Author Topic: The usefulness of new ship classes???  (Read 44784 times)

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Offline wgemini

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Just place say 20 Mjolnirs, each protected by a wing of fighters, around the node. They will tore a BB into pieces. Capships could stay at a safe distance to pursue anything slipped through. Add 15 bombers wings to it, a massive fleet of 10 BBs would not have a chance. Solution? Simple. Send an de-commisioned destroyer loaded with Meson bombs. It will wipe out any small craft within a 5 click radius and severely damage any larger ships (I never quite understood the physics in it, shockwave in space?). Then send bomber wings to chase away any capships left. Then use a destroyer with fighter wings to secure the node. Much more cost effective than a BB.

I am not saying BBs are not useful. The problem with battleships is simple. They are expensive to build and very specialized. Tactically, they are cumbersome, probably also easier to detect than a cruiser or a corvette. Let's assume a typical Terran fleet contains 1 destroyer, 3 Deimos and 8 cruiser, plus 150 combat crafts. Which one would you cut for the BB? You get rid of the destroyer, suddenly you have no fighter support or command center. 3 Deimos may not be as powerful as a BB, but they can chase down 3 cruisers, so they are more versatile. 8 cruisers are needed for patrol and escorts, as well as fighter suppression for the fleet. A BB can not replace any of them whereas a combination of them can do the job a BB. Adding 2 BBs to the fleet means you will either have to increase defense budget, or you have less fleets. In the end, you could have a huge fleet of fearsome battleships that nothing could stop, yet your opponent just running around attacking your undefended systems and cut off your supply line.

That said, BBs are probably very useful to the Shivans who seem to have unlimited resources and always the aggressor. Both Ravana and Sathanas are good examples.

 

Offline AlphaOne

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Well I see a problem. the whole post was suposed to give directions (impartial,neutral) about the usefullnesss of these ship classes. While I tend to accept and understand the fact that a BB would not be that usefull I can not help think of the fact that the GTVA does not really have a powerfull warshipp capable of blasting a few corvettses or destroyers to pieces in a short amount of time. As we have seen simple bommbing runs are not suficient if you want to really hurt the enemy (Sath thing anyone??) You need a ship that cand lash out if necesary at anemy enemy warships and wich can survive a prelunged battle.

The BB was suposed to be that kind of ship. It wasnt suposed to as large as the big C or have fill the role of command ship/supership destroyer/and so on and so on. This ship was built like the Deimos pureli for combat.

Also I do not agree that by sticking 20 or 30 fighters or interceptors on a BB that makes it like a destoryer because they are not even close.

The destroyers main weapons are its fighters/bommbers and the fact that it can deply them anywhere. The BB fighter compliment is just for close range fighter/bommber protection.

But I do agree that such a ship(BB) would have to have much more powerfull AAAf defensive sistems. It would be if you desire the battering ram of an army or its artilery. While not fast it would still be suited for busting down door and taking out enemy concentration of warships. And who sais it has to be much slower then a destroyer ? Bigger ship bigger engines.

The fenris and the leviathan are a bad example because although they had different weapons and armour I dont think they had different engine power.
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Offline StratComm

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
How do you know it's possible to send a multitude of ships at once through a node?
How do you think fleets move their ships? One by one?
We have seen the Lucifer and several fighter wings occuping the same node corridor at once.
We have allso seen transport entering the node en masse (wiht 1-2 seconds delay)

I don't have to tell you that about 6 of us has said "yes" to that question more than once, and stated our reasoning.  Perhaps reading back over the last page or so would help your memory.

There's alls othe Sathanas Issue. If it's big enough to jump trough the node, then so can two destroyers side-by side... that of course, if we assume they jumped at the exact same time.

That's a flawed argument.  You're assuming the "hole" into subspace is of finite dimensions, which is not only unsupported by canon, it's also somewhat misplaced given the way subspace travel is supposed to work.  Remember that the jump node model is supposed to be a HUD projection simply marking the node's location; the correct perspective would be that the area "inside" the model is the space you must be in to jump into the corridor.  A sath will spill out in all directions, but as long as it occupies that space it can make the jump.  A single destroyer fills the space completely, so it can jump.  But it can only jump alone or in tandem with much smaller craft.  There is no canon example of a corvette or destroyer making an intersystem jump simultaneously with anything other than fighters.
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Turrets need maintenance, for one thing.

Of course they do. But fighters need more.
A 30 turret destroyer and 150 fighters and  60-80 turrets BB.
Gee.. I wonder which needs more crew?

Deimos.  Deimos, Deimos, Deimos, Deimos.  Less than 1km long, no fighters, 27 turrets, 6000 crew.  Break that down, extend it to your battleship, minimum crew of 12,000.  More than a Destroyer+fighter wings.  Which is deceptive anyway, since you'd still need that many fighters stationed somewhere.


b.t.w. - I did a small test in Truespace where I arranged 120 fighters as seen in the FS mainhalls on how terran hangarbays look, and compared that to hte Orion. Guess what - they take a helluva lot of space. Far more than even I tought! :eek2:

I'd be interested in seeing that screenshot, because the stack-o-Ursas that's been around for a while would support that.  Not really relevant to the argument at hand though.
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I don't think that laser was capable of cutting through armour plating, though.....
It was a low-powered laser and primitive at that, whose purpose was to mesure the distance to the moon, not to do damage. GTVA has fusion reactors, power plants on fighters and far more advanced laser tech than we have now.  So the damage is something they can easily increase by that time.

Not when you consider that beam canons are *not* lasers.  High-energy particle beam weapons, not Lasers.  Quite a different animal when it comes to power requirements and, more importantly, focusing.  The limiting factor on such a weapon is the how long it can maintain effective energy levels before it spreads out too much.  The subach is a laser IIRC, but it's only got an effective range of 900 meters or so.

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Point is how bad a weakness it is.  The destroyer can be viewed as an 'average' class in many areas, but that's a consequence of having no specific, easily exploitable and key weakness.  Whereas relying on multiple reactors is rather a key weakness; lose one and you at the very least lose a big chunk of your offensive capability; if you're unlucky, you could possibly lose something even more critical, like (part of your) life support or engines.

Again, this falls back to design - where are the reacort located? How armoured vulnerable are tehy? Does the sihp even need all of them or are some back-ups?


And back to the argument of not being able to fit all that heat sinks and weapons and reactors into it - there's a canon example you're completely wrong.

Leviathan and Fenris - same size, same shape. Leviathan has more than twice the armor and firepower.
And you're telling me you couldn't do that on a bigger scane, on a bigger hull?

Go look up the Leviathan stats again.  It's more heavily armored, yes.  But it is not twice as heavily armed.  The main beam is slightly more powerful and a pair of AAA beams added, but otherwise the armament is identical. 

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That depends on if the enemy vessel is in the FOV or in range, and if the beam hits (all beams have a miss factor); also that the incoming fighters don't hit your weapons subsystem and specific turrets, which a sensible defense would do.   Plus a primarily fighter / bomber blockade is free from that.

If you want good node defense your capship have to be in range to deliver the hurt. Blockading the node focuses on crippling/destroying enemy warship as fast as possible, before they can launch fighters or bring more reinforcements trough the node.

Pulling back your capships and reliyng only on fighters/bombers is a bad idea, as while they are focusing on a BB and wearing it down, more ships will jump in to provide support.  In this scenario the BB is practilcy buying time as it takes a bit longer to destroy. And thus the defending fighters will have to face enemy capships point-defense and their fighter complements.

And if you amass your capship aroudn the node, you're practicly letting the BB fire off a few salvo's at them, since you can't destroy/disable him fast enoughto prevent it. And again, support jumps in and you're f***, since you have damaged capships, a enemy BB that's still "afloat" and mroe enemy capships and fighters incoming.

This is all assuming, the defending force doesn't have BB's.

And this differs from a destroyer how, exactly?  Other than the fact that it can't launch fighters to screen incoming bombers or disable defending warships, that is.  It's got heavier armor, but that seemed to not matter one bit in King's Gambit.  Ships coming through the node get ripped to shreads in so little time that the difference extra armor could add would be negligable.
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Last edited by StratComm on 08-23-2027 at 08:34 PM

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
That said, BBs are probably very useful to the Shivans who seem to have unlimited resources and always the aggressor. Both Ravana and Sathanas are good examples.

The Ravana was a destroyer. The Sathanas had a fighter bay probably comperable in size to the Colossus. Neither are BB's.

What they are an example of is the fact I keep pointing out that fighterbays are cheap in design terms. Freespace does have battleships. However the addition of a fighterbay is so cheap (both in terms of actual money and in design considerations) that compared to issues like reactor power, heat sink usage, armour considerations etc that no one in their right mind would build one without sticking a fighter bay on it and calling it a destroyer.
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Offline aldo_14

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???

How do you think fleets move their ships? One by one?
We have seen the Lucifer and several fighter wings occuping the same node corridor at once.
We have allso seen transport entering the node en masse (wiht 1-2 seconds delay)

In King's Gambit the enemy warships were running from the Colossuss towards GD in no particular order.
And a fleet jumping doesn't mean they have to jump all in the same nanoseconds, but in VERY small intervals (several seconds)

The problem is that firstly transports and fighters are vastly smaller than a km+ long vessel, so they could exit travelling relatively alongside without risking colision or heavy weapons bombardment.  If there is a physical constraint upon the size of tunnels, then even with the below Sathanas issue, it would still mean that you'd have 2 destroyers (or similar sized vessels) exiting extremely close to each other, with the resulting impared maneuverability and obscured broadsides.

However, the point I was making is that there's not any evidence for this as a fleet movement strategy, as we never see it performed by capship groups; so we can't use it as a combat situation to demonstrate a pro or con. 

It possibly also leaves a vulnerability to ambush if someone is perching a destroyer (or Mjolnir set, etc) behind the arrival vector of 2 ships; arrive in-order in a queue, and you could probably maneuver the latter vessel to provide cover in a sort of 'circling the wagons' type arrangement; perhaps the frontal vessel rotating 90 degrees to use its broadside weaponry and shield the incoming vessels (to a degree)

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There's alls othe Sathanas Issue. If it's big enough to jump trough the node, then so can two destroyers side-by side... that of course, if we assume they jumped at the exact same time.

Which is a good point, but also raises a seperate issue as we don't know what the restictions upon jumping are in terms of the node/tunnel formation; whether or not 2 vessels jumping simultaneously is possible, as they are accessing the same aperture to do so.

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Of course they do. But fighters need more.
A 30 turret destroyer and 150 fighters and  60-80 turrets BB.
Gee.. I wonder which needs more crew?

Based on comparing the Deimos & Orion by volume - probably turrets. 

On the Iowa class, each of the 9 main turrets had a crew of around 77 to 110 men (and also extended 4 decks down).   The Iowa, with 45,000 tonnes displacement, 9 main turrets (406mm), 20 quad 40mm gun mounts, and 49 20mm cannon single mount, had a crew of 2,800. 

The Midway class, with 59,000 tonnes displacement, had a crew of 4,800 with a theoretical maximum of 130 aircraft (100 actual; I'm not sure what the difference was, whether it was space, or lack of aircraft), and 18 127 mm guns, 84 40mm guns, and 68 20mm guns.

(note; obviously there's a few years between vessels here).

You might want to provide some reasoning as to the numbers, next time.

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b.t.w. - I did a small test in Truespace where I arranged 120 fighters as seen in the FS mainhalls on how terran hangarbays look, and compared that to hte Orion. Guess what - they take a helluva lot of space. Far more than even I tought! :eek2:

What on earth makes you think that's how they're stored?  The mainhalls seen in FS1/2 are quite probably launch bays or staging areas for scramble ready or mission prepped fighters, not actual storage of those held in reserve.

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It was a low-powered laser and primitive at that, whose purpose was to mesure the distance to the moon, not to do damage. GTVA has fusion reactors, power plants on fighters and far more advanced laser tech than we have now.  So the damage is something they can easily increase by that time.

Easily?  Then why haven't they.  Give me one good reason why, if it was feasible, the GTVA doesn't have that sort of close-to infinite range weaponry.  Even assuming there aren't limits placed by physics restricting the damage-per-energy factor of weaponry.  Or, hell, if they do, what makes you think it won't have, y'know, a logical increase in power requirements or heat build-up?

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Again, this falls back to design - where are the reacort located? How armoured vulnerable are tehy? Does the sihp even need all of them or are some back-ups?

All of which place compromises upon the design.  You move your reactors under armour and deeper inside the ship, and you have to place more cooling around them (for crew safety), put in countermeasures against an overload and explosion taking out the heart of the ship, place more power conduits from those reactors, allocate the same space to backups, etc - not to mention the problems if you have to service the things externally and they're buried under several feet of metal.  You can't just plonk down a bunch of fusion reactors without consequences to the ship design.

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And back to the argument of not being able to fit all that heat sinks and weapons and reactors into it - there's a canon example you're completely wrong.

Leviathan and Fenris - same size, same shape. Leviathan has more than twice the armor and firepower.
And you're telling me you couldn't do that on a bigger scane, on a bigger hull?

Leviathan is firstly a different frame; it has more armour and, crucially, half the speed.  You could do it again on a larger frame, but would the ship be that much better?  I doubt it - you'd have to compromise it.  However, let us look at the turret differences that have occured to half our speed (more than half for the max oclk speed, which is 25 for the Fenris)

Fenris;
9 turrets; 5 Terran turrets, 1 LTerSlash, 2AAAf, 1 Fusion mortar

Leviathan;
9 turrets; 3 Terran turrets, 1 SGreen, 4 AAAf, 1 Fusion mortar

Hmm.  Let's examine the main difference; the LTerSlash vs the SGreen

LTerSlash; fire wait; 10, damage; 150, lifetime 30
SGreen; fire wait; 45, damage;210, lifetime; 2.5

Not what I'd call a massive improvement in offensive firepower; pretty much the same gun for different uses here.  But they both have 0.30 energy consumption, so let's look at the 2 Terran turrets vs 2 AAAfs, because that's the only real offensive difference.  And we find the Terran Turret has the same energy use as the AAAf, which shows us how completely meaningless that statistic is.  So, the only measurable difference, appears to be halving the speed to improve the hitpoints. 

Going by the Fenris, maybe you could decrease the Orions' speed after bolting on some extra armour.  Otherwise it's the same ship, slightly different specialisation.

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If you want good node defense your capship have to be in range to deliver the hurt. Blockading the node focuses on crippling/destroying enemy warship as fast as possible, before they can launch fighters or bring more reinforcements trough the node.

Based on your view of capships being used to destroy other capships of the same class.

Except FS1 and 2 have shown that bombers take that role above anything else; they're quick, agile, far-ranging and can carry heavy weaponry as effective as beam weapons.  So any defensive force of capships can just sit a few km left and let bomber wings wear down the enemy capships (hence why attack forces require immediate fighter cover from their lead destroyer, to intercept).

Besides which, I thought the battleships vast array of weaponry meant it was better than a destroyer - now it needs one to provide it fighter cover so it isn't obliterated by bomber patrols?  So a battleship is effectively useless unless it can survive a long, slow trek through waves of bombers and probably Mjolnir to get its and the enemies weapons in range?

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Pulling back your capships and reliyng only on fighters/bombers is a bad idea, as while they are focusing on a BB and wearing it down, more ships will jump in to provide support.  In this scenario the BB is practilcy buying time as it takes a bit longer to destroy. And thus the defending fighters will have to face enemy capships point-defense and their fighter complements.

You're assuming the battleship will take longer to destroy, but in actuality - like any FS2 capital ship - all you need is a few Helios hits and the thing is doomed.  and also relying on - yep - destroyers to provide it support

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And if you amass your capship aroudn the node, you're practicly letting the BB fire off a few salvo's at them, since you can't destroy/disable him fast enoughto prevent it. And again, support jumps in and you're f***, since you have damaged capships, a enemy BB that's still "afloat" and mroe enemy capships and fighters incoming.

This is all assuming, the defending force doesn't have BB's.

Why? - it's slower (if it's that well armoured to survive the waves of attacks from an organized blockade - see Leviathan-Fenris), and the blockade has point defense forces tasked with destroying the turrets and stripping down the battleships subsystems before it can even come in range for them to fire. And, again, you're relying on other ships to support the battleships weaknesses; it's role is now to be a very expensive sponge to absorb enemy ranged fire.

You're assuming the battleship will take longer to destroy, anyways, but in all likelihood- like any FS2 capital ship - all you need is a few Helios hits and the thing is doomed.

What you're actually doing is hypothesising a scenario where the enemy is stupid enough to play to every strength of this posited battleship class, and also sucesfully ignores it's weaknesses.  And you've still not given an example of the armour, turrets, etc of such a vessel.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2006, 10:01:13 am by aldo_14 »

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Good point Aldo.

Trashman. Post the specs of your proposed Battleship class.
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Offline Shade

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Of course, a really smart enemy wouldn't use ships for a blockade in the first place, they'd just tow in a 200.000 tonne block of solid concrete and place it 100m off the node in the arrival direction.

On the subspace issue, I never thought ships could stay in subspace indefinitely. Rather, I figure they may be able to stay a while, but whichever ship opened that particular subspace tunnel needs energy to maintain it during it's passage, so eventually they run out of fuel if it stays too long. Any ships entering the same subspoace tunnel might not need to, though, never thought about that.

As for exiting subspace simultaneously, I first of all believe the size of the subspace tunnel is dictated by the ship that opened it. So a couple of cruisers might be able to fit side by side if they jump into the same tunnel as a destroyer, while they could not if the tunnel was opened by one of the cruisers themselves. But then, I also think they could simply all open their own subspace tunnels (as seemed to always be the case for ships prior to subspace tracking) and get around it that way.

Either way though, the real issue is the risk of collision when exiting. Different ships have different stopping distances after exiting subspace, so it would be extremely dangerous for capital ships to jump into a system in very close succession. Fighters are a different story, mainly because they stop and are able to maneouver so fast after the jump that it really isn't an issue.

On the idea of parking a ship in subspace to keep watch, I think it would be possible to do so for a time but that it would be absolutely useless. The enemy would simply use subspace tracking in reverse to make sure they did not end up in the same subspace tunnel as the scout. Better to simply place it at the far node, prepped and ready to jump back when it spots an enemy. Still gives you at least a few minutes warning of an impending attack.

Of course, that's all just speculation, no real canon evidence for any of it as far as I can tell (nor any evidence against, though), but that's my take on it.

As for the battleship debate, read my previous posts, I think my position is clear.
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Offline Prophet

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
The idea of a battleships role as drawing fire is ridiculous. Where would you find a captain nerves of steel, who is willing to risk his ship and crew just casually saying "it can hadle it"? In a battle, everything can happen. In theory a single missle has the potential to seriously damage, if not disable, a critical system. Effectivly making the BB as useful as a beached whale. In a major battle there will be a huge amount of weapon impacts from subach to beam cannons. Warships are not made to be fired upon, they are made to destroy their enemy.

In the game, the ships are damaged wery unrealisticly. The ship remains fully functional until the last shot, after wich the ship is no more. If it would be real life, Fenris could critically damage Orion with a single shot. Suppose a crucial suppoting structure fails? Or Power transfer system gets damaged? A shot hit's an arilock and pierces the hull? Or the beam shot goes up in to the engine, damages it, causes an overload? Or maybe the kinetic energy of the impact causes someone to spill coffe in to the reactor blowing the whole **** up? Anything can happen.

Risk is still a risk. Therefore no sane commader will take his ship out on orders to "get shot at while others do the job". Especially when there are thousands of crewmembers in risk. Not to mention the extremely expensive ship. And remember that this is space. No one can jump in to the water and wait for rescue. Once the hull is breached next to you, thats it.
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Offline FireCrack

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Then again, in real life a battleship would have the speed and agility of a fighter as well.
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Offline aldo_14

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Then again, in real life a battleship would have the speed and agility of a fighter as well.

That goes well with your siggy, y'know.

 

Offline Wanderer

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Then again, in real life a battleship would have the speed and agility of a fighter as well.
I would think so too...

Also why would any one build a battlewagon with armor plating that can not take on even the lightest hits? I mean true battleships or actually any warships for that matter would IMHO be armored to be totally immune atlest to all fighter scale primaries like MBTs are immune to assault rifles. It would be a pretty boring spacefighter sim though... and most certainly wouldnt fit into FS universe..
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Offline Prophet

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Also why would any one build a battlewagon with armor plating that can not take on even the lightest hits? I mean true battleships or actually any warships for that matter would IMHO be armored to be totally immune atlest to all fighter scale primaries like MBTs are immune to assault rifles. It would be a pretty boring spacefighter sim though... and most certainly wouldnt fit into FS universe..
Well you red my post well, did you now? Or just didn't understand my point.

What happened to Bismarck or Titanic? "Oops... It wasn't supposed to do that!"

My point was that anything can happen. Not that everything will happen every time.

That is why:

Any sensible ship commander will not steer in to the fire for the sake of drawing fire. They are in SPACE! You do not want anything to break in there. Thus you will prefer to keep your ship intact as long as possible. Becauue risk is allways a risk, no matter how small are the chances of something happening. Not because you are a wuss. But because you wish to keep your ship in working order.

And no vehicle/machine/ship is immune to damage. You give me an assault rifle and I'll break a tank with it (I've been aboard army vehicles many times, and I'm pretty sure I can do it)...
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Offline karajorma

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Then again, in real life a battleship would have the speed and agility of a fighter as well.

Speed maybe. Acceleration or agility, no way in hell. Both are functions of mass and the BB has more.

Anyway if we're going to talk reality there are a whole load of bigger flaws in the game :D
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
None of this stuff is anymore in anyway FS related but...

Well you red my post well, did you now? Or just didn't understand my point.

What happened to Bismarck or Titanic? "Oops... It wasn't supposed to do that!"

My point was that anything can happen. Not that everything will happen every time.

That is why:

Any sensible ship commander will not steer in to the fire for the sake of drawing fire. They are in SPACE! You do not want anything to break in there. Thus you will prefer to keep your ship intact as long as possible. Becauue risk is allways a risk, no matter how small are the chances of something happening. Not because you are a wuss. But because you wish to keep your ship in working order.

And no vehicle/machine/ship is immune to damage. You give me an assault rifle and I'll break a tank with it (I've been aboard army vehicles many times, and I'm pretty sure I can do it)...
I did read your post and i did understood it

And i too have been aboard army vehicles, probably more often than i would have liked (Leo 2, BMP-2, T-72, T-55, several pasi... list goes on). And i do know that if the MBT is doing just about anything there is no way a man with only an assault rifle can do anything to it. I can break a freaking tank (or a BMP atleast ;)) with screwdriver if it is doing no resistance at all... But try to break an active tank with it.

And with reference to tanks.. Those were from time to time moved on purpose against enemy units with the knowledge that they will get hit. For example in Battle of Arras (-40) British armors would have smashed (and they originally did, as no german armor or infantry had any weapons that could penetrate the british armor) the Germans badly without the dreaded '88's. British used their heavy armor as an asset and practically as a weapon instead of using it only for defence.

Ofcourse odd things can happen but those battlewagons were purposedly made for heavy combat and most often armored so that they could safely ignore infantry & machine gun fire... Bismark was hit with weapons (356mm guns and torpedoes) made against such vessels so the fact that it got damaged is not very suprising. What i was pointing at was that you couldnt possible cause any real damage to such vessel with for example 40 mm AA gun (pretty much heaviest carried by fighters at that time)...

@ Kara:

Isnt F=ma so that if ships have equal thrust-to-mass proportions they would be equally agile and accelerate at similar levels?
Do not meddle in the affairs of coders for they are soggy and hard to light

 

Offline FireCrack

  • 210
  • meh...
Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
A function of mass and thrust, a battleship would have proportionaly more of both, giving it figherlike speed and agility.
actualy, mabye not.
"When ink and pen in hands of men Inscribe your form, bipedal P They draw an altar on which God has slaughtered all stability, no eyes could ever soak in all the places you anoint, and yet to see you all at once we only need the point. Flirting with infinity, your geometric progeny that fit inside you oh so tight with triangles that feel so right."
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944 59230781640628620899862803482534211706...
"Your ever-constant homily says flaw is discipline, the patron saint of imperfection frees us from our sin. And if our transcendental lift shall find a final floor, then Man will know the death of God where wonder was before."

 

Offline Shade

  • 211
Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Erm, no. Speed, definitely possible. Acceleration, possible, but not feasible, you'd need as large a proportion of the ship to be thrusters as you have on a fighter, ie. 1/3 to 1/2 of the ship. But agility? No way. It's a matter of Gs really, if you pivot a 2km long capital ship as fast as you pivot a 20m long fighter, you kill the people at both ends because of the centrifugal force and sudden acceleration/deceleration.
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"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh ****ing great. 2200 references to entry->index and no idea which is the one that ****ed up" - Karajorma
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<Cobra|> You play this mission too intelligently.

 

Offline FireCrack

  • 210
  • meh...
Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
1: waht's wrong with engines taking up a large portion a a ship, it's entirely fesable!

2: i never said that a 2km capship would be able to swing around in a second, it will eb able to turn in a time proportional to it's own size though, wich should be good enough becasue you rarely need a battleship to hug the surface of another one.
actualy, mabye not.
"When ink and pen in hands of men Inscribe your form, bipedal P They draw an altar on which God has slaughtered all stability, no eyes could ever soak in all the places you anoint, and yet to see you all at once we only need the point. Flirting with infinity, your geometric progeny that fit inside you oh so tight with triangles that feel so right."
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944 59230781640628620899862803482534211706...
"Your ever-constant homily says flaw is discipline, the patron saint of imperfection frees us from our sin. And if our transcendental lift shall find a final floor, then Man will know the death of God where wonder was before."

 
Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
It could build up speed like a fighter.  But in terms of agility, no.  Unless you propose to have a battleship with main engines mounted all over the place.  Which would be like putting holes all over for nasty things like Helios to drop in.

Quote
2: i never said that a 2km capship would be able to swing around in a second, it will eb able to turn in a time proportional to it's own size though, wich should be good enough becasue you rarely need a battleship to hug the surface of another one.

Then that's not agility like a fighter.  Agility isn't how fast you can adjust proportionately, it's how fast you can turn period.

 

Offline FireCrack

  • 210
  • meh...
Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
Turning rate is only one element of agility. Agility includes things like linear acceleration.


Either way, turrets and thae fact that you could still turn fast enough anyways would balance that out.
actualy, mabye not.
"When ink and pen in hands of men Inscribe your form, bipedal P They draw an altar on which God has slaughtered all stability, no eyes could ever soak in all the places you anoint, and yet to see you all at once we only need the point. Flirting with infinity, your geometric progeny that fit inside you oh so tight with triangles that feel so right."
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944 59230781640628620899862803482534211706...
"Your ever-constant homily says flaw is discipline, the patron saint of imperfection frees us from our sin. And if our transcendental lift shall find a final floor, then Man will know the death of God where wonder was before."

 

Offline Shade

  • 211
Re: The usefulness of new ship classes???
1) The reason filling half the hull with thrusters if not feasible for a battleship (or any warship, for that matter), is that then you no longer have a battleship, you have a speedboat. To fit that much engine in, you lose armor, weapons, reactor power, heatsinks, ammunition stores, giving you a very fast ship that can't  go toe to toe with a destroyer even with no fighters involved.

2)
Quote
giving it figherlike speed and agility
As far as I can tell, it says 'fighterlike' and not 'really good for a capital ship' in that sentence I quoted from you. And fighterlike would, presumably, turning somewhat like fighters can turn. It's certainly possible to improve on the maneouverability of a destroyer though, but just as with forward acceleration, doing so comes at a price in combat capability as you need to fit in the huge number of thrusters needed to achieve it.
Report FS_Open bugs with Mantis  |  Find the latest FS_Open builds Here  |  Interested in FRED? Check out the Wiki's FRED Portal | Diaspora: Website / Forums
"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh ****ing great. 2200 references to entry->index and no idea which is the one that ****ed up" - Karajorma
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct." - Niels Bohr
<Cobra|> You play this mission too intelligently.