Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Gamma_Draconis on January 03, 2008, 06:25:16 am
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After playing FS/FS2 for a bit, I began to question the role of cruisers. What are they good for? It seems like they're completely useless. In fact, they seem to even be a burden. A lone cruiser can be easily dispatched by a wing of fighters which means you have to assign patrols on the cruisers, and they don't seem to be capable of doing any decent amount of damage. Even their beam turrets are easily disarmed. Cruisers lack anti-fighter capabilities, anti-capital ship capabilities, and survivability.
If a new class of cruisers are to be designed, they should be armed to the teeth with anti-fighter/bomber weaponry. The new cruisers can then be used as escorts for capital ships although the corvette class ships seem to do a much better job at it. Or they can just trash the idea of cruisers.
To be fair, most of the cruisers on FS2 were from the FS1 era and shields practically nullified blob turrets. I would have to say the Aten was the worst ship ever. I'd rather have a wing of Ptahs than that floating vase in space.
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a lone cruiser is worthless, sure.....but beware if you ever meet a fleet of them, mixed with different types. fight a leviathan cruiser, guarded by one ore two aeolus......have your fun ;) and......play this without a maxim canon......
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Since the player is a fighter pilot, all ships should be defeatable by him...so it's no wonder you can kill cruisers
The AI has a lot more trouble with it..especially some cruisers..like the Aeolus
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and btw. give me an ursa, unlimited support ships and i also make toast of an SJ Sathanas alone
as trashman said.....every ship is defeatable by a human player.....as you can think about how to attack. the AI is not able to do that.....not without your guidance via comm.....
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and btw. give me an ursa, unlimited support ships and i also make toast of an SJ Sathanas alone
Bah. A Bakha is more than enough. It took some time but I managed to do that once, when I replaced the Collie with a Raynor in High Noon. As you can guess, the Raynor went boom and I was like 'Oh, bum grapes', but then decided to avengne the destruction of the Raynor and beat the damn Sath alone. Of course, there was no debriefing, since :v: obviously didn't take into account the possibility that both the Sath and the Collie were destroyed in the mission. It was still fun, though.
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nah.....that takes too long ;)
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Two wings of Basilisks equipped with Hornets can toast a Fenris easy.
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Well, this is true, Cruisers and indeed the rest of the capitol ships in Freespace are a lot more fragile than one would expect. I don't think it's the actual hull strength or subsystems, but yes the lack of effective turret coverage. Individually the armanents themselves are not too bad, but they are not effectively used by the AI, and there are large blind spots with no coverage on most ships.
I think much of the issues may arise from the game being programmed to be used with the slower hardware of the day it was released. I may be wrong, but the first computer I played FS2 on was much slower than my current beast, and I recall it was a bit more challenging.
The only way to change this would be for some sort of ship and AI increase mod to correct these issues, although this might skew the gameplay to the point of being very very difficult.
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nah.....that takes too long ;)
An hour, or an hour and a half. Let's say that it wasn't too long, but most likely I wouldn't do it again.
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GTVA cruisers are generally anti-fighter platforms, and should (though often not in the campaign) be deployed as such. They should never be deployed alone.
As for poor turret coverage, the Aeolus actually has excellent coverage; you can't go near it at any angle without getting blasted with torrents of flak. Unfortunately it is the exception, since the Fenris and Leviathan have some notable blind spots, although the Aten and Mentu certainly take the prize for the crappiest turret coverage.
As for shivan cruisers, their purpose is mostly fodder, except for the Lilith. The Cain in particular. It's anti-capital firepower is no better than an Aeolus, but it's anti-fighter weaponry pretty much sucks.
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The Lilith's only good against capital ships, against fighters it's fodder.
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Not as much as the Cain, much better armor plus a pair of nasty cluster bomb launchers.
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Personally, I think cruisers can be cut along three lines:
Standard - Carries a mix of weapons, jack-of-all-trades. e.g. Fenris, Cain
Assault - Intended to hurt big ships fast, but vulnerable to fighters. e.g. Rakshasa, Lilith
Tactical - Primarily a defensive powerhouse, but with a limited ability to hit bigger ships. e.g. Aeolus (and perhaps Leviathan)
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unfortunately an aeolus is also fodder when attacked by enough fighters. then it does not know which one to shoot first, as in the bastion guarding mission (guarded by 3 aeolus, which are popping during the first minute of the shivan attack) of fs2......
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The Lilith is actually worse armed against fighters than the Cain because it has blob turrets instead of SLL and SHLs.
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unfortunately an aeolus is also fodder when attacked by enough fighters. then it does not know which one to shoot first, as in the bastion guarding mission (guarded by 3 aeolus, which are popping during the first minute of the shivan attack) of fs2......
Anything is fodder if you through enough bombers at it. Those cruisers were also all severly damaged.
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Two wings of Basilisks equipped with Hornets can toast a Fenris easy.
What doesn't, though? The Fenris's armour is weak for a cruiser, it doesn't have enough AA beams, and the slasher beam it uses is of limited use. (The GTC Fortune's slasher cannon in 'Endgame' barely does damage to the Iceni before it jumps.)
The Fenris is good for cruiser raids on friehgters and for rear guard duty, but not a whole lot else. Then again, unlike the Leviathan, it's speed isn't too limited.
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Cruisers were built, I suspect, to project power intersystem without tying up a destroyer prior to intersystem jump drives on fighters. It's a silly system when you realy think about it - More moloch type dwarf carrier vessels would have been a better solution, with gunships playing the capship support and force projection role, but that's not what we were given.
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unfortunately an aeolus is also fodder when attacked by enough fighters. then it does not know which one to shoot first, as in the bastion guarding mission (guarded by 3 aeolus, which are popping during the first minute of the shivan attack) of fs2......
Edit the mission, set the cruisers HP to 100 and watch the carnage.
F'course, if [V] did that in the original mission teh player would have nothing to do. :lol:
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Arm a Leviathan with rapid-firing Maxims.
They tear through everything.
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What about an Aten?
That has no Anti-Cap weapons or decent anti-fighter.
You can kill an Aten with a dragon...
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You can kill an Aten with a cargo container.
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yeah, even the civilian one. :lol:
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The Fenris, Leviathan and Aten were built when there were no shields, beams, flak or any other major weapon that could destroy them easily (this includes any variety of weapons from the Maxim to more powerful missiles), so it's easy to understand why they feel so vulnerable now.
That said, I'd wager they act now as a sort of mobile beam platforms with a few extras attached.
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Even in the non-shield era the Aten sucks bollocks IMNSHO. IMNSHO all cruisers suxxorz except the Aeolus and zeh allmaitee Leeleeth.
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You can kill an Aten with a cargo container.
Cargo of plotholes is automatically disallowed.
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I personally believe that cruisers are nothing more than support ships to destroyers. To me, it makes sense to only have cruisers in deserted far out systems so that destroyers can maintain a presence in more populated and contested systems. However, in saying this, to have them battle ready and different specifications to deal with varied situations is not a bad idea.
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Now now... Let's not forget one major thing here... Most cruisers that were still in use during the 2nd Great War were designed during or predating Terran Vasudan war. Now can any of you children tell me what major difference modern fighters have to those of TVW era fighters? That's right, shields.
You go against any cruiser, including Aten, with a wing of unshielded fighters, and you will be challenged. Especially in FS1. IMO FS2 did terrible things to blob turrets making them little more than waterballoon launchers.
Eons ago, when I got FS1, I thought it would be a jolly good idea to have a hostile Aten surrounded a couple of freighters against me in a Herc. Unshielded of course since even back then I thought shields were wussy, lame and cheating. So I got killed before even getting two shots off. So I thought bummer and fitted shields on my Herc. This time I got off three shots and a couple of hasty evasions before getting killed.
So in FS1, cruisers were actually worth something. Even Aten was a viable combat vessel. But as you can see from the missions of FS2, :v: liked blowing ships up. Blob turrets were nerfed to useless. And fighters are incredibly powerful. And lame because of the shields. Thus cruisers became little more than flying mission objectives...
Which I think is incredibly sad, because cruisers are way cooler than huge destroyers of doom shooting their death beams only to be killed by even larger super destroyer of carnage.
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Anyone remember Procyon Insurgency? Cruisers in that were painful to go up against. The friendly Aten in that first mission surprised me with its power.
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...The Cain in particular. It's anti-capital firepower is no better than an Aeolus,...
:wtf: What are you talking about?
IIRC, the Aeolus as 2 Sgreens and the Cain doesn't have any beams at all. Why does everyone keep thinking that the Aeolus stinks at anti-capitol?
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Cains have an SRed.
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Anyone remember Procyon Insurgency? Cruisers in that were painful to go up against. The friendly Aten in that first mission surprised me with its power.
you will fear cruisers in FOW...you will FEAR. :drevil:
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...The Cain in particular. It's anti-capital firepower is no better than an Aeolus,...
:wtf: What are you talking about?
IIRC, the Aeolus as 2 Sgreens and the Cain doesn't have any beams at all. Why does everyone keep thinking that the Aeolus stinks at anti-capitol?
The Cain has a single SRed beam cannon. Speaking of which, the Cain's fairly underrated, in all honesty. It's armour is twice that of the Fenris, its firepower is at least as good, and it's small frame makes it fairly hard to hit. Granted, it's still the weakest Shivan cruiser by far, but it has its uses. It's also faster than the Lilith (Cain: 30 metres. Lilith: 20.)
Granted, i'd rather have a Rakasha or a Aeolus, though. The Cain's AA is mediocre and the fighterkillers are relatively weak.
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Cains have an SRed.
Oh. And an AAA I suppose, but the Aeolus still has a bit of an edge in anti-cap firepower because it's firepower is subsidized into two beams. And it's two Sgreens far outstrip the Levi's one. I'd even go as far to say it's even better than its the levi's one and its fusion mortar.
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Well , I made a Fenris MK2 ( table edits and one edit of the texture ) , which makes short work of an Ares fighter before it can do any decent damage to the cruiser .
3 AAAh
Rapid-fire blob turrets
Cyclops#short
25000HP
It's a cruiser you wouldn't like to attack
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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Terran cruisers in FS1, prior to the development of shields, were the primary offensive ships; with their Fusion Mortars (which beat out an SGreen for damage over time), durablity, and better manuverability and availablity then destroyers, they were very well-suited to the role.
After shields, beams, and flaks, cruisers lack the firepower to take a fight to the enemy alone, but they are capable escort craft, properly disposed. The cruisers in Clash of the Titans II, for example, were placed too far out from the Bastion to support it properly. (The reason the inital Shivan attack waves go for the cruisers is twofold: even screwed up as badly as they are they still gut them, and if they went straight for the Bastion the cruisers might not be posistioned to intercept successfully.) I've played other campaigns that knew how to use them correctly; a Mentu snugged into the side of an Orion for example is one of those things you really don't want to see when you're in a bomber.
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Mostly thanks to the fact that Fusion Mortar shots can't be hit. Strange, since they appear to be small and less powerful torpedoes.
With the "bomb" flag they would be completely useless.
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Well , I made a Fenris MK2 ( table edits and one edit of the texture ) , which makes short work of an Ares fighter before it can do any decent damage to the cruiser .
3 AAAh
Rapid-fire blob turrets
Cyclops#short
25000HP
It's a cruiser you wouldn't like to attack
Errr... Is it just me, or does that thing have shields?
EDIT: Look at the screenshot.
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Mostly thanks to the fact that Fusion Mortar shots can't be hit. Strange, since they appear to be small and less powerful torpedoes.
With the "bomb" flag they would be completely useless.
I always thought they were missles on steroids. Perhaps why they're slow and lack any guidence is because of the concession to more firepower.
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Cruisers were built, I suspect, to project power intersystem without tying up a destroyer prior to intersystem jump drives on fighters. It's a silly system when you realy think about it - More moloch type dwarf carrier vessels would have been a better solution, with gunships playing the capship support and force projection role, but that's not what we were given.
In FS1 this was certainly the case, but not so much in FS2.
Why does everyone keep thinking that the Aeolus stinks at anti-capitol?
Because SGreens suck. They just don't do enough damage to justify their obnoxiously long 45 second refire rate.
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Aten cruisers in FS1 had Avengers. Enough to take down a wing of Apollos armed with ML-16s and MX-50s.
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Why does everyone keep thinking that the Aeolus stinks at anti-capitol?
Because SGreens suck. They just don't do enough damage to justify their obnoxiously long 45 second refire rate.
Try SGreens with 30-second refire rather than 45. It's still not supergreat, but it definitely makes Terran cruisers far more viable.
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Why does everyone keep thinking that the Aeolus stinks at anti-capitol?
Because SGreens suck. They just don't do enough damage to justify their obnoxiously long 45 second refire rate.
And compared to other cruisers, which is mainly what they were compared to?
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The Aeolus is sort of average when it comes to anti-warship firepower. The Lilith is the best, followed by the Rakshasa and the Cain. The Leviathan should be marginally better than the Aeolus at killing capships because its fusion mortar does slightly more damage than the Aeolus's second SGreen. Below that is the Fenris, with a fusion mortar and an LTerSlash, and the Vasudan cruisers have no anti-warship beams at all. (Keep in mind that I am not taking into account how much their anti-fighter turrets add to their firepower)
Still, the Aeolus seems pretty pathetic compared to the shivan cruisers.
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Well, this is true, Cruisers and indeed the rest of the capitol ships in Freespace are a lot more fragile than one would expect. I don't think it's the actual hull strength or subsystems, but yes the lack of effective turret coverage. Individually the armaments themselves are not too bad, but they are not effectively used by the AI, and there are large blind spots with no coverage on most ships.
I think much of the issues may arise from the game being programmed to be used with the slower hardware of the day it was released. I may be wrong, but the first computer I played FS2 on was much slower than my current beast, and I recall it was a bit more challenging.
The only way to change this would be for some sort of ship and AI increase mod to correct these issues, although this might skew the game play to the point of being very very difficult.
The turret coverage in freespace 2, especially on larger ships like destroyers and corvettes, is horrible IMO. Maybe thats because i'm used to star destroyers, which in the movies and games had hundreds of turrets and were significantly more bigger then in Freespace. I think an average destroyer, that takes probably a few years to build, should be the size of the colossus. I mean thats how big star destroyers were right? perhaps i'm wrong. But regardless of scale size, ships like the hecate down to the leviathan seem way to small. The cain looks like the size of a submarine. I would love to see a mod that increased the scale size and gave the ships a lot more turrets so they can't be wiped by simple wave of bombers.
By the way, i'm sure everybody agrees about the worthlessness of blob turrets. They are way to slow, and they don't pack much power. What happened to the days of fast moving lasers that darted across the battle scene and blew away fighters and pelted capital ships? I thought it was really cool in some sci-fi movies or games (i don't know which, but i remember seeing such) where waves of bombers could be wiped out by being taken down by hordes of lasers from capital ships they are trying to attack. That would be cool :) But this isn't star wars, so i guess I'll have to deal with the watermelon cannons.
Side question: Anybody have a guess when the star wars conversion will be released? or am i stupid and it's out right now? :nervous:
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Aten cruisers in FS1 had Avengers. Enough to take down a wing of Apollos armed with ML-16s and MX-50s.
You forget that on default setting the turret mounted weapon has vastly increased firewait time.
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The turret coverage in freespace 2, especially on larger ships like destroyers and corvettes, is horrible IMO. Maybe thats because i'm used to star destroyers, which in the movies and games had hundreds of turrets and were significantly more bigger then in Freespace. I think an average destroyer, that takes probably a few years to build, should be the size of the colossus. I mean thats how big star destroyers were right? perhaps i'm wrong. But regardless of scale size, ships like the hecate down to the leviathan seem way to small. The cain looks like the size of a submarine. I would love to see a mod that increased the scale size and gave the ships a lot more turrets so they can't be wiped by simple wave of bombers.
By the way, i'm sure everybody agrees about the worthlessness of blob turrets. They are way to slow, and they don't pack much power. What happened to the days of fast moving lasers that darted across the battle scene and blew away fighters and pelted capital ships? I thought it was really cool in some sci-fi movies or games (i don't know which, but i remember seeing such) where waves of bombers could be wiped out by being taken down by hordes of lasers from capital ships they are trying to attack. That would be cool :) But this isn't star wars, so i guess I'll have to deal with the watermelon cannons.
Side question: Anybody have a guess when the star wars conversion will be released? or am i stupid and it's out right now? :nervous:
The ships in FS2 look a bit smaller than they actually are, due to hte camera lens or the viewing frustrum.... or something like that.
but fs2 ships are one of hte bigges in sci-fi. A Orion is bigger than a ISD (IIRC, a ISD is 1.4 or 1.6 km long)
You want a bigger challenge? Increase the speed of the blob turrets and lower the fire wait time...and watch the sweet, sweet carnage.
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Meh. I share the idea FS2 battles are not intensive enough. Quite intensive, but it lacks that small bit of more intensivity.
Normally, FS2 firefights for me are more like a walk in the park, flyin' round a bit and blowing up ships, but I never really got the feeling of a massive battle. If they would be more fast-paced and I would needed to be alert in all directions and there are hundreds of turbolaser shot flying around and 7 kM ships are blowing up and blowing other ships up, im happy.
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Ok , once I get back , I'll make a mission or 2 ( quick mission - 5 minute work ) where you have to go up against my (supposed-to-be-shielded) Fenris MK2 , with the velocity mode . First with Ares fighters , then with bombers . I will make you all fear blob turrets , and stop saying that FS2 battles aren't intensive . ;)
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FREDded and .TBLed they of course CAN be intensive.
FS is a wonderful engine for all kinds of combat space-sim,with a bit of imagination you can create basically everything.
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The ships in FS2 look a bit smaller than they actually are, due to hte camera lens or the viewing frustrum.... or something like that.
but fs2 ships are one of hte bigges in sci-fi. A Orion is bigger than a ISD (IIRC, a ISD is 1.4 or 1.6 km long)
The Imperator-class SD is 1.6 km long and is slightly larger, surface area-wise than the Orion.
Also, SGreens are pretty mediocre. Good at say, smacking up freighters, but not good against an actual warship, like a Corvette.
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I just figured FS2 ships are probably the strongest of the current major sci-fi universes.
If we can compete to the Acclamator's 3.6 trillion gigawatt firepower and say we've got 10 trillion on a Orion, we're good to go :yes:
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I just figured FS2 ships are probably the strongest of the current major sci-fi universes.
If we can compete to the Acclamator's 3.6 trillion gigawatt firepower and say we've got 10 trillion on a Orion, we're good to go :yes:
OF course, that's just making stuff up that's totally unsubstantiated by the actual FS canon. Now, to shift away from SW...
Aeolus Cruisers are better than most GTVA cruisers at anti-cap, but this still doesn't mean that they're good at it. Most of the time an Aeolus kills a cruisers by shooting flak at it, which, honestly, isn't good at all.
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You have to say, with Volition caring a **** about FS nowadays, and Interplay down, it's our job to make canon stuff now.
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Yeah, and in the same manner it is our job to make Star Wars canon since the prequel movies sucked. Obviously Lucas can't do it anymore.
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By the way, i'm sure everybody agrees about the worthlessness of blob turrets. They are way to slow, and they don't pack much power. What happened to the days of fast moving lasers that darted across the battle scene and blew away fighters and pelted capital ships? I thought it was really cool in some sci-fi movies or games (i don't know which, but i remember seeing such) where waves of bombers could be wiped out by being taken down by hordes of lasers from capital ships they are trying to attack. That would be cool But this isn't star wars, so i guess I'll have to deal with the watermelon cannons.
How about this: I'll make a mod for you that makes blob turrets the uber weapon of doom.
EDIT: Have fun playing an imbalanced game.
EDIT2: You have to say, with Volition caring a **** about FS nowadays, and Interplay down, it's our job to make canon stuff now.
:lol:
1) I'd bet that only a few people at V who worked on Freespace are still there.
2) Those who are still there and care, care for Freespace a much as every other game they developed nine years ago.
3) You can make the best mod ever but it's still non-canon.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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$Velocity: 2000.0 ;; speed of the weapon (initially) -- may or may not change
$Fire Wait: 0.01 ;; in seconds
$Damage: 800
(...)
$Velocity: 1500.0 ;; speed of the weapon (initially) -- may or may not change
$Fire Wait: 0.1 ;; in seconds
$Damage: 3000
(...)
$Velocity: 2000.0 ;; speed of the weapon (initially) -- may or may not change
$Fire Wait: 0.01 ;; in seconds
$Damage: 800
(etc...)
You really know how to make a capital ship feel special. :p
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Well he did want waves of bombers to be taken down by hordes of lasers...
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at least one of those stats should be reduced by a order of magnitude for any kind of balance..
Weapons like that can shred 100's of fighters with ease.
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that's overkill, even to me :)
Yeah, I'm from star wars, having played the games more then freespace by a long shot (i'm so guilty :(). I'm used to getting pelted by fast traveling lasers with everything blowing up around you.
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As long as you do not have 'same turret cooldown' flag there the firewait doesnt affect the turrets fire waits too badly.
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that's overkill, even to me :)
It's more fun to watch, though. :nervous:
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at least one of those stats should be reduced by a order of magnitude for any kind of balance.
I suppose he could have reduced the fire-wait another order of magnitude, but when you're pumping out a thousand shots per second, it might just as well be a beam cannon.
*Ducks*
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Yeah, I'm from star wars, having played the games more then freespace by a long shot ....
HERETIC ! Someone bring the tarr and feathers i'l bring the gasoline and the pole to tie him to then we can burn these heretics and have a nice little festival afterwards :D
Or we can just feed him to THE resident shivan here. You KNOW who im talking about.....
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That's kind of funny, your misspelling of tar. "Tarr Chronicles" is another heretical space shooter game.
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He's a heretic in desguuise! Burn Him! Burn them all and let [V] sort them out!
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And compared to other cruisers, which is mainly what they were compared to?
Compared to an SRed and a Green Beam, which IIRC does more damage per shot and at half the refire wait time.
Btw, what do the tables say about SVas?
The turret coverage in freespace 2, especially on larger ships like destroyers and corvettes, is horrible IMO.
The Deimos actually has very good coverage, but you certainly have a point about some of the others. A lot of GTVA ships like the Orion were relics from the great war and terran-vasudan war, which was 30+ years before FS2 starts, so they are supposed to have weaker coverage.
That said Vasudan ships always have a weak underside, which has almost no protection. Not sure why.
And besides, and Orion could slag an ISD without too much trouble. :P
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got a point there. In ship-to-ship combat freespace owns pretty much against anything else, but point defense was always weak IMO
Yes. I am a heratic. Live with it. :P
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got a point there. In ship-to-ship combat freespace owns pretty much against anything else, but point defense was always weak IMO
Yes. I am a heratic. Live with it. :P
FS is WW II style combat.
In WW II a bunch of carrier based bombers could sink any ship.
Therefore, in FS a bunch of destroyer based bombers could blow up any other destroyer.
BTW- if capships' anti-fighter weapons are weak, try to kill a Rakshasa with a Herc II on Insane.
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got a point there. In ship-to-ship combat freespace owns pretty much against anything else, but point defense was always weak IMO
Yes. I am a heratic. Live with it. :P
ISD's also have exposed bridges, so any ships armed with beams (even a lowly fenris) is a dire threat to them, just because of that.
The Orion's point defences are weak even by FS1 standards, because it's primary role is anti-cap ship stuff. An Aeolus has quite good up close and personal defences.
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got a point there. In ship-to-ship combat freespace owns pretty much against anything else, but point defense was always weak IMO
Yes. I am a heratic. Live with it. :P
Try going against a Orion in insane with an Ursa.
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Now now... Let's not forget one major thing here... Most cruisers that were still in use during the 2nd Great War were designed during or predating Terran Vasudan war. Now can any of you children tell me what major difference modern fighters have to those of TVW era fighters? That's right, shields.
You go against any cruiser, including Aten, with a wing of unshielded fighters, and you will be challenged. Especially in FS1. IMO FS2 did terrible things to blob turrets making them little more than waterballoon launchers.
Eons ago, when I got FS1, I thought it would be a jolly good idea to have a hostile Aten surrounded a couple of freighters against me in a Herc. Unshielded of course since even back then I thought shields were wussy, lame and cheating. So I got killed before even getting two shots off. So I thought bummer and fitted shields on my Herc. This time I got off three shots and a couple of hasty evasions before getting killed.
Thank you, Prophet. Please have a big cookie. I've been thinking about this very issue lately, and you hit the nail right on the head.
The seeming vulnerability of capitol ships is indeed a result of the development of shield technology. If you've ever noticed, when you attack a capship you can usually expect to take one or two turret hits, but no more then that, as their travel speed and rate of fire are abysmal. They're very powerful, but they can't chew through your shields fast enough to do anything.
When you don't have shields, then one or two hits is enough. You're taking weapons designed to be effective against capitol ships right in the face, and you're in a fighter. That hurts. Remember that early FS1 mission where you have to attack a Vasudan supply depot? Those freighters are brutal. The development of shields changed the fighter/capship dynamic considerably, and that led to the development of the previously un-needed flak cannon. I think that's as good a canonical retcon as any, hmm? It's also a good canon excuse for the fact that the GTA's only bomber at the start of the Great War was the Athena, which was light and maneuverable enough to weave through capship defenses. (IMO, the GTA having no bombers besides that at the start is probably a game balance issue, where the dynamics of the game demand that you slowly introduce new ships and weapons as you progress in the game, but this is a good in-story excuse that makes perfect sense.)
As for the usefulness of Cruisers at all- in real life, cruisers are big ships, that have nearly as much firepower as a battleship, but have less armor and are faster. They're used as fast-attack vessels that can do commerce raiding, and are capable of outrunning and outmanuvering heavier enemy ships while still packing a lot of firepower. That very much describes FS Cruisers mission role, although they're closer to real life destroyers, in my opinion. (Corvettes in FS2 are really "Cruisers," and "Destroyers" should be called "battleships.") The problem with FreeSpace is that you don't see enough of the supposed world, so instead of seeing all the things that Cruisers could be good for, it seems like they're only there to shoot at other Cruisers.
The point of a Cruiser is to kill enemy capital ships. In my opinion, this is a job it can do far better then fighters or bombers. It packs much better firepower then a fighter or even two wings of bombers, and it's better to have a heavily damaged cruiser and a dead enemy cruiser rather then two mostly destroyed wings of bombers (and their fighter escort,) and a dead enemy. They're heavy guns. Bombers? That's what your own fighters are for- escort.
Also take into account a few other features of Cruisers. First and foremost is cost. It's cheaper to build five Fenris cruisers then one massive Orion. The Orion can only be in one place at a time, your Cruisers can cover the area. Also, Cruisers are much more maneuverable in combat, and can bring their weapons to bear easier. That's even more important in the age of beam weaponry. This means they're useful in assaults on enemy Destroyers, because you can sneak them into a place where their small size makes them inaccessible to half or even three quarters of the enemy destroyers guns, whereas a larger ship would take the full brunt. They can also diesngange, if they need too. They're pretty cheap, and they can turn a close slugfest between two destroyers into an easy win for your forces. Not bad.
Then there's the matter of turret coverage. Cruisers are less vulnerable to fighter and bomber attack because they have all their firepower concentrated in one small area- if you're pointing your nose at the Cruiser, you're pointing your nose right at most of her guns, which gives them a low-deflection shot. Destroyers have their turrets spread out over their entire massive hull, which gives them worse coverage. I should note that even with shields, a Fenris is a REAL pain to attack alone, or even with a few wingmen. Attacking cruisers with anything less then two wings to divide up it's turret fire is a real, real chore. Don't believe me? Go play the first mission of the user-made mini-campaign in Silent Threat, where you have to scan a hostile Fenris. Eeek. On the other hand, it's easy to take out a destroyer on your lonesome, if it doesn't have any fighter protection. Just bomb, run away to re-arm, rinse, repeat. Very easy.
Now there's one more thing to consider, and it's a big one- the mission role trade-off. The reason Terran Cruisers are so weak is because every weapon on their hull is designed to kick butt and take names on enemy capital ships, and it is indeed a terror in that role, but that leaves it with no effective anti-fighter weapons (except for the Leviathan, which has a single missile launcher.) Now contrast that with the SC Cain, which is a terror to attack in a fighter. Go pop into FRED1 and see what weapons the Cain is packing... that's right! They're Shivan Heavy Lasers, which is a powerful fighter class weapon! They have a higher rate of fire and MUCH better velocity, which means they're great for swatting those pesky fighters and bombers. However, as everyone has noticed, this means that the Fenris, packing capital ship class weaponry, slays the Cain's face off. Fighter-class guns cannot compete with the power of capital ship class turrets. Hitting the target isn't an issue with Cruisers- it's all about raw power.
Now contrast the Lilith, or the Fenris. The Lilith has a hideously powerful array of capital ship turrets- it can tear any Terran cruiser apart and pose a serious problem to Destroyers in a fleet engagement. However, that means that enemy fighers can strafe it all day with little opposition (though the dual missile launchers on both Shivan cruisers give all their variants better fighter cover then the Terran ships.) That's the trade-off you make- anti-fighter, or anti-capship?
Wanna have some fun? Pop into FRED1 and load out a Fenris or a Leviathan with nothing but Banshees in every turret. Set three wings of Basalisks to come after it with Hornets, and see what happens. Heck, you can even set them to respawn infinitely and see how long the Fenris lasts. The Fenris will school them handily. But now it's going to lose in a toe-to-toe with a Lilith, and is now the mere equal of a Cain.
You could easily introduce a specially modified "flak ship" variant of the Fenris or Leviathan for escort duty. If you want an example of a good use for cruisers, make a mission where you send them up against Shivan freighters- you know, those scary, scary freighters that have incredibly strong hulls and wicked turret protection? Yeah, commerce raiding is what a fast-attack cruiser like the Fenris was built for.
Well, that's just my personal over-analysis, for whatever it's worth.
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Maybe they should just develop better blob turrets. Those things are decades old. I don't think there have been any improvements on them at all. At least older fighters and capital ships got new weapons.
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Now now... Let's not forget one major thing here... Most cruisers that were still in use during the 2nd Great War were designed during or predating Terran Vasudan war. Now can any of you children tell me what major difference modern fighters have to those of TVW era fighters? That's right, shields.
You go against any cruiser, including Aten, with a wing of unshielded fighters, and you will be challenged. Especially in FS1. IMO FS2 did terrible things to blob turrets making them little more than waterballoon launchers.
Eons ago, when I got FS1, I thought it would be a jolly good idea to have a hostile Aten surrounded a couple of freighters against me in a Herc. Unshielded of course since even back then I thought shields were wussy, lame and cheating. So I got killed before even getting two shots off. So I thought bummer and fitted shields on my Herc. This time I got off three shots and a couple of hasty evasions before getting killed.
Thank you, Prophet. Please have a big cookie. I've been thinking about this very issue lately, and you hit the nail right on the head.
The seeming vulnerability of capitol ships is indeed a result of the development of shield technology. If you've ever noticed, when you attack a capship you can usually expect to take one or two turret hits, but no more then that, as their travel speed and rate of fire are abysmal. They're very powerful, but they can't chew through your shields fast enough to do anything.
When you don't have shields, then one or two hits is enough. You're taking weapons designed to be effective against capitol ships right in the face, and you're in a fighter. That hurts. Remember that early FS1 mission where you have to attack a Vasudan supply depot? Those freighters are brutal. The development of shields changed the fighter/capship dynamic considerably, and that led to the development of the previously un-needed flak cannon. I think that's as good a canonical retcon as any, hmm? It's also a good canon excuse for the fact that the GTA's only bomber at the start of the Great War was the Athena, which was light and maneuverable enough to weave through capship defenses. (IMO, the GTA having no bombers besides that at the start is probably a game balance issue, where the dynamics of the game demand that you slowly introduce new ships and weapons as you progress in the game, but this is a good in-story excuse that makes perfect sense.)
As for the usefulness of Cruisers at all- in real life, cruisers are big ships, that have nearly as much firepower as a battleship, but have less armor and are faster. They're used as fast-attack vessels that can do commerce raiding, and are capable of outrunning and outmanuvering heavier enemy ships while still packing a lot of firepower. That very much describes FS Cruisers mission role, although they're closer to real life destroyers, in my opinion. (Corvettes in FS2 are really "Cruisers," and "Destroyers" should be called "battleships.") The problem with FreeSpace is that you don't see enough of the supposed world, so instead of seeing all the things that Cruisers could be good for, it seems like they're only there to shoot at other Cruisers.
The point of a Cruiser is to kill enemy capital ships. In my opinion, this is a job it can do far better then fighters or bombers. It packs much better firepower then a fighter or even two wings of bombers, and it's better to have a heavily damaged cruiser and a dead enemy cruiser rather then two mostly destroyed wings of bombers (and their fighter escort,) and a dead enemy. They're heavy guns. Bombers? That's what your own fighters are for- escort.
Also take into account a few other features of Cruisers. First and foremost is cost. It's cheaper to build five Fenris cruisers then one massive Orion. The Orion can only be in one place at a time, your Cruisers can cover the area. Also, Cruisers are much more maneuverable in combat, and can bring their weapons to bear easier. That's even more important in the age of beam weaponry. This means they're useful in assaults on enemy Destroyers, because you can sneak them into a place where their small size makes them inaccessible to half or even three quarters of the enemy destroyers guns, whereas a larger ship would take the full brunt. They can also diesngange, if they need too. They're pretty cheap, and they can turn a close slugfest between two destroyers into an easy win for your forces. Not bad.
Then there's the matter of turret coverage. Cruisers are less vulnerable to fighter and bomber attack because they have all their firepower concentrated in one small area- if you're pointing your nose at the Cruiser, you're pointing your nose right at most of her guns, which gives them a low-deflection shot. Destroyers have their turrets spread out over their entire massive hull, which gives them worse coverage. I should note that even with shields, a Fenris is a REAL pain to attack alone, or even with a few wingmen. Attacking cruisers with anything less then two wings to divide up it's turret fire is a real, real chore. Don't believe me? Go play the first mission of the user-made mini-campaign in Silent Threat, where you have to scan a hostile Fenris. Eeek. On the other hand, it's easy to take out a destroyer on your lonesome, if it doesn't have any fighter protection. Just bomb, run away to re-arm, rinse, repeat. Very easy.
Now there's one more thing to consider, and it's a big one- the mission role trade-off. The reason Terran Cruisers are so weak is because every weapon on their hull is designed to kick butt and take names on enemy capital ships, and it is indeed a terror in that role, but that leaves it with no effective anti-fighter weapons (except for the Leviathan, which has a single missile launcher.) Now contrast that with the SC Cain, which is a terror to attack in a fighter. Go pop into FRED1 and see what weapons the Cain is packing... that's right! They're Shivan Heavy Lasers, which is a powerful fighter class weapon! They have a higher rate of fire and MUCH better velocity, which means they're great for swatting those pesky fighters and bombers. However, as everyone has noticed, this means that the Fenris, packing capital ship class weaponry, slays the Cain's face off. Fighter-class guns cannot compete with the power of capital ship class turrets. Hitting the target isn't an issue with Cruisers- it's all about raw power.
Now contrast the Lilith, or the Fenris. The Lilith has a hideously powerful array of capital ship turrets- it can tear any Terran cruiser apart and pose a serious problem to Destroyers in a fleet engagement. However, that means that enemy fighers can strafe it all day with little opposition (though the dual missile launchers on both Shivan cruisers give all their variants better fighter cover then the Terran ships.) That's the trade-off you make- anti-fighter, or anti-capship?
Wanna have some fun? Pop into FRED1 and load out a Fenris or a Leviathan with nothing but Banshees in every turret. Set three wings of Basalisks to come after it with Hornets, and see what happens. Heck, you can even set them to respawn infinitely and see how long the Fenris lasts. The Fenris will school them handily. But now it's going to lose in a toe-to-toe with a Lilith, and is now the mere equal of a Cain.
You could easily introduce a specially modified "flak ship" variant of the Fenris or Leviathan for escort duty. If you want an example of a good use for cruisers, make a mission where you send them up against Shivan freighters- you know, those scary, scary freighters that have incredibly strong hulls and wicked turret protection? Yeah, commerce raiding is what a fast-attack cruiser like the Fenris was built for.
Well, that's just my personal over-analysis, for whatever it's worth.
But you know, standard kewlness and probably almost every persons imagination about space power are giant, hulking, deadly destroyers. And FS was really not developed in the sense of being realistic.
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Yeah... FS like all other spaceshooters vastly emphasize fighters and bombers above all other ships. FreeSpace is almost the worst in that category given that in SW and WC universes also larger ships had shields etc. IMHO to get the game to 'reasonably realistic' every single turret (apart from bomber turrets) ought have firepower roughly equal to 2 times the standard fighter carried weapon - 2 because in fighters weapons are commonly in twin (or more) mounts while turrets usually use only single mount.
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Considering that on some bigger ships, the smallest turret is bigger than a fighter.... :lol: .. the lack of firepower in that turret is...strange..considering it can carry a fighter reactor or two and has no engine output..you'd think a turret like that could support 8 Keysers easily :P
For a test, make a Kayser variant with 8X the rate of fire and stick it on a capship! ;7
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Considering that on some bigger ships, the smallest turret is bigger than a fighter.... :lol:
But that would be too expensive. :drevil:
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Who cares if there are Shivans out there bend on exterminating your race?
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Oh, the workers who aren't being paid enough, go on strike, and then get vaporized by a BFRed.
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Who cares if there are Shivans out there bend on exterminating your race?
The pilot of the Erynies that needs to go to battle with 8x GTW Training Lasers.
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I think there are enough subach's to go around...Besides, even with those, with 8 banks that some serious firepower.