[FlayedOne]

Hello,

What changes to GTVA do you think are needed in order to be able to defend against Shivan menace in the post-FS2 period?

Here are my proposed changes:
First of all, GTVA needs to cut on destroyer losses. Since they introduced corvettes as a cheaper alternative, I belive that changes should go even further. Now those ships fulfill the following roles: Destroyers are command ships while providing anti-capital ship firepower and figher/bombers, while corvettes fulfill anti-fighter role as well as support firepower(judgeing by the fact that both Deimos and Sobek have slasher beams). IMO roles should be changed to destroyers being command ships, carriers and support ships, while corvettes should handle anti-figher and anti-capital ship roles. This would allow for lower loses among destroyers, because of two factors:
- they would only be required to participate directly in case of very big battles, where support-firepower would be needed
- even if they would be present on the battlefield, enemy would priortise destruction of corvettes giving them more chances to escape
Another advantage corvettes have over destroyers is speed and manouverability, that would be of great help in future confrontations with shivan forces, since GTVA does not stand a chance in a direct fight - guerilla tactics will be needed. This would of course require a development of new ships, and while we're at it, GTVA's R&D should definitely work on optimal hull shapes.

I'd base the new corvette over Deimos since it's a mighty fine one already. Here is a crude drawing of how I would do it :



As you can see I used a new hull shape, that allows great AAAf and flak coverage. Here are the changes compared to Deimos:
-I exchanged one of it's Terran Slashing Beam for 2 AAAfs, because it seems to me like it's at worst an even trade when it comes to energy expenditure, and most probably should result in energy excess.
-I exchanged 3 Terran Slashing Beams for 3 Vasudan Light Beams, giving the corvette a respectable anti-capital ship firepower. Judging by damge values this exchange should result in excess energy.
-I exchanged piranha launchers for flaks, since they proved to be supperior.
I also hope that excess energy from those trades would be enough to allow this corvette to travel at 35 kps. This would get her on par with ICENI when it comes to speed, and allow outmanouvering of almost all enemy ships, which in turn is need in order to use those Vasudan Light Beams since they are all mounted on the front. AAAf and Flaks should make those corvettes plenty resilent to enemy figher and bomber attacks.

So, what changes to GTVA's doctrines, ships and the like do you think are necesarry?

[Dragon]

That's interesting.

[NGTM-1R]

The most obvious necessary change is the GTVA needs to develop a means to eliminate a juggernaut, rapidly. Lots of people have posisted ways to do this from the ever-popular Giant Honkin' Flying Beam Cannon to the 120-tube Helios launching corvette. The final form of such a weapon is ultimately going to dictate the final form of GTVA doctrine.

Absent the means to deal with the juggernaut fleet, which is at the least several decades away, there is no real defense. The only option left is to locate entry points and collapse them. A more portable and more easily constructed means of collapsing nodes then tearing out the guts of an Orion and stuffing it full of Meson Bombs is neccessary. Realistically speaking I doubt they can get it down to smaller than a Deimos, but that should be enough. About twenty of these will be needed, one for each system and several backups. The GTVA will need to rapidly locate a Shivan entry point, blow it away with one of our hypothetical node-collapsing Demioseseses, and then mop up the stragglers. Speed and rapid deployment of combat assets from everywhere will have to be emphasized. If you can't bring everything, and I do mean everything, that can move and shoot to bear within a week, you should not expect to succeed. If you can't shut the door into the threatened system within two weeks, the battle is probably lost and you should blow the nodes out of that system and take the loss rather than lose everything.

[Rodo]

So basically Corvettes would be an anti fighter class vessel ?

I would dare to say that GTVA must realize that making a ship "decent" in all purposes is impossible, so specialization in ship design is the key here, well at least that's how I would deal with Shivans.

[Qent]

I tend to take the tables pretty literally, so I'd say the GTVA's success depends on how well they can stay out of capital ship battles and do everything with fighters and bombers. But if a warship is going to go into combat, I agree that it should be a corvette, since cruisers will get overwhelmed by heavy fighters and destroyers' fighter bays are too important.

[NGTM-1R]

It's all in the deployment. Beams can bring an end to an engagement better than bombs in the end.

[Woolie Wool]

The most obvious necessary change is the GTVA needs to develop a means to eliminate a juggernaut, rapidly. Lots of people have posisted ways to do this from the ever-popular Giant Honkin' Flying Beam Cannon to the 120-tube Helios launching corvette. The final form of such a weapon is ultimately going to dictate the final form of GTVA doctrine.

Absent the means to deal with the juggernaut fleet, which is at the least several decades away, there is no real defense. The only option left is to locate entry points and collapse them. A more portable and more easily constructed means of collapsing nodes then tearing out the guts of an Orion and stuffing it full of Meson Bombs is neccessary. Realistically speaking I doubt they can get it down to smaller than a Deimos, but that should be enough. About twenty of these will be needed, one for each system and several backups. The GTVA will need to rapidly locate a Shivan entry point, blow it away with one of our hypothetical node-collapsing Demioseseses, and then mop up the stragglers. Speed and rapid deployment of combat assets from everywhere will have to be emphasized. If you can't bring everything, and I do mean everything, that can move and shoot to bear within a week, you should not expect to succeed. If you can't shut the door into the threatened system within two weeks, the battle is probably lost and you should blow the nodes out of that system and take the loss rather than lose everything.

If the Shivans were determined/patient enough and their ships could hold sufficient provisions, they could reach the GTVA at sublight speeds over a period of years if necessary. Time is on their side, after all.

[NGTM-1R]

If the Shivans were determined/patient enough and their ships could hold sufficient provisions, they could reach the GTVA at sublight speeds over a period of years if necessary. Time is on their side, after all.

If they burn that much time just getting there, it's unlikely they'll be able to make a significant fight of it when they do. The GTVA is playing for time to build up; if the Shivans want to give them that time on their own...

[Woolie Wool]

The GTVA could not build up a sufficient force to seriously challenge what the Shivans can do if they actually try, not even in a hundred years. The GTVA certainly hasn't displayed the ability to build anything even in the same ballpark as the Sathanas fleet. Really, it appears that the only limit on Shivan firepower (at least against the GTVA) is their seeming reluctance to deploy anymore than the minimum force they think they need, and when they finally did roll out the big iron, they displayed a total lack of interest beyond securing Capella so they could perform their subspace voodoo on the star. They seemed content to chase Allied ships to the node and let them escape.

The only reason why the GTVA still exists is because the Shivans didn't try hard enough to kill them. There is no realistic way the GTVA could defend itself even in the short term if the Shivans made a serious effort to stamp them out.

[Killer Whale]

super-dupa node blocader. Wrap a massive piece of iron around a node, and stick a whole lotta beam cannons on it. Kinda like a melia minus the node making ability. Anything smaller than a juggernaut is gone, a juggernaut would receive a lot of damage.

[IronBeer]

super-dupa node blocader. Wrap a massive piece of iron around a node, and stick a whole lotta beam cannons on it. Kinda like a melia minus the node making ability. Anything smaller than a juggernaut is gone, a juggernaut would receive a lot of damage.

But what about 80 Juggernauts?

[Killer Whale]

Inject deimossy mesonny thing into node. Doesn't need to move very far (just through subspace as station could probably contain a propulsion system for the craft), doesn't need any weaponry, and a jump drive. I think any other method of stopping 80+ juggernauts would fail. Unless you just put enough firepower on the station so it could destroy a juggernaut before the one behind it jumped in, which would be overpowered, overexpensive, overly large and would encourage the construction of Inferno sized warships (ssj and sh).

[FlayedOne]

So basically Corvettes would be an anti fighter class vessel ?

I would dare to say that GTVA must realize that making a ship "decent" in all purposes is impossible, so specialization in ship design is the key here, well at least that's how I would deal with Shivans.

I propose corvettes to be both anti-fighter and anti-capital ship vessel, making them fulfill both assault and escort functions instead of escort only as it was during FS2.

Specialization probably wouldn't be a good thing. Imagine this:
You have 2 ships - strictly Anti-Fighter corvette, and strictly Anti-Capital Ship Corvette. Compared to mixed purpose corvettes they probably would have śome 20% or so more firepower in both regards thanks to specialization. They come across a shivan destroyer - what happens now? The destroyer only has to destroy 1 Corvette to defeat those 2 corvettes. If those 2 are attacked by enemy bombers and fighters the situation is the same - only one corvette is a threat, so only one need to be destroyed in order to render the second defensless. Simply put - mixed purpose vessels may have slightly lower firepower, but diminishing this firepower takes a lot more firepower. 

The most obvious necessary change is the GTVA needs to develop a means to eliminate a juggernaut, rapidly. Lots of people have posisted ways to do this from the ever-popular Giant Honkin' Flying Beam Cannon to the 120-tube Helios launching corvette. The final form of such a weapon is ultimately going to dictate the final form of GTVA doctrine.

Absent the means to deal with the juggernaut fleet, which is at the least several decades away, there is no real defense. The only option left is to locate entry points and collapse them. A more portable and more easily constructed means of collapsing nodes then tearing out the guts of an Orion and stuffing it full of Meson Bombs is neccessary. Realistically speaking I doubt they can get it down to smaller than a Deimos, but that should be enough. About twenty of these will be needed, one for each system and several backups. The GTVA will need to rapidly locate a Shivan entry point, blow it away with one of our hypothetical node-collapsing Demioseseses, and then mop up the stragglers. Speed and rapid deployment of combat assets from everywhere will have to be emphasized. If you can't bring everything, and I do mean everything, that can move and shoot to bear within a week, you should not expect to succeed. If you can't shut the door into the threatened system within two weeks, the battle is probably lost and you should blow the nodes out of that system and take the loss rather than lose everything.

I suppose with the current state of GTVAs technology it's impossible to create weapon capable of destroying Sathanes in hundreds, but given 30 - 40 years, this will probably become perfectly possible. After all GTVA aquired new technology and new ideas for weapons during this war - knossos, scans of BFReds, scans of CommNodes(whatever they are, they may contain some new tech), and readings of what Shivans did to capella. If meson bombs are to be mass-produced, it may prove possible to create new warheads using them, which may help a lot during the war.

If the Shivans were determined/patient enough and their ships could hold sufficient provisions, they could reach the GTVA at sublight speeds over a period of years if necessary. Time is on their side, after all.

I belive time is not so much on their side, at least not in this way. Before they get to their destination, the fleet will be outdated and it will give GTVA time to develop new means of destroying them - just as we did after great war.

The GTVA could not build up a sufficient force to seriously challenge what the Shivans can do if they actually try, not even in a hundred years. The GTVA certainly hasn't displayed the ability to build anything even in the same ballpark as the Sathanas fleet. Really, it appears that the only limit on Shivan firepower (at least against the GTVA) is their seeming reluctance to deploy anymore than the minimum force they think they need, and when they finally did roll out the big iron, they displayed a total lack of interest beyond securing Capella so they could perform their subspace voodoo on the star. They seemed content to chase Allied ships to the node and let them escape.

The only reason why the GTVA still exists is because the Shivans didn't try hard enough to kill them. There is no realistic way the GTVA could defend itself even in the short term if the Shivans made a serious effort to stamp them out.

Even if we couldn't build a fleet of similar proportions, tech difference will make difference . Great War era destroyers would probably be decimated by FS2 era cruisers like Aeolus - similar could occur between our destroyers and juggernaughts in some 40 years during which the jugs would travel with sublight speed, isolated from shivan R&D:P

[NGTM-1R]

The GTVA could not build up a sufficient force to seriously challenge what the Shivans can do if they actually try, not even in a hundred years. The GTVA certainly hasn't displayed the ability to build anything even in the same ballpark as the Sathanas fleet.

Technological progress invalidates your argument. Even if we make some very generous assumptions, say they only have to go 3 lightyears and they can move at .2C, that means 15 years of being deaf, dumb, and blind in the interstellar void. When we start talking more reasonable, say 15 lightyears at .1C, it's 150 years. By the time the Shivans get there, they will be hopelessly outmatched technologically.

Additionally the requirements of such ships, high realspace speeds and large stocks of provisions and parts, will inevitably impunge their fighting ability. So no; the node-destruction strategy is sound. Any effort to reach the GTVA in realspace is a fool's errand.

[Woolie Wool]

The GTVA still couldn't do it in 15 years, or 150. Even if they developed technology equal or superior to what the Shivans have, they do not have the resources or industrial base. Even without superior technology, the Shivans could just bury them under dozens of juggernauts.

If the Shivans really try to destroy the GTVA, the GTVA has zero chance of stopping them. The only resistance they could hope to put up is token.

[Vip]

Technological progress invalidates your argument. Even if we make some very generous assumptions, say they only have to go 3 lightyears and they can move at .2C, that means 15 years of being deaf, dumb, and blind in the interstellar void. When we start talking more reasonable, say 15 lightyears at .1C, it's 150 years. By the time the Shivans get there, they will be hopelessly outmatched technologically.

Additionally the requirements of such ships, high realspace speeds and large stocks of provisions and parts, will inevitably impunge their fighting ability. So no; the node-destruction strategy is sound. Any effort to reach the GTVA in realspace is a fool's errand.

Yeah, realspace travel is a no-go, unless the Shivans would invent some kind of an alternate FTL method of travel, which is highly doubtful given their mastery of subspace. Still, there are a lot of uncharted and/or unstable nodes - Shivans could come at us from a completely unexpected direction.

As for the technological advancements - just look how the 18 months of conflict with the NTF and later Shivans propelled the GTVA tech. Just look how they went from a 30sec reload of BGreen to the 7sec reload of MjolnirBeam in such a short time. With the Vasudan help in the field of reactors and some further advancements in heat sinks, Mjolnirs or BFGreens as standard armament for capships isn't that unrealistic.

I wouldn't be surprised if after witnessing the havoc that can be wreaked by the Shivan destroyers and bigger ships, the GTVA would start creating purely offensive classes. Ships with lots of beams concentrated in the forward arc, but with only marginal protection from any other side; vessels that would be capable of inflicting as much damage as possible in a short amount of time.

[Droid803]

The Shivans could just build Knossos devices.

I mean, if the GTVA think it'd work for re-connecting to sol, then it'd probably work reconnecting those meson-collapsed nodes.

[BengalTiger]

Since the Shivans probably can build nodes, what about using those Meson Orions and Meson Deimoses against the Juggs themselves?

Also- what about giving Meson bombs some engines and using them as supersized torpedoes launched from freighters?

[headdie]

Sub Space missile, a fighter sized missile targeted by fighters at the scene of battle and launched by in system warships away from the site of battle, using a variation of tag missile technology triggers the capital ship to launch the missile which a few seconds jumps to subspace.  the tag missile communicates to the fighter which relays target location data to the missile (communication in subspace proved in the last mission of FS) the missile then jumps back into real space seconds from impact, makes final clarification of target location and strikes.

Aeolus proves that cruisers can be effective anti fighter warships, i would propose that cruisers continue the FS2 doctrine of anti-fighter warship (lets face it when 3 battered Aeolus can hold their own with limited fighter cover against multiple waves of shivan heavy bombers i would say thats their niche) but i would go mentu on it an have them as pure anti fighter (imagine an Aeolus with additional anti fighter beams)

Corvettes would need to be more pure anti capital, slash beams to deal with turrets and sustained hull damage, a small number of anti fighter beams to hinder fighters/bombs but mainly pick off turrets.

Fighter Carrier, enough anti fighter beams to effectively hold their own against heavy bomber assaults and a small number of show stopper anti capital beams to quickly deal with at least corvette size from an optimum angle.

Destroyer, strip out the fighter bay use the space for something useful like reactor space and increase the ships anti capital firepower

[Polpolion]

If the Shivans were determined/patient enough and their ships could hold sufficient provisions, they could reach the GTVA at sublight speeds over a period of years if necessary. Time is on their side, after all.

*urk*

It takes about 150 Helios torpedoes to take down a Sathanas Juggernaut. The Helios torpedo was, AFAIK, produced solely after the outbreak of the NTF war. Let's say that this is two years, for sake of argument. Let's also say that the GTVA used all of their Helios torpedoes in "Bearbating" and "High Noon." There are 16 torpedoes in this mission initially, so we'll say that there were about 20 torpedoes (hey, who hasn't rearmed at least once in bearbating?) total built in those two years. 10 per year. It would take about 11,999,912 years for a Sathanas to travel 1 light-year. 1 light-year is much closer than any of the systems are to each other, but for the sake of argument, let's say that it's one light year. Also, let's say that humanity makes no technological progression in these twelve million years. So theoretically, 119,999,120 Helios torpedoes could be produced in the time it takes for a Sathanas fleet to reach GTVA systems. This is enough to destroy at least 799,994 Sathanas Juggernauts.

I won't even try to factor in technological advancements or with factories that aren't getting bombed or expansion of the GTVA's industrial base. But you figure that balances out the fact that they'll probably be using these bombs up at some rate and that they need to build bombers and carriers, too.