[Grizzly]

EDIT: I guess there's really no point to using spoiler tags in this thread?

I'd say there is. We don't want a very excited fan who posts here to say how much he/she liked Act 1 and 2 get spoiled for act 3.
And considering that there's a Director's Cut coming with a standalone version, there will be quite a few of those fans.

[camelpockets]

Spoiler:

That's a good point you made about the Sanctuary, but I think that ship was there just to build up some of the plot in Age of Aquarius, not necessarily to build more of the storyline in WiH. Though I am curious to see if we get to see some more of the AoA peeps getting involved in this portion of the story. As far as I know, it's just the Bei's that get involved.

[FrikgFeek]

Speaking of AoA, there's a speech by Elder Mandho in the briefing for "Demons of the Past", the flashback mission, about Ubuntu and Ascended Masters. Considering all the foreshadowing and some of the endgame Techroom entries I'd say that WiH was pretty planned out. A ton of the plot points in AoA are Chekhov's guns just waiting to be fired.

As for the other AoA characters or ships that defected, you'd think most of them would be dead by now. I mean, the Feds would probably try using the advanced beam-armed shock jump trump cards in the first 18 months of the war, and since they haven't been mentioned at all they're either on some super secret mission for the Elders or just dead.

Or maybe they're not using them much since they don't have GTVA fighters to cover them and those super fragile Fed hotrods don't work well with AAA beams everywhere.

Spoiler:

And act 3 tells us Samuel Bei is spending most of his time planning with Elders instead of being in a cockpit so they don't have their own ace in a Persus(Or whatever you chose to fly in the last mission).

[Scotty]

I'm pretty sure they're on the latter of your two possibilities.  Remember that we haven't heard a peep from the captured Anemoi in WiH Part 1, and we'd have heard if that one went down.

[FrikgFeek]

Well, IDK what the UEF can do with an Orion-sized logistics ship. I mean, the Kuiper belt is just as far as the Moon, 5 minutes in subspace. The Tevs need them since they'd need to make 2 jumps to Delta Serpentis, and another 2 to get back into the action. So jumping back to Earth is just as effective(if not more, since they're in position to defend it) as jumping back to a logistics ship hidden in the system.
Unless they lose Earth, at which point they're screwed either way.
Maybe they can load them up with bombs and use them to ram other ships, JAD style.

[Aesaar]

Speaking of AoA, there's a speech by Elder Mandho in the briefing for "Demons of the Past", the flashback mission, about Ubuntu and Ascended Masters. Considering all the foreshadowing and some of the endgame Techroom entries I'd say that WiH was pretty planned out. A ton of the plot points in AoA are Chekhov's guns just waiting to be fired.

As for the other AoA characters or ships that defected, you'd think most of them would be dead by now. I mean, the Feds would probably try using the advanced beam-armed shock jump trump cards in the first 18 months of the war, and since they haven't been mentioned at all they're either on some super secret mission for the Elders or just dead.

Or maybe they're not using them much since they don't have GTVA fighters to cover them and those super fragile Fed hotrods don't work well with AAA beams everywhere.

Spoiler:

And act 3 tells us Samuel Bei is spending most of his time planning with Elders instead of being in a cockpit so they don't have their own ace in a Persus(Or whatever you chose to fly in the last mission).

Mounting beam weapons isn't as simple as "slap them on and use them".  Beam weapons are bulky and have enormous power requirements which most UEF ships just aren't designed to handle.  For the UEF to use beam weapons, they'd need to do the following:

- Reverse-engineer one of the beam cannons they've captured.
- if their new weapon is a blue beam derivative, reverse engineer the Labouchere's reactor and power systems just so they can power the thing
- design and build a whole new ship to mount it, because the Karuna and Narayana just can't do it.

Once they've got this new ship, they've still got something inferior to what the GTVA is fielding.  Let's face it, the UEF's first foray into beam tech isn't going to match the ships of a state that's been designing beam-armed ships for 18+ years.  And then they have give it a crew who's only experience with beam weapons is seeing GTVA ones being fired at them. 

Given the UEF's strategic situation, they just don't have the time or resources to waste on a project like this.

As for why Bei isn't flying: what good would he be?  The UEF has plenty of aces, but there's only so much one fighter can do.  Adding or removing one good pilot would make zero difference in the war.  Putting him in a cockpit would be a massive waste of his Nagari sensitivity.

[QuakeIV]

If they manage to acquire the basics of that technology, then they likely could in fact slap them on, as a note.  The pre-beam Orions seem to have handled that just fine, though that was admittedly due to their relatively modular design.  Unclear how similar the UEF vessels are in design philosophy.

The green beams were also reverse engineered from shivan weaponry, so it isn't entirely crazy that the UEF could do something similar with blue beams.  I have no idea how long that took the GTVA, however.

There is also the question of performance, but I suppose that is another matter entirely.

[Aesaar]

If they manage to acquire the basics of that technology, then they likely could in fact slap them on, as a note.  The pre-beam Orions seem to have handled that just fine, though that was admittedly due to their relatively modular design.  Unclear how similar the UEF vessels are in design philosophy.

The green beams were also reverse engineered from shivan weaponry, so it isn't entirely crazy that the UEF could do something similar with blue beams.  I have no idea how long that took the GTVA, however.

There is also the question of performance, but I suppose that is another matter entirely.

The UEF could probably make green beams work with their ships, assuming they have space (the BGreen, for instance, is notoriously bulky).  This is because green beams were specifically designed with retrofits in mind.  But then why would the UEF even bother?  Fitting a few TerSlash on a Karuna would take a very long stay in a shipyard, it wouldn't really be an improvement over the Karuna's existing weaponry, and making the required space would probably cut into other systems (like, say, torpedo magazines).  On top of that, GTVA ship armor is specifically designed with beam impacts in mind.  What's the point?

Blue beams are quite simply beyond the power grids and reactors of UEF ships.  They need meson reactors and a power grid designed for that kind of draw.  It would absolutely require a new ship.  Same reason you can't put blue beams on Capella-era GTVA ships.

[FrikgFeek]

Well, I wasn't talking about reffiting Karunas with beams and advanced jump drives, I was just talking about using the GTC Duke and the GTCv Labouchere, ships that defected to the UEF, they'd only have to keep them supplied.
The GTL Solace defected too(and hasn't been mentioned since), probably because the UEF just has no need for a GTL Anemoi logistics ship, at least not yet.

As for why Bei isn't flying: what good would he be?  The UEF has plenty of aces, but there's only so much one fighter can do.  Adding or removing one good pilot would make zero difference in the war.  Putting him in a cockpit would be a massive waste of his Nagari sensitivity.

I call shennanigans on that one. In "conversations from WiH" it's made very clear that the UEF has <10 people with the same flight hours as Lorna Simms, since they're letting their aces stay on the front and eventually die. They could really use a few more aces, especially those familiar with GTVA ships. Disable the IFF and someone might hesitate for a second, in the slight case that it's a friendly ship that got it's comms and sensors destroyed.
Wouldn't really work long-term, but even slight hesitation can win a close dogfight.

Also, GTVA pilots are probably the masters of beam-disarming, if AoA is anything to go by. They'd never make it through AoA alive if not for those beam killing skills, and while the UEF had to adapt to that in 18 months, the GTVA has been in the beam killing business for 18 years.

[Aesaar]

Why?  What difference is one Chimera and one Hyperion going to make for the UEF?  The Chimera is much less tactically flexible than the Karuna, and its strengths are very dependent on synergy with other GTVA ships.   One artillery corvette with a sprint drive isn't very useful when the rest of your fleet can't keep up with it.  You either pair it up with other ships, in which case the sprint drive is wasted, or you have it do things alone, which isn't a good idea because the Chimera is designed for fleet support and is quite vulnerable on its own.

It's a lot like the Narayana in this respect, except even more vulnerable because at least the Narayana has a fighterbay.

[FrikgFeek]

The sprint drive is very useful, as it can quickly jump from 1 engagement to another. We know that the war is often waged in multiple places at once, that sprint drive means the Chimera could support 1 group of Karuna's and then jump away to another battle if they need some more firepower.
Also, a Hyperion has 5 pulses and 2 AAAs, it can cover multiple frigates against assault fighters and bombers, those pulses are pretty good at both killing craft and shooting down bombs. And that's pretty useful considering how crap Narayanas are versus fighters.
Sure, it's not a complete game changer but a well timed jump can completely shut down a bomber attack or finish off a damaged capship that thinks it's safe.

[QuakeIV]

I'd note that they are pretty much at the point in their lives where they need every ship they can get, regardless of direct effectiveness.

Aren't they re-servicing the Custos due to Sanctus casualties?  Seems like a Chimera would be a significant improvement on those.  (though the Custos-X supplied by the fedayeen was undoubtledly incredibly badass, many aren't at that level for those not fully in the know)

e:  Probably the biggest downside to that would be the fact that the defected 13th BG ships are likely almost completely dismantled and spread across some kind of research facility at this point.

[Aesaar]

Sprint drives still need to recharge.  Just look at the Carthage.  Your plan of having it jump from one engagement to another would end up with it getting caught in the middle of a recharge cycle and then easily disposed of by a hunter-killer team.  Especially since neither the UEF captain or chief engineer are terribly likely to understand the limits of the ship.  And don't think you can use the original crew.  Just because they defected doesn't mean they're willing to take up arms against their former comrades, and it doesn't mean you should let them.

Planning to use the Labouchere the same way Steele uses Serkr just isn't going to yield huge dividends for the simple reason that it's got less than a third of Serkr's firepower and none of their experience.

As for the Duke, one Hyperion changes absolutely nothing.  As an escort cruiser, it's not that much better than the Sanctus.  The Hyperion is a fast attack cruiser, meant for hit and run strikes.  The issue is that just one isn't much better at that job than a gunship wing, which is why the GTVA pretty much always deploys them in pairs.

I really can't think of any engagements in WiH where the outcome would have been seriously altered by adding a Chimera or a Hyperion to the UEF side.

These two might be useful (in that they're better than nothing) but far more useful to the UEF would be tearing them apart to learn everything they can.  Which is probably what happened.  The Duke and Labouchere are probably mostly-empty hulks by now.

The Agincourt and Solace are a different matter because they offer actual strategic benefits to the UEF, unlike the other two ships.

I call shennanigans on that one. In "conversations from WiH" it's made very clear that the UEF has <10 people with the same flight hours as Lorna Simms, since they're letting their aces stay on the front and eventually die. They could really use a few more aces, especially those familiar with GTVA ships. Disable the IFF and someone might hesitate for a second, in the slight case that it's a friendly ship that got it's comms and sensors destroyed.
Wouldn't really work long-term, but even slight hesitation can win a close dogfight.

Also, GTVA pilots are probably the masters of beam-disarming, if AoA is anything to go by. They'd never make it through AoA alive if not for those beam killing skills, and while the UEF had to adapt to that in 18 months, the GTVA has been in the beam killing business for 18 years.

You know what would be more useful than having him fly?   Having him teach new pilots, which is what the GTVA does with their aces.  The UEF doesn't need more aces, they need fewer rookies dying because of rookie mistakes.  I also doubt Bei would even be willing to fight the GTVA.

There's also the cardinal rule about defectors: you don't trust them.  This is a real life one.  If they betrayed their country, what says they won't have second thoughts and betray you as well?  Why do you think Admiral Bei is basically just a consultant now?

[FrikgFeek]

That's a good point. Although I don't know how useful Bei would be at instructing UEF rookies, as GTVA fighter tactics are completely different from UEF ones. I guess he could teach them basic dogfighting and hone their reflexes, which is still better than sending them out there completely useless and incapable of shaking off a canal boat(or a Myrmidon) in an Uhlan(And yes, I lost almost all of my scrub wingmates in "Darkest Hour").

[Soulrheever]

I would guess that the dismantling and studying of the various defected GTVA ships is a big part of the reason the UEF has shown such impressive results in electronic warfare attacks.

As for all the ships that we never hear from again, don't forget it's mentioned several times that there are lots of assets that just vanish, swallowed up by Admiral Byrnes big super-secret project that we still know little to nothing about.

[-Norbert-]

FrikgFeek, you just gave a very good reason why Bei should teach. Who better to teach the rookies about the GTVA fighter doctrine and tactics than someone who learned them first-hand. He can tell them exactly what they can expect from their enemies and teach them about the strength and weakness of the fighters they'll be facing.

UEF aces can teach the rookies the "know yourself" part, while Bei can provide the "know your enemy" part.

[DanielBeaver]

The Elders are probably using Bei more for Nagari or Shangrila related activities. And would he even be willing to fight against the GTVA? I'm curious as to whether Bei ever fought the NTF, or whether he only ever fought Shivans. There were apparently some brush wars between the events of FS2 and BP, so I guess he probably did fight other Humans at some point.

The UEF could probably make green beams work with their ships, assuming they have space

Probably, if they had the time to retrofit their ships. But they only had 18 months, and were fighting a losing war - getting their Narayana's refitted with non-experimental weapon upgrades was probably a difficult enough logistic problem. Presumably if the UEF could hold off the GTVA for another year or two they could get their economic engine revved up for total war, but the impression I have is that they've just been trying to keep their heads above water and never really had the chance to do that.

[qwadtep]

Spoiler:

That's a good point you made about the Sanctuary, but I think that ship was there just to build up some of the plot in Age of Aquarius, not necessarily to build more of the storyline in WiH. Though I am curious to see if we get to see some more of the AoA peeps getting involved in this portion of the story. As far as I know, it's just the Bei's that get involved.

Spoiler:

Rear Admiral Carey is the mole who gave the Agincourt's jump schedule to the Feds, iirc.

[Aesaar]

The UEF could probably make green beams work with their ships, assuming they have space

Probably, if they had the time to retrofit their ships. But they only had 18 months, and were fighting a losing war - getting their Narayana's refitted with non-experimental weapon upgrades was probably a difficult enough logistic problem. Presumably if the UEF could hold off the GTVA for another year or two they could get their economic engine revved up for total war, but the impression I have is that they've just been trying to keep their heads above water and never really had the chance to do that.

You're absolutely correct about this.  I'd also say green beams, coupled with the UEF's lack of familiarity with beam weapons in general, would make firepower improvements marginal at best.  It wouldn't be worth doing even if they had the chance to do it.

[FrikgFeek]

For anti-warship firepower? You're right, adding some shorter ranged green beams wouldn't do much for their ship-to-ship. But even green AAAfs would be pretty damn useful vs fighters. Much more useful than flak or blobs anyway, as they penetrate shields and have a very strong kinetic effect that can punt bombers around and even break their lock.