Poll

The TSJ Icanus, the Terran Superjuggernaut. Am I the only one who thinks that having the Earth Alliance build a ridiculously big superjuggernaut is unrealistic? What do you think?

The Icanus rocks, it shouldn't be touched at all.
9 (52.9%)
Keep it the same, but make the Punisher a bit weaker, so the Gigas has a chance of winning.
2 (11.8%)
Tone it down, make it a little smaller , give it a few less hitpoints and make the armament a little less powerful.
1 (5.9%)
Make the Punisher's damage a little less insane and make the Icanus smaller, less protected and armed.
1 (5.9%)
Get rid of it and make up a better way to kill the Gigas.
3 (17.6%)
Keep it the same, but make it only 50% operational by the time the Gigas arrives.
1 (5.9%)

Total Members Voted: 17

Voting closed: November 06, 2006, 12:14:09 pm

Author Topic: Icanus  (Read 49569 times)

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Offline Snail

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Am I the only one who thinks that the Icanus is a little too powerful and big? Yes? No? What do you think should be done to the Icanus to make it more realistic?

Some of you are probably hard-core EA or Icanus super fans, and are wondering why in the hell the Icanus would even need to be touched in the first place. Here are my reasons for this topic:

  • Is it not unrealistic that a few Terrans trapped in Sol with the massive problem of a civil war would even be able to construct such a destroyer? They may have the resources to build it, with the Asteroid Belt and the Kupier Belt, but still, would they be able to do it in the first place? Woo has said that the parts of the Icanus were created before construction of the Icanus itself had even began. Which leads to the next issue.
  • Why? Why do the EA need such a powerful defensive weapon if the largest threat they have ever encountered was a Lucifer class superdestroyer? They don't even know about the Sathanas class Juggernaut, let alone a 20km monstrosity. Why would the EA even need such a defensive weapon in the first place? The Punisher cannon by itself, perhaps as somesort of planetary defense or bombardment installation, is understandable, since I would also see the need to protect Earth from enemy attack. However, building this 'thing' to carry the Punisher isn't necessary, if you ask me.
  • Linked to the last point, why would the construction of the Icanus be such a high priority if there are other things to do, like terraforming planets for new colonies, or building the Nemesis (which was one of the major blunders for the Icanus in Darius' Icanus Fiction), and more notably, the civil war. If the EA had such a high priority on the Icanus, and diverting so much man power to it, this would probably leave other components of the EA in disarray.
  • How much time would it take to create this thing? If the Colossus, which is 6km, took 20 years to build, that's approximately 3.33 years for a single kilometer. So that would put the Icanus, which is 20km, at 66 years construction time. As far as I know by playing INF:A (the grammar errors are coming, I promise, Woo), the construction of the Icanus had not started for 15 years after the Jump Node collapsed. Taking into account the civil war going on, more man-power would probably be going into the civil war rather than building a giant, mobile planet bombardier that may never even be needed in the first place, would probably take longer since there is less workforce. As pointed out before, the Icanus' components were already created before Alliance, but that still leaves extremely large time constraints on the Icanus' completion (Hey, that's interesting: 2335 + 66 is 2401, which is the time of Inferno, did Woo do the same calculation as me?).
  • The next point is the cost. How much would it cost to build the Icanus? Would the government be willing to pay so much for such a big project that may not even be needed in the first place? Unless at the time the Earth government was a super-dictatorship or a communist state, this is a large problem for the construction of the Terran Superjuggernaut
  • Okay, so we've resolved all of the above points. We now come to the outside. If the Earth can do it, why can't the GTVA do it? After all, the GTVA probably has more manpower, as well as more resources. The GTVA isn't constantly fighting a civil war (but has fought some extremely costly wars as well), and most likely has more reason to make a Superjuggernaut, since they'd need something to counter the Sathanes they encountered before. Perhaps they have created more vessels to combat the Sathanes, like the Apothess, but why wouldn't they be able to create a vessel powerful enough to combat the Gigas?
  • The final point is not in-universe. It is related to gameplay. The Icanus seems like a stupid way of just blowing up the Gigas because we can't think up of anything better to kill it with. I, personally, don't like the collapsing nodes ending, but I also don't like the "Damn, I've created an uber vessel and now I can't kill it. Hey, I'll just make another uber vessel to kill this uber vessel." It's not fun just having the ending that just has the player watching the Icanus vaporize the Gigas. I think that we should make the battle a bit longer and more interesting, like the player must neutralize the Gigas' beam cannons so the Icanus can destroy it. This, granted, may be another damn stupid 'High Noon' scenario, but it's better than just having the Icanus blow the Gigas away in a hands-down I win contest. I, personally, really liked the ending of INF:A, but I think I know what's going to happen in INF:A2, and that is another ubership kills ubership ending.

So, call it the Terra, whatever, the Icanus is overpowered and unrealistic. It is so dominating bomber's can't dent it. What do you think can be done to make the Icanus less superpowerful and all-killing? Or do you think the Icanus is absolutely perfectly wonderful and shouldn't be changed at all.

Yours truly,
Snail. ;)

I hope I don't get burned for this as well...

 

Offline Woomeister

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If I gave the Jotun the ability to destroy the Gigas you would just complain that such a small ship shouldn't be able to do it :p

 

Offline Dysko

Very good points. That's why when I wrote Steadfast's storyline I changed a lot of things about the Icanus/Terra (yes, the one with the "horrible reskin"  :p).

If you are interested in what I decided for the Icanus/Terra, I can send you a PM (as long as Mobius hasn't already revealed you everything...  :D)
« Last Edit: October 27, 2006, 01:42:52 pm by Darth DySkO »
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Offline Snail

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If I gave the Jotun the ability to destroy the Gigas you would just complain that such a small ship shouldn't be able to do it :p

What I think would work is have it destroy the Gigas' subsystems (if it can't, tone them down), and then have the Icanus warp in to finish it off.... :nod:

Very good points. That's why when I wrote Steadfast's storyline I changed a lot of things about the Icanus/Terra (yes, the one with the "horrible reskin"  :p).

The Terra isn't that bad a reskin, it's the Steadfast itself that looks bad. ;)

And Woo, can't you even try to give a few pointers for the list?
« Last Edit: October 27, 2006, 02:04:52 pm by Snail »

 

Offline Woomeister

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What I think would work is have it destroy the Gigas' subsystems (if it can't, tone them down), and then have the Icanus warp in to finish it off.... :nod:
But that's the Icanus destroying it, which you just complained about...

 

Offline Snail

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But it would still give the player something to do rather than just having him sit there thinking, "Hey cool, it's High Noon Mark II!"

 

Offline Woomeister

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Oh you will have something to do, unless you want to watch pretty fire works :D

 

Offline Dysko

The Terra isn't that bad a reskin, it's the Steadfast itself that looks bad. ;)
Well... I'd say that I too don't like the Steadfast reskin too much, but it makes it more GTVA.

Ops... this is a public forum! :nervous:

*runs away from Mobius' fury*
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Offline Snail

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Oh you will have something to do, unless you want to watch pretty fire works :D

Of the Icanus going boom?

 

Offline Woomeister

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I'm not going to say :p

 
About why the EA needed/wanted to build the Icanus:

I thought the EA was a militaristic, expansionist type of government. And that they developed the Punisher cannon to bombard worlds with. You seem to start from the premise that the Icanus/Punisher Cannon is a defensive weapon. I think it's geared with offense in mind. Think: a planetary-bombardment beam would be one hell of an incentive to submit to the EA. Of course, factor in the problem that such a big cannon isn't very portable... probably couldn't move it at all on its own. So: the Icanus project makes more sense in that all it really is a Punisher-cannon transport that they decided to turn into a warship of its own.

Also: time-constraints. Even if they didn't start until later than 2335 to begin construction (who knows? Maybe construction could have begun while the Great War was going on?), the way the story of the Icanus tells it, it sounds as though the Punisher was already built or close-to-being-built when Project Icanus was approved. That's at least a third of the construction time done right there. Furthermore: since the EA didn't sortie the Icanus during the EA-GTVA war in 2401, I think it safe to assume that it wasn't built by that point. In order to fight the Gigas later on, it would of course have been extremely close to being built, but not quite functional.

As for manpower: robots. Enough said.  :p (j/k)
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Offline Darius

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I'm hoping for a scenario where the Icanus was rushed into service in desperation since it was clear that no other EA/GTVA vessel could stand up to the task of stopping the Gigas. If that was the case, then the Icanus would only be 50% or even 20% functional, with only the Punisher cannon (barely) working.

If that was the case, the player's wing could serve an interception role, where the goal is to intercept Shivan bomber wings trying to take out the Punisher before the Icanus gets into range. I don't know what the Punisher % hit points are, but surely a few of the largest warheads should pose a danger to it.

 

Offline Woomeister

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The Icanus main cannon can be taken out by the Durja or Vindhyachal bombers using the Shivans best warheads. So it is possible to do it that way.

 

Offline Snail

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I thought the EA was a militaristic, expansionist type of government. And that they developed the Punisher cannon to bombard worlds with. You seem to start from the premise that the Icanus/Punisher Cannon is a defensive weapon. I think it's geared with offense in mind. Think: a planetary-bombardment beam would be one hell of an incentive to submit to the EA. Of course, factor in the problem that such a big cannon isn't very portable... probably couldn't move it at all on its own. So: the Icanus project makes more sense in that all it really is a Punisher-cannon transport that they decided to turn into a warship of its own.

We will probably find out if the EA are expansionist and militaristic type of government in INFA2, but from what we know right now, from INFA1 and INFR1 (and the storyline of course of INF SCP), we can tell that they are an aggressive society. I admit that I did have some oversight in that perspective. However, the men who had approved the Icanus in the first place probably calculated how long it would take, and not even thinking about what would happen if there was sabotage. They probably calculated that it would be finished after the civil war, and however wins, the Icanus probably won't be used anyway. So that leaves the Icanus as a foolish choice, I personally wouldn't choose to have the Icanus commissioned. But perhaps they were preparing for the future when the GTVA would return to Sol.

You can tell from Darius' Icanus Fiction (non-canon, of course) and from Aldo's modeldump (where I believe it was recovered) that the Icanus and Punisher were originally separate designs. This probably supports your theory that the Icanus was an offensive weapon designed to carry the Punisher, or that the Punisher was originally a massive RBC (yeah, massive) that was integrated into the Icanus' design.

Also: time-constraints. Even if they didn't start until later than 2335 to begin construction (who knows? Maybe construction could have begun while the Great War was going on?), the way the story of the Icanus tells it, it sounds as though the Punisher was already built or close-to-being-built when Project Icanus was approved. That's at least a third of the construction time done right there. Furthermore: since the EA didn't sortie the Icanus during the EA-GTVA war in 2401, I think it safe to assume that it wasn't built by that point. In order to fight the Gigas later on, it would of course have been extremely close to being built, but not quite functional.

<snip>NO INFA SPOILERS PLEASE</snip>
It is also impossible the Icanus was created during the Great War or INFA because that would make the Icanus a Martian design (it is also clearly stated the Atlantis station was above Mars), which it wasn't. If it was a Martian design, the Earthers would have probably attempted an attack on the shipyards. Another pointer is the the Icanus uses EA textures rather than the INFA Fenris-style textures. So that would probably mean the Icanus was conceived after INFA, but parts of it were already constructed, or judging from Darius' Icanus fiction, after the formation of the EA, but that isn't INF canon so it's nothing to really go by.

And the 66 years thing was also unrealistic. The Colossus was only 1327 by 2204 by 6117, while the Icanus was  7109 by 5061 by 19367. That's already approximately six times wider, more than twice as high and three times longer than the Colossus.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2006, 07:57:56 am by Woomeister »

 

Offline Snail

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Oh, ****, ****, sorry, Woo. :(

:nervous:

 

Offline asyikarea51

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[other hand occupied]would ea even know about gtva or rbc's in the first place? =X[/other hand occupied]
Inferno plz
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Offline Snail

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Um... No? I was just saying the Punisher was an Earth version of a massive-uber scale sized RBC.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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And the 66 years thing was also unrealistic. The Colossus was only 1327 by 2204 by 6117, while the Icanus was  7109 by 5061 by 19367. That's already approximately six times wider, more than twice as high and three times longer than the Colossus.

Size is not the only determinative factor. Number of people, degree of complication, number of times it's specs are revised...sixty-six years and it must be a nightmare for the poor systems integration guys. It almost certainly had most of the stuff inside torn out and replaced at least once.

Regardless, the Icanus was, presumably, designed to handle a second Shivan attack on Sol singlehanded. Viewing it as an investment by the EA in itself is, perforce, the wrong choice. It was the EA's investment in the survival of humanity. Whoever won the civil war would have the means to defend Sol against a second (and third, and fourth, and a few more for good measure) Lucifer. It actually shows remarkable farsightedness.
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Offline Snail

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The Icanus is waayyyyy to powerful. I mean, if they can build that why not build a few hundred Nemesises (someone tell me the real plural please)? That would do the same job as the Icanus... (I hope someone doesn't come up with some equation saying that all the firepower of all the Nemesis' turrets combined only does 0.001% of the damage the USilv does :doubt:).

 

Offline Woomeister

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The Icanus is waayyyyy to powerful.
I can make it less powerful than the fenris if you like...