Comment by anigbrowl

I think you're imagining 'drones' as 'small quadcopters with hand grenades' as deployed in Ukraine. To be sure even a large swarm of these would struggle against an aircraft carrier, but you need to also consider things like Shahed drones that can carry 1-200kg of munitions and are much cheaper than missiles. Depending on where a conflict takes place, I can see a large number of small disposable drones being used to overwhelm targeting systems while a moderate number of medium drones with a serious payload carry out the actual attack.

Also, while you're completely right about the ruggedness of the ship itself, image recognition electronics are dirt cheap nowadays. You can buy COTS camera-IR modules from under $100 and train them on whatever you want. If I were opposing an enemy that had carriers while I had only drones, I'd target specific parts of the superstructure rather tha the hull.

lightning up with mushroom clouds anyway

I think you are wildly overestimating the appetite for using tactical nuclear weapons. Whoever deploys those first in an offensive capacity is going to gain instant pariah status. The US is torching a lot of its traditional alliances as is, deploying a nuclear weapon in anger would result in international criminal status and probable internal collapse soon after. nor do I see any likelihood of China using them against Taiwan since that would undermine the entire purpose of a military undertaking.