Given the number of ships seen in Freespace 2, and the willingness of Command to throw them to the wind (The GTD Phonecia for instance) I'd say that the GTVA has quite a few of them.Well to be fair, they needed a vessel that was large enough and had the capacity to be seen as a credible threat to the Shivans for long enough to potentially let the Colossus work its **** (didn't work out too well...), a cruiser would probably have been decimated in a 1/4 of the time and on the planning board may not even have registered as a threat to the Sathanas, making its presence redundant.
B) Remember Marcov, that the GTVA hasn't committed every fleet at it's disposal to fight the Sathanas. Logistics, their doctrine, and common sense (what's the point in throwing the kitchen sink at the man banging your door if his mates come through the unlocked back door?)
Well, it'd be less fun to have hundreds of ships to destroy, right?
Well, it'd be less fun to have hundreds of ships to destroy, right?
Well, it would definitely fry any PC back then. Remember that FreeSpace 2 was noted for its high requirements when it was released.
Well we encounter what, the Hateshpet or whatever, the Aquitaine, the Phonecia, the Psamtik, the Messana and the Carthage all in Capella/Gamma Drac space. I may even have missed a destroyer somewhere. Now Gamma Drac was undefended, having only a cruiser patrolling the node as it was supposedly empty, so we have what then. 6 destroyers in or around Capella? And those are only the destroyers that Alpha 1 happens to encounter. I think we can safely assume destroyers are probably at least 6 to a battlegroup. At least in the time of FS2, as the corvette is supposed to be a new unit that will BECOME the foundation of the fleet. But they aren't yet, and cruisers are piss poor, so I'm thinking there has to be ALOT of destroyers in service at the time of FS2It stands to reason that additional battle groups were deployed to Capella, so I don't think that all the destroyers encountered over the course of the campaign were part of the 3rd Fleet.
Not impossible, but it should take more than a couple passes from a maxim to cripple one.
But Capella was supposed to be one of the most densely populated systems, though by "densely populated" sometimes I think of a system with a high planet/moon size to population ratio. If all Capellans lived in a small, relatively livable moon of a planet, evacuating them would have been a nightmare for the GTVA. One billion inhabitants spread throughout various planets and moons is something different. Well, that's a possibility.
Also, we don't know how important the military is for GTVA citizenship, so we don't know how common it is for a citizen to decide to work for the military.
I like to think that spaceships are so retarded expensive that there aren't many of them, because it makes for better missions sometimes.
But hey, whatever works for your campaign
But Capella was supposed to be one of the most densely populated systems, though by "densely populated" sometimes I think of a system with a high planet/moon size to population ratio. If all Capellans lived in a small, relatively livable moon of a planet, evacuating them would have been a nightmare for the GTVA. One billion inhabitants spread throughout various planets and moons is something different. Well, that's a possibility.
Also, we don't know how important the military is for GTVA citizenship, so we don't know how common it is for a citizen to decide to work for the military.
I remember the number 150 million from somewhere, I'll have to check through briefings though.
EDIT: Nope, it's actually 250 million: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Briefing_texts_%28FS2%29#A_Flaming_Sword
Just for some perspective, the USAF flys ~5573 airplanes, ~2132 of which are fighters. In a nation of ~310,000,000. The USN operates ~289 ships and >3700 aircraft, for a total of ~9200 aircraft operated by the US(AF and USN).
Judging by all of this, I wouldn't be suprised to see some incredible numbers in the GTVA.
I don't necessarily disagree on the enforced service aspect.
But you don't get a functioning society where 1/2 the population is career military. A strong military has to have a strong support infrastructure beneath it. Say what you will about the US Military, all that hardware is designed, built and supplied on a ratio of about 373 citizens to 1 active enlisted soldier. If you use the US as the guiding mark, then a single destroyer would need to have 3 million people on the ground doing things that make that destroyer possible and relevant, nevermind the other ships.
One thing that might break such a rationalization is that the GTVA's industry and agriculture is highly automated, possibly to the point of the Jetsons where there are only 2 people per factory.
However, at that scale, you don't get the craptons of civilian ships running for the exits during the evacuation of Capella. As the vast majority of the population, as previously discussed, is already serving on line combat vessels taht are getting blown out of the stars.
For any of the narrative, nevermind the tech, to work out, the GTVA must have system wide populations of at least a billion. Which is not very high considering the volume of a star system and the population capacities of the stations that the GTVA builds.
Well, if you think about it, as far as we know, the majority of combat takes place in space, between fighters and ships, rather than on the ground between infantry forces. Although I do recall mentions of marines somewhere in the campaign. I think that if fighters and bombers are going to form the bulk of Alliance spending, that they would invest in cheaper and easier to mass produce ships and technology, with a few exceptions, like the Erinyes and the Ursa.I like to think that spaceships are so retarded expensive that there aren't many of them, because it makes for better missions sometimes.
But hey, whatever works for your campaign
Yeah, it's really hard to judge space craft cost in a universe that ignores most of the rules of physics. Thing is that doesn't mean there aren't a hell of a lot of them. The GTVA is, plain and simple, ****ing huge.
Or Alpha 1 gets all the goodies and fleet support, where as everyone else duct tapes their consoles and flies mackie style. Who knowsI reckon it's likely that that kind of stuff would be a lot more widespread among the Alliance. As well as the general circle-through-square hole/one size fits all mentality when you outfit a force of that size. It's a shame you don't hear about the ill-fitting uniforms, poor tasting food, and cramped accommodation that people in that situation go through more often. :P
So either the Orion is ridiculously cheap to manufacture, or the crew is way overpaid.
But Capella was supposed to be one of the most densely populated systems, though by "densely populated" sometimes I think of a system with a high planet/moon size to population ratio. If all Capellans lived in a small, relatively livable moon of a planet, evacuating them would have been a nightmare for the GTVA. One billion inhabitants spread throughout various planets and moons is something different. Well, that's a possibility.
Also, we don't know how important the military is for GTVA citizenship, so we don't know how common it is for a citizen to decide to work for the military.
I remember the number 150 million from somewhere, I'll have to check through briefings though.
EDIT: Nope, it's actually 250 million: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Briefing_texts_%28FS2%29#A_Flaming_Sword
Just for some perspective, the USAF flys ~5573 airplanes, ~2132 of which are fighters. In a nation of ~310,000,000. The USN operates ~289 ships and >3700 aircraft, for a total of ~9200 aircraft operated by the US(AF and USN).
Judging by all of this, I wouldn't be suprised to see some incredible numbers in the GTVA.
A radio transmission from a wingman says something along the lines of "I can't believe the GTVA has two dozen of these things!", referring to an 'old' Hecate-class destroyer. And this is when the Hecates are being phased out.It's referring to Tevs destroyers in general, not specifically to Hecates.
two newer destroyers (Titan or Raynor class) for every HecateIt's most likely the other way around. Front-line tevs ships are still rare and are very slowly replacing the outdated Capella-era designs. In the two dozens Tevs desties, probably between 1/2 and 3/4 of those are still Hecates.
Actually yeah, I think I will forget that. We have no idea how difficult it is to manufacture these warships, or what kind of technologies involved. FreeSpace mankind hasn't been in space or even possessed interstellar travel for very long at all.
I'm definitely more in favor of 70 destroyers than over 2000.
I'd been always wondering, considering that the Colossus took 20 years to build, which is ridicolously long to build a ship that is JUST 6 kilometers long might change the way we think on shipbuilding capabilities.The Colossus took 'over 20 years' from announcement to deployment, the design of such a monstrosity could take years alone, it could present engineering challenges, and being the first of it's kind, a lot of things would need to be prototyped and tested before being implemented. Technological advantages essential to the ship such as beam weapons or a new type of engine could have been developed during the design phase, or during the construction, which would delay it further. That 20 years estimate certainly shouldn't be taken as representative of GTVA construction capabilities, a second Colossus would almost certainly take much less time to go from the drawing board to the battlefield.
For one, it took what, over 30 Terran and Vasudan industries and a massive load of work to finish it. It wouldn't take THAT much amount of work to be applied on a single Orion destroyer. Take note, the Orion destroyer is probably just 10 times smaller in volume than the Colossus. Let's say building an Orion would usually take 10 times less manpower than the construction of a Colossus. But the Orion is 10 times smaller than the Colossus. So does it mean it STILL TAKES TWENTY DANG YEARS TO BUILD A DESTROYER? No. Based on how casual Command deploys them in FreeSpace 2 (we lost the GTD Delacroix. Well, we lost it. It's a bad loss. But whatever. We're now scrambling a few bomber wings to destroy the Ravana.) or (hey, look, it's the Vindicator! Eh, nevermind. Just shatter the damn thing to pieces, we don't care in capturing it. It's right there. You're all armed with Cyclops torpedoes, so do us a favor, please, we're too lazy to board it.), destroyers shouldn't be that valuable it'll take 2 decades to construct one of them.
Also, if it truly took 2 decades to build one destroyer, then why do we have numerous Hecates by the time of FS2? So it's a little confusing to analyze, but the answer would be more in favor of the latter explanation.
I'd been always wondering, considering that the Colossus took 20 years to build, which is ridicolously long to build a ship that is JUST 6 kilometers long might change the way we think on shipbuilding capabilities.The Colossus took 'over 20 years' from announcement to deployment, the design of such a monstrosity could take years alone, it could present engineering challenges, and being the first of it's kind, a lot of things would need to be prototyped and tested before being implemented. Technological advantages essential to the ship such as beam weapons or a new type of engine could have been developed during the design phase, or during the construction, which would delay it further. That 20 years estimate certainly shouldn't be taken as representative of GTVA construction capabilities, a second Colossus would almost certainly take much less time to go from the drawing board to the battlefield.
For one, it took what, over 30 Terran and Vasudan industries and a massive load of work to finish it. It wouldn't take THAT much amount of work to be applied on a single Orion destroyer. Take note, the Orion destroyer is probably just 10 times smaller in volume than the Colossus. Let's say building an Orion would usually take 10 times less manpower than the construction of a Colossus. But the Orion is 10 times smaller than the Colossus. So does it mean it STILL TAKES TWENTY DANG YEARS TO BUILD A DESTROYER? No. Based on how casual Command deploys them in FreeSpace 2 (we lost the GTD Delacroix. Well, we lost it. It's a bad loss. But whatever. We're now scrambling a few bomber wings to destroy the Ravana.) or (hey, look, it's the Vindicator! Eh, nevermind. Just shatter the damn thing to pieces, we don't care in capturing it. It's right there. You're all armed with Cyclops torpedoes, so do us a favor, please, we're too lazy to board it.), destroyers shouldn't be that valuable it'll take 2 decades to construct one of them.
Also, if it truly took 2 decades to build one destroyer, then why do we have numerous Hecates by the time of FS2? So it's a little confusing to analyze, but the answer would be more in favor of the latter explanation.
US World War II ships were tiny tin cans compared to FS ships
Sorry, I think 70 is probably on the high end of the destroyer count. The Bakha numbers are a bad place to start reasoning from because we have no idea how many of those are on destroyers, or even flying at all. It's more sensible to look at the way destroyers are deployed in the campaign - they're pretty uncommon even given the briefing/CB losses.
There's a lot of wiggle room to alter the numbers to fit your campaign, but the higher the destroyer count goes the dumber your missions are going to get.
Arguing that high destroyer counts make for bad missions isn't good base for armada size estimates either.
US World War II ships were tiny tin cans compared to FS ships
Because of the marginal returns on overresponse vs. underresponse. With an unknown node open and Shivans on the other side, you want maximal force on the scene (so long as you don't seriously compromise your depth), no questions asked.
FS2 covered in exhaustive depth the hubris of the GTVA, which would explain sending only the Carthage.
As for a ten destroyer force giving them trouble, this is a rebellion. There could be defectors everywhere at any time, hell, the Trinity only defected 3 weeks before we encounter it. What if most of the fleet was sabotaged or disabled in drydock? Or crews being beached until the traitors could be weeded from the loyalists?
Also look at combat in FS. There really aren't effective jump node blockades that can 'cork' a system.
The situations appear to be very fluid, in that ships can hide in star systems and quickly move to other star systems. Ten destroyers could be a significant thorn in the side of a 200 (well cut to 190 now) destroyer fleet, and guaranteed the fleet could in no way nail down those units with overwhelming force.
As for the point you raised about the Psamtik being a tragedy yes thats true but what about the Phoenicia? Command just threw her out there like a big paperweight. The point made earlier about just casually destroying the Vindicator was a good one as well. Why not disable and capture?
That post just made realize that the captain of the Phonecia is the most human character in all of FS. She tries to save her crew when ordered to sacrifice all of them.
Because of the marginal returns on overresponse vs. underresponse. With an unknown node open and Shivans on the other side, you want maximal force on the scene (so long as you don't seriously compromise your depth), no questions asked.
FS2 covered in exhaustive depth the hubris of the GTVA, which would explain sending only the Carthage.
As for a ten destroyer force giving them trouble, this is a rebellion. There could be defectors everywhere at any time, hell, the Trinity only defected 3 weeks before we encounter it. What if most of the fleet was sabotaged or disabled in drydock? Or crews being beached until the traitors could be weeded from the loyalists?
Also look at combat in FS. There really aren't effective jump node blockades that can 'cork' a system. The situations appear to be very fluid, in that ships can hide in star systems and quickly move to other star systems. Ten destroyers could be a significant thorn in the side of a 200 (well cut to 190 now) destroyer fleet, and guaranteed the fleet could in no way nail down those units with overwhelming force.
As for the point you raised about the Psamtik being a tragedy yes thats true but what about the Phoenicia? Command just threw her out there like a big paperweight. The point made earlier about just casually destroying the Vindicator was a good one as well. Why not disable and capture?
And returning to the Psamtik, could it be argued that command placed a higher emphasis on its loss because you were flying in a wing deployed FROM the Psamtik?
The GAME may exist to do service to better the mission, but the universe within itself doesn't serve that purpose, and from the numbers and attitudes available, I am of the opinion that they fleet is larger then the opinion you have. Canonically, I just think it makes sense for them to have a larger fleet then 70 being on the high end. Whether they effectively USE that fleet is up for grabs, and I personally think the GTVA sucks at strategy, but thats just me.
That post just made realize that the captain of the Phonecia is the most human character in all of FS. She tries to save her crew when ordered to sacrifice all of them.
Well, she actually didnt' save them. If she had more nerves, then she could well have deserted the ship from the battle, and faced a court martial afterwards. Perhaps she would have died, but she would have saved ten thousand lives. Instead, she merely whined and then sat there waiting for the blow. Never was someone who I admired. At least Command had the balls to pressure her to sacrifice everybody. Command is dickish, but hey at least it's a dick with balls.
For instance, in BP WiH, I think it would be great if one could get to see in real time other battle stations being totally destroyed by tev destroyers, and while you are thinking "I'm avoiding the death of this station, hurrrah", you are getting incoming messages and visual confirmation of the disasters occurring elsewhere. That would be a terrifying but epic moment right there.
The Vindicator was a ship with 10,000 crew; trying to capture it would have been a bloodbath.
That post just made realize that the captain of the Phonecia is the most human character in all of FS. She tries to save her crew when ordered to sacrifice all of them.
Well, she actually didnt' save them. If she had more nerves, then she could well have deserted the ship from the battle, and faced a court martial afterwards. Perhaps she would have died, but she would have saved ten thousand lives. Instead, she merely whined and then sat there waiting for the blow. Never was someone who I admired. At least Command had the balls to pressure her to sacrifice everybody. Command is dickish, but hey at least it's a dick with balls.
Dude, the Phoenicia jumps out. :rolleyes:
That pretty much happened in bp2m05, but there aren't messages calling it out so it's easy to miss.
Idk, perhaps it's useless. Such destroyers may become unusable, since there's always the chance they are rigged in the process of surrender. But at least you are saving lives and showing to the dissenters that you do care for their lives, and you will not butcher them like a raving lunatic, giving them a chance to surrender as well.
More to the point, the survivors of the NTF military who have made it to Gamma Drac are already demonstrably diehards who will not surrender. They have followed orders that have resulted in severe losses for the NTF and probably destroyed it's ability to successfully protect its territorial holdings and either stalemate or win the war. If they'd stayed in Polaris, you might have had a shot at making them see reason. But these guys? If they had any sense they would have packed in the towel when the Colossus broke the Polaris blockades.
I never said they DID have traitors running back and forth, I said that could be a possible explanation for not seeing large numbers of fleet units.
But arguing 'they've had eighteen months' doesn't work because the trinity defected only three weeks before the Aquitaine crosses the Knossos. Additionally, Alpha 1 stages himself as a deserter and joins the rebel ranks for his covert op, which means the rebels had a structure in place to quickly integrate defectors and that it was still common, or at least not uncommon enough to cause issues, for a pilot to defect EIGHTEEN MONTHS after the beginning of the rebellion. That's a pretty major security/loyalty concern on the part of the GTVA.
As for jump node blockades, yes of course i've played the King's Gambit. And that blockade leaked like a colander! Even if Alpha 1's group kills all ships that jump in, he's either godlike or lucky as hell because in your debrief your told that your group was the ONLY one that didn't have leakers. This I might add, is after MULTIPLE SUCCESSIVE blockades. If they are still a fighting force capable of mounting a 'credible' offensive on the Knossos after running a gauntlet of blockades, then blockades are simply not good enough to guarantee that you can trap a force in a system for a long enough period of time o nail them down. A major rebel force could simultaneously crash jump a node and escape a 'blockaded' system no problem if a 3 destroyer led force can run multiple blockades leading to drac. Further more, they 'somehow outmaneuvered the colossus and her battlegroup' so they can't be that easy to tack down.
On the topic of the vindicator, I see your point, and concede the point that expediency probably had a higher priority then capture. But Koth was given a chance. Why not the Vindicator if time had allowed? Yes capping a destroyer would be painful... but disable, disarm, tow to secure location and starve them if you have to. I get that in the Vindicator's case, fanaticism may have made that unlikely, but if you only have 70 of these things, ten have defected, and you lost at least one to the new shivan incursion, you'd think command would at least ASK for a surrender. The worst they can do is say no.
On the Phoenicia, I'm not arguing they shouldn't have deployed the Phoenicia to engage, im saying camping a Destroyer directly in front of a ship that we KNOW has overwhelming firepower through the bow, is stupid as hell. The whole reason we're deployed is to disable the Sath's beam cannons because if we don't, the Colossus will get boned. If the beam cannons are that dangerous, why have we camped a destroyer right in front of it? If destroyers were so uncommon, we should be just a little more intelligent about tactical plans. Engage from the side for example, Alpha 1 gave command some decent recon on this ships capabilities. Except the whole, blowing up suns thing but I don't even think we would have known what to look for there.
On the Psamtik, if your block gets blown up, and an authority figure, say I dunno, the towns mayor or something is talking to you about it after you watched it happen from three blocks away, does he say "This is a tragedy for you and anyone who was directly associated with people who lived on your block" or does he say "this is tragedy for our whole town, we share in your pain"? I still think the psamtik was emphasized because we served aboard her. She was also a flagship of a fleet, that's another reason that ship is more significant then others.
I think the Phoenicia's fate is ambiguous. Sometimes it dies. Sometimes it lives. Though FS2 defaults on Easy mode, it has a higher chance of dying in any other mode higher.
Yeah, the Phoenicia is "supposed" to survive in that there's a FRED event that sets it invulnerable when it reaches a few percent hull integrity. The trouble is, sometimes the Sathanas damages the Phoenicia so quickly that the FRED event doesn't get a chance to trigger, since the damage that the game calculates skips right past its trigger value; this is especially true on harder difficulties. I'm guessing the issue never triggered for :v: during testing, as they could have avoided it by setting the FRED event to trip if the Phoenicia's hull hit a certain value or less, instead of only that value.
I have never personally seen the Phoenicia being destroyed by the Sathanas, so I assume the performance of the computer running FS2 comes into play as well.
Yes.
No, Jesus Christ. Why would you say that? A departure cue does not in any way render a ship invulnerable. The closest you'll get is sometimes weapons will clip through the hull as it's accelerating to jump.
No, Jesus Christ. Why would you say that? A departure cue does not in any way render a ship invulnerable. The closest you'll get is sometimes weapons will clip through the hull as it's accelerating to jump.
Um...as far as I know, ships go invulnerable when they jump out. At least that's how I experienced it. I saw the Phoenicia with 1% hull integrity left while still being bombarded by BFRed's but can't die since it was jumping out (or maybe it was an SEXP...)
Moreover, I warped out while being pummeled by a mass of laser fire and missiles from Shivan fighters in some nebula mission, yet didn't die.
No, Jesus Christ. Why would you say that? A departure cue does not in any way render a ship invulnerable. The closest you'll get is sometimes weapons will clip through the hull as it's accelerating to jump.
Um...as far as I know, ships go invulnerable when they jump out. At least that's how I experienced it. I saw the Phoenicia with 1% hull integrity left while still being bombarded by BFRed's but can't die since it was jumping out (or maybe it was an SEXP...)
Moreover, I warped out while being pummeled by a mass of laser fire and missiles from Shivan fighters in some nebula mission, yet didn't die.
Ships can be destroyed while warping out. Players, to the best of my knowledge, can't be. Neither of those, however, is related to the ship becoming invulnerable when the departure cue becomes true, which does nothing except tell the ship to begin its warpout/blinkout sequence (depending on whether warp effect is on or off).
Ships can be destroyed while warping out. Players, to the best of my knowledge, can't be. Neither of those, however, is related to the ship becoming invulnerable when the departure cue becomes true, which does nothing except tell the ship to begin its warpout/blinkout sequence (depending on whether warp effect is on or off).
I thought I could survive an arriving Colossus in one of the NTF missions (where the Colossus' beams don't work on the Iceni) but was immediately ****ing ground to death.
"Avoid the Colossus and you won't get hit, pilot."