Just to add to the carrier discussion. The new macross class carriers are really a hybrid of battleship and carrier.
However, the NUNs fleets do have stand alone carriers that are probably at lot cheaper.
The smaller Guantanamo class
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/macross/ma...guantanamo.htm
and the much larger Uraga class
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/macross/macross7/uraga.htm