[NGTM-1R]

If individual Raiders are FTL-capable, why do Basestars jumping into an attack not already have them deployed and jump with them?

[Black Wolf]

Perhaps it uses up too much fuel/power, making their combat time shorter? Ormaybe FTL is a disorienting experience for a raider, and it needs time to readjust not ideal in a big old furball.

[General Battuta]

Do we actually know if all the Raiders are FTL-capable? Fankwank could postulate a baseship variant and a scout variant.

[Angelus]

hm, i'd say for fuel conservation, as the Cylons rely on that as much as the Colonials.
Might be a range issue too, we know that the Cylons have a greater jump radius then the Colonials, and eventually the Basestar has a larger Jumpradius then a Raider.

It would make sense to bring your Fighters as close as possible to the field of engagement, before you deploy them.
And in case of the Cylons, the response time ( enemy in sight -> insta launch Raiders ) is shorter then on Colonials side, where the Pilots of the Alert fighters, have to jump into their planes ( unless they sit the entire time in the cockpit but even in this case, the Cylons can launch faster ).

[Mobius]

Who knows, maybe the distance to the closest Resurrection Ship also plays a vital role.

[NGTM-1R]

Do we actually know if all the Raiders are FTL-capable? Fankwank could postulate a baseship variant and a scout variant.

They seem to use FTL quite a lot during the miniseries for deployment against anything that's moving in Colonial space. If there is a seperate set of each, they ran the scout Raiders ragged.

I'm tempted to go with the fuel conservation reason, but it does run the risk the Colonials will have Raptor SuCAP up and whack you before you can launch Raiders.

[ajax-wounds]

i think the use of the baseships was to even the odds against galactica, during the main attack the raiders could jump in and out at leisure as the colonial defences where shatterd with the CNP backdoor. So there was little risk of fighters intercepting, as well as and AA fire and flack.
Also the baseships where bussy with the inital nukeing of the colonys. So the raiders would of been used for lightning attacks simultainiously against colonial defences to throw them off.
Its hard to mount an effect counter attack if the enemys hitting you everywhere.

Galactica was pritty much a fully active battlestar so the raiders needed the base ships for support, otherwise they would get chewed up by galacticas flack and AA fire, with vipers cutting them down aswell.

in the great cylon turkey shoot episode where boomer infects the raider attack force with a virus there where no baseships preasant. Mainly because the cylons beleived that galactica would be imobilised by a planted cylon virus from when they networked there computers to compute the location of the missing fleet.

So the ship would of been unable to attack the fighters. with only the vipers left to contened with something like 300 cylon raiders and heavy raiders. The cylons probably beleived baseships would not be needed.

For all we know the cylons where still fighting colonial holdouts around locations in colonail space.

so there forces where stretched a bit thinner than we would think. I mean its silly to think that galactica would not be the only battlestar to not be affected by the CNP.

[Ace]

If individual Raiders are FTL-capable, why do Basestars jumping into an attack not already have them deployed and jump with them?

To address various points:

There's nothing to suggest that certain Raiders do not have FTL. So we're treating them all as having that capacity.

Fuel consumption-> while raider FTL would consume more fuel, there's nothing to suggest supply shortages as a problem for the Cylons. Their entire civilization is mobile and they seem to have a strong static infrastructure for resources such as tylium when needed. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the main components of the asteroid refinery seen were able to be detached, FTLed, and redeployed.

Computing power and time seems to be a bigger factor for FTL than fuel. Cylon FTLs are stated as being 3 times (seems higher than that based on the Caprica rescue) as efficient as Colonial systems. Likely however, a capital ship can do longer jumps than a small ship (it is possible that both have similar ranges and the drivers just have to be a lot larger...).

We're going with the larger ships having longer jump ranges as a rule of thumb.

Overall, if a baseship jumps in alone and unloads raiders it probably means a longer range jump than wings of raiders jumping on followed by the baseship.

Raiders also have to serve as the point defense for the basestar, in case nukes are launched by the Colonials. Which indirectly answers why use raiders and not just have nukes with FTL drives. (raiders can down interceptors and more or less serve as mobile nuke missileboats)

[FUBAR-BDHR]

There is also the possibility that Raiders do often jump in before a Basestar but have a longer DRADIS range.  This lets them call in the Basestar which recalls it's other Raiders from scouting before the jump.  That procedure might take say 33 minutes?

[Ace]

There's no reason given for '33' being the interval really.

A cold start up of Colonial FTL from no power takes 20 minutes. FTL calculations of a destination occur at the speed of plot.

Other than the Cylon datastream (resurrection and hybrid communications) there's no indications of faster than light communication. In fact there's clear cases where raiders were used to ferry information (that episode where Xena Warrior Cylon was introduced).

DRADIS and wireless are slower than light from all indications. So scout raiders would be common. (at least they are in my missions)

With the more efficient navigation systems the Cylons have, pretty much the one chance you have is to take out the scouting wing before they jump and inform the baseship/hybrid otherwise every Cylon in the galaxy will know where you are (were if you jump away quick enough).

[newman]

I wouldn't discard the fuel consumption issue. Yes, Cylons are mobile but it has been established they depend on setting up infrastructure, like tyllium refineries. Moving those around and keeping the supply lines running takes effort.
Secondly, the original zoic basestar has 864 slots. Jumping all of those raiders individually would consume a lot more fuel. Launching a raider takes a helluva lot less time then launching a viper - the raider doesn't need a pilot to jump in, the deck crew to clear it, the pilot to run preflight, then go through the whole tube launch sequence - it simply detaches from it's slot and it's ready for action. By the time Gaeta says "Dradis contact" they can have full wings in the air already so it's a non-issue.

[StarSlayer]

You folks are totally ignoring the **** you draws effect of having the big pointy bastards FTL in then having them start loosing hundreds of Raiders like angry hornets.  Its psychological warfare.

[eldain]

another thing to consider, raiders were little more aware than pets (s 03) they would need commands from an base ship/ human model if fighting any practical battle... unless of course their part is simple and straight forward (like destroying incapacitated ships)

besides the fuel consumption it is probably as logical to make all jump together as they both rely on each other anyway (for earlier stated reasons)

eldain

[newman]

I disagree, the raiders have been shown to be able to operate independently of a baseship and execute pretty complex commands on their own. I submit the episode "scar" as evidence of that; scar was just one of the raiders sent there to hide in the asteroids and hunt vipers. He was famous because he was best at it, but he was by no means the only one, and there was no baseship present. There also wasn't one when the galactica's mk7 squadron got splashed in the mini, or when the Scorpion yards got attacked (I think, not 100% sure on this one). There's plenty of other examples of raiders operating independently of a basestar throughout the series.
Not going to use spoiler tags for the following because s4 has been out for ages - but don't read if you haven't seen it: Cavil wants to lobotimize the raiders to turn them exactly in what you suggest they are, after they break off the attack on the colonial fleet by themselves in the first episode of s4. It was one of the major reasons for the cylon civil war. I suspect that cavil's procedures would have turned them in exactly what you suggest, but a vanilla raider is quite capable of operating on it's own if need be. I suspect that the control from the baseship is on a similar level to a battlestar giving orders to it's fighter squadrons. Sure, a baseship might provide better tactical support but what you're suggesting would reduce the raiders to little more then radio controlled drones - that's certainly not what they were.

[Master_Drow]

The thing that bothers me here is the accuracy of the jumps. In the series we see the Galactica do some very accurate jumps (see the first few episodes of season 3). But the Raptors that return from scouting mission always jump in a fair distance from the fleet. This leads me to believe that the computation power plays in. The capital ships have the computer power for jumps down to the foot but the smaller fighters might be less accurate and thus have a hard time jumping in formation.



Also time would play a massive factor. Most of the time the Colonial fleet is found by a scout that jumps in and then jumps out shortly after. The fleets response is then to jump to a predetermined alpha site, this happens fairly quickly in most cases. If the Cylons wanted to jump in a formation they would need to wait for a scout to come back, decide on a formation, then launch the raiders, get into formation (a lengthy process), and then jump, all the while hoping that the Galactica has not deployed fighters, rearranged the fleet (making the Cylon formation less effective), or just simply left.


The thing that does bother me is that the cylons never try anything "clever". The Colonial fleet does a bunch of tactics like using ships as bait, or other feints, but the cylons always just jump in and attack head on.

[karajorma]

I tend to suspect that part of the reason is that jumping in with 800 raiders in flight increased the chance of one of them screwing up and jumping in inside the reactor of the basestar.

We've seen at least three of cases of mis-jumps in the show and it can be caused by something as unlucky as cosmic radiation flipping a single bit

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Also Galactica's pin point jumps were always based on known coordinates.  Cylons were able to jump farther and more accurately without prior knowledge of the target area.  A Raptor FTL seemed to be just a capable with know coordinates.  Jumping in away from the fleet was probably more of a precautionary measure.  Even if you know were everything is supposed to by you are dealing with civilians why might not be where they are supposed to be. 

[eldain]

or jumping back somewhat away from the fleet would allow response time if  they were followed, enough time to launch emergency vipers or give a jump out signal. Especially if some raiders jump in in between the civvies it would be a massacre.

eldain

[newman]

My vote for the most compelling reason goes to Slayer. Having a that huge monstrosity of a cylon basestar jump in and start launching hundreds of raiders from those slots just looks incredibly scary and cool at the same time

[NGTM-1R]

I tend to suspect that part of the reason is that jumping in with 800 raiders in flight increased the chance of one of them screwing up and jumping in inside the reactor of the basestar.

We've seen at least three of cases of mis-jumps in the show and it can be caused by something as unlucky as cosmic radiation flipping a single bit

This is true.