Some card abilities allow players to dock ships to a carrier ship.
Docked ships (and their equipped Upgrade cards) are placed to the side of the play area, and are considered to be inactive for all purposes (they are not assigned dials in the Planning phase, they cannot attack, be attacked, perform actions, be assigned tokens, be target locked, etc.).
Ships can be docked pregame, during squad building, and players must pay squad points for these ships as normal.
If the carrier ship flees the battlefield, it and all its docked ships are destroyed.
If the carrier ship is destroyed (but has not fled the battlefield), before it is removed from the play area, each docked ship receives 1 facedown Damage card and must immediately deploy. Ships deployed in this fashion cannot attack until the following round.