[Scotty]

Besides which, nearly all other UEF capital ship forces are vitally needed to defend other pieces of real estate at that point.  Namely, Jupiter, Earth, Mars, the entirety of the shipyards at any and all of those, and other installations around the system.

[crizza]

Battle of Neptune might get revisited/finished if enough people want it bad enough (don't quote me on that.  It's Dilmah's mission).

Just watched the vid...every time the missiles locked on, the vid paused, because I hit the trigger^^

[MatthTheGeek]

They're called "reserves" for a reason. Presumably because they are reserves. Being held in reserve.

... soooo, if you keep them in reserve in a position where they won't be able to join the battle until at least half an hour, how does that help the Meridian's battlegroup to hold First Neptune after its flagship was forced to flee and its fighter complement was wiped out ?

Besides which, nearly all other UEF capital ship forces are vitally needed to defend other pieces of real estate at that point.  Namely, Jupiter, Earth, Mars, the entirety of the shipyards at any and all of those, and other installations around the system.

Well, first, with the small amount of Tev forces in Sol, those assets didn't required as much protection back then as they did during WiH. Second, why would you want to send capital ships to get beamraped out when you can just send fighters, with superior design, to wipe the enemy fighter cover, that still lack the combat experience against the superior UEF designs, and then Uriels to finish the capships off ? Because that's in a nutshell what happened.

[Luis Dias]

The big difference is the political availability of extra forces to the Tevs.  A new Deimos or three can be sortied through the gate with little fuss, it seems.  Sending a FrigRon from 1st Fleet to support 3rd Fleet and militia elements is both much less likely to happen, and decidedly more of a political move, with all the disadvantages (and, granted, sometimes advantages) that entails.

And it's more of a case of the UEF not knowing exactly if such Deimos, hell even more Hecates or Raynors, are en route or not, and they have to calculate their tactical risks with this big unknown variable lurking in the dark.

In such a scenario, it is much more intelligent to play the kind of "hedgehog tactic" that, for instance, Kasparov used in his first game against Deep Blue (where he actually raped the computer to smithereens). That is, keep astonishing "low ball", concentrate your resources and keep movement to the minimum possible way, deep back at the defense. Only when you see a deep clearance far ahead in the moves, you go for the kill.

Curious. As I think of it a little better, this WiH war is very analogous to blind chess, with one side having less pieces sure.

[Snail]

They're called "reserves" for a reason. Presumably because they are reserves. Being held in reserve.

... soooo, if you keep them in reserve in a position where they won't be able to join the battle until at least half an hour, how does that help the Meridian's battlegroup to hold First Neptune after its flagship was forced to flee and its fighter complement was wiped out ?

My point was that the GTVA had reserves, not that they were actually being useful. Was simply stating that the GTVA had a lot more reserves than the UEF.

[MatthTheGeek]

And it's more of a case of the UEF not knowing exactly if such Deimos, hell even more Hecates or Raynors, are en route or not, and they have to calculate their tactical risks with this big unknown variable lurking in the dark.

Again, if they are on the other side of the node, they won't be of much help in current battles. The time required to jump through the node, recharge drives (spring jump drives were even rarer back then than in WiH, and the UEF probably didn't even know about em) and jump to the battle field is long enough for the battle to be over and debris cold.

So, for the UEF, the only thing they have to worry about tactically are ships in-system.

[Scotty]

Of which there was an entire extra battlegroup already in theater.

[Buckshee Rounds]

Wth were the UEF doing during those 18 months? Surely they could've evicted Severanti once they had the intel and combat ready ships? Two battlegroups are hardly a match for an armada of 30+ frigates, even if those battlegroups are manned by fine, well endowed GTVA personnel.

[General Battuta]

Maybe, but any offensive would open territory the UEF couldn't afford to lose, would place their ships firmly on the board and open to counterattack. And the node's right there, with a great deal of GTVA might on the other side, ready to slip through and strike at exposed weaknesses.

[MatthTheGeek]

As was debated on the former Warship inflation thread, the UEF can't really hold the node if it ever manages to gain control of it. Besides, sending reserve ships to support a raging battle where half the enemy forces are already committed, like at Neptune, and using those same assets to attack a well fortified position are totally different tactical situations.

Pounding the Meridian to death at Neptune probably didn't require many assets, half a dozen full wings from the Toutatis and Jovian stations would be enough to shred the already softened fighter cover and score good hits on some capital hulls.

[Snail]

Pounding the Meridian to death at Neptune probably didn't require many assets, half a dozen full wings from the Toutatis and Jovian stations would be enough to shred the fighter cover and score good hits on some capital hulls.

Also, the Meridian's fighters had no idea what to expect. Probably didn't even know what hit 'em.

[MatthTheGeek]

Exactly. We're at an very early stage of the war, where the GTVA, besides their early tapping into UEF public channels, still knows little of the capabilities of the UEF, and expects more or less to fight happy space hippies that don't know how to use their outdated guns. They really fell from high that day.

That was true for the UEF too, as they probably didn't fully debriefed the 14th battlegroup defectors yet, but still had data from the Renjian encounter and the early 3rd fleet charge against the 14th. They hadn't fully adapted their tactics against beamrape yet, which is why they lost 2 frigates, but they knew enough to riposte with fighter rape and win - or at least not loose - the day.

[Buckshee Rounds]

Come to think of it that first engagement at Neptune is a good portrayal (spelling?) of what would happen, seeing as how the outcome was ultimately indecisive.

[Liberator]

If it matters, I threw together a impromtu unscripted sic em mission with a Karuna, a Solaris and some crusiers vs. a single sath with beams off.

I dunno if it was shockwaves or what, but the solaris went up like a roman candle at 48 minutes and the karuna followed suit 30 minutes later(though this could have been collision damage from the crusiers).  The Sath was at 51%.  I honestly would have had more Karuna's since that would have been more representative of a UEF attack group, but 3 were grinding FRED down to single fps.

[-Norbert-]

Did your Solaris even fire at the Sath? I remember staging a similar mission with my Solaris refusing to fire, no matter what I did, untill I replaced it's torpedoes with the Narayana variants. It still wouldn't fire it's gattlers though.
And one Karuna was killed by friendly fire if I remember correctly, but the others took down the Sath.... except the one that ended up stumbling in front of the Sath (yes, I left it's beams intact). Took them forever to kill that leviathan.

[Dilmah G]

Battle of Neptune might get revisited/finished if enough people want it bad enough (don't quote me on that.  It's Dilmah's mission).

Just to clear things up on this front, the mission itself is actually in a completed state, however this was before Furian AI was adopted, so what's needed is about a weekend or so on my part to sit here in my underwear and rebalance the mission for the new AI. Might buy myself a case of coca-cola and try it soon, actually.

[Fury]

A lot of things have changed since then and stuff has been added, like armor types which you could use too.

Edit: Oh and I think your mission features Narayana, which was fluffed in tech description to have been retrofitted to its current form after the hostilities started. Which would make it improbable for artillery configuration to be used in the Neptune mission. So either that ship needs to be replaced or somehow alternate model without big guns acquired.

[Liberator]

Nope, the Solaris just swam right up to it, disgorging torpedoes as soon as she got in range.  I might try the same thing except with waypoints and make a merry chase of it.  Though why a Sath would run from a destroy 3 frigates and a half dozen cruisers is beyond me.

[Dilmah G]

A lot of things have changed since then and stuff has been added, like armor types which you could use too.

Edit: Oh and I think your mission features Narayana, which was fluffed in tech description to have been retrofitted to its current form after the hostilities started. Which would make it improbable for artillery configuration to be used in the Neptune mission. So either that ship needs to be replaced or somehow alternate model without big guns acquired.

Okay, I'll write that down for when I find the time to sit down and work it all out. Armour types will be very, very, helpful.

[starlord]

COuld be useful indeed in BP: spectrum of war...