Originally posted by Hades
Actually, we do need a few more ships. The Unification War ended in 2317. Fs1 was in 2335. Almost two decades before fs1 we need five new ships? No.
Why not? Think about it.... firstly, scrap your FS1-FS2 reference because;
1/ FS2 was a sequel - it needed more, more, more!
2/ FS2 was after the GTVa faced a massive military foe, vastly superior in technology... it outdated everything used beforehand.
3/ FS2 had more of an emphasis on destroyers than fS1... due to beam weaponry, a single destroyer was far less powerful than it might be - thus you need more of them to make an impact
4/ Thje alliance led to the strength of combined arms - no enemy to deal with, shared resources, and a need to rebuild. As a result, revitialising the fleet wasn;t just necessarry - it was inevitable.
5/ even so, a number of FS1-era craft had survived 30 years or so to the FS1 period... the Leviathan / Fenris was still the staple cruiser, and the Orion was yet to be fully superceded by the Hecate.
Also, the T-V war is a completely different paradigm, more akin to World War 1;
- neither side would have encountered a hostile race, and thus has no need to build up forces prior to contact
- both sides were evenly matched from the start, and both commands probably thought they could win the war with existing resources
- you don't NEED capship battles... FS1 was largely about fighter Vs fighter duels. The limited losses given for the Typhon and Orion during the war emphasis this. Thus, no need for numerous capships.
- Subspace tech was very new.... a lot of R & D would go into keeping it working and refining it. In FS2, and even the start of FS1, this would less of an issue. Ditto for weapons technology.
I think you may be going over the top here with the mods.... just replace the FS1 ships that are too new(Hercules, Medusa, Ursa, Ulysses, the Vasudan ones), maybe add in the odd small installation, and you'll have more than enough. At the moment the focus of the campaign seems to be straying a bit too close to a collection of random mods, rather than a cohesive 'history'. And if you want poeple to play this, you need a top-notch set of missions, not mods.... look at Silent Threat for an example of the sort of content you need - because this is effectively a fan-made expansion pack, given the subject matter.