[Klaustrophobia]

except he didn't even say there would be shivans in pt. 2. 

[Aesaar]

Where does it say the UEF don't have the knowledge for making subspace missiles?

By simple logic they do, just attach a fighter subspace drive to an Apocalypse and there you have it.

Maybe it's not that simple.  Maybe UEF torpedoes don't have reactors/batteries/whathaveyou capable of powering a subspace drive.  Maybe the UEF can't miniaturise their drives enough to fit on a torpedo.  Maybe it's the destoyer's subspace drive that creates the tunnel the torps travel through, and the torps don't mount a drive at all, and UEF drives can't replicate it.

[An4ximandros]

According to The E is doesn't seem to be as complex as you describe.

My personal theory is that the missile has an escape pod like (one use) Subspace drive, the whole idea of the SSMs seems to be giving the battle groups (of which I think there is one per star system?)
the ability to have some of the firepower of a destroyer in two or more places at a time (depending on AWACS deployed.)
Remember the Atreus was reported near Luna during the blitz, yet it launched SSMs strikes at Rheza and possibly more locations on earth orbit.

[SaltyWaffles]

Let me drop a hint : they're used in about every single mission in WiH.
Also, I never said the Titan wouldn't have one. However, there's nothing saying they would have the same kind, level or effectiveness of armor or ECM. There's also nothing saying that one Raynor will have the same armor or ECM capabilities than another, same for Titans or any ship class in the UEF and GTVA. It's all up to the mission designer.

Erm...there's probably some kind of misunderstanding here. I was referring to the Raynor, not ships in general. The Raynor has a mere 140K hitpoints, and a Great War-era Orion had 100K. While I know BP does work in armor types, that probably doesn't help much against other capital ships. In Darkest Hour, those two Narayanas steadily knock down the Atreus's hull for the short time Steele has his little monologue. If he hadn't been able to jump away ridiculously fast, the Atreus probably wouldn't have lasted long against the Narayanas alone. And this is without the use of any torpedoes, too.

The Atreus and Orestes don't seem to display increased durability in any of the missions they're present in. And that vision/mission where the Orestes, a Bellerophon, and at least one other ship faced off against the Lucifer? Shivan bombs still tore the ship apart, and the Lucifer utterly demolished the Orestes despite having the advantage in both numbers and firepower. I know a big part of that was the result of FREDding, but if FREDding is supposed to demonstrate the Raynor's positive bonus attributes, why is it instead shown underperforming by a big margin?

You overestimate the SBlue by a huge margin. It still has less than a third of the sustained damage of a TerSlash and four times the recharge delay, and the TerSlash is the weaker of the "serious" beams. It is a buffed up SGreen, which is like saying the PromR is a buffed up ML-16. One is better than the others, but both s*ck hairy balls.

Just to make sure I'm getting my point across : a pair of Prometheus S does 154.2 DPS. A SBlue does 110 DPS. So, a Hercules with a quad bank of PromS does more damage than the two SBlues of the Hyperion, minus the huge flag.

I'm talking about the SBlue's usefulness for supported shock jumps and fire support. The Sblue, IIRC, has pretty good range, a bit better damage than the SGreen, and the Hyperion mounts two of them in a forward configuration.

But also importantly, the SBlue has vastly better burst damage--it delivers 4400 damage in less than 3 seconds, at a range of up to 6375 meters. Combine that with great subspace maneuverability, strategic expandability, and shock jumping, and you get a potent combination. Two Hyperions doing a shock-jump from 6 km out deals 17,600 damage right away. That's around a fifth of a Karuna's health. Throw in a Chimera, and that Karuna is going to be barely holding on to life, within a few seconds of three ships jumping within 6.3 kilometers. If you replace that Chimera with a Bellerophon, and that's a near-instant-kill on a Karuna. Without an AWACS ship or immediate, heavy support, any other Karuna in the area probably won't survive for long. The only way to avoid that is having Paveway or Archer-equipped craft ready to disarm main beam cannons in under a minute. The biggest difficulty in doing that is having your craft close enough to the targets to take them out in time.

The SBlue is not powerful, really, but it's highly practical; a normal-sized cruiser packing that kind of firepower, with that kind of range, in addition to good AA and anti-torpedo defenses (bonus points for being in range to use the Pulse turrets on the target capship) is extremely useful. When every Sanctus corvette/heavy cruiser is a significant asset to the enemy--one that is very difficult to replace--and every Karuna kill is a major and permanent blow to the UEF, the Hyperion is a strategic golden boy.

Take the Custos cruiser, for instance--if it isn't outfitted for ECM (or supported by it), a single Hyperion could nearly kill a Custos in a few seconds, from over 6km away. And since deploying a cruiser is not nearly as risky (being more expendable, having much smaller crews, and the quickest times for jumping away, relatively speaking), that gives the GTVA a lot of strategic flexibility.

And that "huge" flag is pretty important when it comes to shock jumps and heavy armor, unless I'm confusing the huge and supercap flags.

According to The E is doesn't seem to be as complex as you describe.

My personal theory is that the missile has an escape pod like (one use) Subspace drive, the whole idea of the SSMs seems to be giving the battle groups (of which I think there is one per star system?)
the ability to have some of the firepower of a destroyer in two or more places at a time (depending on AWACS deployed.)
Remember the Atreus was reported near Luna during the blitz, yet it launched SSMs strikes at Rheza and possibly more locations on earth orbit.

I wouldn't say SSM's give destroyer-level firepower by themselves--especially against good point defenses (like the Ranvir). It does give decent captial ship-level firepower without said ships being in the field of engagement, though, which is exactly what the UEF could really use right about now. If they're able to modify the already modular (or at least flexibly variant) Apocalypse or smaller-scale torpedoes to have decent SSM capability, it's probably the most efficient and safe expenditure of resources/production that the UEF could do at this point in the war.

[MatthTheGeek]

Erm...there's probably some kind of misunderstanding here. I was referring to the Raynor, not ships in general. The Raynor has a mere 140K hitpoints, and a Great War-era Orion had 100K. While I know BP does work in armor types, that probably doesn't help much against other capital ships. In Darkest Hour, those two Narayanas steadily knock down the Atreus's hull for the short time Steele has his little monologue. If he hadn't been able to jump away ridiculously fast, the Atreus probably wouldn't have lasted long against the Narayanas alone. And this is without the use of any torpedoes, too.

The Atreus and Orestes don't seem to display increased durability in any of the missions they're present in. And that vision/mission where the Orestes, a Bellerophon, and at least one other ship faced off against the Lucifer? Shivan bombs still tore the ship apart, and the Lucifer utterly demolished the Orestes despite having the advantage in both numbers and firepower. I know a big part of that was the result of FREDding, but if FREDding is supposed to demonstrate the Raynor's positive bonus attributes, why is it instead shown underperforming by a big margin?

What you still don't seem to get is that armor classes are just a device to make sure a ship behaves the way the mission maker wants it to behave. Sometimes, consistency across missions is sacrificed for the sake of storytelling, gameplay and/or dramatic effect.

In short : don't read too much into what you see in missions. It doesn't necessarily reflect the in-universe reality of things.

[The E]

In short : don't read too much into what you see in missions. It doesn't necessarily reflect the in-universe reality of things.

I'd actually reverse that and say that what you see in the tables doesn't reflect the in-universe reality of things.

[MatthTheGeek]

What you see in the tables is indeed even less representative to the in-universe reality of things. Which doesn't contract my point at all.

Were the Meridian engines magically invulnerable in Post Meridian from an in-universe point of view ? Of course not. Sexps, just like tables, are just a device for the mission maker to convey the story.

EDIT : I think I'll make myself clearer. For example, in Delenda Est, the Carthage has Heavy Armor 20 (IIRC), which means it takes only 20% damage. What you need to remember here from an in universe point of view, isn't that the Carthage only took 20% damage, but that it had experimental active armor that could withstand an incredible amount of damage. And remain that vague. In order to let the mission maker put Heavy Armor 40 or Heavy Armor 5 at another point if he wishes so, without breaking in-universe consistency.

Numbers are irrelevant. What's important is the feeling conveyed to the player. In the Atreus vs Narayanas scene, what's important is to show that Narayanas are extremely powerful artillery ships that can force the Atreus, already weakened by several engagements across the system, to gtfo. The amount of damage actually dealt isn't relevant from an in-universe point of view.

[The E]

Indeed.

[Aesaar]

I'm talking about the SBlue's usefulness for supported shock jumps and fire support. The Sblue, IIRC, has pretty good range, a bit better damage than the SGreen, and the Hyperion mounts two of them in a forward configuration.

But also importantly, the SBlue has vastly better burst damage--it delivers 4400 damage in less than 3 seconds, at a range of up to 6375 meters. Combine that with great subspace maneuverability, strategic expandability, and shock jumping, and you get a potent combination. Two Hyperions doing a shock-jump from 6 km out deals 17,600 damage right away. That's around a fifth of a Karuna's health. Throw in a Chimera, and that Karuna is going to be barely holding on to life, within a few seconds of three ships jumping within 6.3 kilometers. If you replace that Chimera with a Bellerophon, and that's a near-instant-kill on a Karuna. Without an AWACS ship or immediate, heavy support, any other Karuna in the area probably won't survive for long. The only way to avoid that is having Paveway or Archer-equipped craft ready to disarm main beam cannons in under a minute. The biggest difficulty in doing that is having your craft close enough to the targets to take them out in time.

The SBlue is not powerful, really, but it's highly practical; a normal-sized cruiser packing that kind of firepower, with that kind of range, in addition to good AA and anti-torpedo defenses (bonus points for being in range to use the Pulse turrets on the target capship) is extremely useful. When every Sanctus corvette/heavy cruiser is a significant asset to the enemy--one that is very difficult to replace--and every Karuna kill is a major and permanent blow to the UEF, the Hyperion is a strategic golden boy.

Take the Custos cruiser, for instance--if it isn't outfitted for ECM (or supported by it), a single Hyperion could nearly kill a Custos in a few seconds, from over 6km away. And since deploying a cruiser is not nearly as risky (being more expendable, having much smaller crews, and the quickest times for jumping away, relatively speaking), that gives the GTVA a lot of strategic flexibility.

And that "huge" flag is pretty important when it comes to shock jumps and heavy armor, unless I'm confusing the huge and supercap flags.

In a straight up fight, a Sanctus will kill a Hyperion with little difficulty, even if they start at the SBlue's max range.  And if you remove the "bomb" flag from Warhammer#Custos, even a Cretheus will kill a Custos (otherwise it chases the Warhammers and forgets to shoot at anything else).  And yes, the SBlue does a lot of damage in the first few seconds, but after 10 seconds, a TerPulse will have done more damage, and the SBlue never catches up.  For the Maxim, it takes 25 seconds for it to do more damage. Like I said, the 6km is pretty much the only thing that recommends it.  Apart from that, the TerPulse is a vastly superior weapon.

But like Matt said, the numbers don't mean too much.  For all we know, in a given battle, an SBlue shot might blow up a Sanctus' fire control and make it easy pickings.

The Hyperion isn't a bad cruiser per se.  It just doesn't have the Aeolus' anti-fighter capabilities, and its increased anti-capital capabilities still aren't good enough to warrant the the trade.  I'd say the Aeolus is generally a better ship.

According to The E is doesn't seem to be as complex as you describe.

My personal theory is that the missile has an escape pod like (one use) Subspace drive, the whole idea of the SSMs seems to be giving the battle groups (of which I think there is one per star system?)
the ability to have some of the firepower of a destroyer in two or more places at a time (depending on AWACS deployed.)
Remember the Atreus was reported near Luna during the blitz, yet it launched SSMs strikes at Rheza and possibly more locations on earth orbit.

All The E said was that it's less complex than what the Shivans can do.  So are GTVA beam cannons, but that doesn't mean the UEF has the ability to build them.

All we know is that for one reason or another, the UEF doesn't have SSMs.  And since they'd be extremely useful to the war effort, it's safe to assume that there's something in building or using them that the UEF can't do.

[QuakeIV]

except he didn't even say there would be shivans in pt. 2. 

The knowledge necessary to produce viable SSMs (viable meaning at a high but not too high cost, with sufficient tactical flexibility) is far below that which the Shivans possess. This will become clear in the second part of WiH.

Anyways I think the UEF could build SSMs, they would just be liable to being horrifically expensive if they were made into proper torpedoes.  As it is theres no doubt that you can jump about in subspace and theres no doubt that you can make antimatter explosions.  Its not inconceivable to put the two together.  It may become some horrific abortion of a machine but it will be there.

[Dragon]

The main problem here might be miniaturization. UEF could fill an Uhlan with antimatter and launch it at GTVA, but doing the same thing with a torpedo for a reasonable price may be a lot more difficult. Another problem is targeting and control, since UEF never developed anything resembling TAG (though they most likely did capture some). There are workarounds (for exapmle, remotely flying the aforementioned Uhlan from a nearby AWACS), but they have their own problems. Not to mention UEF has less resources than GTVA, so they might not be able to afford SSM developement and usage.

[-Norbert-]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the biggest Apocalypse torpedoes as big as an Ursa? If so, miniaturazation isn't a problem at all.

But the costs are. Remember that in the UEF comparetively few ships are carrying subspace drives. I don't know how common they are among military ships, but judging from one of the backstory pieces (GTVA interview with civilian freighter crew) it seems it's extremely uncommon for civies to carry subspace drives.
If few ships carry those drives, it's reasonable to assume that only few drives are build. If we further assume that subspace drives need specialized factories to build them, maybe the current UEF's subspace drive production capabilities are fully used up with equiping the military ships that are produced.

If they have to leave one strikecraft without jump-drive for each SSM they build, it would be a pretty bad tradeoff, that would severely compromise their militaries flexibility and response time.

The GTVA on the other hand, being spread over several starsystems, puts subspace drives on practically every ship they have, including civilians, which means they have to have a high production capability for them. If those subspace drive factories are re-purposed for producing SSM drives it might leave the civies unhappy, but will produce SSMs at a fast pace.

[SaltyWaffles]

Also, from the tech description, the Raynor is said to be "a package that can be mass-produced". It's probably much(ish) cheaper than a Titan.

Impossible. And I'm not just throwing out assumptions; the Titan is shorter, smaller (or at most the same total size), has fewer beam cannons and turrets in general, less armor plating, and over 40% of its interior is fighter bays--mostly empty space. While the cargo you have to store in it might be significant cost-wise, the important part is that it's just a platform for those craft, and you can accommodate old or brand-new craft and munitions in the same carrier. The Raynor has an advanced electronics suite, too.

That sentence in the tech description, in my understanding of it, means that the Raynor is (at least supposed to be) an all-in-one powerful destroyer (or just a good battlecruiser with decent line-engagement capability) that isn't too large/expensive/complex to mass produce. You seem to be implying that the Titan can't be mass produced, while the Raynor can--which is a rather odd notion. Massive carrier capability and fighter bays? Already done plenty of that with the Hecate. BBlue's? Got those on Bellerophons and Raynors. A couple TerSlashBlue's? Also on Raynor and Diomedes. Two kilometer length? Raynor is over three, and a Hecate and Orion aren't that much smaller than a Titan. No super-advanced electronics or jump capability, either. Also, the Raynor is the flagship in any battlegroup that has one (and since the only two BG's we know of that have the advanced ships have both a Titan and Raynor--and both have a Raynor as the flagship), it's at least safe to say that the Titan is mass-producible, and at most as expensive as a Raynor.

here is what i think the gtva strategists were thinking with the raynor. the raynor would be expected to engage multiple shivan capships that are unexpectedly attacking from multiple angles hence the distribution of its armaments, but its not supposed to win the engament its supposed to get in the thick of it can keep the shivans occupied. then at opportune moments titans, corvettes, and bombers can jump in give a juggernaut a full frontal blast from a bad angle and get out. simply put its the reynors job to tank it while every one else does DPS

If there's a Sathanas in that engagement scenario, the Raynor is probably going to die in seconds. And if a Ravana shock-jumps the Raynor...well, it's going to take serious damage right away, and if it can't take out the Ravana's forward beams ASAP, it's not going to last too long.

Either way, though, the combat role you're outlining would be better fit by a smaller, more durable ship. If it's meant to tank and slug it out in multiple directions at once, it needs to be: A) Durable, and B) have a flexible armament. The Raynor is not durable (feels and performs like a battlecruiser, tbh), and its armament isn't all that flexible, relatively speaking--its heavy beams are all forward aligned (but not capable of focusing on the same target from more than a few angles), and its rear firepower is....minimal.

This suits a hunter-killer/battlecruiser role well--it can jump into an engagement and take down several cruisers/corvettes in short order, and then jump out shortly afterwards--but it really, really sucks at tanking. If a Raynor is surprise-attacked by several Shivan ships at once, it's in "GTFO ASAP" mode, not "I got this guiz, get here when you're ready". A Raynor should be on the hunt for smaller prey or backing up a powerful force with good fire support (and the range of its HBlue). It should not be intentionally tanking anything unless A) Little tanking is needed in the first place, or B) There's no better option available.

EDIT: Oh and about perception of the Raynor and how its biggest problem is how it's been used in missions--maybe this is the key. The Raynor has been Worf-Effect'd in all but one of its appearances. In one case, this was done blatantly and deliberately (Bei's vision of the engagement between the Oresties group and the Lucifer without the assistance of the Vishnans). And the one appearance where its potential power/badassery/threat-factor isn't subverted is...the final mission of AoA, where a single unsupported Karuna charges the entire 14th BG at close range, directly into the firing arcs of every heavy beam in the BG.

Let's sum it up:

1) Bei's vision mission: Orestes barely damages the Lucifer, despite having a Bellerophon and Chimera (along with a Hyperion) backing it up, and the Orestes quickly gets its ass handed to it. It dies so fast that they barely have any time to even abandon ship. FRED-wise, the Orestes' standard armament was nerfed, it remained stationary (despite one of its features being its speed) and made no use of its other beam cannons (even when just slight maneuvering during the HBlue's BBlue's cooldown), and its fighter complement weren't even given the chance to take out the Lucifer's beam cannons (A few Trebs do the job well enough, so of course, the Lucifer's beam cannons are guardianed. The Orestes goes down so fast it's jarring--it was the first time I played through it, and it still is the seventh time. In fact, on my first playthrough, I restarted as soon as the Orestes started blowing up, sure of the fact that I must have done something very wrong, as there's no way this Raynor-class destroyer (especially with backup from a Bellerophon and Chimera, plus two Hyperions) could be so thoroughly ineffectual against the Lucifer, and there's no way a Raynor is supposed to go down that quickly and easily. After I realized it was a FailureIsTheOnlyOption mission (a hunch that I developed at the end of the second attempt), I was still shocked, as I couldn't figure out how that battle could have been so ludicrously one-sided--even in the context of being a nightmare, Sam believed it to be prophetic in both a metaphorical and literal sense, and made no acknowledgement about the nonsensical events/outcome of the battle (not even a "huh, why weren't any of the other ships firing on the Lucifer? And why was the Orestes--supposedly captained by a skilled admiral--doing a grand total of nothing during the battle other than firing one forward beam cannon at the target?"). Oh, and let's not forget the definitely real story points about how the Orestes, backed up by a Bellerophon, Chimera, two Hyperions, and an Anemoi, immediately and repeatedly ran away from the Lucifer as soon as it showed up, never even trying to utilize its advantages tactically or strategically (naw, shock-jumping the Lucifer from anywhere that isn't the front would never work! Not like we have superior numbers or firepower! Or extensive experience with and knowledge of the Lucifer, the system, and Shivan tactics! And those Shivans have definitely faced our new generation of ships/tech/tactics/weapons before, so we obviously lack any opportunity to utilize such a hypothetical advantage!).

2) Bearbaiting:

It's on the run from a Sathanas. Your mission is a desperate one--hope the Sathanas jumps in far enough to be outside of its beam cannons' range, and for a modest strike force to take out its beam cannons (all of them) before they get into range. Even after you accomplish this, the Orestes only fires its HBlue and acts as if they were still desperate and outmatched. This is when the entire rest of the 14th BG shows up to seemingly save the Orestes from a one-sided engagement. So...yay? The modest strikecraft attack did all of the work, and when said work was done and the Orestes could engage with impunity, it still isn't doing much (and acts as if it's still in a desperate, underdog situation).

3) The second to last mission of AoA--the Orestes is but one of many ships (not even the only capital ship) of the 14th BG. Despite only facing some bombers and the occasional cruiser (which you are required to deal with effectively), it takes heavy damage on its way to the node.

4) The final mission of AoA, where it isn't the only one fighting the Karuna, we expect the Karuna to get quickly obliterated, and the Titan and shock-jump corvettes are also able to fire right away. We'd be surprised if the Orestes took any significant damage from the engagement, or if the Karuna lasted longer than a matter of seconds under the collective beam fire of the 14th BG.


5) WiH intro:

It might seem more badass and threatening if it wasn't an entire battlegroup of the GTVA's new/advanced ships against a single poorly positioned Karuna. All we see it do is fire one or two of its slash beams at the already near-dead Karuna. Not particularly impressive, especially when one of the Chimeras wouldn't have even needed to maneuver to fire just one of its beam cannons to achieve a more spectacular (and faster) result. Then it (off-screen) defeats a undersupported ramming maneuver by...a singel Karuna and a quartet of Sanctus cruisers. From the front. From long range. With the entire battlegroup facing the direction and ready to fire. It'd be pretty difficult to not win that engagement easily.

6) Darkest Hour:

It shows up to defeat a badly damage installation with a depleted defense force. It finishes off a small/minor installation in its entrance, but this isn't an impressive feat--that small installation was barely hanging on as it was, and we were already prepared (if not expecting) it to be destroyed, possibly by just another wing of bombers. As you and the Indus make a desperate/suicidal charge against the stationary Atreus...two Narayanas show up. Steele seems unconcerned...not because his ship and skill outmatch the UEF frigates, but because...he can immediately jump away back to home base. And even then, in the short time he's casually talking about how he and Calder would have their glorious duel one day, but not today, the Atreus is getting steadily bludgeoned by brief gauss gun/railgun fire from two Narayans, without even shooting back. Rather than establish the Atreus as a powerful threat, it does the opposite for me--I'm surprised at how weak and ineffectual this ship is. In the brief time Steele says he'd fight Calder another day, his ship is steadily taking damage from less than half of the Narayanas' firepower. I'm surprised, confused, and worried--because it seems like this ship is taking heavy damage in the brief time before it just jumps right back home without firing a shot. I'm concerned for the ship's safety, and surprised at how fragile it is.

For being the most powerful ship in the GTVA, achieving total surprise in an attack on a heavily damaged, lightly defended station from a good position, it accomplishes...finishing off a small/minor installation we were prepared to and expecting to lose anyway (to a much smaller force), stands still, and then gets rapidly routed by a couple frigates, taking serious damage in the short time before it could jump away again (nice usage of your advanced subspace maneuverability, Steele!). It's very underwhelming. It attacks a large, heavily damaged, lightly defended installation, with total surprise and great positioning. I expected some real damage to be done, for Rheza station or the Indus to be obliterated, or for a Solaris to show up immediately to save the day (not without taking some damage of its own, of course). Instead, it had a grand opportunity, major feats easy for the taking...and it does nothing, gets laughably driven off by a couple frigates when they do finally show up, and uses its sprint drive to...run right back home. Yeah. Not very threatening. Honestly, the Meridian was far more threatening to me, and still is--because it really does some damage (story-wise and in-mission), impresses rather than disappoints/underwhelms, and ultimately escapes--without the use of advanced sprint drives. And even then, the Indus and Churchill are still under threat.

In the end, while Steele is established as a credible and major threat, the Raynor class (and its specific incarnations) are only shown to be ineffectual (often jarringly so), fragile, always running away from a threat, and underperforming even when it has a golden opportunity served to it on a silver platter (thanks to the efforts of...everyone else. Yeah.). Emotionally, the Carthage is far more threatening to me, even when it's trapped and cornered.

Why the UEF is even bothering to focus on the Atreus is beyond me, unless it's entirely about killing Steele. Or maybe they just think that the Atreus is far easier to kill (certainly seems like it)? 'Cuz the Imperieuse does ten times the damage (even before DE), is a far greater threat in most cases, and it has an excellent carrier capability in addition to its fearsome ship-killing and shock-jumping capabilities. To me, a Titan seems vastly more effectual and threatening than a Raynor, if not in reality, then in every combat appearance it gets.

[The E]

I expect your remix of AoA will be the most glorious thing ever.

Impossible.

Such incredible sureness. I wonder, are you part of the BP dev team? Or are you actually working in the GTVA's accounting department?

You seem to be implying that the Titan can't be mass produced, while the Raynor can--which is a rather odd notion.

He is doing no such thing. The Titan, canonically, is a more expensive vessel (due to armament and fighter support facilities). Not Collossus-style expensive, but definitely more complex and thus costly than the comparatively simple Raynor class.

No super-advanced electronics or jump capability, either.

You're completely sure of this? Yes? Good.

Regarding all your comments about AoA: Those are technical limitations of the FSO version AoA was built on. All the armor trickery we are able to do now wasn't available; and before you ask about rebalancing and rewriting the missions to take it into account, it's a task far too tedious to do.

Your point 5:
You only saw the very very last minutes of the Battle of Artemis Station. The Nelson sacrifices herself not to inflict damage, but to give that battlegroup a target to concentrate on that isn't a civvie freighter.

6: 2 Narayanas, and a Karuna. Also note that the two Naras start pumping out missiles immediately, they just never hit the Atreus. Steele gambled on his ability to jump to Earth orbit, destroy the station, and be away again by the time a response could be mounted; the two Naras were in position and firing on him before he could get into range of the station, and even if he were to follow through with the attack, he'd still run the risk of being disabled himself. He chose to postpone the killing blow instead of risking it.

For being the most powerful ship in the GTVA,

It is? Huh. News to me.

[QuakeIV]

For being the most powerful ship in the GTVA,

It is? Huh. News to me.

Well it does seem rather odd that you guys have Steele on such a relatively ****ty ship.

[NGTM-1R]

Well it does seem rather odd that you guys have Steele on such a relatively ****ty ship.

Power does not directly equate to usefulness as a command ship. Raynors could well have been designed with better command spaces or a better flag bridge than Titans or Hecates.

[The E]

Well it does seem rather odd that you guys have Steele on such a relatively ****ty ship.

Petrarch commanded a Hecate. Your argument is invalid.

Also what NGTM-1R said. Atreus is Steele's ship, and has been since it was first laid down.

[MatthTheGeek]

 

[headdie]

Destroyers in FS verse are generally committed directly into battle cautiously by all but the shivans (exceptions aside) with the heavy lifting done by the fighter/bomber wings and the Destroyer's battle group.  The fact that the Theatre commander is not on the most physically impressive ship is irrelevant, look at naval formations since WWII, you will notice that the centre is generally a Carrier with little or no direct combat capability, instead relying on it's air wing to inflict harm on the enemy. 

Ultimately what makes the GTVA in Sol so damn effective is not its fire-power as such but the fact that Steele is a ****ing terrifying opponent, capable of getting results with whatever he has to hand.

strip him of his beam advantage? fine he will drop his bombers 10-20 seconds from your capships and have them drop a twin fire of torps from point blank range before warping out, strip him of that, I dont know but I am sure he would think of something, he is that kind of commander, failure is not a concept he is familiar with and his brain wont let him contemplate it, the job needs getting done and if he has to go EVA and Chuck Norris the enemy to do it he bloody well will do

[Ryuseiken]

Regardless of the Raynor's combat capabilities, I do hope it gets to strut it's stuff more in R2 since I really love it from an aesthetics point of view.

As waffles said before, in game all of it's 'victories' against enemy ships were in situations where any Terran destroyer except maybe the Hecate could have delivered a performance that was at least on par with what the Raynor accomplished. I understand that the Raynor's abilities are supposed to go beyond straight firepower and armor, but we've yet to see them actually demonstrated in any mission (with the exception of the sprint drive), and until that happens those two categories are the things that spring to mind when thinking about it's performance.