Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: CT27 on January 29, 2015, 04:10:56 pm
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Other than the Vasudan logistics ship, IIRC we haven't seen any new Vasudan capital ships.
Do you think they are moving in the same direction with their warships as the Terrans are in the GTVA? I.e., are they primarily concentrating on forward beam firepower?
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IIRC Battuta said that their fleet is on average more modern than the Terran half of the GTVA, with a focus on node denial. Considering that the GTA destroyer fleet only has six "modern" combatants by the end of BP2 Act IV, I think the GVA probably have fewer Hatshepsuts than the GTA has Orions and Hecates, and probably more advanced cruisers and corvettes. The Vasudan beam weapon tech entries suggest that the Vasudans have new beams as well.
AFAIK that is the extent of information we have.
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That's quite interesting!
IIRC, Hapshepsuts were more effective than Hecates. This makes me wonder if the new line of GTA destroyers are actually better and more advanced than their modern Vasudan counterparts.
Please bear with me with my interpretation of your post Mars. But the way I read it is that the reason the Vasudan fleet is essentially more modern than the Terran fleet is because they have had to replace more destroyers than the Terrans, therefore they have done it with ships that are newer than Hecates and Hapshetsuts. Therefore they have a higher number of modern ships than the Terrans do, simply because they have had to replace those that have been lost.
I am intrigued at how the modern variants of Terran and Vasudan ships would stand up against one another. One thing I do find frustrating is that the Terrans tech always seems to be worse than the Vasudan tech. It seems that the last great Terran cap ship was actually the Orion, as various discussions have lead me to believe that an Orion would eat a Hecate for breakfast, and still have a hunger for elevenses!
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I'm sure it all depends on circumstance. A Hecate has a larger fighter wing than an Orion, and also a quite respectable (for the time) forward armament. If they were both stripped of their fighters and it came down to a battle of maneuver between the two combatants, I think the Orion could take advantage of its more capable broadside and turret placement.
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Doesnt the Hecate have a much better AA defense in vanilla FS2 compared to the Orion? Also the dual front beams are useful for a ship that launches fighters and stays back
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The Hecates in BP have been relegated to rear line carriers that "never enter an engagement without their battle group." And have thus far reliably failed to make significant impacts with their immediate presence. That said, wings launched from Hecates have made up the bulk of enemy fighters in game.
The Vasudans in BP are more technologically advanced overall than their Terran counterparts, but have been said to have a very Byzantine political structure and lack an effective top-down organizational structure. Also, in my experience, they make their fighters out of rice-paper.
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The Hecate is a significantly more dangerous ship than the Orion purely because its larger air wing gives it much better striking power, and lets it use that striking power without putting itself in the line of fire. If a Hecate finds itself using its anti-capital beams, someone somewhere has screwed up.
The new line of Vasudan ships is not significantly more or less modern than Terran TEI ships. However, their Capella-era fleet has received more upgrades than the Terran one. The Terrans are slowly replacing their Capella-era fleet with new ships, while the Vasudans are upgrading theirs to more modern standards. Overall, it's a more advanced fleet, but the top-end of that fleet isn't higher. They just upgraded most of the stuff on the bottom end.
Remember that the biggest reasonwhy Terran beams were weaker than Vasudan ones in FS2 is because Terran beams were built for backwards compatibility, while Vasudan beams were not. It's why the Terrans could put 3 BGreens and 3 TerSlash on an Orion while the Typhon had issues with 2 BVas.
Considering that the GTA destroyer fleet only has six "modern" combatants by the end of BP2 Act IV
Nine. 4 Erebus (Atreus, Orestes, Agamemnon, Menelaus, +1 nearing completion), 5 Titans (Imperieuse, Temeraire, Implacable, Conquerant, Pallas).
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The Hecate is a significantly more dangerous ship than the Orion purely because its larger air wing gives it much better striking power, and lets it use that striking power without putting itself in the line of fire. If a Hecate finds itself using its anti-capital beams, someone somewhere has screwed up.
The new line of Vasudan ships is not significantly more or less modern than Terran TEI ships. However, their Capella-era fleet has received more upgrades than the Terran one. The Terrans are slowly replacing their Capella-era fleet with new ships, while the Vasudans are upgrading theirs to more modern standards. Overall, it's a more advanced fleet, but the top-end of that fleet isn't higher. They just upgraded most of the stuff on the bottom end.
Remember that the biggest reasonwhy Terran beams were weaker than Vasudan ones in FS2 is because Terran beams were built for backwards compatibility, while Vasudan beams were not. It's why the Terrans could put 3 BGreens and 3 TerSlash on an Orion while the Typhon had issues with 2 BVas.
Considering that the GTA destroyer fleet only has six "modern" combatants by the end of BP2 Act IV
Nine. 4 Erebus (Atreus, Orestes, Agamemnon, Menelaus, +1 nearing completion), 5 Titans (Imperieuse, Temeraire, Implacable, Conquerant, Pallas).
That almost sounds as though the Terrans are run by Microsoft!
This does beg the question whether a Hecate should be reassigned to a carrier rather than a destroyer as, IMO, calling a Hecate a destroyer is not fit for purpose whereas an Orion would be! Also, I'm surprised that "backwards compatible" beams were put on a Hecate given that it was a new ship at the time and it was using a Vasudan power plant! I also find it strange that the GTVA as a whole did not share both sets of technology, as they would have probably been far more effective at fighting the Shivans and been able to sortie more destroyers, such as Typhons with backwards compatible beems that worked and Hecates with more up to date beam weaponary.
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This does beg the question whether a Hecate should be reassigned to a carrier rather than a destroyer as, IMO, calling a Hecate a destroyer is not fit for purpose whereas an Orion would be! Also, I'm surprised that "backwards compatible" beams were put on a Hecate given that it was a new ship at the time and it was using a Vasudan power plant! I also find it strange that the GTVA as a whole did not share both sets of technology, as they would have probably been far more effective at fighting the Shivans and been able to sortie more destroyers, such as Typhons with backwards compatible beems that worked and Hecates with more up to date beam weaponary.
And in BP, you are seeing the Hecate being relegated to a second-line asset.
As for the technology sharing thing, while we do not know the specifics of the GTVA's tech sharing agreements prior to FS2, we can infer that they were rather limited and more along the lines of agreeing on a set of shared equipment standards that would allow, for example, Vasudan Fighters to operate off of Terran Destroyers.
As for why the Hecate didn't use the more advanced Vasudan beams, consider this: FS2 shows both navys operating largely independent of each other. The default seems to be for fleets to be homogenous, and as such, the logistics requirements would reflect that. By fitting all capital ships with the same weapons systems, resupplying and repairing them as well as crew training is vastly simplified, and given that the Hecate was (arguably) never meant to be a frontline brawler, designing it with a slightly inferior weapons set that would allow for greater economy makes some mount of sense.
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It sounds like the Vasudans got the better end of the deal!
I can't remember, but did the Hecates remain reasonably vanilla in BP or did they get upgraded weaponary as well? I'm thinking whether the a Hecate chassis could be retrofitted to use TEI weaponary since Terrans seem to be obsessed with backwards compatibility.
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As far as I gathered, blue beams are out of the question, since they would require the main reactor(s) and the power-net to be completely replaced (probably the heatsinks too), so any upgrade of their weapons could only affect the blobs, FLAK and missile launchers (if it has any).
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Blue Beam tech requires a meson reactor to power them
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It sounds like the Vasudans got the better end of the deal!
I can't remember, but did the Hecates remain reasonably vanilla in BP or did they get upgraded weaponary as well? I'm thinking whether the a Hecate chassis could be retrofitted to use TEI weaponary since Terrans seem to be obsessed with backwards compatibility.
The Security Council has decided to not upgrade the Hecate class substantially, instead retiring and mothballing/dismantling them as TEI Destroyers are finished.
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I'm curious... Do You have new models for Vasudan capitalships? I mean, the completly never-seen before models? The only ones that could be used as post-capella destroyers in good quality are Aphopis and Pharaoh. I'm wondering if You guys have something different.
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Esarai's Emperor and Phoenix Rising models look very good with Vasudanized textures.
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Any possibility of a GVD Horizon?
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Esarai's Emperor and Phoenix Rising models look very good with Vasudanized textures.
I think I saw a phoenix rising in one of the vids used as logistic ship...
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Esarai's Emperor and Phoenix Rising models look very good with Vasudanized textures.
I think I saw a phoenix rising in one of the vids used as logistic ship...
No, it was rescaled Tanen carrier.
As for new vasudan fleet from Esarai's ships, I was thinking about Emperor as vasudan destroyer/battleship as well. I hope that texture work is not just simply recolor of existing textures, as it would not be enough. Maybe some screenshots :D?
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It was said Vasudan current destroyers are built for "node denial". In practice, how do they differ then from the Terran new shock jump philosophy of warship beams? I.e., what does "node denial" mean; does it mean beams are spread more evenly?
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I would assume cruisers with a single, consecutive beam, possibly able to swivel as to keep continuous beam fire on anything that comes through the node. As long as you can defend those cruisers, you can void most other weapons and system for a single, high-intensity beam cannon that can do nearly as much damage as a destroyer could, because:
Cheap 'glass-cannon' cruisers = able to build more cruisers = increased amount of consecutive beam fire at the node = impenetrable node defense.
Just make sure nothing can attack them from behind. Even shivan ships have to pinpoint their targets first so unless the have an AWACS in system doing that for them, they can be torn apart long before they get shot off at the Vasudan cruisers. It's like having beefed-up Mjolnir, which can travel anywhere on their own, thus increasing their survivability.
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That does have the potential to go *horribly* wrong though - see WWII "Fast Battleships", like the HMS Hood. Could you train enough crew for that to be viable? The Tev philosophy in BP is to haemorrhage pilots, but would the Vasudans go in for the same?
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That does have the potential to go *horribly* wrong though - see WWII "Fast Battleships", like the HMS Hood. Could you train enough crew for that to be viable? The Tev philosophy in BP is to haemorrhage pilots, but would the Vasudans go in for the same?
Haven't the Vasudans always been losing pilots ? Their fighters are the ones to die first in my experience.
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Vasudan cruisers don't tend to carry anti-capital beam cannons. They're primarily anti-strikecraft platforms. Spinal beams are mostly a Terran thing.
Where the Terrans use cruisers as multi-role combatants, Vasudan fleet doctrine emphasizes the escort role, for which light beam cannons aren't all that useful. There's also the fact that the SVas is quite big and power-hungry for a light beam cannon, so it's mostly used on destroyers as a secondary weapon. It's closer to the TerSlash than it is to the SGreen and SBlue.
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Vasudan cruisers don't tend to carry anti-capital beam cannons. They're primarily anti-strikecraft platforms. Spinal beams are mostly a Terran thing.
Where the Terrans use cruisers as multi-role combatants, Vasudan fleet doctrine emphasizes the escort role, for which light beam cannons aren't all that useful. There's also the fact that the SVas is quite big and power-hungry for a light beam cannon, so it's mostly used on destroyers as a secondary weapon. It's closer to the TerSlash than it is to the SGreen and SBlue.
But isn't all that beam-tech info you give there completely out of the window, when the Vasudans have completely reinvented and redefined the role and workings of their new beam cannons post-Capella?
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Not really. The only place the SVas is found in all of FS2 is on the Hatshepsut. They don't use it at all on either of their two cruisers, one of which is new. It's in stark contrast to Terran cruisers. I mean, even the Fenris has a beam cannon, and the Aeolus has two. They're horrible weapons, but they're there. The SVas is used the same way the TerSlash is used on the Orion.
And by WiH, the Vasudans haven't overhauled their beam cannon arsenal anywhere near as much as the Terrans have theirs. The BVas, SVas and VSlash still constitute the vast majority of their anticap beam arsenal. Now, the Vasudan probably could put SVas on their new cruisers, but would they? They don't use their cruisers in a way that makes them all that necessary.
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Pairing up ships of a new generation of corvette would make for a devastating node denial system while making for a flexible and durable platform.
That does have the potential to go *horribly* wrong though - see WWII "Fast Battleships", like the HMS Hood. Could you train enough crew for that to be viable? The Tev philosophy in BP is to haemorrhage pilots, but would the Vasudans go in for the same?
Crew training is always a factor regardless of tactical and strategic doctrine. The main issue with node denial is the need for advanced intelligence of an impending assault, in the case of a new Shivan offensive you will likely not have this in the first system(s) attacked so you still need tactics probably revolving around an attack orientated defense given the likelihood that your ships are forward focused in their firepower.
Also Node denial while having parallels in naval combat the timescale demonstrated is much faster with most ship types at best firing off 1 or 2 volleys from the main armament before going down or jumping out which is rarely enough to level a warship in a single encounter and if your ship is too badly damaged then you should have the opportunity to withdraw
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And by WiH, the Vasudans haven't overhauled their beam cannon arsenal anywhere near as much as the Terrans have theirs. The BVas, SVas and VSlash still constitute the vast majority of their anticap beam arsenal.
Citation needed. As someone with a BP badge, you might have info that we don't, however us players haven't seen any of the new Vasudan warships, nor have much information on them (as far as I know). All we know is that older warships and their logistics ship are fitted with pulse weapons and energy flak, which I don't think allows us to draw conclusions regarding the Vasudan's current beam tech & doctrine.
That being said, it makes a good amount of sense. I think the FS2 era zod beams are amazing, and I can see them choosing to create ships that carry as many beams as their Terran counterparts rather than inventing a whole new beam system.
Fun FREDing exercice: replacing TerSlash & TerSlashBlue with VSlash on Terran corvettes. Alright, time to break out the ol' spreadsheet:
TerSlash damage per salvo: 4,116.00
TerSlashBlue: 5,747.70 (1.4 * TerSlash)
VSlash: 8,820.00 (2.14 * TerSlash & 1.53 * TerSlashBlue)
Alright, time to open up FRED & see how the beam switchero goes :)
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Not equivalent weapons, clearly. Both the Terran beams are generally carried by corvettes in a set of four, SVas in a pair. Its like comparing the two engines of an F-15 with the single engine of an F-16. Clearly the TerSlash in the way it is typically deployed has just slightly under equivalent damage (in so far as such things in BP are hard numbers) compared to the SVas and the TerSlashBlue outperforms it by nearly half as much again.
I see no reason not to assume that if in fact Aesaar is correct, these weapons are mounted in the same platforms as in FS2 - the Vasudan fleet might still be made up mostly of Sobeks and Hatshepsuts. Their newest warships could well mount hitherto unseen beam weapons.
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And by WiH, the Vasudans haven't overhauled their beam cannon arsenal anywhere near as much as the Terrans have theirs. The BVas, SVas and VSlash still constitute the vast majority of their anticap beam arsenal.
Citation needed. As someone with a BP badge, you might have info that we don't, however us players haven't seen any of the new Vasudan warships, nor have much information on them (as far as I know). All we know is that older warships and their logistics ship are fitted with pulse weapons and energy flak, which I don't think allows us to draw conclusions regarding the Vasudan's current beam tech & doctrine.
That being said, it makes a good amount of sense. I think the FS2 era zod beams are amazing, and I can see them choosing to create ships that carry as many beams as their Terran counterparts rather than inventing a whole new beam system.
Fun FREDing exercice: replacing TerSlash & TerSlashBlue with VSlash on Terran corvettes. Alright, time to break out the ol' spreadsheet:
TerSlash damage per salvo: 4,116.00
TerSlashBlue: 5,747.70 (1.4 * TerSlash)
VSlash: 8,820.00 (2.14 * TerSlash & 1.53 * TerSlashBlue)
Alright, time to open up FRED & see how the beam switchero goes :)
That is what I tried to say, you worded it a lot better than I did. Also, FRED armanent probably means little, if the team simply didn't overhaul or add the new Vasudan ships and equipment yet simply because they weren't needed yet.
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Esarai's Emperor and Phoenix Rising models look very good with Vasudanized textures.
I think I saw a phoenix rising in one of the vids used as logistic ship...
No, it was rescaled Tanen carrier.
As for new vasudan fleet from Esarai's ships, I was thinking about Emperor as vasudan destroyer/battleship as well. I hope that texture work is not just simply recolor of existing textures, as it would not be enough. Maybe some screenshots :D?
No way, this is never a rescaled Tanen, the old logistics ship, yes, but that, nope^^
Somethings wrong on my end, but theres the vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpA8XmMAS9k
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Esarai's Emperor and Phoenix Rising models look very good with Vasudanized textures.
I think I saw a phoenix rising in one of the vids used as logistic ship...
No, it was rescaled Tanen carrier.
As for new vasudan fleet from Esarai's ships, I was thinking about Emperor as vasudan destroyer/battleship as well. I hope that texture work is not just simply recolor of existing textures, as it would not be enough. Maybe some screenshots :D?
No way, this is never a rescaled Tanen, the old logistics ship, yes, but that, nope^^
Somethings wrong on my end, but theres the vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpA8XmMAS9k
It must be some new, refreshed version of outro cutscene. I remember they used rescaled Tanen carrier with less amount of turrets as logistics ship and it was present in the outro.
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Emperor - This is new vasudan vessel present here. Tanen was either removed or there is completly different fleet present here. The ship present here is probably new vasudan destroyer.
I can't wait to see it in action :D
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That does have the potential to go *horribly* wrong though - see WWII "Fast Battleships", like the HMS Hood. Could you train enough crew for that to be viable? The Tev philosophy in BP is to haemorrhage pilots, but would the Vasudans go in for the same?
Haven't the Vasudans always been losing pilots ? Their fighters are the ones to die first in my experience.
Only because the AI can't fly :P Although, with anti-fighter beams around Vasudan ships are a liabity.
I can also see glass-cannon capital ships spending a lot of time in drydock each time they get beat up. Node denial to me means slow (tough) ships with very directional firepower that can jump rapidly, most of which doesn't sound very "Vasudan". Although I think like a human which doesn't help XD
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Node denial can be thought of as a wall of pikemen defending a pass, supported by archers/artillery +/- fast light cavalry for flanks.
So we may be seeing flak-heavy artillery/ssm corvettes supported by strike bombers.
If that's the direction that we'll be taking, of course.
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Node denial can be thought of as a wall of pikemen defending a pass, supported by archers/artillery +/- fast light cavalry for flanks.
So we may be seeing flak-heavy artillery/ssm corvettes supported by strike bombers.
If that's the direction that we'll be taking, of course.
They could also use Meson Bombs as backup. if the node is overrun they can jump in a bomb remotely and detonate it. Even if they jump off target the blast zone is pretty big. Meson Bombs might be expensive but they were able to make 14 meson bombs for use in the Bastion and Neirid to blow up the nodes, so it does not take very long to construct them.
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That does have the potential to go *horribly* wrong though - see WWII "Fast Battleships", like the HMS Hood. Could you train enough crew for that to be viable? The Tev philosophy in BP is to haemorrhage pilots, but would the Vasudans go in for the same?
"Fast Battleships" were mostly remodeled WWI battlecruisers. The old paradigm was deemed a dead end and the new paradigm never really had the chance to develop since it was immediately rendered obsolete by air power. The Kongou-class fared quite well in the Pacific though, certainly more than proper "battleships" like the Yamato...
The closest thing in BP is probably the Hecate, of which class one is fittingly named the Hood.
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I thought there was a distinct difference between BattleCruisers (e.g. HMS Hood) and Fast Battleships (e.g. Queen Elizabeth & Iowa classes). i.e. unlike battlecruisers, fast battleships didn't sacrifice armour or armament in order to achieve their speed.
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I read that by WW2 Hood had been rearmoured and refurbished to the point where she was pretty much equivalent to a fast battleship.
EDIT: as qwadtep noted, they were upgraded battle cruisers
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I think it was up-armoured after design but before completion in many ways *except* for deck armour. It also appears there's some debate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood_%2851%29#Battlecruiser_or_fast_battleship) about the designation. The same page also says that the Hood missed out on planned-for-1941 upgrades which had been applied to other ships, I presume these would have included increased deck armour.
I guess I need to review all the fast battleships/battlecruisers, in retrospect my point was that there were several significant classes of ship originally designed as fast battleships. I don't actually know if the number is significant enough such that the statement that "most" were upgraded battlecruisers is incorrect or not.
/pedant
/offtopic
(sorry!)
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I guess I need to review all the fast battleships/battlecruisers,
Actually that probably also applies in my case. Thank for the extra information, pedantry is a good thing!
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Is speed really that necessary? All cap ships are moving at 20-35 but mostly rely on their FTL drives to go anywhere far.
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I think it was up-armoured after design but before completion in many ways *except* for deck armour. It also appears there's some debate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood_%2851%29#Battlecruiser_or_fast_battleship) about the designation. The same page also says that the Hood missed out on planned-for-1941 upgrades which had been applied to other ships, I presume these would have included increased deck armour.
I guess I need to review all the fast battleships/battlecruisers, in retrospect my point was that there were several significant classes of ship originally designed as fast battleships. I don't actually know if the number is significant enough such that the statement that "most" were upgraded battlecruisers is incorrect or not.
/pedant
/offtopic
(sorry!)
I believe reading up on the subject a deck armour upgrade was part of the planned refit.
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Is speed really that necessary? All cap ships are moving at 20-35 but mostly rely on their FTL drives to go anywhere far.
It is. Imagine a GTVA ship just shy of their beam-range to a Narayana. If the Nara has the same or better speed it can just stay ahead of the GTVA chaser and whittle it to death with toprs. If the GTVA ship is faster, it'll close into beam-range and gut the UEF ship.
Granted, this isn't a siguation that will happen often in Sol's sub-space chess setting, but speed still matters. Even sprint drives can only take you so far before needing recharge.
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I guess I need to review all the fast battleships/battlecruisers,
Actually that probably also applies in my case. Thank for the extra information, pedantry is a good thing!
Absolutely! This is what I get for leaving my books a hundred miles away -.-
I'd be interested to see the changes in anti-strikecraft armament too, and whether the blobs have been phased out entirely. Do you think Vasudan ship design will have been influenced by the Sol conflict or be focussed around combatting the Shivans?
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A world without blobs is dark and full of bombs, at least until pulseguns are accurate.
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indeed blobs are your best defense against warheads
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Really? I'd have thought flak and AAAf beams would be more effective.
I have way too much time and ran tests using a Deimos, just by removing the weapons I didn't want. 4 Taurvi bombers were loaded with 4 Shivan Bombs each and entered the mission area after 5 seconds.
I ran the test with no weapons, all weapons, only blobs, only flak, and only beams. With no weapons, the Deimos went down in 2-3 minutes. With blobs it got about a minute more life, with flak the corvette was damaged and a number of bombers were destroyed after all bombs were launched. With beams after all bombs were launched the Deimos was almost destroyed. With all its guns the Deimos mauled the bombers in around four minutes, and lost half its hull.
I ran these tests a couple of times and there was a fair amount of variance, but I'd still take more flak and beams over blobs (An increase proportional to the number of blobs removed).
The issues I can think of with this testing include using AI pilots which didn't always perform exactly the same manoeuvres, and the different numbers and positions of turrets on the Deimos. I didn't want to set all the turrets to one weapon to retain some semblance of weapon balance - a shipful of AAAf beams would obviously be lethal.
Yay... Pulseguns... I hate those things :P
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iirc flack shockwaves have no effect on bombs so would need to be an impact to kill it.
Beams are overkill for bombs and can only kill 3 bombs tops per burst with a long delay between bursts, enough to allow the rest of the strike trough
Pulse blobs would be the ultimate
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I read that by WW2 Hood had been rearmoured and refurbished to the point where she was pretty much equivalent to a fast battleship.
EDIT: as qwadtep noted, they were upgraded battle cruisers
But the Iowas are fast-battleships or not?
I can't imagine that the Zods would change the loadout of their ships just because of the civil war in Sol.
With node denial, protection against bomberhosts is of the most importance for them.
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Battleships (as opposed to battlecruisers) were often defined as having sufficient armor to protect themselves from their own guns. While the Hood was barely sufficient in this regard, it became massively outclassed by late interwar and early WW2 era battleships (as the Battle of the Denmark Strait showed). The Brits knew the Hood was relatively lightly protected, and always classified it as a battlecruiser and assigned it to battlecruiser squadrons.
I can't speak to the classification of "fast battleship" in WW1 or the interwar period. But by WW2 a fast battleship was one that could keep up with carriers. That made them useful in task forces that were destroying other warships, not just shore bombardment and convoys. The Iowa and Bismarck classes would both qualify, even if the Germans didn't use carriers.
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iirc flack shockwaves have no effect on bombs so would need to be an impact to kill it.
Beams are overkill for bombs and can only kill 3 bombs tops per burst with a long delay between bursts, enough to allow the rest of the strike trough
Pulse blobs would be the ultimate
After turning the difficulty up, yup, I agree with you, blobs are pretty good point defence weapons... Though the RoF and projectile speed of flak still makes it useful.
The Hood was destroyed by a magazine explosion, which feels faintly ironic considering Rheavatarin's comment about the definition of a battleship
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Is speed really that necessary? All cap ships are moving at 20-35 but mostly rely on their FTL drives to go anywhere far.
It is. Imagine a GTVA ship just shy of their beam-range to a Narayana. If the Nara has the same or better speed it can just stay ahead of the GTVA chaser and whittle it to death with toprs. If the GTVA ship is faster, it'll close into beam-range and gut the UEF ship.
Granted, this isn't a siguation that will happen often in Sol's sub-space chess setting, but speed still matters. Even sprint drives can only take you so far before needing recharge.
The fast battleship philosophy applies to subspace as well. A task force's mobility is only as good as that of its slowest ship; see the drawing-out and isolation of the Orestes and Temeraire.
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Your test is getting results with flak because you only have one wing of bombers. After multiple waves of bombers, the corvette will be in better shape with a combination of anti-fighter (beam and/or flak/pulse gun) and anti-warhead (blob) weapons.
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I also didn't have the difficulty turned up high enough to boost the refire rate of the blobs. But yeah, a balanced weapon set would work best, though if I were a zod I'd work on blob projectile speed.
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iirc flack shockwaves have no effect on bombs so would need to be an impact to kill it.
Beams are overkill for bombs and can only kill 3 bombs tops per burst with a long delay between bursts, enough to allow the rest of the strike trough
Do note that shockwave and blast damage are different. Weapons can be tabled to take/do blast and/or shockwave damage.
So basically you can have flak that deals blast damage to bombs, not requiring direct hit. You can also have a beam that does blast damage on impact that can kill multiple bombs in single hit. Both weapons would make blobs against bombs redundant and inferior.
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If my memory doesn´t play tricks on me in "Deals in shadows" we see a refurbished Hatshepsut with VasPulse (= red pulses). So the Vasudans also have upgraded their capships.
Also we don´t know what progress they have made in terms of fighter development.
So almost everything about the performance of the Vasudan fleet are speculations based on what we know of their Capella-era fleet and the few ships we saw in WiH.
Based on the technological superiority of the Vasudans my personal assumption is that they also developed a new set of beam and pulse weapons which are at least on par with the blue beams and fit (at least the pulse weapons) into the older ships. Also I think that they strange up their fighter wings with new designs.
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Isn't the Vasudan focus on "node-denial" basically turtling?
That worked out so well for France in 1940.
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If its possible for the Shivans to use unstable nodes to bypass a blockade then yes, node-denial could be fundamentally flawed. If not then it seems like a reasonable tactic since (unlike the French in 1940) you can't really be outflanked, everyone has to come through the node.
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Even unstable nodes are known quantities. The GTVA may not be able to use them, but thes definitely know about their presence. Detailing a few ships to blockade them once you know that the Shivans are on the move again should not be too hard.
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Isn't the Vasudan focus on "node-denial" basically turtling?
That worked out so well for France in 1940.
France almost stopped germany, they just had horrible communication screw ups and poor leadership, the Maginot line worked as planned until they forgot to counterattack properly.
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If its possible for the Shivans to use unstable nodes to bypass a blockade then yes, node-denial could be fundamentally flawed. If not then it seems like a reasonable tactic since (unlike the French in 1940) you can't really be outflanked, everyone has to come through the node.
Even unstable nodes are known quantities. The GTVA may not be able to use them, but thes definitely know about their presence. Detailing a few ships to blockade them once you know that the Shivans are on the move again should not be too hard.
I'd imagine that a node-denial design would necessitate heavy armor and heft to have the endurance to last an engagement. I'm not sure how it works in FS2, but I'd imagine that this would impose restrictions on subspace maneuverability if not certainly impact real-space maneuverability. The end result is that you have a fleet that is very good at holding down nodes, but can't respond very quickly to contingencies elsewhere.
Additionally, if a node blockade force is lost at one of those uncharted nodes, Shivans will spill into the system en masse. A defensive Vasudan force isn't going to be able to quickly engage and put up much of an offensive fight - unless they can get Tev ships to quickly jump in and mount alpha-strike shock jump attacks (Eg. Bellerophon, Chimera, Titan etc). And with relations between the Vasudans and the Tevs deteriorating and the Medjai pretty much doing their own thing, coordination is going to be very difficult.
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Honestly, my node denial strategy would use relatively lighter combatants who have a heavy throw weight and high real-space speed and maneuverability. Put them in groups outside beam range from the node. As the Shivans jump in, have any groups in their path withdraw and bring in the other groups to hit their backside. Back up the corvettes and/or cruisers with a CAP from dedicated strikecraft platforms even further back. Use bombers to drop anything left and cover the ships back to their starting locations.
That has the advantage of not requiring heavy combatants that are expensive, and limited in quantity. I think you have to accept that the Shivans or Vishnans could destroy any one ship they can range on. So, you don't put your destroyers in the most vulnerable place: right in front of a node that a juggernaut has just jumped to. Use your destroyers to fight a running battle through real-space once the node has been breached where they can use their relative strengths to best effect.
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Node denial could be essentially achieved with multiple ships combined with Mjolnir emplacements. Nothing bigger than a corvette would be needed to do the job, but of course you would just need fleets to do it. So basically what Rheavatarin has said.
The real question is, how many ships/emplacements is it going to take to effectively destroy a Sathanas within a minute of exiting the node? In fact... has anyone FREDded this to find out?
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you would need something more capable than Mjolnir to deal with a Sath scale threat. here is something, that about a Mjolnir that fires an anti subsystem beam designed to target engines and key weapon systems such as the arms of a Sath, how would that work for containing a juggernaut?
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So, we know that incoming ships are fast... what would do the job would be amassed ships featuring long range beam cannons.
They would wait just behind the jump horizon and the moment a shivan ship jumps in they would go all hell...
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We don't know much about Shivan jump-capabilities, but considering their mastery of unstable nodes, how they blew up a sun using subspace and how advanced they are in technology in general, I'd say it's almost a given that they have something equivalent (or even better) than sprint-drives and thus could make a second jump right after arriving if they chose to.
If that's the case you need something to block them from immediately jumping out again, so only having your defenses on the flanks and behind the jump-in corridor could well be insufficient. No matter how much fire-power the GTVA can mass at a node, there's no way they can bring a Sath (or it's engines) down in a couple of seconds.
Of course it'd be much better to have something cheap and easily replaceable as a blockade than a high-value destroyer. In real life I'd suggest towing a couple of asteroids into position so that incoming ships would have to manouver around them before being able to jump deeper into the system, but with the fragility of asteroids in FS that won't do.
Maybe a dedicated "tank-ship" that's just heavy armour and engines or better yet a very big slab of armour that it towed into position. That way they wouldn't lose any crew once it is blown up.
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So some sort of meson bomb minefield?
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You can't tank a Sathanas. Hell, you can barely tank a Ravana. The most effective defense against Shivan beams is to avoid them entirely. You can kinda see how much of a challenge this is for the GTVA to deal with, given that the Shivans invented the shock jump.
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Against a Sathanas I would suggest grabbing an old ship, removing all the explosive bits and using it as a decoy. Hopefully if its nothing but cheap engines and scrap metal it wont explode into little bits after the first volley while two dozen and a Corvette hammer at the sides of the Jug.
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You can't tank a Sathanas. Hell, you can barely tank a Ravana. The most effective defense against Shivan beams is to avoid them entirely. You can kinda see how much on a challenge this is for the GTVA to deal with, given that the Shivans invented the shock jump.
It's not meant to actually "tank" it or even to survive. It's only meant to be in the way and prevent the Shivans from immediately jumping out again. A cheap, throw-away stop-gap to slow the Shivans long enough for the actual defenders to do their work. Just a big blob or wall of high density material either towed around by freighters or with some minimal engine capability and remote controll would be enough.
Actually the towed variant seems best. Without any systems, fuel or reactors it can't explode. Sure the Shivans can riddle it with holes, but it'll still be in the way and prevent them from jumping out until the Shivans have managed to manouver around it or at least turn into a different direction.
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But what would it actually take to bring a Sathanas down very quickly in terms of using ships?
Are we talking 20 corvettes and cruisers? 10 destroyers?
Has anyone actually found out by FREDding it ?
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But what would it actually take to bring a Sathanas down very quickly in terms of using ships?
Are we talking 20 corvettes and cruisers? 10 destroyers?
Has anyone actually found out by FREDding it ?
There's this:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=85350.msg1706688#msg1706688
You could mess around with FRED changing the ships.
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How strong is it against a Meson bomb explosion?
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You can't tank a Sathanas. Hell, you can barely tank a Ravana. The most effective defense against Shivan beams is to avoid them entirely. You can kinda see how much on a challenge this is for the GTVA to deal with, given that the Shivans invented the shock jump.
It's not meant to actually "tank" it or even to survive. It's only meant to be in the way and prevent the Shivans from immediately jumping out again. A cheap, throw-away stop-gap to slow the Shivans long enough for the actual defenders to do their work. Just a big blob or wall of high density material either towed around by freighters or with some minimal engine capability and remote controll would be enough.
Actually the towed variant seems best. Without any systems, fuel or reactors it can't explode. Sure the Shivans can riddle it with holes, but it'll still be in the way and prevent them from jumping out until the Shivans have managed to manouver around it or at least turn into a different direction.
Any block big enough to stop a Sathanas (or even a Ravana) from jumping would be better used building a destroyer or something like that.
Why do you assume this would stop a Sathanas from jumping? Ramming doesn't work in FS/BP, so I'm not entirely sure why you'd expect a blob of metal to stop a Sathanas when an entire Orion barely did any damage to the Colossus. More likely the Sathanas would jump anyway, and either drag the blob of metal with it or just knock it out of the way.
The materials of any constructed object big and massive enough to stop a Sathanas (or even a Ravana) would be better used building ships. And I doubt it'd even be possible to get a big enough asteroid into position before the node moved.
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Thanks for that Lorric... that is an excellent frame of reference and has pretty muched answered the question.
If 50 Hippocrates can take down a Sathanas then 20 Corvettes should not have a problem, especially with those front mounted beams. Focused fire on the engines should stop it jumping as well!
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You're welcome. :)
I'd be interested to know the results if anyone decides to run tests.
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Thanks for that Lorric... that is an excellent frame of reference and has pretty muched answered the question.
If 50 Hippocrates can take down a Sathanas then 20 Corvettes should not have a problem, especially with those front mounted beams. Focused fire on the engines should stop it jumping as well!
That sure sounds like a bit much. I doubt the GTVA has more than twice that amount considering how tiny their fleets are.
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In BP2 the Tevs seem to run about 15-20 corvettes per battle group, of those around six seem to be next generation combatants and the rest Deimos class.
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A quick skimming of this (http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blue_Planet_Orders_of_Battle) shows the Tevs (just the Tevs) with 35 destroyers. We don't see quite 15-20 corvettes per battle group, but then, the list is also incomplete; at the very least, it's a safe bet that there are many more corvettes than destroyers.
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I just realized I brain farted. What we do know is that the 15th battlegroup, as of the beginning of WiH has confirmed 7 next generation corvettes, 3 Deimos, and 4 cruisers. (10 corvettes and 14 light combatants total.) By the end of Act 3 we've seen several additional corvettes and cruisers seemingly also part of the 15th.
By Act 3 its very hard to be sure of the exact number of Tev supporting warships. We don't know how many were rotated out or how many were brought into Sol. Aesthetically though it seems clear that the number is enough for the UEF to worry about. Considering the Tevs relative willingness to throw corvettes at the 'buntu it doesn't seem like they're worried about running out.
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Just throwing it out there: if the Tev doctrine is offensive and focuses on things like shock jumps and subspace mobility, then perhaps the defensive Zod doctrine is working on a means of subspace inhibition?
I could totally see them developing something like a reverse Knossos that causes intense local subspace fluctuations, preventing any ship within the area of effect from being able to calculate a jump solution without the proper compensation algorithm. With invaders unable to jump to an in-system rallying point, the Vasudan fleet would be able to cross the T at the node and hold their position with minimal losses.
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Who knows, maybe the Zod have simply started to develop their own RBCs like the Tevs?
In the end its all about doing as much damage as possible.
Having enough fightercraft to protect the bomber wings so they could defang a Sathanas and you have a realy big piece of armor floating around, same goes for the Ravana.
But if they manage to jump deeper into the system you've got a problem. So it's all about doing as much damage or disabling key weapon systems at the node and hope that dedicated hunter/killer groups can finish them of.
But if a Sathanas desides to do on of its amazing turn abouts after slowing down... as before, it is all about timing...
Subspace inhibitors... same like using ECM regarding TEV beams, who knows if it is possible to scramble shivan beam weaponry and navigational data the same way.
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Trying to scrutinize Shivan strategy and technology is inevitably fraught. However, given that the GTVA has sprint drive capability, we have to assume that it is possible Shivans do as well. A better question might be if either the GTVA or Shivans can make an immediate non-crash jump after transiting an interstellar jump point. If so, then a node-denial strategy is useless. You would be better off dropping enough mines that you could walk across the node and keep your ships available for shock jumps of their own once Shivan targets have been identified.
The Vasudans clearly think that node-denial is viable. This implies one of several possibilities.
(1) They can deliver sufficient firepower to cripple a juggernaut and its supporting fleet before a sprint drive cycles. And then do it again and again until a meson bomb can destroy the node.
(2) They have a way to stop a sprint drive from cycling.
(3) They believe that calculated jumps with a sprint drive are impossible after a jump through a node.
Possibility (1) would involve incredible amounts of destructive force against unlimited waves of Shivans. Number (2) would be technology that we've been led to believe is non-canonical. Number (3) might be reasonable, but requires us knowing more about fictional physics and intelligence reports than we have access to.
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Just throwing it out there: if the Tev doctrine is offensive and focuses on things like shock jumps and subspace mobility, then perhaps the defensive Zod doctrine is working on a means of subspace inhibition?
I could totally see them developing something like a reverse Knossos that causes intense local subspace fluctuations, preventing any ship within the area of effect from being able to calculate a jump solution without the proper compensation algorithm. With invaders unable to jump to an in-system rallying point, the Vasudan fleet would be able to cross the T at the node and hold their position with minimal losses.
I like this idea - this also explains the limited involvement of Vasudans in Sol theater - not lack of politial will (they are obviously interested in ending this war as fast as possible and gaining Sol economy to boost GTVA capabilities), but the actual lack of expeditionary capabilitieas far from home systems.
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(2) They have a way to stop a sprint drive from cycling.
Are you thinking of something like an massive size-up of the energy dissipating weapons available for fighters (lamprey and circe), or rather a more specialized version of them that specifically targets the capacitors (or whatever storage device) that charge the jumpdrives?
That's certainly an interesting concept, though probably too overpowered. If they can do that with jumpdrives, it's only a small step to also discharge weapon systems which would make the missions boring.
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Are you thinking of something like an massive size-up of the energy dissipating weapons available for fighters (lamprey and circe), or rather a more specialized version of them that specifically targets the capacitors (or whatever storage device) that charge the jumpdrives?
That's certainly an interesting concept, though probably too overpowered. If they can do that with jumpdrives, it's only a small step to also discharge weapon systems which would make the missions boring.
No, I was thinking something more along the lines of a field generator that prevents a subspace portal from opening. I agree that a massively scaled up version of the Lamprey would be extremely inconvenient for capital ships. But since I can't figure out why it works for fighters, but apparently not for larger ships, I'll just call it what it is. Magic.
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For unstable nodes, I could see a defense strategy in which capital ships run into a minefield upon entering the system, which is in a spherical shape around the node. The outermost portions of the sphere would be made up of high-yield Meson warhead mines, designed to proximity-swarm any large vessels that make it that far, destroyer-class or larger. As you get closer to the center, the minefield increases in density, but the mines reduce in yield. The center would also be equipped with a number of heavy defense sentries mounting a number of rapid fire pulse weapons and AAA beams. The outer portions of the minefield would also include a number of self-orienting RBCs.
This defense strategy assumes that unstable nodes would not be used for unannounced, massive incursions. The first incursions from such a node would likely be in the form of fighter scouts, and perhaps a cruiser, as in the initial Capella incursion. The heavy anti-fighter emplacements tries to rapidly take out any arrivals before they can move on, and the close-range minefield is tightly packed enough that an arriving cruiser would plow right into it and be destroyed. Even if they don't get completely destroyed upon arrival, the RBCs would finish the job. Arriving corvettes would run into the same problem as the cruisers, but they won't be taken out by the lighter mines that take out the cruisers. As corvettes cover a larger distance upon arriving from subspace, that would put them into the next outer shell of heavier mines that would do the job. The next outer shell of mines would be enough to inflict similar heavy damage to destroyer class, while the final outer shell would he the meson mines to inflict crippling damage to a Sath. While this may not be able to stop an entire fleet, it would at least be able to slow one down until mobile forces can be brought in. This also may not work if a node is continuously moving around.
As for general use nodes, mines would of course be out of the question. A large scale fleet blockade would be needed, backed up by RBCs, and a form of rapid response firepower team. In the event of a full-scale invasion however, all of these defenses would be intended to hold the line until a specialized node-collapse ship can be deployed to seal the node.
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For unstable nodes, I could see a defense strategy in which capital ships run into a minefield upon entering the system, which is in a spherical shape around the node. The outermost portions of the sphere would be made up of high-yield Meson warhead mines, designed to proximity-swarm any large vessels that make it that far, destroyer-class or larger. As you get closer to the center, the minefield increases in density, but the mines reduce in yield. The center would also be equipped with a number of heavy defense sentries mounting a number of rapid fire pulse weapons and AAA beams. The outer portions of the minefield would also include a number of self-orienting RBCs.
This defense strategy assumes that unstable nodes would not be used for unannounced, massive incursions. The first incursions from such a node would likely be in the form of fighter scouts, and perhaps a cruiser, as in the initial Capella incursion. The heavy anti-fighter emplacements tries to rapidly take out any arrivals before they can move on, and the close-range minefield is tightly packed enough that an arriving cruiser would plow right into it and be destroyed. Even if they don't get completely destroyed upon arrival, the RBCs would finish the job. Arriving corvettes would run into the same problem as the cruisers, but they won't be taken out by the lighter mines that take out the cruisers. As corvettes cover a larger distance upon arriving from subspace, that would put them into the next outer shell of heavier mines that would do the job. The next outer shell of mines would be enough to inflict similar heavy damage to destroyer class, while the final outer shell would he the meson mines to inflict crippling damage to a Sath. While this may not be able to stop an entire fleet, it would at least be able to slow one down until mobile forces can be brought in. This also may not work if a node is continuously moving around.
As for general use nodes, mines would of course be out of the question. A large scale fleet blockade would be needed, backed up by RBCs, and a form of rapid response firepower team. In the event of a full-scale invasion however, all of these defenses would be intended to hold the line until a specialized node-collapse ship can be deployed to seal the node.
And then the node moves and your mines are sitting in empty space, accomplishing absolutely nothing.
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You'll note that I DID include a line concerning moving nodes. Perhaps moving or "Phasing" nodes, which is the currently fannon term, recur in the same repeating pattern of spots depending on gravitational interactions. In that case, you could set up a field at each of the repeating zones.
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In BP canon (which I can only presume this discussion is happening in, given that this is the BP subforum), all nodes move around, except ones anchored by a device like the Sol gate. It has been stated that this is why installations aren't parked in front of nodes; if they followed a repeating pattern, that wouldn't really be a problem.
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How does this factor in then:
Dozens of Mjolnir weapons systems have been manufactured and are kept ready to form node blockades.
Several are already deployed at the site of the collapsed Capella node in Vega.
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How does this factor in then:
Dozens of Mjolnir weapons systems have been manufactured and are kept ready to form node blockades.
Several are already deployed at the site of the collapsed Capella node in Vega.
Given that it's a collapsed node, it sounds like a publicity stunt rather than a serious attempt at defending against a third Shivan incursion.
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There's also the fact that a Mjolnir can be moved by a Triton in minutes. A minefield can't be moved that easily.
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So how do unstable nodes work anyway?
Are they impossible to even enter or can you enter them, but are unlikely to ever make it to the other side or somesuch.
If it's the former unstable nodes are a worse danger to the GTVA than stable ones. Stable ones can be severed with a meson-boat, but if you can't get anything into the a node that the Shivans can traverse, you'll be forced just sit there and destroy everything that comes through... or abandoning the entire system and pull back behind the next stable node.
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Is there any information on how quickly nodes move? How long they stay in one place and what causes them to move? Is the movement able to be calculated or predicted?
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My thinking on that matter is that you know when the node will move, but not where, so it takes a little while to reacquire it. Its future location can be calculated, but not to the point where you can just deploy defenses to it ahead of time. More like "it'll reappear within a few thousand kilometers of this area" (which, for space, is amazingly precise). You can figure out where to look for it when it moves, but it'll need to actually move for you to get its exact location.
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Is there any information on how quickly nodes move? How long they stay in one place and what causes them to move? Is the movement able to be calculated or predicted?
Well, we know they don't move within the span of a single mission.
For more details, I took a look in my #bp chatlogs and found some helpful exposition from Battuta (from January of 2014), quoted (mostly) unaltered here:
The nodes don't obey conventional orbital mechanics
Rather, they skip around due to changes in the configuration of mass in the system, but the effect of these changes in mass is epiphenomenal and very difficult to calculate
Leading to uncertainty in forecasts
Remember, ~subspace~ is involved
The model isn't mass~gravity~node position, it's mass~gravity~?????SUBSPACE????~node position
That subspace component is a really thorny and turbulent problem
Belong[ing] to some branch of subspace mathematics that is difficult even in bp time