[Kosh]

You can always have it both ways. The Kayser is demonstrably superior to Shivan tech. I think I once theorized that it's because the Shivans build things based on very powerful principles but then don't bother to refine it. The raw technology is very advanced, but it's not been developed to potential so you end up with early firearms vs. longbows.

I think instead they spent their R&D resources on refining their beam cannons, which explains the uber powerful LRed and the ultimate BFRed.

[General Battuta]

You can always have it both ways. The Kayser is demonstrably superior to Shivan tech. I think I once theorized that it's because the Shivans build things based on very powerful principles but then don't bother to refine it. The raw technology is very advanced, but it's not been developed to potential so you end up with early firearms vs. longbows.

Yeah this kind of reasoning just never made any kind of sense to me. It's one of those hoary old SF chestnuts that pops up again and again, along with 'They're imitators, not innovators' and 'They're powerful but we're flexible!'

[NGTM-1R]

Or it could indicate that Shivan fightercraft exist as the result of autonomic processes and are not consciously controlled by the Greater Shivan Entity^TM.

Which was why you liked that theory the first time I suggested it.

[General Battuta]

Or it could indicate that Shivan fightercraft exist as the result of autonomic processes and are not consciously controlled by the Greater Shivan Entity^TM.

Which was why you liked that theory the first time I suggested it.

Well that I actually really do like. It makes sense to me on several levels.

I should have provided some boundary conditions in my last post.

[TrashMan]

It's Trashman, he can't.

There is nothing I can't do, peasant!

I agree to disagree. Or disagree to agree. Whichever.

[TrashMan]

-Destroyers have 17-26 turrets, which is awfully sparse for their size. WWII Battleships themselves carry more than a hundred AA turrets (if I'm not mistaken).

118 for Iowa if I'm not mistaken. But it is a special case, as they usually had less. Yamato's downfall was partially it's terrible AA defense...so yea.

But engine limitations...now we can have ships with 100 turrets, but just how many turrets would a 4 km space battleship have? Depends on the range and power. The bigger the range and power, the less of them you need for full coverage.

-Destroyers carry slightly over 100 fighters and bombers. That's too little. Why not design a 2-kilometer battleship by yourself and slide a little hangar in? I tried doing that and got about at least 500 fighters and bombers (Freespace 2-sized ones).

I could chalk this up to engine limitations, but since we never see the current fighter complement. The bigger it is, the stranger it is for hte player to only have 2 wings in the air. Should it carry more fighters? Hell yes.

A 350 meter carrier can haul 90 of them. A 2100m destroyer has AT LEAST 5x5x5 times the internal volume!!!

[Scotty]

In case you have forgotten, an Uras is approximately 30% of the volume of one of said carriers.  Carrier, not aircraft.

[Marcov]

But engine limitations...now we can have ships with 100 turrets, but just how many turrets would a 4 km space battleship have? Depends on the range and power. The bigger the range and power, the less of them you need for full coverage.

It appears that the Orion and Hecate would be better if they had have thousands of turrets. Look at Imperial Star Destroyers from Star Wars, who appear to be even smaller than the Orion, yet carry over a hundred turbolasers. (but of course, what the hell, they carry only 80 TIEs which are even far smaller than FS fighters  )

A 350 meter carrier can haul 90 of them. A 2100m destroyer has AT LEAST 5x5x5 times the internal volume!!!

Well, that's a carrier you're talking about. Orions and Hecates (canonically) aren't really carriers (though we think the Hecate is just because it has poor anticap firepower).

[TrashMan]

In case you have forgotten, an Uras is approximately 30% of the volume of one of said carriers.  Carrier, not aircraft.

Well, Ursas really are speacial and destroyer don't carry 100 of them.

I'm well aware that FS2 fighters are bigger than real ones, but the volume difference of the carriers in question is MASSIVE.

A 300m long ship usually has 27 times the volume of a 100m one, since all 3 axis scale.

So a 2100m destroyer has (roughly) 6x6x6 = 216!!! times the volume of a 350m carrier.
I say roughly because not all 3 axes necessarily scale equally, nor is the volume usage equal.

[Scotty]

A 300 m ship only has 27 times the volume of a 100 meter ship if all other systems do not scale at all, and the ship size triples in all three axes.  Try adding bigger engines, bigger guns, larger crew quarters, a larger mess, and all sorts of other rather massive stuff.  Alternately, take a 100x10x20 meter ship.  Triple the length.  The increase in volume is only a factor of three, not 27.

[TrashMan]

I am talking about total volume. What it's used for is another matter.

Assume all internal systems scale equally. That still gives a vast volume increase. The fighterbay itself would STILL be 27 times bigger.

But again, the volume distribution is not equal, since a carrier is very tightly packed, it doesn't have holes, thin necks and wings. In comparison, the Hecate makes very poor use of it's theorethical total volume, as a whole lot of it is unused, since it's not a perfect cube. Neither is a carrier for that matter, but it's a lot closer. A Orion is easier to calculate for that matter.

If you want, I can make a detailed volume calculation for both the Orion and Hecate, but I fail to see the point of it, since it's obvious the volume difference is humongous.

Also:
100x10x20 = 20000
300x30x60 = 540000

540000/20000 = 27

I think it gos without saying that compared to a carrier, an Orion/Hecate does have a massive increase in all 3 axis.

[Scotty]

Assume all internal systems scale equally

No.  Because they don't.  The engines on a Hecate and Orion are ridiculously massive even in proportion to the rest of the ship compared to a carrier.  As are, presumably, the thickness of the armor, the size of the reactors, and the space taken up by weapons.  You're also basing your (admittedly lately abandoned) statement that number of fighter craft should be massively higher on the assumption that the size of those aren't increasing at the same rate.  They don't.

[TrashMan]

Who's making assuptions now? How do you know the whole block is the engines, and not just the rear part? And even if engines really are that huge, there's still tons and tons and TONS of room left.
And FYI, engines on a carrier aren't small either.

Other things don't scale - rooms, cargo areas, C&C will not be significantly larger, because they don't have to be - humans don't scale up, so they don't need more room.

Again, over 2km in length..that's a amazing amount of volume..and we know the size of fightercaft, so the whole "they scale up too" is rubbish. We know how big fighter are and how much volume they take.

Proportionally, the size of a FS2 fighter compared to a destroyer compared to the size of a fighter compared to a carrier...it's easy to do the math. The difference is obvious.

Now, yes, guns are larger on a FS2 destroyer, but so is the destroyer itself - and there's only a few larger ones. And with miniaturization, you can expect a lot of internal equipment to be smaller, if not larger.

[NGTM-1R]

Again, over 2km in length..that's a amazing amount of volume..and we know the size of fightercaft, so the whole "they scale up too" is rubbish.

An Ursa is the size of a freaking house, man. Two-story with a basement. And it's still got a span the size of a Hornet with wings unfolded. Don't tell me the fighters don't scale up too, that's bullcrap.

[Black Wolf]

I very much doubt [V] just pulled these numbers out of their arse. Admittedly, a lot of FS canon almost certainly has been removed from that particular orifice, but you'd have to assume they at least did some rough, back of the envelope calculations on things like number of fighters. The numbers probably correspond to something, we just don't know the assumptions they used when working them out.

[Scotty]

Who's making assuptions now? How do you know the whole block is the engines, and not just the rear part? And even if engines really are that huge, there's still tons and tons and TONS of room left.

I wasn't aware that a ton was a measurement of volume.  Truly, I have been enlightened!  Now, let's take a look at those engine blocks.  The lower engines are disconnected from the rest of the ship, so even if they aren't all engine, there are no fighters in there.  The lift mechanisms and such would waste a whole lotta space.  The rear engines are ****ing gigantic.  As in, "Let's fit three Ursas in it end-to-end and still have a few meters left over.  That's just for the exhaust/propulsion.  A quick look at the front of that engine block shows, wait for it, ANOTHER ENGINE!  And we can only fit one Ursa in before we run out of room.  And let's not forget the gun turrets, maintenance workways, duty stations, and, in all probability, mess and crew quarters, because, in case you've forgotten, even a Nimitz has several more than one, and this ship is, as you've oft screamed at everyone, hugely larger than a Nimitz.  With 10,000 crew spread across that amount of ship, I'd bet on at least four or five, unless you want all crew on the ship to spend 15 minutes at a run to get to the nearest mess.  Cargo space will sure as hell increase, due to riduculously high numbers of replacement parts for the ridiculously high numbers of breakable parts on such a massive ship.  And the fighters and spares.  And the food stores.  And the water stores, because it's space now.  And we can't forget the gigantic amounts of ammunition, since a FS fighter wing burn through more in a sortie than are usually carried on an carrier air group, especially if they're using Tempests.

And quit spitting this stuff about miniaturization of parts.  We have no functional equivalent to beam cannons, blob turrets, anti-fighter beams, or even the kind of flak these ships spit.  Unless, for some reason, you think that conventional flak could rip through them.

[TrashMan]

An Ursa is the size of a freaking house, man. Two-story with a basement. And it's still got a span the size of a Hornet with wings unfolded. Don't tell me the fighters don't scale up too, that's bullcrap.

A destroyer doesn't carry 150 Ursas...altough I guess you could fit them in. FS2 regular bombers range from 20 to 40m in length.

And no, FS2 fighters don't scale up the same way.

A destroyer is 27 time larger than a carrier.
A FS2 fighter is not longer than 20m. The staple Myrmodon is 16m long. Herc 2 is 17. Compare it to a F-14, which is one of the larger real fighters...19m.

FS2 fighters are generally bulkier, and they take up more volume, but the difference isn't that big.

[TrashMan]

I wasn't aware that a ton was a measurement of volume.  Truly, I have been enlightened!

figure of speech man..figure of speech...Sheesh. 

And let's not forget the gun turrets, maintenance workways, duty stations, and, in all probability, mess and crew quarters, because, in case you've forgotten, even a Nimitz has several more than one, and this ship is, as you've oft screamed at everyone, hugely larger than a Nimitz.  With 10,000 crew spread across that amount of ship, I'd bet on at least four or five, unless you want all crew on the ship to spend 15 minutes at a run to get to the nearest mess.  Cargo space will sure as hell increase, due to riduculously high numbers of replacement parts for the ridiculously high numbers of breakable parts on such a massive ship.  And the fighters and spares.  And the food stores.  And the water stores, because it's space now.  And we can't forget the gigantic amounts of ammunition, since a FS fighter wing burn through more in a sortie than are usually carried on an carrier air group, especially if they're using Tempests.

Let's not forget that a FS2 destroyer has roughly twice as much personnell than a carrier, but it's over 20 times larger. Room for people will not be an issue.
Now, I'm not arguing that Hecates use of space is terrible due to ti's shape - it really, really is.
Still, at first glance you wouldn't think one could fit 90 airplanes on a carrier, now would you? Good usage of space.

Mind you, the fighter number is a more general comment that's not only aimed at the Hecate - it affects all destroyers. What about the Demon? Or the Orion or Hatshepsut? Their shape certanly makes a much better usage of the volume, and you can certanly fit more fighter in a Orion than you could in a Hecate (theorethicly).

Did [V] pull the number out of their ass? Very likely. What's so hard to believe that, it's just a game after all. Creators often overlook stuff that the rabid fans will discuss about for eons. Like scaling issues in most Sci-fi's ever. They generally have other stuff to worry about, and I don't think sketching out the deck plans for the destroyers and calculating internal volume and fighter capacity was one of them.

And quit spitting this stuff about miniaturization of parts.  We have no functional equivalent to beam cannons, blob turrets, anti-fighter beams, or even the kind of flak these ships spit.  Unless, for some reason, you think that conventional flak could rip through them.

But we know how big beam cannons are..We can see them in the colossus ani's, how large their internal parts are. They resemble WW2 turrets, in that they go into the ship for some depth. And well, there is some logical limit to the size of the things.
You harldy think a flak of aaf turrets will be bigger on the internal than a beam cannon, now doyou?

[NGTM-1R]

And no, FS2 fighters don't scale up the same way.

This picture, it is for your enlightment.

A FS2 fighter is not longer than 20m. The staple Myrmodon is 16m long. Herc 2 is 17. Compare it to a F-14, which is one of the larger real fighters...19m.

You're misstating the storage problem by 8 meters. In your favor, conveniently. (Swept wingspan is 11.58 meters in comparison to extended 19.55 meters.) What is apparently totally lost on you is that modern naval aircraft make use of various features like variable-geometry wing surfaces or folding wings to reduce the space they take up in the hanger or on the deck. FS fightercraft, considering their ability to stand up to nuclear-scaled detonations, probably can't afford the structural weakness and a number of them don't even appear to have parts they could fold in (the Ursa for example).

[TrashMan]

 

No, I'm well aware of the sweeping/folding wings.
I was stating length, not width..And you still fail to see the HUGE volume difference in carriers compared to fighters. Those 7 meters of wing space don't make a decisive difference. FS2 fighters could be 30m on average and you could still comfortably fit more than 150.

Go ahead - import some FS2 fighters and an Orion in your 3D program of choice, and see just how many you can fit in the "visible" hangar alone.
I did that once out of curiosity..IIRC, I even posted a picture..has to be around somewhere. FS2 destroyers are friggin HUGE!!!!!