[NGTM-1R]

Defection

Only one fleet defected wholesale, but we know the NTF had a minimum of four Orions that we ourselves actually know were destroyed. There were almost certainly others as well. Mass defections on that scale is extremely improbable. The war didn't last long enough for them to be putting large numbers of brand-new ships into service. No, the NTF fleet was most likely born in somebody's boneyards.

[headdie]

I do believe there was at least one major shipyard in NTF space so capture and continuing production of anything in production would provide a source for ships.

as for supply depots i dont think that would be a good source for anything other than spare parts with the NTF mobilizing everything they had for the push into the nebula

[IronForge]

I remember flying quite 'good' fighters in custom missions where I am a merc. And there was a demios class corvette escorting the convoy. Forgot the name.

[headdie]

I remember flying quite 'good' fighters in custom missions where I am a merc. And there was a demios class corvette escorting the convoy. Forgot the name.

sounds like the start of sync,

if so there is a pilot in your flight *****ing about some other mercs flying myrmidons escorting an arms dealer

[Commander Zane]

I remember flying quite 'good' fighters in custom missions where I am a merc. And there was a demios class corvette escorting the convoy. Forgot the name.

sounds like the start of sync,

if so there is a pilot in your flight *****ing about some other mercs flying myrmidons escorting an arms dealer

That's Homesick actually.

Perhaps there should be a Freespace: Privateer.   

God no.

[Woolie Wool]

Ammunition is generally pretty cheap to make and can be manufactured in massive quantities. If the Avenger is an electromagnetic weapon (which it might be as it uses energy), its ammunition would not have to be anything more than a big hunk of metal. Factories could churn out millions upon millions of Avenger rounds much more economically than they could build HL-7s. Considering the sheer size of larger GTVA freighters, holding them all wouldn't be an issue either.

There won't be demand for millions of Avenger rounds. Let's be honest here: who's going to use them? Even a large company isn't going to maintain huge standing forces. A company like RNI might perhaps have twenty-five fighters and forty pilots on the rolls. They exist to provide a scare tactic more than engage in actual combat. Additionally, an electromagnetic weapon or a regular gun is still going to need more raw maintance than a laser or laser-derivative like an HL-7. Railgun rails degrade so rapidly even now, even with supercooling, they're not really practical, and the barrel itself can be used up in very few rounds. Regular guns require regular barrel replacement and inspection of the firing chamber due to stresses of firing.

An HL-7 needs none of these things.

A laser does need maintenance, at least a military-grade one--the mirrors and lenses (made to an incredible degree of precision) will be eventually damaged by micrometerorites and debris (and they'll be very expensive to replace because there cannot be even the tiniest error in making them or the laser will be much less effective), electrical components (many of them likely computerized) will eventually fail. There will be heavy radiation shielding since the HL-7's operation involves creating huge amounts of lethal X-rays. The optics and other components will likely include exotic materails. The maintenance bills will start to mount rather quickly. The Subach HL-7 is not a laser pointer, it is a very complicated piece of equipment that probably has a lot of very delicate, very expensive parts that will be difficult to replace.

An Avenger is fed by pieces of metal. Anyone with some basic manufacturing equipment can produce lots of them. The Avenger is more likely to be a coilgun than a railgun, as such designs are more reliable. If it is neither but an old-fashioned firearm, then it gets even better--the barrel itself is basically a big piece of metal too, and can be easily replaced, and the propellant charge would also be easy to make--it doesn't have to be mil-spec; as long as it gets the bullet out of the barrel every time it's good enough. A large hunk of metal is much easier for a PMC to replace than a mirror made to micro/nanometer tolerances and coated with exotic materials. As for demand, who's going to use them? Anyone who might have Avengers; not just PMCs but pirates and other criminals as well. They could be made in secret facilities under much more primitive conditions than Subach HL-7 components, which is good for PMCs and criminals.

The most advanced energy weapon a PMC might have access to is a modified ML-16 or, if they're very lucky, a Prometheus R. Kinetic weapons are just a much more viable option for them. It's about more than just how much maintenance they need, it's also important how difficult the maintenance is and how difficult spare parts are to make. If you break a Subach HL-7, it will be extremely difficult and expensive to fix if you're not the GTVA navy. There's also the significant possibility that, as a GTVA service weapon, the Subach HL-7's supply, and that of its parts might be entirely controlled by the GTVA and/or Subach-Innes. This is why poor countries tend to buy old, low-tech aircraft and equipment--old airframes tend to be temperamental and prone to going wrong, but the technology is mature, the designs are well-understood, there are alternative sources of repairs and spare parts, and it's a far better deal for them than a Eurofighter or Su-35 that might break less often than a beat-up junker of a MiG-23 or F-5E, but God help you if the Eurofighter or Flanker breaks--you're going to be writing a big check to Eurofighter or Sukhoi OKB.

[Snail]

Defection

Only one fleet defected wholesale, but we know the NTF had a minimum of four Orions that we ourselves actually know were destroyed. There were almost certainly others as well. Mass defections on that scale is extremely improbable. The war didn't last long enough for them to be putting large numbers of brand-new ships into service. No, the NTF fleet was most likely born in somebody's boneyards.

There were ~10 confirmed NTF destroyers. Each has a crew of 10,000*10 = 100,000

So not that many...

[Aardwolf]

Every Aeolus ever made was destroyed by the end of FS2

[Droid803]

Every Aeolus ever made was destroyed by the end of FS2

That would be incorrect. There are two that are never named

[Iranon]

1. To what extent would civilian transport captains be able to modify their ships' guns?
Probably not by much without major rework... there is little reason to assume these craft come with powerplants that could support heavy weaponry.

2. What military fighters are available to civilians in the Freespace universe?
I'd assume to see many Apollos (canonically easy to fly) and Anubis (canonically cheap). Most civilian businesses would want dependable workhorses rather than cutting edge technology anyway. Valkyries would be a rare and prized commodity... the GTVA probably kept a tight lid on them since pirates getting access to something vastly faster than any active Terran fighter would not be good.
I wouldn't expect any of the craft new to Freespace 2 to have trickled down into the (legitimate) civilian market. Open criminals with excellent connections might be a different matter.

3. Would decommissioned cruisers be available for appropriation by interested parties?
Probably only in a gutted form if at all, leading to non-standard (and probably mostly inferior) versions. I expect ships from one species could be adapted to another but usually wouldn't because it results in additional costs.

4. What restrictions would there be on civillian use of beam weaponry?
I don't think the GTVA would tolerate this at all.

5. Which would fringe elements use more often--cruisers or armed transports?
Mostly armed transports. These are built to be merchant ships, useful for most civilian operations. For shadier elements, looking like a harmless merchant would be a major advantage. I'd also expect armament to be very different than for military vessels: Blob turrets aren't very useful if you don't need to intercept bombs (I think those would be more of a military thing. Pirates and the like would be more likely to spam Hornets/Tempests; good eough for targets their size and Hornets are canonically overproduced which would make them cheap).
For those who want to be well-armed but don't fight as a matter of course (smugglers, traders in lawless systems), I expect little in the way of primaries (expensive to buy) but an impressive arsenal of missiles. Maybe also a few Avenger cannons...

[Thaeris]

As has been said earlier, PMCs might have access to old fighters, unless you're dealing with a monster corporation like the one in Derelict. Sync illustrated this well in a way, where the best you got were Hercs.

If pirates have military-grade fighters, they're probably trickle-downs from the PMCs, so if those fighters were last decade's news, then these are...

Otherwise, pirates/shady civilians will rely on civilian designs which are modified to suit their means. And now that I think about it, an Elysium transport would be a viable civilian/military design without too much debate on the matter. A civil variant of the Elysium would probably not need the Subach turret, but in wartime there exists the possibility that your vessel could be impressed into service... I don't know...

Thus, pirates/unlicenced PMCs/mercs would have access to very out-of-date fighters or derivatives of civilian craft; unlicenced manufacture of combat craft also is a possibility, for which matter I mention the PF Kulas once more.

The ML-16 is archaic. If it's that old, we might as well assume there were weapons before it that were much more primitive during the Great War. Most Great War campaigns use this as a useful storytelling/technological element as well. The only reason the Avenger would be more widespread in service would be that it's a more modern design - you'd assume many of the old weapons would just end up getting recycled. However, decent ammunition for the Avenger would require a specialty manufacturer - remember that Avenger rounds could pierce shields. Even sub-par ammo would be pricey as you're shooting a very big piece of metal into space, and a lot of it, too.

That said, the savvy pirate/"entrepreneur" might still use ballistic weapons, as they never go out of style, but they'll probably be civilian designed weapons or complete retrofits. However, the smarter weapon would be a laser/Subach sortof weapon. That too might be civilian designed. Missiles and ordnance would be very simple, I'd expect to see dumbfire rockets/bombs or heat-seeking weapons. Of course, it's really up to the writer to make a good story out of what he deems reasonable to assume.

In this case, what about post-NTF fugatives? Those are aways fun...

[ChronoReverse]

Definitely ML-16 lasers for most armaments.  Not only was it not terribly powerful by the Great War, it's utterly ineffective against shielded fighters making it pose no real threat to the military.  Furthermore, since it was the standard issue weapon back then, there must have been a huge stockpile of them.

Argon laser weapon - uses transparent ceramic technology in order to create an optical system that is extremely durable and stable under battle conditions

From this, we know that it's extremely rugged and can endure both time and use with poor maintenance since ceramics are stable as is the noble gas argon.

Which makes me think of something.  They must have had a lot of ML-16 lasers sitting around after the Great War.  Surely they could have recovered the argon gas from them for use in the Prometheus?  Perhaps it wasn't possible because of the design or the amount in the ML-16 is minuscule in comparison.  Rather hilarious really considering how argon is the third most common gas in our atmosphere.




As for fighters, I'd argue that even having fighters at all is out of reach for most civilian organizations.  Arming people with guns is one thing.  Supporting the appropriate infrastructure to maintain, repair, fuel, etc. even a single wing of fighters is a huge deal.

[Woolie Wool]

The whole argon thing is pretty silly to begin with. If they needed argon they could have just flown to a gas giant and mined it. The stuff isn't exactly rare.

[Commander Zane]

Why would they give civilians ML-16s at all if they have no effectiveness against shielding? They might as well be unarmed or at least have the older Avenger.

[Spoon]

I just like to point out that possible Maintenance of high tech weaponry doesn't necessarily need to be incredible difficult or expensive. Its several years in the future, who knows what kind of tools they have for calibration of lenses and mirrors.
Just think of PC's a few years back. It was a complete ***** to install stuff in your pc case back then and Ram was expensive. Take a look at it now. I can just slide in my harddrive in a slot and put in the plug, no screws required. Ram is dirty cheap these days. etc.
Subachs could be modular, easy to assemble and disassemble weaponry for all we know.

[Polpolion]

I'd foray a guess that civilian spacecraft would be less well armed than modern civilian wet-ships.

[Commander Zane]

Isn't that like...not armed at all?

[Woolie Wool]

Many civilian ships traveling into dangerous waters might have assault rifles for the crew, perhaps even a light machine gun.

The thing is that while a few AR-15s or an LMG might deter modern pirates in a speedboat, it will do nothing to a spacecraft. The analogy between maritime ships and starships doesn't hold.

[NGTM-1R]

A laser does need maintenance, at least a military-grade one--the mirrors and lenses (made to an incredible degree of precision) will be eventually damaged by micrometerorites and debris (and they'll be very expensive to replace because there cannot be even the tiniest error in making them or the laser will be much less effective), electrical components (many of them likely computerized) will eventually fail. There will be heavy radiation shielding since the HL-7's operation involves creating huge amounts of lethal X-rays. The optics and other components will likely include exotic materails. The maintenance bills will start to mount rather quickly. The Subach HL-7 is not a laser pointer, it is a very complicated piece of equipment that probably has a lot of very delicate, very expensive parts that will be difficult to replace.

I assume you can prove any of this, because I know you haven't thought about it. There are very simple, easy ways to protect the optics; ports that only open when firing over the end. People have already considered good ways to eliminate such damage and we don't even have working laser weapons yet. Electrical components that...oh wait, how long does your average electronics bit last again? Particularly military-grade? Years. Radiation shielding is no more heavy than a firing chamber or railgun rails, and the actual barrel is almost superfluous on a laser so that's a weight savings. Your assertions are not supported by evidence or logic.

An Avenger is fed by pieces of metal. Anyone with some basic manufacturing equipment can produce lots of them. The Avenger is more likely to be a coilgun than a railgun, as such designs are more reliable. If it is neither but an old-fashioned firearm, then it gets even better--the barrel itself is basically a big piece of metal too, and can be easily replaced, and the propellant charge would also be easy to make--it doesn't have to be mil-spec; as long as it gets the bullet out of the barrel every time it's good enough. A large hunk of metal is much easier for a PMC to replace than a mirror made to micro/nanometer tolerances and coated with exotic materials. As for demand, who's going to use them? Anyone who might have Avengers; not just PMCs but pirates and other criminals as well. They could be made in secret facilities under much more primitive conditions than Subach HL-7 components, which is good for PMCs and criminals.

You're assuming the Avenger is something it's very probably not. Even the most cursory glance at the design in the the tech room shows that it has some kind of radiators built into it. This implies high temperatures. That eliminates the coilgun from consideration; also considering the (lack of) efficency of the coilgun design, it grows further unlikely. Barrels are not as simple to replace as any old chunk of metal. It requires high-grade components, liners, chromium lined bore, god knows what else. You can't just use any old steel you feel like or the gun blows up. You can't just use any old propellent either. Low-quality propellent can result in it not all burning off, at best increasing maintaince on the weapon substantionally, but in a rapid-fire weapon like the Avenger provoking a destructive misfire. Low-quality propellent will also substantially reduce muzzle velocity (hence damage) and accuracy because it will burn poorly and unevenly.

You're basically presenting a situation where they'd be better off in every possible way with ML-16s.
 

The most advanced energy weapon a PMC might have access to is a modified ML-16 or, if they're very lucky, a Prometheus R. Kinetic weapons are just a much more viable option for them. It's about more than just how much maintenance they need, it's also important how difficult the maintenance is and how difficult spare parts are to make. If you break a Subach HL-7, it will be extremely difficult and expensive to fix if you're not the GTVA navy. There's also the significant possibility that, as a GTVA service weapon, the Subach HL-7's supply, and that of its parts might be entirely controlled by the GTVA and/or Subach-Innes. This is why poor countries tend to buy old, low-tech aircraft and equipment--old airframes tend to be temperamental and prone to going wrong, but the technology is mature, the designs are well-understood, there are alternative sources of repairs and spare parts, and it's a far better deal for them than a Eurofighter or Su-35 that might break less often than a beat-up junker of a MiG-23 or F-5E, but God help you if the Eurofighter or Flanker breaks--you're going to be writing a big check to Eurofighter or Sukhoi OKB.

Shielding systems are ubiquitous on FS fightercraft, and canonically even the pirates encountered in Silent Threat had them. A weapon that is a viable means to damage shields is therefore required for any application against fightercraft. The HL-7 is cheap by economy of scale, easy to service for the same reason (this is the GTVA's standard weapon, there are thousands if not millions of them in service) and not terribly powerful in comparison to the weapons the GTVA can field by the end of FS2 like the Circe, Maxim, or Kayser. There is no particular reason for the GTVA to control them very tightly.

[Commander Zane]

A laser does need maintenance, at least a military-grade one--the mirrors and lenses (made to an incredible degree of precision) will be eventually damaged by micrometerorites and debris (and they'll be very expensive to replace because there cannot be even the tiniest error in making them or the laser will be much less effective), electrical components (many of them likely computerized) will eventually fail. There will be heavy radiation shielding since the HL-7's operation involves creating huge amounts of lethal X-rays. The optics and other components will likely include exotic materails. The maintenance bills will start to mount rather quickly. The Subach HL-7 is not a laser pointer, it is a very complicated piece of equipment that probably has a lot of very delicate, very expensive parts that will be difficult to replace.

I assume you can prove any of this, because I know you haven't thought about it. There are very simple, easy ways to protect the optics; ports that only open when firing over the end. People have already considered good ways to eliminate such damage and we don't even have working laser weapons yet. Electrical components that...oh wait, how long does your average electronics bit last again? Particularly military-grade? Years. Radiation shielding is no more heavy than a firing chamber or railgun rails, and the actual barrel is almost superfluous on a laser so that's a weight savings. Your assertions are not supported by evidence or logic.

Because their "good ways" failed and resulted in the destruction of such projects during test fire, the Neutral Particle Beam is a good example of this.