fails to work and your vehicle dies anyway, so don't expect this to be a reliable way to avoid missile fire.

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UTILITY

ASSORTED CAMERAS - [Observation and target ID] - Can be mounted on vehicles to see things and make support calls. The only one you really care about is GIMBAL CAMERA which is used by air. Ground units make for poor observers, but they can do it in a pinch (such as if you lost all your planes).

FUEL TANK (AIRCRAFT) - [Observation and target ID] - 2 - Mount these on your observer plane to extend the amount of time it can stay in the air before needing to refuel. Can also be used for long-range scouting missions.

Virus Module - [Island Capture] - 24 - The module used by ground vehicles to capture islands. 24 should be far more than enough to last you the whole campaign.

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CHASSIS

SEAL - [Surface Chassis] - 6 - The fastest, unarmoured ground unit that can run basic ground tasks. Not ideal for combat.

WALRUS - [Surface Chassis] - 2 - Medium ground unit. Has armour, and can take a fair amount of 30mm hits. These are your best candidates for sending into fights. Will still die vs. 40mm fire.

RAZORBILL - [Air Chassis, Helicopter] - 4 - Small helicopter that works as a basic weapon platform for IR missiles, manual chaingun strafing runs, or perhaps even torpedoes. Can't mount observer cameras. Beware that chaingun strafing forces the heli to descend into enemy CIWS range and subsequently die.

ALBATROSS - [Air Chassis, Fixed-Wing Plane] - 4 - Extremely versatile aircraft, the most important feature of which is the observer camera slot, which enables effective use of all fire support weapons. Can use most aircraft weapons, but unless you can manufacture more, it's best not to risk them in combat. Has trouble landing on the carrier in rough weather.

This is a rough estimate of what to expect from the actual combat encounter as you approach an island.

• Difficulty 1 - The tutorial difficulty, these islands have only SEALs and the occasional WALRUS all equipped with tiny 15mm guns that do very little damage. Even a couple SEALs with 30mm guns can sweep these, provided their ammo doesn't run out. Practice manually piloting your chaingun equipped RAZORBILL here.
  
  
• Difficulty 2 - At level 2, islands will include an airfield. Aircraft in these are mostly armed with AGW weapons, meaning most of them won't even launch to fight your aerial observer. They take some time to launch, also, and can be pre-emptively eliminated at long range with guided missiles or a carrier missile - one will usually destroy every aircraft in the hangar.
  Ground forces may include 30mm guns, and stationary turrets which have no lights at night and may be difficult to spot.
  
  
• Difficulty 3 - This is a big jump in difficulty, and the point where you will start to face the full spectrum of threats Carrier Command 2 has to offer.
  The first things you will notice is that now, there are several enemy ships guarding the island - they are stationary, but if you approach too close, they will start moving.
  Hostile aircraft are likely to have anti-air weapons, chainguns, and rocket pods which threaten both your aircraft and carrier now.
  Long-range missile fire will be countered by CIWS defences from ships and ground units.
  Ground forces now include painful 40mm guns and BEAR tanks, but static turrets may still have smaller calibers.
  
  
• Difficulty 4 - The most observable difference between 3 and 4 is the quantity and size of the enemy fleet surrounding the island - expect to spend time sinking multiple destroyers before you can start to approach.
  CIWS units are greater in number and likely to cover the entire island.
  Also, expect 40mm on every enemy ground unit.

Now that we know what tools we have at our disposal and the targets we may face, we need to apply them effectively to threats that stand between us and that red flashing radio tower.

Defences of the enemy island can be subdivided into 4 layers:

• LAYER 0 - Enemy intelligence
  
• LAYER 1 - Enemy sea units
  
• LAYER 2 - Enemy air units
  
• LAYER 3 - Enemy CIWS units and turrets
  
• LAYER 4 - Enemy ground units and gun turrets

In order to execute an effective attack and capture an enemy island with minimal losses, it is important to eliminate these layers sequentially until no threats remain. Each layer provides protection to the next layer, and together they form a puzzle with its own angles and weaknesses that you can exploit.

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LAYER 0 - Enemy intelligence
Before attacking any island, you must gather data on enemy forces from a safe distance.
First, approach the island until the light sources are visible. Use the viewing scope and radar data to identify the general nature of threats:

• Small, white headlights are ground units.
  
• Runway lights indicate capacity to launch aircraft on islands of level 2 and above.
  
• Ship lights indicate a sea presence, guaranteed on level 3 and above - 2 small lights are corvettes (NEEDLEFISH), 4 lights with a tower are destroyers (SWORDFISH).

In the presence of enemy ships and/or aircraft, it is best to delay launching observer craft until LAYER 1 and LAYER 2 are eliminated.

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LAYER 1 - Enemy sea units
The first layer of enemy defense is the most lethal - enemy ships are equipped with a full package of weapons including CIWS, AA missiles, torpedoes, and 160mm guns. They can easily eliminate your aircraft, and cripple your carrier, potentially killing it if you are not careful.
The best way to safely remove enemy sea units is by using torpedoes. As mentioned in the equipment list, use the viewing scope to get the bearing, load the appropriate side of torpedo tubes, and fire torpedoes until the enemy sea units are eliminated. Destroyers will take 2 torpedoes, corvettes only 1. However, enemies may use decoys to divert torpedo fire, or move through large waves, causing misses.
If torpedoes are unavailable, refer to further sections of this guide.

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LAYER 2 - Enemy air units
Once the ships and their CIWS are out of the equation, you must deal with enemy aircraft, which have a large detection radius and won't hesitate to engage your units and carrier with a mix of chainguns, rocket turrets, and sometimes also missiles and torpedoes.
Your carrier is equipped with 2 AA missile turrets and 4 CIWS turrets. Engage the AA missile turrets and CIWS on the appropriate side of ship, and approach the enemy aircraft until the AA turret locks on. For best chance of successful interception, fire AA missiles when the aircraft is approaching your carrier, rather than moving away from it, and do not hesitate to fire two missiles to guarantee kills. If multiple missiles are fired at one target, they will seek new targets once the first is down.

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LAYER 3 - Enemy CIWS units and turrets - SEAD
CIWS emplacements obstruct all missile fire and bomb launches directed at ground units within a large radius, which makes it difficult to engage the final layer of defences from a safe distance.
Here there are two options.
The most straightforward one is to eliminate enemy CIWS using artillery fire from the carrier's 160mm main gun, or BEAR-class ground units with 120mm artillery guns equipped. This resolves the issue without any extra effort.
The second option is to engage the enemy ground units directly with your own ground units, as well as eliminate CIWS using your own ground units. This is a risky play which entirely depends on how well-equipped your ground units are to face the opposition. It is highly recommended to bring a CIWS unit with your armoured column to counter missile fire, and scout any high-threat enemies such as enemy BEAR tanks or 40mm turrets in advance to plan your approach.
Finally, note that you don't strictly NEED to eliminate every CIWS unit to transition to the final phase - a CIWS presence that you can't get rid of simply restricts the use of safe, long range missile fire, and forces you into a ground assault.

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LAYER 4 - Enemy ground units and gun turrets
This is usually the cleanup phase of the assault. Without CIWS protection, remaining enemy units can be eliminated using with the safest and cheapest available methods, such as RAZORBILL strafing runs, IR missile spam from long range, manually controlled ground units, etc.
Keep in mind that you do not need to eliminate all enemy gun turrets, only the ones preventing your virus bot carrier from approaching - all turrets alive on the island will convert to your faction once the island is captured.

The 'air boss', or 'air officer' on military carriers is the person in charge of all air traffic around the carrier - they manage aircraft landing, taking off, and everything in between. To effectively manage your drones, there are a few principles that need to be kept in mind.

ONE LIFT, ONE RUNWAY - Your carrier can only manage ONE operation with air vehicles at a time, be it takeoff or landing. The only exception to this is through the use of the 'hold on runway' toggle - if a fixed wing UAV is holding on runway, a rotor UAV can take off, as it takes off directly from the lift platform.
Otherwise, every vehicle must wait in a single queue - your vehicles can't fly forever, so plan accordingly.
Approx. operation times:
Helicopter deployment - 50-60 seconds, they take off immediately after being lifted up
Fixed wing/plane deployment - 80+ seconds, they must use runway to deploy
Helicopter parking from deck - 60-70 seconds
Fixed wing/plane parking from deck - 80-90 seconds
Full loop of fixed wing holding pattern - up to 2 minutes per loop

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QUEUE PRIORITY - To ensure that your sequence of operations is what you expect it to be, you must understand how the carrier's queue logic works. This is what your carrier should do in the following scenarios:
AIRCRAFT IN LANDING POINT OF HOLDING PATTERN > Aircraft lands
AIRCRAFT IN HOLDING PATTERN > Wait until aircraft reaches landing point
NO AIRCRAFT IN HOLDING PATTERN > Launch any aircraft scheduled for takeoff

Example 1 - One ALBATROSS is in holding pattern. One RAZORBILL scheduled for launch.
Result: Carrier waits for ALBATROSS to land. After it's in the hangar, RAZORBILL launches.

Example 2 - ALBATROSS is in holding pattern. MANTA is 5km away, and ordered to land. One RAZORBILL is scheduled for launch.
Result: Carrier waits for ALBATROSS to land. While it's in holding pattern, MANTA enters holding pattern. ALBATROSS lands. Carrier waits for MANTA to land. MANTA lands, then RAZORBILL launches.

Example 3 - MANTA is 5km away, and ordered to land. One RAZORBILL is scheduled for launch.
Result: RAZORBILL launches. MANTA enters holding pattern and waits for RAZORBILL to takeoff, then lands.

Example 4 - ALBATROSS and RAZORBILL are in holding pattern.
Result: RAZORBILL lands due to reaching landing point sooner. ALBATROSS waits in holding pattern until RAZORBILL enters hangar, then lands.

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LANDING SAFETY - Aircraft coming in for a landing are in a very vulnerable position and exposed to many dangers. It's important to place your aircraft carefully to avoid losing aircraft during landings.

Holding pattern - Aircraft will enter a holding pattern before actually landing at your carrier. Helicopters will hover a small distance behind your carrier and land quickly, but fixed-wing drones will follow a large oval-ish shape at 120m altitude. This exposes them to all ground unit fire, collisions with tall cliffs, and extremely large waves. The following diagram shows where your planes will go:

With that in mind, you can use the measuring tool (drag from your carrier on any vehicle control terminal) to estimate where your planes will go during landing.

To land successfully, your aircraft needs a stable, available runway. If your carrier is turning rapidly, moving at flank (90+knots) speed, or bouncing on high waves, the plane will fail to land and go for another loop of the holding pattern, which will take roughly 2 minutes to complete before another landing attempt. Additionally, aircraft may go for an extra loop if they need to descend from high (1km+) altitude.

Safe landing checklist:
- carrier is standing still, with Maintain Heading switch ON
- carrier facing RIGHT SIDE towards the island
- no enemy ships within 5km of holding pattern; no ground units within 1km of holding pattern
- carrier is in shallow water - use ocean depth screen to check. Light blue = OK, Purple = DANGER

Finally, if you want a plane to land fast without going for a full holding pattern loop:
- set a waypoint 3.5km to the back left of your carrier, at 200m altitude - that is close to the final approach point of the holding pattern
- set a waypoint to your carrier from that waypoint to make the plane land
- if there are any other aircraft currently landing, cancel their landings to ensure the runway is clear

In the Carrier Fleet update, devs added the ability to build your own NEEDLEFISH corvettes from your starting warehouse island. They cost 6000 credits to build, and (unlike the hostile corvettes) come armed with only ONE of the following weapons:
- CIWS
- Carrier Missiles
- 160mm gun
- Torpedoes

If their waypoint is set to target your carrier, they will follow you around in formation, refueling and rearming from the carrier inventory.

These are substantially less independent than hostile ships - they will not engage enemies or fire automatically (except for the CIWS variant), but can still be used as a force multiplier for your carrier. Corvettes carrying support weapons will fire when support is requested from observation cameras or viewing scope.

Rather than independently operating ships, think of them as extra weapon emplacements and protection - your carrier is limited to only 4 CIWS turrets and one 160mm gun, which can be disabled in battle and takes a long time to reload. Having a couple extra CIWS corvettes helps with anti-air and missile defence, and every backup 160mm gun corvette increases your 160mm ammo capacity and reload speed - the carrier 160mm gun is lethal but VERY slow to reload, so it matters more than you might think.

That said, NEEDLEFISH are still corvettes - they will easily die to rocket pod aircraft, and single torpedo hits. Make sure you increase the delay on your torpedo activation to avoid friendly firing them.

Oftentimes, due to the random nature of blueprint acquisition, island generation, and difficulty levels, you may find that you are missing essential equipment needed to deal with certain situations. In other words, what to do if you messed up and lost/wasted the good stuff.

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"I have no torpedoes left, but I need to kill enemy ships. Their CIWS is killing all my missiles. What do I do?"

CIWS in Carrier Command 2 is very powerful, and for all intents and purposes creates a bubble that is impenetrable to missiles. Worse yet, most ships will have their own missiles and will return fire on aircraft, usually resulting in loss for no return. Even saturation fire using 6+ simultaneous missiles proves to be ineffective, as CIWS kills missiles in a cone. So, missiles are out as an option.

The second best way to eliminate ships is by using your carrier's main gun. At the time of writing, aiming the gun using the viewing scope is bugged, and reports wrong valid range.
Instead, use a spotter plane at a safe distance (at least 5km) from the enemy ship, and slowly approach it until you can call for main gun support using the observer. This will fire a much more accurate volley that should hit the ship more often.

Alternatively, you can use the 'submarine' method. Amphibious units are very hard to detect swimming in water, and that is also true for enemy ships. From a safe distance, launch a ground unit with a good enogh gun to kill the ship - you will need at least 40mm to do any actual damage. Ideally, you would use a BEAR-class tank, which ideally is equipped with an artillery gun that can accurately eliminate the ship from 5km away with the help of an aerial observer.

If you have no such options, you need to turn around and find lower-level island factories to capture for better equipment.

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"How do I deal with CIWS in general?"

As above, the carrier main gun, and BEARs with large calibers are your preferred solution, but on land, dealing with CIWS becomes easier because you can simply outmanoeuver it and hit only the targets that you need. Plus, land-based CIWS don't return fire to ground units.

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"I've spent all my missiles already, and 30mm sucks. How do I kill all these ground units?"

Use aircraft chainguns on RAZORBILLs to strafe them, manually control it (I recommend turning on mouse flight in options). You can designate targets for autopilot too, just give your heli a good path to make the attack run, or it might struggle to make sharp turns and miss. Use big bombs. Use cruise missiles only on clusters of 3+ enemies. Use 40mm guns or BEARs with cannons.
Just don't spend valuable 160mm gun ammo clubbing SEALs.

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"How do I make my barges do stuff faster?"

Have more barges and assign them to individual factories.
Use factories closer to your carrier more - once you have a blueprint, all factories of that type can make it, not just the factory you got the blueprint from.
Try setting safer waypoints for your barges - they are tough and can tank torpedo fire, but ideally you don't want to risk them doing that.

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"I have no fuel, what now?"

Now that your tutorial island is almost guaranteed to be a fuel factory it's less of a problem.
But if it did happen, hope you have some left in the warehouse/make some in the fuel island and twiddle thumbs scout other islands while you wait for your barge to deliver it.
If you used up all your starting fuel and don't have a fuel factory, gg, start over or load a save.

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"What do all these screen modes do? Does weather matter?"
Some weather matters more than the rest.
Ocean depth is probably the most important - it affects the height of waves (purple areas are deep sea with big waves), and shows you shallow reefs near islands that can't be crossed by torpedoes.
Your aircraft will struggle to land properly in deep ocean where the waves are big.
Ocean currents are second most important - a very strong current will apply about 12 knots of velocity to ships, torpedoes, and ground units swimming through it, which can drift your carrier into danger, deviate your torpedoes slightly off course, or slow down your SEALs.
Fog and precipitation just make it harder for you to see enemies - fix this by firing carrier flares. Extreme precipitation (recorded at 80%/30% thunder) will also disable your radar.

Now that you know how to use your starting arsenal and are capturing islands, you should be getting blueprints. Gear that you get from blueprints tends to be quite cheap, so you should not hesitate to order a decent supply of items that unlock for further use.

Here I will list some blueprints that are good to get and how acquiring them might affect your strategy.

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God rolls

AMMO (160mm SHELL) - If you managed to roll a 160mm ammo blueprint from a munitions factory, congratulations, you win the game. The main gun of the carrier can destroy ships, bombard enemy aircraft hangars pre-emptively, kill the enemy carrier and basically everything else. You can quite literally play the game using only the main gun.

TORPEDO - The basic torpedo is the ultimate weapon of naval superiority, and if you can manufacture infinite torpedoes you will have no problem clearing ships from miles away. Just don't spam them too much - some will try to chase decoys, do a 180, and lock on to your carrier.

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The BEAR kit
BEAR-class tanks are armoured enough to withstand slugging matches with 40mm guns and carry the biggest surface unit guns. However, you will need to also acquire turrets for it to use, which will require additional turret and ammo factories. The turrets it can equip are: BATTLE CANNON (100mm direct fire), ARTILLERY GUN (120mm artillery), HEAVY CANNON (100mm artillery).
Requiring 3 different factory islands to be operational, the BEAR is tedious to fully equip, but once it is, no other ground unit can match its firepower.
And remember, the range warning is for AI, not for humans.

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Bread and butter eqipment

LARGE BOMB, CARRIER MISSILE, MISSILE (IR, LASER, TV) - Far better alternative than the basic light bombs, you will run out of these at some point, and being able to manufacture any of these will let you clean up CIWS-stripped islands very efficiently.

TURRET (40mm), AMMO (40mm) - The 40mm kit is not as impressive as infinite missiles, but it lets your ground forces run cleanup much better. Also, suicide SEAL hordes are much funnier with 40mms than 30mms.

AMMO (20mm), ROCKET POD, AMMO (ROCKET) - The helicopter strafe brand of cleanup operations.

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Air Chassis

MANTA - The MANTA jet is the up-armoured fighter drone with high airspeed. It still dies to one missile hit, but its selling point is the fact that it is actually faster than AA missiles, which means that missiles launched at it while it is running away will fail to catch up. It also has enough HP to take stray CIWS hits and survive, if you dare risk it. Blueprints for the MANTA allow you to finally have a fighter in all those risky dogfighting and strafing roles where many an ALBATROSS has perished. And last but not least, it is uniquely capable of mounting the AWACS radar system to detect enemy air/sea assets outside of the carrier's 10km radar range.

PETREL - The PETREL heavy rotor craft has the unique ability to airlift ground units, allowing it to massively shorten the waiting times during virtually any ground op. In terms of combat ability, it has 4 weapon mounts and armour, which is twice the firepower of a RAZORBILL in a much more reliably survivable package. Make no mistake though, 40mm and especially CIWS are still lethal to PETRELs.

This used to be a section where I listed some old bugs, but all of them have been fixed. Good job, devs :)

If you run into issues yourself, you can use the Esc menu "report issue" button, or visit the devs' bug tracker at https://geometa.co.uk/support/carriercommand which also includes a feature suggestion tab.

Good hunting, commander.