Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: DeepSpace9er on February 23, 2004, 11:03:34 pm
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They cost millions if not billions to produce and the technology on them isnt at all cheap. They are slow, easy targets, piss poor at defending themselves, require cheap fighters to protect them etc. Why bother build them! There is no point! You might as well have Carriers defended by Aeolus type cruisers. Oh, and long range strategic fusion warheads capable of incinerating a station in one shot. :nod:
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Well, installations are rather important in the way cities are important. They're a point of gathering.
But you're right about the destroyers. While they were usefull before the advent of beam weaponry since they were tough to kill, their purpose really isn't as strong any longer.
Personally, I'd improve the AWAKS technology further for even more range and go with carrier battle groups. The carrier would be guarded by modified Aeolus cruisers and Deimos corvettes. Just like in modern naval warfare, specialization would be the way to go; the corvettes would dump a large portion of other weaponry in exchange for more anti-capital firepower while the cruisers would focus on anti-snubfighter and bomb weaponry. The carrier would have multiple lauch bays (unlike the Colossus... why would a huge ship like that have ONE fighter bay?!?).
The carrier and its battle group will never engage directly unless absolutely necessary. Since all snubfighters are equipped with short-jump drives, they'll jump to the engagements (as they already do).
A new class of warship/fighter should also be created: a gunship. Larger than a bomber, yet smaller than a cruiser. It should handle like a really heavy bomber, but pack AAAF and flak turrets. It's primary purpose would be to avoid getting hit while providing firecover to bombers and fighters. I wouldn't want to be on one of these ships, but they'll make life easier for the fighters and bombers.
Oh and I just thought of one more thing. The fusion mortar will be replaced with a long-ranged Stiletto derivative. At the rate fusion mortars are fired (rather ineffectually, I might add), if they were stilleto IIs, the sathanas would be crippled by a dozen fenris cruisers in a matter of minutes.
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I would say that battleships (Fs2 Destroyers) were obsolete when Aircraft Carriers proved to be dominant in 1945.
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Except that Destroyers have teh beams, and are the aircraft carriers.
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They also die ridiculously fast until attack from a few squadrons of heavy bombers covered by a few wings of fighters.
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The R2 revision for Inferno will go a long way to specializing ship classes, their weapons, and roles. I think you should check out in some of their more recent threads for this.
Later!
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
They also die ridiculously fast until attack from a few squadrons of heavy bombers covered by a few wings of fighters.
So does any other capital ship. What's your point?
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Fighters were awsomely ovepowered by the end of FS2 - FS1 was a lot more balanced.
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@KT
They don't cost nearly as much ;)
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
They also die ridiculously fast until attack from a few squadrons of heavy bombers covered by a few wings of fighters.
A carrier would die even faster and would be completely screwed if something like a lilith jumped in.
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Originally posted by DeepSpace9er
I would say that battleships (Fs2 Destroyers) were obsolete when Aircraft Carriers proved to be dominant in 1945.
Yes, that's why huge battleship aren't produced anymore in the true world, carriers are the way to go since WW2, and beside, why use big cannons when you can launch intercontinental missiles from small ships or submarines?
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Originally posted by ryuune75
Yes, that's why huge battleship aren't produced anymore in the true world, carriers are the way to go since WW2, and beside, why use big cannons when you can launch intercontinental missiles from small ships or submarines?
:rolleyes: *sigh* Not this again.
Everyone always brings up the same stupid arguement about how come the battleship became obsolete after the introduction of the carrier. Sure it became obsolete on Earth but that's because the Germans and Japanese never figured out how to teleport their battleships in next to the carrier.
If there was a way for a battleship to jump in next to the aircraft carrier completely ignoring its screen of fighters then the aircraft carrier concept would be in deep trouble. It has to launch its fighters before it can do any damage to the battleship. The battleship on the other hand can start firing immediately. If just one hit takes out the runway then it's all over. The carrier would be defenceless.
The solution to this problem would be to start arming the aircraft carrier so that it could defend itself. In which case you end up with something similar to the FS2 destroyer. A ship with powerful weapons to attack things close to it and fighter craft for long distance attack.
While I have no problem with people saying that their can be carriers in the FS2 universe they aren't superior to the destroyer. If you want carriers to replace the destroyer you'd need to guard them with a fleet of ships designed to kill enemy battleships. In terms of tonnage that's probably equivalent to 2-4 destroyers maybe more. Which solution is better isn't absolute. A fleet of destroyers has the advantage that it can split up but suffers from the fact that all the ships in the fleet are jack-of-all-trades as opposed to the specialisation of the carrier fleet. A sensible military would use both solutions.
Carriers do work very well in a support role though. When attacking an enemy system I can easily see the advantages of having destroyers smash through the jump node and neutralise any blockade and then have the carrier jump in once the area was at least partially secured to provide a blanket of fighters and bombers.
A single carrier guarded by aeolus cruisers trying to do the same thing would get owned so quickly it wouldn't be funny. Worse it probably wouldn't do much damage to the enemy unless it fitted all it fighter craft with extremely expensive intersystem jump engines and launched them in subspace.
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DS9er, you do know FS is supposed to be a vaguely WWII-style dogfighter, right? It's like the whole thing of not using Newtionian physiscs - it's more fun this way. And complaining about a lack of 'realism' in a sci-fi game is only going to get you laughed at :nod:
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What's worse if that his case for realism is fundementally flawed on top of missing the point about what's fun and what isn't. :D
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Originally posted by karajorma
Everyone always brings up the same stupid arguement about how come the battleship became obsolete after the introduction of the carrier. Sure it became obsolete on Earth but that's because the Germans and Japanese never figured out how to teleport their battleships in next to the carrier.
And how do you overcome this problem? Of course in FS2 ships seem to jump out of nowere, but this is just not-realistic too, if there is a way the destroyer can know where the carrier is, so the carrier can know where a destroyer is, and thus as soon as the destroyer exit subspace the carrier will have swarms of bombers ready to blast away the destroyer much faster than the destroyer cannons can sink the carrier.
Of course the destroyers of FS2 are NOT the battleships of WW2, because they are heavily armed, but also they have their own fighter escort, so they are carrier-hybrids, and all the above doesn't apply at all.
But if you put a pure destroyer (no fighter wings) against a carrier, well, it's no match...
And i also think it makes sense to have this kind of ships, because on earth carriers need to be built to the purpose of launching fighters, so they must be flat with no real space for big weapons... in space you can just drop the fighters out of the ship any way you want, they won't crash anywere, so a pure carrier ship makes no sense, you need only a little space to store them.
And talking about realism, well, i dont' give a damn about that in a game, i actually like big maybe-unrealisti badass ship, becasue they are plain cool! :cool:
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If Freespace was realistic there'd be nothing but battleships in space conducting combat at extreme ranges.
Carriers only became dominant on Earth because battleships were comparatively limited in range, accuracy and offensive flexibility. In space none of these limitations would really apply - there'd be no atmosphere to limit the range of beam weaponry (think about it, there'd be minimal attenuation because there's no outside influence to 'unfocus' energy weapons), there'd be no consideration of ballistic weapons - point at a target and hit it instantly with a beam or railgun or something as gravitational and atmospheric effects are also non-existent, and since a ship could relocate to any position it wanted, instead of being restricted to travelling on a (essentially) 2D plane, any considerations of inflexibility also fly out the window.
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Originally posted by ryuune75
And how do you overcome this problem? Of course in FS2 ships seem to jump out of nowere, but this is just not-realistic too, if there is a way the destroyer can know where the carrier is, so the carrier can know where a destroyer is, and thus as soon as the destroyer exit subspace the carrier will have swarms of bombers ready to blast away the destroyer much faster than the destroyer cannons can sink the carrier.
So your entire defence strategy depends on knowing exactly when and were the enemy are going to attack from? I see a very short military career for you. :D
How many suprise attacks did you see in FS2? You think they were all due to carelessness on the part of command?
You also ignore the possibility of the enemy forces doing their recon using a stealthed fighter.
And what about situations where the GTVA is engaging a force of unknown size (like in the nebula)? As soon as they saw a single fighter they'd have to scramble the entire fighter complement on the off chance that there is a shivan destroyer about which now knows the location of the carrier.
Originally posted by ryuune75
Of course the destroyers of FS2 are NOT the battleships of WW2, because they are heavily armed, but also they have their own fighter escort, so they are carrier-hybrids, and all the above doesn't apply at all.
But if you put a pure destroyer (no fighter wings) against a carrier, well, it's no match...
I agree that FS2 destroyers are hybrids. In fact it pushes my example even further into the destroyers favour because it's own fighter wing would be able to take on anything the carrier could launch for quite a while.
That's what makes completely dumping them in favour of vulnerable carriers so stupid. As for the battle between a carrier and a pure battleship it would simply come down to two factors. How quickly the carrier can launch and how quickly the battleship can disable that launch equipment. It's definately not a foregone conclusion.
Originally posted by ryuune75
And i also think it makes sense to have this kind of ships, because on earth carriers need to be built to the purpose of launching fighters, so they must be flat with no real space for big weapons... in space you can just drop the fighters out of the ship any way you want, they won't crash anywere, so a pure carrier ship makes no sense, you need only a little space to store them.
Which basically brings us back to the FS2 style destroyer. A ship using a small amount of its available space to hold fighters and the rest for mounting weapons.
The simple fact is that I don't hate carriers. I love them. I'm even basing my Seeds Of Rebellion mini-campaign around one of the damn things :D But they are not a replacement for the destroyer.
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Destruction of the Colossus... fighterbays smashed... engines disabled... er... I had a point here somewhere... really I had... :sigh: :doubt:
Anyway... how is your carrier going to protect itself against bigger menaces? No, not Sobeks and such or Orions... I'm talking about a real ship crusher like the Ravana and the mother of them all, the Sathanas? How many bomber would you need to take them down, considering they too have a fighter escort, after all they are hybrids?
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Originally posted by karajorma
So your entire defence strategy depends on knowing exactly when and were the enemy are going to attack from? I see a very short military career for you. :D
No really! Surprise attack is the key to victroy! How the Japanese nearly destroyed US fleet at Pearl Harbour? With a surprise attack! And how the US managed to win at the end with a crippled fleed? Of course with a surprise attack!
So knowing where the enemy is IS the key to victory in all battles. A carrier that makes a sneak attack on a battleship wins, and so does a battleship that makes a surprise attack on a carrier.
Difference is, to attack with a battleship you have to move all the ship, the carrie just send his bombers to do the work faster and at longer ranges, hopefully.
Originally posted by karajorma
Which basically brings us back to the FS2 style destroyer. A ship using a small amount of its available space to hold fighters and the rest for mounting weapons.
True. So in the end we think almost in the same way, hybrid destroyers seem the way to go.
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Originally posted by SadisticSid
If Freespace was realistic there'd be nothing but battleships in space conducting combat at extreme ranges.
Maybe. Or maybe not. The fact is we don't have a damn clue about what technology we will have in the future.
Maybe we'll have huge battleship, or maybe we'll travel between stars in pink soap bubbles, who can tell?
The only thing we can do now is to create a game that is just cool to watch and play, and probably out successor will laugth at us and our teories....
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Freespace...realistic.
A game set in the distant future where we've already figured hyperspace travel, anti-gravity, alien contact, etc...
realistic...
I'm envision all the FS fighters being suddenly replaced by the current shuttle fleet....
:hopping:
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Originally posted by ryuune75
No really! Surprise attack is the key to victroy! How the Japanese nearly destroyed US fleet at Pearl Harbour? With a surprise attack! And how the US managed to win at the end with a crippled fleed? Of course with a surprise attack!
So knowing where the enemy is IS the key to victory in all battles. A carrier that makes a sneak attack on a battleship wins, and so does a battleship that makes a surprise attack on a carrier.
Difference is, to attack with a battleship you have to move all the ship, the carrie just send his bombers to do the work faster and at longer ranges, hopefully.
Not every single victory depends on a suprise attack you know ;)
Originally posted by ryuune75
True. So in the end we think almost in the same way, hybrid destroyers seem the way to go.
I believe in having a mix of craft for different operations. The destroyers are front line craft. Carriers hang back out of range and send fighters to support the destroyers.
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Well, tactical surprise (as opposed to strategic surprise, which is nearly impossible to achieve) is something you always strive for in an attack without exception (whether you get it or not is different). While it won't decide the course of a war, it can decide a skirmish.
Anyway... how is your carrier going to protect itself against bigger menaces? No, not Sobeks and such or Orions... I'm talking about a real ship crusher like the Ravana and the mother of them all, the Sathanas? How many bomber would you need to take them down, considering they too have a fighter escort, after all they are hybrids?
Now, if a Ravana jumped in on your Orion, how long would your orion survive? I'd say 5 minutes tops. A tactical surprise attack would result in defeat for almost any destroyer vs destroyer conflict.
A better question to ask is: which would inflict more damage back?
Assuming destroyer would be able to launch a full wing from each fighter launchbay every minute, a Hatshepsut would be able to launch 10 wings. It would also fire back with its beams until it dies.
A carrier would have at least 4 fighter launchbays even if it was half the size of the Hatshepsut (and I personally think it would have more). That's twice the bombers and fighters launch. In addition, while the Ravana blows the carrier to smithereens, the support corvettes and cruisers have time to flank the Ravana (they'll die too, but the point is that they'll get in some hits too).
It seems likely that both scenarios would result in moderate damage to the Ravana.
In any case, before going with this, I want to know what people think about this: would a carrier have _more_ armor than a destroyer of equivalent size and tonnage?
At first glance one would think that the carrier would obviously be less armored, but that might not be the case.
First of all, the carrier _can_ have heavy armor plating. There's absolutely no reason why a carrier would need a runway in space. It would basically be a box engines strapped on and holes cut-out at various places to allow fighters and bombers to be launched. Any place that's not an engine port or fighter launchbay has no reason not to be covered with as much armor as the structure could support.
But can a carrier actually carry a lot of armor? That's a good question and something that needs to be decided.
First, let's look at the weight savings of a carrier over a destroyer. With the advent of beam weaponry, the power consumption of destroyers have increased tremendously. In fact, the Typhon destroyer, dominant before beam weaponry, suffered from reactor problems when retrofitted with beam weaponry.
A carrier would carry next to no weaponry besides a few flak turrets to protect fighter launchbays and the engines.
The amounts to a huge space and weight savings in reactors. Therefore, a carrier of similar size and engine capabilities to a destroyer would have comparatively more leeway to carry more armour plating.
Not quite.
The same carrier would also be carrying a much larger complement of fighters, bombers, armaments and their support crews and equipment.
This is all extra weight and space being used up.
Note that the number of decks is reduced since fighterbays are more large.
This means that a carrier of a similar size to a destroyer would require less material to construct while having equivalent amounts of armor.
Now here's something I thought up. Wouldn't a carrier be harder to kill using beam weaponry than a destroyer?
A destroyer has power conduits carrying large amounts of power throughout the ship to energize the various weapons and to service the fighters. A carrier carries a relatively small amount of energy to service a greater number of fighters.
These power conduits are, more likely than not, volatile.
Whereas a beam punching a hole through most points of the destroyer could potentially cause a cascading reaction through the power system, a beam through a fighterbay of a carrier would be a hole. The fighters can still manual launch. It's inconvenient but not quite as deadly. A beam through the bridge or reactor would still be just as deadly, but the carrier can afford to allocate more armor to those areas than a destroyer would.
So while it's easy to imagine a carrier to be a soft target, it _may_ be a pretty tough nut to crack.
Thoughts?
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This thread = :no:
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1st.
A destroyer can do more damage in a small amount of time than a group of fighter... trust me on this ;) especially when we start going to really big sized capships (the ones which matter)
2nd.
If a carrier has "companions", why can't a destroyer have some?
3rd.
Carriers need power too, or what do you use to power up fighters, bombers, engine, subspace drive (think how much energy just that uses)
4th.
A beam straight through the fighterbays is something no pilot wishes to see. And if these are destroyed well... go play the mission where the Colossus is destroyed. Believe, if they had anyway to manually launch a fighter they would... And it's not inconvinient... it's just as deadly...
5th.
Put a Sathanas near any carrier you wish to design, it can be any size you want, see who wins!! :devil:
6th.
Now, if a Ravana jumped in on your Orion, how long would your orion survive?quote]
:rolleyes: I rest my case :rolleyes: (I have an Orion now... coll!! :D) Here you have clearly shown the superiority of a destroyer... well done!! :D
7th. (nitpick actually)
Weight in space doesn't mean anything. :p (so sue me)
8th.
They look cool!! :D
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
A destroyer can do more damage in a small amount of time than a group of fighter... trust me on this especially when we start going to really big sized capships (the ones which matter)
Fighters, yes, bombers armed with helios, no. Unless you talk about BFRed, but those are umbalanced weapons, if we keep the discussion on standard terran weaponry...
Originally posted by Ghostavo
Put a Sathanas near any carrier you wish to design, it can be any size you want, see who wins!! :devil:
Satahanas are uberships, we are not talking about unbalanced ship confrontation. The colossus is a freaking battleship but can't stand 2 minutes against a Sathanas, so what? Shivan ships are a lot more powerful than the corresponding terran ones, this means nothing.
Originally posted by Ghostavo
Weight in space doesn't mean anything. :p (so sue me)
Oh yeah... never heard of someting called "mass"? :rolleyes:
Originally posted by Ghostavo
They look cool!! :D
Here i fully agree :)
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
A carrier would have at least 4 fighter launchbays even if it was half the size of the Hatshepsut (and I personally think it would have more). That's twice the bombers and fighters launch. In addition, while the Ravana blows the carrier to smithereens, the support corvettes and cruisers have time to flank the Ravana (they'll die too, but the point is that they'll get in some hits too).
Why does the carrier get support corvettes and the ravana doesn't? How come the Orion didn't either?
For equal tonnage the shivans should have 2 or more destroyers. The same goes for the terran destroyer. So comparing a carrier and its carrier group against a single destroyer is an unfair comparison.
If you balance the battle in favour of the carrier of course it will win but make it a fair fight and the battle becomes much harder to call.
Originally posted by ChronoReverse
So while it's easy to imagine a carrier to be a soft target, it _may_ be a pretty tough nut to crack.
Even if the carrier is as tough as the Orion there's still only one. As soon as it's dead the shivans can quite easily pull their caps out of the way and kill everything else with waves of bombers.
Originally posted by ChronoReverse
First, let's look at the weight savings of a carrier over a destroyer. With the advent of beam weaponry, the power consumption of destroyers have increased tremendously. In fact, the Typhon destroyer, dominant before beam weaponry, suffered from reactor problems when retrofitted with beam weaponry.
A carrier would carry next to no weaponry besides a few flak turrets to protect fighter launchbays and the engines.
The amounts to a huge space and weight savings in reactors. Therefore, a carrier of similar size and engine capabilities to a destroyer would have comparatively more leeway to carry more armour plating.
Maybe. Power consumption may have gone up but the FS1 era Orion and Typhon were doing something with all that space before they were refitted with beams. Most likely the reactors needed upgrading but it doesn't immediately follow that they got significantly larger. Maybe they just got much more expensive due to the need to make the components more powerful while remaining the same size.
In fact it's unlikely that the weight penalty was that much or it would have just been easier to build a new ship instead of retrofitting the Orion.
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Weight is not mass.... mass is important to consider, weight is not (that is why I said it was a nitpick) :p
Tell me who does more damage on the mission to destroy the Sathanas, you and every fighter/bomber or the Colossus itself?
It's not unbalanced it just as reality is... One Ship to rule them all! And it's beams are quite terran.
Put a HUGE Terran destroyer against a HUGE Terran carrier, what do you get? (same point as the sathanas).
Oh yeah... forgot to mention... carrier mass + fighters/bombers mass > hybrid mass so....
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
Weight is not mass.... mass is important to consider, weight is not (that is why I said it was a nitpick) :p
Terran ships use artificial gravity so weight is a fair enough term :D
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Oh for the love of god, why is this under debate? "Number of launch bays" means jack squat in Freespace, since fighters just pick a launch path and follow it regardless of where it lies on the ship. It's all a matter of how strong the mission designer wants to make a ship.
As for the logistical argument, the fall of the colossus proves the point against carriers actually, as no reasonable number of figters would have changed that battle. Another Colossus would have. The question really revolves around how a given fleet wants to use strike craft; if there are a lot of small skirmishes, then you want lots of subspace capable craft to jump in and out of hotspots and engage mutliple targets simultaneously. A large ship isn't as good at that. However, if you have major fleet battles going on, then you need capital ships with big guns, because fighters play a diminishing roll as more large ships enter the picture. So ultimately, it depends on the strategies and composition of enemy forces rather than your own strategic goals, making a more versitile fleet far more valuable than a bunch of specialized ships that are not built to directly enter combat as the aggressor. Current naval tactics do not draw a parallel, especially since this is a video game.
However, on that note, does anyone else think that both the Shivans and NTF seem to be able to throw a whole lot more fighters at the GTVA than you ever see of your own team in a mission? All things created equal, you'd either never deal with more than a couple of bomber wings or else have a ton of friendly fighters hanging around (the NTF sortied more bombers against the Colossus convoy than the Psamtic did against the Sath). But if the player has too much support the missions go out of player control, and that's not the point of a game now is it.
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Ah good, discussion :)
A destroyer can do more damage in a small amount of time than a group of fighter... trust me on this especially when we start going to really big sized capships (the ones which matter)
Not when we're talking about the end of FS2. Heck even pre-trebuchet, snubfighters can cripple the Sathanas.
The Sathanas may carry its own fighter complement, but even a carrier half the size of an Orion would carry more than the Colossus (I'm assuming the Sathanas carries a similar complement to that of the Colossus of course).
And ever notice that Stilleto IIs aren't available for mission against ships like the Ravana? That's cause Stilleto IIs are rather insanely good if used properly (nothing beats a pair of Helios though).
2nd.
If a carrier has "companions", why can't a destroyer have some?
I was actually taking a carrier half the size of a destroyer. The armor discussion was to show that a carrier would have at _least_ as much armor as a destroyer (and I personally think it would have much more). Half a destroyer should be enough to build at least a couple of cruisers eh?
3rd.
Carriers need power too, or what do you use to power up fighters, bombers, engine, subspace drive (think how much energy just that uses)
Did I say a carrier doesn't need power? I explicitly stated that a carrier needs to power MORE fighters and its related support crews (something you neglected to mention). However, considering how much the Colossus complained when firing not even all its beams and how the Typhon class had so many reactor overload problems, I'd say that the reactor (and its fuel, if it has any) take up a fair proportion of a destroyer. In any case, a destroyer is so large that the space has to be used for _something_. I don't think it's that much of a stretch to say at least a quarter is devoted to reactors.
4th.
A beam straight through the fighterbays is something no pilot wishes to see. And if these are destroyed well... go play the mission where the Colossus is destroyed. Believe, if they had anyway to manually launch a fighter they would... And it's not inconvinient... it's just as deadly...
No it wouldn't. Look at the fighterbays of the Hatshepsut. They're big. But do they have lots of plasma conduits? No they wouldn't, why would they? There aren't any beam cannons nearby. Fighterbays are already designed to take a vacuum, so exposing them to vacuum isn't a horrible incident. Sure the beam may vaporaize a large number of fighters and destroy launch equipment, but the surviving fighters can still be launched, if only by the pilots flying out themselves.
A hole in a orion would cause the leaking energy and plasma (from the beam cannon cores) to continue damaging the ship.
The point is that while a hole in a fighterbay is a bad thing, it isn't a crippling thing.
The Colossus fighter launchbay didn't have a hole in it; rubble had obstructed it. A carrier would have multiple launchbays and not suffer such a problem (frankly even the Colossus should've had more than one launchbay)
5th.
Put a Sathanas near any carrier you wish to design, it can be any size you want, see who wins!!
Oh and a destroyer would fair any better? Give me a break.
6th.
Now, if a Ravana jumped in on your Orion, how long would your orion survive?quote]
I rest my case (I have an Orion now... coll!! ) Here you have clearly shown the superiority of a destroyer... well done!!
Huh? The Orion survives up to 5 minutes. The carrier would also survive about five minutes (perhaps longer since more armor is allocated to protect the reactor and bridge). So how does that make the destroyer any more superior?
7th. (nitpick actually)
Weight in space doesn't mean anything. (so sue me)
Yes, but mass does.
8th.
They look cool!!
Yes they do, but why can't a carrier be modeled to look cool as well?
Why does the carrier get support corvettes and the ravana doesn't? How come the Orion didn't either?
For equal tonnage the shivans should have 2 or more destroyers. The same goes for the terran destroyer. So comparing a carrier and its carrier group against a single destroyer is an unfair comparison.
If you balance the battle in favour of the carrier of course it will win but make it a fair fight and the battle becomes much harder to call.
Yes, but I'm taking a carrier half the size of an orion (and potentially less than half the tonnage).
Even if the carrier is as tough as the Orion there's still only one. As soon as it's dead the shivans can quite easily pull their caps out of the way and kill everything else with waves of bombers.
So what prevents the carrier from jumping out first sign of trouble and then sending its _greater_ numbers of bombers and fighters to obliterate everything?
Maybe. Power consumption may have gone up but the FS1 era Orion and Typhon were doing something with all that space before they were refitted with beams. Most likely the reactors needed upgrading but it doesn't immediately follow that they got significantly larger. Maybe they just got much more expensive due to the need to make the components more powerful while remaining the same size.
In fact it's unlikely that the weight penalty was that much or it would have just been easier to build a new ship instead of retrofitting the Orion.
Fair enough, but from what happened with the Typhons, I'm under the impression that the Orion's reactors were indeed retrofitted with new and more powerful ones while the Typhon was not.
And the space had to be used for something; I believe that it was used for reactors even before beams. With beams, they got new ones generating much more power at the same size (i.e. still huge).
Tell me who does more damage on the mission to destroy the Sathanas, you and every fighter/bomber or the Colossus itself?
It's not unbalanced it just as reality is... One Ship to rule them all! And it's beams are quite terran.
It's rather funny, because the way I've always crippled the Sathanas, given 10 wings of heavy bombers (costing much less than a Colossus) and a supply ship, I bet I can take down the Sathanas without taking too long (albeit slower than the big C, but I can just as easily spring for 50 wings of bombers for what the Colossus costed).
Which brings to to another thought. What do we always get ordered to do when a capital ship jumps in? Kill its beam turrets.
Frankly, I'd rather try to hold out while hoping my bombers and fighters kill the beam turrets rather than try slugging it out with my own beams. At least there's a slim chance of survival with the former choice if the enemy has a bigger ship.
Now, finally, why would there even be a head to head confrontation between a carrier and a destroyer? Any carrier commander would get the carrier out if jumped by a destroyer. A carrier would never jump in itself to attack a destroyer.
Sure the carrier would most likely be destroyed if hit by a surprise attack, but it'll survive long enough to launch a lot of snubfighters and they would try to engage a quick shortjump if possible.
A destroyer would just as likely be destroyed in a surprise attack, whether by a fighter swarm or a destroyer.
Oh for the love of god, why is this under debate? "Number of launch bays" means jack squat in Freespace, since fighters just pick a launch path and follow it regardless of where it lies on the ship. It's all a matter of how strong the mission designer wants to make a ship.
Oh come on, debate is fun as long as it stays civil.
While number of launchbays in the FS2 engine currently is meaningless, the story can easily accomodate for it.
And the last point, you do try to make things seem logical at least. A fighter shouldn't be able to blow apart a corvette in 2 seconds and stuff like that.
As for the logistical argument, the fall of the colossus proves the point against carriers actually, as no reasonable number of figters would have changed that battle. Another Colossus would have. The question really revolves around how a given fleet wants to use strike craft; if there are a lot of small skirmishes, then you want lots of subspace capable craft to jump in and out of hotspots and engage mutliple targets simultaneously. A large ship isn't as good at that. However, if you have major fleet battles going on, then you need capital ships with big guns, because fighters play a diminishing roll as more large ships enter the picture. So ultimately, it depends on the strategies and composition of enemy forces rather than your own strategic goals, making a more versitile fleet far more valuable than a bunch of specialized ships that are not built to directly enter combat as the aggressor.
I'm not convinced that the situation of Their Finest Hour shows this. In this mission, the Colossus was already damaged and doesn't even fire back (no beams free?) at the Sathanas. The Sathanas attacks immediately and over and over again as soon as it jumps in. But... the fact that the big C could've jumped out shows that there is time for something like that (even the Pheonicia jumped out after getting smacked). Then waves and waves of bombers and fighters all shortjump in and start killing the fighter screen and disabling turrets.
While the individual fighter might not make as much difference, a couple of wings do since FS2 warships are so vulnerable to system disabling.
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Sorry Chronoreverse, but I have to call you out on one thing.
The idea that any sensible carrier commander would jump out at the first sign of trouble is obvious. However, the same would apply to a destroyer that is overmatched, or even a cruiser or corvette. How many times did we see situations like this in FS2's campaign? More than once, most certainly. When the Iceni gets jumped by Vasudans in the SOC loop, when the Aquitane gets jumped (several times) in the Nebula, when the Colossus gets jumped by the Sath. How many times did the ship commander immediately jump out? There are cases where the ships did (what is it, Bearbaiting?), but for the most part they all hung around. Whatever prevented them from leaving would still apply to a Carrier, and the carrier can't as easily fight back. Remember that by the time of FS2 all ships carried SS tracking technology, so jumping away only delays the inevitable.
Don't get me wrong, carriers have a place in FS2. However, that place is not as a replacement to the Destroyer class, but rather as a suppliment.
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
Weight is not mass.... mass is important to consider, weight is not (that is why I said it was a nitpick) :p
And so? I dont' get what you want to say....
Originally posted by Ghostavo
And it's beams are quite terran.
I hope you are kidding... confront the power of BFRed to that of BFGreen...no match for the Sathanas
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Fair enough. However, a destroyer that jumps out immediately can no longer really participate in the battle and inflict damage... not to the degree a carrier would.
Whereas the carrier would then proceed to launch a huge swarm of snubfighters that jump back and start blasting (and still have a fighter complement to cover itself), a destroyer would have a much smaller complement of such fighters to send back.
In any case, fighter and bomber weaponry have been steadily improving to the point where by the end of FS2, their weaponry is starting be enough to overwhelm even destroyers.
The SS tracking part is rather important of course. It means that they can follow you. But does buy some time for your fighters and bombers to continue harrassing the opponent while you're running, disabling things (and if they can take out the engines, you're home-free).
And speaking of things that prevent jumping out, I've always wondered about it, a lot of times, there was very little reason not to initiate a quick shortjump, anyone want to share theories?
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er... ok...
it seems that you aren't understanding some of my points... let me rephrase some of them...
4th.
A beam hit in a fighterbay would easily prevent more fighters from "ever"!!! being sent by that fighterbay.
5th.
Put a HUGE Terran destroyer against a HUGE Terran carrier, what do you get? (same point as the sathanas).
6th.
If a Ravana is that deadly why strike with other ships?
7th.
Already discussed, see my previous post and karajorma's
8th.
A destroyer will always be cooler than a carrier :D
It's rather funny, because the way I've always crippled the Sathanas, given 10 wings of heavy bombers (costing much less than a Colossus) and a supply ship, I bet I can take down the Sathanas without taking too long (albeit slower than the big C, but I can just as easily spring for 50 wings of bombers for what the Colossus costed).
Actually... see the costs of those 10 wings of heavy bombers (plus the bombs).
As you say in the last part of your post fighters have rather tactical roles, disabling and disarming ships, etc...
But remember... a destroyer has them too!! (much fewer but it still has them) and could easily blow out a fighterbay or 2.
P.S.
Forgot to mention...
The Colossus didn't complain about the power... it complained about the heat from using the same cannon over and over again.
ryuune75 it was a nitpick... I was joking ok?
and about the beams... they are in diferent arguments... you can't compare... when I said to confront a Sathanas to any carrier I was talking about a possible Shivan carrier for christ sake!!! :mad:
:EDIT: and what prevents a destroyer from jumping in, blasting everything to kingdom come and imediatly warping out?
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Now, finally, why would there even be a head to head confrontation between a carrier and a destroyer? Any carrier commander would get the carrier out if jumped by a destroyer. A carrier would never jump in itself to attack a destroyer.
In which case a couple of destroyers could always hold any node against a carrier trying the enter the system.
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
ryuune75 it was a nitpick... I was joking ok?
Lol, now i see... language problems here, hehe.... :)
Originally posted by Ghostavo
As you say in the last part of your post fighters have rather tactical roles, disabling and disarming ships, etc...
But remember... a destroyer has them too!! (much fewer but it still has them) and could easily blow out a fighterbay or 2.
So it's still the idea of an hybrid desing. What i think don't works it's a destroyer without ANY fighter escort at all. It will be just dead meat, because it will not bea able to defend against bombers (like WW2 warships were).
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A beam hit in a fighterbay would easily prevent more fighters from "ever"!!! being sent by that fighterbay.
I've explained why I don't believe this to be true. You've yet to do so beside asserting that it is.
6th.
If a Ravana is that deadly why strike with other ships?
A carrier would be hiding somewhere while sending wave after wave of bombers to disable, then take down the Ravana. My point is that it can do that by itself since it carries enough fighter and bombers for that.
8th.
A destroyer will also be cooler than a carrier
Would it? I think they're really cool too, but a carrier can be cool too. And if we can have cool destroyers and carriers, why not cooler corvettes and cruisers as well?
Actually... see the costs of those 10 wings of heavy bombers (plus the bombs).
As you say in the last part of your post fighters have rather tactical roles, disabling and disarming ships, etc...
But remember... a destroyer has them too!! (much fewer but it still has them) and could easily blow out a fighterbay or 2.
Don't understand the first sentence.
It does indeed, but a carrier would have enough fighters to cover each attacker 1 to one AND have wings leftover to attack.
I've already mentioned how a carrier would have at the very least 4 fighter launchbays (which is what you can actually strike at). In any case, it wouldn't matter since a carrier wouldn't be situated in the middle of a battlefield unless under a surprise attack (in which case it would lose regardless of what it is unless it's a juggernaut).
The Colossus didn't complain about the power... it complained about the heat from using the same cannon over and over again.
Ah yes, you're right, it was "The heatsinks weren't designed to take this kind of abuse". Which means that the space for the giant heatsinks for the beam turrets (heatsinks by design have to be large and heavy) could be either empty or used for more fighter related stuff, excellent.
And I'm actually discussing the merits of a carrier over a destroyer hybrid. I think that a carrier class should be created and a dedicated beam corvette should be created rather than having a single do it all class.
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Helios are powerful but too expensive to use on a regular basis.
who'd want to Captain a destroyer size ship without any big guns anyway ?
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If I can order 10 wings of Ares fighters to trebuchet a target into submission, then I wouldn't mind.
And I'd say that Colossus juggernauts are too expensive to be used to hold back a Sathanas for an extra 5 seconds.
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The whole subspace tracking thing sort of negates the idea of a carrier "hiding somewhere" and sending in fighters. It's just as likely that the ship being attacked picks up on the incoming vectors of the fighters and just hops on over and takes on the carrier directly. I've also always gotten the impression that turrets and the like could be repaired without taking the ship in to port (though I'm not quite sure how when they can be blown off completely, it does happen in the Campaign none the less), while replacing fighters would require a new shipment to be brought up to the front lines. If you've got harassment on supply lines or blockaded jump nodes, that prospect is not a very viable one. And in replacing the warship role of the destroyer with a corvette, I again ask you to show me a corvette that can go toe-to-toe with a destroyer and win.
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When I say "Actually... see the costs of those 10 wings of heavy bombers (plus the bombs)." I mean for you to compare the costs of those 10 wings of heavy bombers plus their loadout and multiple resuplies to the Colossus cost. It is significant.
Heavy damage to a fighterbay would result in what the Colossus experienced on his only bay... so while one bay may not be such a big loss... if one can disable all of it's bays...
As for the coolness factor... this is my view
corvettes > capital ships (destroyer > carrier) > cruiser
The Ravana could also hide...
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Not to mention that the Ravana could track the destination of the excaping Carrier, relay it back to shivan command, and itself jump somewhere else (with no fighters around, no one would know). The carrier could still be attacked, while having no idea where the Ravana went.
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Actually, the Colossus' bay wasn't actually disabled... it was merely obstructed by debris. A hole in the fighterbay doesn't construe as an obstruction. A big bomb to the doorway would.
Hmm, considering how long it took to implement helios bombs and bakha bombers (considerably less than the 20+ years to build the Colossus) and the fact that the Colossus carried similar weaponry (as does every other destroyer), I'd be inclined to believe that bombers and bombs (helios or not) wouldn't be as expensive as building an entire destroyer.
Also, because you would build more of them, economies of scale would take effect and the cost per fighter and bomber would drop as you build more of them to supply the carriers.
The whole subspace tracking thing sort of negates the idea of a carrier "hiding somewhere" and sending in fighters. It's just as likely that the ship being attacked picks up on the incoming vectors of the fighters and just hops on over and takes on the carrier directly. I've also always gotten the impression that turrets and the like could be repaired without taking the ship in to port (though I'm not quite sure how when they can be blown off completely, it does happen in the Campaign none the less), while replacing fighters would require a new shipment to be brought up to the front lines. If you've got harassment on supply lines or blockaded jump nodes, that prospect is not a very viable one. And in replacing the warship role of the destroyer with a corvette, I again ask you to show me a corvette that can go toe-to-toe with a destroyer and win.
Very true, except subspace tracking has always taken the exit vector. Has there been any canon evidence of the opposite?
In any case, why not have the fighters do two shortjumps?
Is there any reason why fighters cannot be transported using the same transports that supply destroyers normally? I mean, those containers are big enough to carry more than one bomber. And pilot replacements can fly their own craft in.
As for in flight repair. I haven't seen any evidence that subsystems can be repaired quickly when completely destroyed. I've also never seen any situation where beam turrets are repair after being completely destroyed. The one time a subsystem repair was required (that I remember), the parts were brought in by a transport.
Another question, are the subspace trackers capable of being mounted on a fighter? I don't think so, but if they can....
Also, the carrier would obviously move after jumping (and probably jumping again). Fighters can spread out in search patterns. With much more fighters at its disposal, a carrier is much more likely to find an enemy while still being able to respond.
In any case, doesn't it seem much less likely for a Ravana to jump out? Even when it was being harrassed by the GTVA fleet, it still didn't bother jumping out. It doesn't seem like the Shivans ever jump out even against impossible odds.
Rebels and pirates would probably be smarter and jump out at the sight of a swarm of snubfighters, but then how would they find the carrier that sent them?
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What I am actually refering to is the holdover on lost subsystems from one mission to another. The only time that destroyed turrets stayed destroyed from multiple appearances of the same ship was the Sathanas, and I don't even think it is specific to which turrets are destroyed. It's more a campaign limitation than a intentional thing, but it's close enough to canon. Also, there are repeated mention of field repairing the hull of a ship, so I'd assume replacing blown off extensions would fall under that capacity.
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Trinity... Aquitane... etc etc etc... (subsystems repair that is....)
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Trinity required a part to be carted in.
The Aquitane was to "jury-rig a solution" so that they can jump out. If you want to give credit to this, then a merely obstructed launchbay ought be able to be cleared too.
I'm more inclined to say that either would take a while normally.
@Stratcomm
Ah yes, you're right, it seems that turrets are repaired between battles. But they're never repair during a battle and the bomber swarm isn't going to go away and let them repair.
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That wasn't my point. It's a logistical maintanence and resupply issue, a carrier is fundamentally harder to keep supplied than a destroyer because of its larger crew compliment, munitions drain, and fighter losses. It doesn't have any bearing on a tactical situation.
Gah... this isn't a discussion, as no one is being persuaded. If you want to make a carrier mission, then great. I've said that they have their place. But don't try to tell me that my destroyer is inferior because of its design, as I can script a mission involving both (or arm both) to produce the results as I see fit. I happen to think that the way Freespace combat works, a destroyer is far better suited to unknown combat operations than a dedicated carrier. And it is a game.
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Actually... when I posted this I was trying to confirm what you said... and an obstructed launchbay can be cleared too... at least they say so in the mission where the big C bites the dust.
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*shrugs
I suppose when both sides don't want to budge that happens.
Maintenance may be more expensive (heck, the Colossus had crazy maintenance) but since fighter technology has progressed to the point where wing of snubfighters can in fact take down a destroyer, a carrier starts to make sense (whereas they wouldn't during the TV War)
@ghostavo
Yeah, they were trying to clear it as soon as possible... they didn't work fast enough XD
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Chrono you won't convince me of anything while you keep ignoring my comments.
For the last time. How would your supposedly superior carrier fleet defeat an equal tonnage of destroyers blockading a node it was trying to enter by.
It couldn't. It would be completely useless at such a task unless you're willing to throw ridiculous amounts of money at the problem by launching your fighters in subspace.
Originally posted by ChronoReverse
And pilot replacements can fly their own craft in.
Not if the destroyer is in another system. Think about how long did the Aquitaine spend in Capella as opposed to other systems?
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Now why on earth would you need an equal amount of carriers as compared to destroyers? The whole point was that you can have less and smaller ones (which still hold more fighters than a destroyer can) and that it would be supported by specialized beam corvettes and AA cruisers.
Let's say that three destroyers were blockading a node. Two smaller carriers (which have the armor protecting the critical reactors, hence can take a beating close to, but less than that of an Orion) jump in along with four corvettes. Is this close enough to similar tonnage?
Obviously the destroyers would try to take out the carriers first. But in the few minutes it takes for that, the carrier being torn to pieces (which specializes in launching snubfighters) would have launched enough wings to defeat the fighter screen already existing. Although the carrier would go down, the other one is still standing (of course, it'll now be attacked, but it's already launched a large number of snubfighters). By the time the second carrier is close to being destroyed, there should be enough fighters and bombers launched to take out the destroyer's beams and for the corvettes to start doing some damage.
Farfetched? Perhaps.
Too costly? Definitely.
Unlikely to succeed? Certainly.
But considering how the track record of terrans and vasudans attacking blockades, the destroyers don't do a very good job either.
The Colossus could do it, but it's an immense ship within which you could hold 12 Lucifer class destroyers. And I'm sure that 12 unshielded Lucies could take out Colossus.
Of course, the Shivan have a history of demolishing blockades with a single ship, their ships are just that powerful =/
And you know, for someone claiming I'm ignoring, you haven't even noticed me iterating that the carrier in question wouldn't have to be 1.6KM in length (i.e not nearly as large as a destroyer would be).
Hmmm, RBCs are expensive, but I wonder how much so. I wonder if it would be possible to tow them along. That way if a mothership is destroyed, they can still fight.
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Everyone in the thread-
(http://nodewar.penguinbomb.com/aotd/KT/stfu.gif)
Kthxloveyabye.
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LOL well said Knight Templar! :lol:
I sure you all have valid points but... it is a game it is not real so don't fuss about this ****... just play the game and be happy it was even made in the first place! :)
The first person in this thread to make a mod w/o destroyers wins
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Your example, the destroyers, lets say Orion class, vs. 2 strike carriers with 4 support corvettes(2 for each carrier).
The destroyers scramble the rest of their fighters to compensate for the massive onslaught of the opposing fighters. The destroyers themselves focus their fire on the corvettes first because they are the threat.
The Carriers in your example are centered around bomber/anti-cap defense, they have little if any offensive ability against a destroyer, save for their bombers.
The corvettes would be destroyed in the first or second volley, leaving the carriers vulnerable. The carriers must either jump away or be destroyed. One perhaps two of the destroyers might be lost, but the destroyers still win.
I've got to ask, why such a mad-on against destroyers?
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Chrono, I think you are interpreting our comments as us not understanding the function of your carrier group. We do. However, your reasoning has consisted soley of this carrier group idea and the ability of one of these carriers to launch seemingly endless waves of fighters. We're saying that either that wouldn't be possible or wouldn't matter, given the conventional FS fleet deployment protocol.
My list of gripes still to be addressed:
[list=1]
- Fighters are EXPENSIVE. Look at todays Navy; the cost of the aircraft onboard an aircraft carrier is a significant percentage of the cost of a whole carrier (on the order of 25-30% of its total cost) and the carriers do not have a tremendous amount of shipboard weaponry. You advance that figure to a space-based carrier, and you are looking at fighters that are almost prohibitively expensive to manufacture (read the tech description of the Ursa in FS1) and which require a lot of support to be effective. The ability of a carrier to quickly launch a few wings of fighters (lets say, generously, 10 wings) on entering a combat zone is all well and good, but the average lifespan of a fighter in Freespace is approximately ninety seconds. Those aren't really good numbers for something that you are basing all of your offensive capabilities from. After a sortie with such massive numbers of fighters, you'd be lucky to get half of them back. So where, pray tell, are the replacements for these fighters and bombers coming from? That question still has not been satisfactorily addressed.
- Almost all fighter weaponry is projectile (missile) based. Carriers being more impervious to enemy fire has been one of their proposed benefits, but those munitions have to be stored somewhere. If they are hit by an exploding warhead, no more carrier. Fighters also require fuel that will react in a vacuum, thus it is an explosive store or some form of fusable material, which (at best) would be subject to explosive decompression if the containment vessel is ruptured. I also don't understand the reasoning that a carrier would necessarily have more armor around its reactor than a destroyer, which is designed to absorb weapons fire anyway.
- Subspace. A lot of the proposed deployment arrangements for carriers has been dependent on being able to enter subspace at a moments notice. There is very little evidence to support the conclusion that ships can do this, much less that it would be efficient to do so. The few instances we have of ships entering subspace on short notice include the Iceni after being broken out of the Boedicia installation (where the coordinates could have been plotted and the engines configured long in advance), the Lysander (I think, maybe it was the Actium) when operating in the Nebula (where it had not been in Subspace for quite some time, and one would expect a pre-plotted escape jump in an area as unknown as the nebula), and the NTF ships running blockades. In the case of the blockade runners, maybe they were overloading their SS drives, or maybe intersystem and intrasystem jumps require different drives, but there is no example of a ship being able to enter subspace moments after first emerging. In fact there is much evidence to the contrary. Precisely what it is that keeps ships from jumping is a matter of debate, but there certainly is something.
- Space allotment inside a destroyer. We see the outer hulls of the ships we go against in Freespace, not their pressure hulls or their support structures. From the Colossus and Bastion anis, it would appear that not all of a ship above cruiser specs is even used. If it is used, then that's a lot of space for extra armor plating, or hangers or whatever. That also raises a concern with the Carrier design that is small and filled to the brim with hangers; what is supporting all of the open spaces inside the hull? It seems to me that the more cavernous hangers you add (if they are significantly enough of the hull volume to warrent fewer decks in the same space), the more suceptible the ship is to a structural collapse inside the armor plating.
- The Lucifer. We cannot forget why mounting beam weaponry on Freespace ships became a necessity (by the storyline anyway). If conventional weaponry (lasers/plasma and bombs) couldn't penetrate the Lucifer's shields, then how would any size of carrier be able to do anything about another Lucifer-class shielded destroyer? That's not a job I'd want to rely on corvettes for.
- Blockades. Kara's said it a million times. The reason ships appeared to be so ineffective at running blockades is that when you see that situation in the main campaign, the capital ships charging through a node never even power up their beam cannons. They just try to jump in and jump out. A destroyer, properly deployed through a node, could create a lot of havoc for the defenders, particularly if it catches them by suprise. By the time a carrier could launch it's first wave of fighters, a destroyer could already have used it's forward cannons to rip through defenders. And those beams are NOT subject to being intercepted by point defenses and fighter screens. You have to remember that even at the end of FS2, there is a substantial distinction between fighters and bombers, in that bombers can cripple or destroy larger ships if properly supported while fighters cannot. The launches from a carrier would only be able to do significant damage to destroyer class vessels about 1/3 of the time, where as main beam cannons do equivalent damage 100% of the time.
I think that's it, though I'm sure more will come to mind later.
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I know FS2 isnt realistic, and that its a sci-fi game with subspace and photon beam cannons, but its the 24th century so thats somewhat believable, but going back to mid 20th century tactics is not what i call "sci-fi"
Yeah sure the big beams look cool and the big 'splosions are really exiting and fun to watch. Basically what im trying to say is that the Destroyers arent balanced enough. They should take many many more bombs to take out and be a big deal, like the Taranis was a big deal in FS1.
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Now that I agree with. Destroyers are too weak in FS2, especially compared to the much smaller Corvettes.
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@Stratcomm
Perhaps. But seriously, I thought that you simply thought that destroyers are more effective and versatile (while I think carriers are less versatile, but ought be have more striking and staying power in situations where they're the aggressor).
@1
Hmm, you're right. Fighters and bombers are expensive. Then again all military hardware tends to be expensive. At least you can manufacture fighters and bombers en masse and exploit economies of scale.
@2
Erm, don't normal hybrid destroyers also carry these same munitions? Come to think of it, aren't ursa bombers full these bombs too? But when you kill one or see one collide and die against a cruiser, you don't see a huge explosion, nor does the cruiser get wiped out.
So I'm not convinced of this one.
As for why the carrier would have more armour protecting critical areas, it's because specialized carriers would have a smaller proportion that would be considered critical. A single fighterbay is not critical since losing it would not directly cause the ship to explode (even if you don't take into account my belief that a hole through a fighter bay wouldn't completely disable its function). A bay full of heatsinks, plasma cores and power conduits for the beam weapons would.
Why would the fighters need fuel that react in a vacuum? If they used fusion, it wouldn't. If they used fission, it doesn't matter if it's in vacuum or not. Ion engine propellent isn't volatile. The fighters can't possibly be using liquid-fuel-combustion since their ranges are so great.
@3
Indeed. Part of the reason why I even think that a carrier class is feasible is because it seems that by the time of FS2, it is indeed possible to make relatively accurate shortjumps and the ability to make _one_ jump quickly at a moments notice (not to mention that the snubfighters have started to accrued weaponry that are very effective at killing beam turrets very quickly).
I believe that both are possible since the pilot's chatter seem to indicate that shortjumps should not land one 5 km from a target and because capital ships such as the Pheonicia was able to jump out quickly (and the Colossus was all of a sudden ordered to jump out[they refused]).
However, two jumps in succession would probably be only an emergency technique.
This still leaves the problem of being followed when running away, but a carrier group should be caught by surprise so easily anyways. Come to think of it, none of the destroyers in FS ought to be jumped so easily, but they seem to have to mentality of trying to slug it out (except for the nebula missions).
@4
Hmm, it could be true, but I'd be more inclined to believe that a geometric "honeycomb" of structural supports (similar to geodesics) would provide sufficient structural strength. Especially since strain always generated by acceleration of the ship.
And the Colossus being mostly empty? Doubtful, it would be a tremendous waste of space that could be used for more reactors, fuel, fighter space or perhaps most importantly, heatsinks.
@5
I've always wondered if beam weapons could actually penetrate capital shielding.
Point taken, you're right. Of course, my proposed dedicated beam ships still have their beams. Perhaps a smaller destroyer class should be included, dedicated to anti-capital beams.
I guess destroyers are still useful.
@6
Yes definitely. But we also see how quickly _fighters_ carrying Stilletto IIs can cripple an orion's beam weaponry. Stilletto IIs kill beam weaponry of normal destroyers fast and they're heat-seaking too. It would be nightmare trying to stop three wings of Herc IIs unloading Stilleto IIs like there's no tomorrow.
A destroyer would have an advantage in a surprise attacks compared to a carrier trying to mount a surprise attack.
@Liberator
If you attack the corvettes first, then the carriers would have launched more fighters than you have launched AND bombers. enough to tie up your fighters AND disable all your beam turrets before you've killed the carriers.
This is assuming it takes two volleys of beams from one orion to kill one corvette. There's still the fourth one in any case.
If a destroyer is allowed to fire as soon as it leave subspace, why not have the carriers launch four wings as soon as it leaves subspace?
Finally
@Knight Templar
Yes we should all shut up and never talk about anything in this forum. Sheesh, if I was going on and screaming at people, saying how they're all stupid for not listening to me, then you've got every right to say that.
But I'm not.
Despite what it seems, I'm actually reading every single post.
So why be so uptight about this?
[edit] The reason I even continued talking about this is because destroyers in FS2 seem SO weak and vulnerable. I remember a mission where you're hunting Bosch...
"Command, I don't see the Iceni, it must have jumped out. I see a destroyer, Orion class, dead ahead. Should we abort?"
"Negative alpha 2, proceed with the attack, Command will send other resources to apprehend Bosch"
"Okey, dokey, time to blow up this Orion"
***4 minutes later the orion explodes under the firepower of no more than 1 corvette, 1 fighter wing and 2 bomber wings.***
All I did was fire a single pair of helios and then I just sat back and fired interceptors at the loki fighter swarm. [/edit]
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1) It's replacing the fighters as they are lost. I assume that the "turrets" that you see getting blown out are actually optics, which are fairly simple to replace. The main beam generators are well inside the hull. Capital ships are capable of recovering from damage, fighters, well, can't.
2) Destroyers carry less of the munitions than a dedicated carrier would. And support ships do go boom in a nice big fashion, only carying a limited amount of weapons. Deployment ships (destroyers and carriers) carry a lot more. The fuel issue comes from the fact that the energy that powers fighters has to come from somewhere if you are going to take the realism argument, and that energy could easily be released if the containment vessel was breached. It'd be like an extra reactor, but where the reaction couldn't be contained. I've actually always perceived that fighter fuel is drawn off of the destroyer's main stores, where a carrier with a smaller reactor would actually need more stores.
And I still don't get why destroyers would skimp on the armor in places just because there was more to cover up. They seem pretty uniformly covered to me, since the only time taking out a subsystem leads to the destruction of the ship is the Lucifer.
3) Again comes the issue of energy. If the Destroyers shut off their weapons in order to make quicker jumps (pointing to recharge times, see the blockade missions where capitals hardly fire) then they should have greater capacity to quickjump than a carrier which is not built to power high-energy weapon systems. If you give the carrier equivalent reactors to a destroyer, then why not mount destroyer weaponry on them as well. You didn't see the Phonecia jump in, so you don't know how long it had taken to recharge its drives, and it probably had escape coordinates laid in ahead of time. The only reason I didn't count it with the other examples is because it is almost exactly like the Lysander for the scenario.
4) You didn't watch the Colossus or Bastion ani's, now did you :p They both clearly show huge sections of hull unoccupied by crew, on the outside of the ship, and not near any weapons or engines. I'm not speaking in hypothetical terms here, there really is that much free space inside the things.
6) We cannot count Stilleto's in this discussion. They are vastly overpowered, and we never actually get to use them in a situation where they would be truely useful. It still also doesn't account for where all of these blasted fighters are coming from, unless you are going homeworld style and putting construction facilities inside the carriers. Supply in Freespace is not a constant thing, it comes in intervals and ships must be self-sufficient between resupplies. Carriers simply would consume their resources faster, or waste a lot of space storing them for the same offensive punch as a destroyer.
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Originally posted by DeepSpace9er
They cost millions if not billions to produce and the technology on them isnt at all cheap. They are slow, easy targets, piss poor at defending themselves, require cheap fighters to protect them etc. Why bother build them! There is no point! You might as well have Carriers defended by Aeolus type cruisers. Oh, and long range strategic fusion warheads capable of incinerating a station in one shot. :nod:
Because they are much better at blowing **** up than Aeolus cruisers (would you really want to put those two SGreens up against an Orion's two BGreens and TerSlash?). Plus the GTVA has only a few Aeolus cruisers and tons of Orions.
Originally posted by ChronoReverse
They also die ridiculously fast until attack from a few squadrons of heavy bombers covered by a few wings of fighters.
So? An Aeolus would die even faster, although the bombers might suffer more casualties.
If an Orion or two ambushed the carrier group, the carrier would be blown to pieces in no time.
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Yeah, turrets are definitely cheaper to replace than fighters (at least I'd hope so). But losing four wings of fighters wouldn't cause the carrier to suddenly lose a lot of its striking power, while losing 4 turrets would for a destroyer. And turrets are easy to destroy even if you ignore stillettos. That Maxim and the Trebuchet, both readily available, tend to kill turrets really quickly (the exception being the main turrets of juggernauts).
Yeah, a the fuel would definitely be more problematic on a carrier. But again, a carrier wouldn't be in a situation where it would be easily attack unless it was ambushed (in which case a destroyer is unlikely to survive either).
What I mean is that for a given capacity of mass that a ship can support and a certain size, a carrier would have less areas that are critical and need heavy armor since beam turrets, heatsinks, plasma cores and power conduits aren't there.
If you give the carrier equivalent reactors to a destroyer, then why not mount destroyer weaponry on them as well.
Maybe for the express purpose of quickjumping?
In any case, the Pheonicia was firing before it jumps out, I'd say they're energy reserves were strained at best. And how long do you think the Pheonicia could've possibly been in front of a Sathanas? Not very long I'd say.
About the Colossus. They don't show the heatsinks and power conduits and plasma cores either. In fact, beam turrets are just these little dimples on the surface. There's obviously more inside it that what is shown.
In any case, if there's so much empty space, then a carrier class is even more justified, it means that a smaller vessel with less empty space can still carry much more fighters than a destroyer.
Supply. Yes you're right. However, I'd like to point out that a carrier would carry much more fighters and bombers in the first place and thus also be able to last longer despite them being blown up.
I'll discount the stillettos, but there's plenty of other overpowered fighter and bomber weaponry by the end of FS2.
@woolie wool
Hmm, I thought that everyone was already clear on how a carrier group attacks. I guess I assumed wrong.
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Umm, the Phoenicia is supposed to die I thought.
Anyway, OT, the whole premise that the carrier would be able to field enough fighters/bombers to successfully screen the destroyer's strike craft is flawed. Destroyers are frontline units and correspondingly get the skilled pilots and newer fighters before other units would. The pilots would probably win the day in the engagement especially if Alpha 1 is present.
At best they'd come up even.
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Erm, don't normal hybrid destroyers also carry these same munitions? Come to think of it, aren't ursa bombers full these bombs too? But when you kill one or see one collide and die against a cruiser, you don't see a huge explosion, nor does the cruiser get wiped out.
So I'm not convinced of this one.
As for why the carrier would have more armour protecting critical areas, it's because specialized carriers would have a smaller proportion that would be considered critical. A single fighterbay is not critical since losing it would not directly cause the ship to explode (even if you don't take into account my belief that a hole through a fighter bay wouldn't completely disable its function). A bay full of heatsinks, plasma cores and power conduits for the beam weapons would.
Chrono. You cannot sit on both sides of the fence. Your comments about heatsinks and plasma cores are based on an extrapolation of what we see in FS2. Your comments on why munitions don't explode rejects a similar extrapolation.
Either stick to exactly what we see in FS2 or stick to extrapolations. You can't do both.
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Chrono. You're also making two basic assumptions which I very strongly disagree with.
1) Carriers would be able to jump out at the first sign of trouble. Nothing in FS2 suggests that jumping is very accurate or quick unless special precautions are taken. Think of all the escort missions that would have been much easier if the ships simply jumped in at the node and then jumped out again immediately.
2) You assume that a large proportion of the space on board a destroyer is taken up by its weapon systems and therefore a carrier would be smaller. I disagree with this.
A large portion of a destroyer is taken up by hanger bay(s). Don't believe me? Take a look at this. A comparison of an Orion Class next to 25 Ursa Bombers. Remember that the Orion can carry ~110 fighters and bombers
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/freespace/Misc-Pics/Ursa-Orion%20Comparison.jpg)
And that only shows the size of the bombers themselves stack on top of each other. It doesn't include the space you'd need to arm them and prep them. Something you'll need a lot of space for if you're going to launch wave upon wave of ships.
On top of that if you want the hangers to be independant of each other you're going to need prepping space for each bay rather than one central one like the current GTVA destroyers no doubt have.
In addition to this the Orion didn't get any larger when it was updated to carry beam cannons. Nor did the changes make it any slower (which suggests no overall change in its mass).
If you're trying to claim a carrier can carry more fighters than destroyer you're going to have to make it a larger than a destroyer. This means that for any carrier you make you could just as easily have built a destroyer plus some other ships.
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Originally posted by karajorma
2) You assume that a large proportion of the space on board a destroyer is taken up by its weapon systems and therefore a carrier would be smaller. I disagree with this.
The majority of a destroyer is taken up by hanger bay(s). Don't believe me? Take a look at this. A comparison of an Orion Class next to 25 Ursa Bombers. Remember that the Orion can carry ~110 fighters and bombers
If that's so why a modern day carrier (350-400 meters) can carry something like 80 fighters?
The Orior is 2km long right? So the space inside is: 125 times larger than that of a real carrier... even if the ursa is 10 times as large as an F-14 (and i don't think so) i suppose in a 2km carrier you have still space for more than 1200 of them...
Something it's not right imho...110 are too few for the Orion to carry. Maybe the subspace engines are reeeeeeally large?
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You couldn't fit 1200 into an orion. Even if you took everything else out! :D
I edited my post cause I'd said that the hanger bay was the majority of the internals when it's clearly not but you got your post in too quickly for me :)
I'd imagine that the engine systems, reactor and the jump engines take up a fair bit of space on all capships.
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Originally posted by karajorma
I edited my post cause I'd said that the hanger bay was the majority of the internals when it's clearly not but you got your post in too quickly for me :)
Yep :p
yes, as you say, probably you could fit more than 1000 if the Orion is just an enormous hangar bay, much like modern day carriers are (no weapons, and engines don't take too much space)
Probably the hangar bay is just a moderate fraction of the ship, after all, it's a destroyer, not a carrier.
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Remember that modern day fighters are much smaller than a FS2 fighter... in which the smallest is 15m unless I'm mistaken.
Either way, you can't live without fighter, you can't live without destroyers... each has it's role, and that's why you need hybrids, because it's more versatile. Destroyers in FS2 should be much stronger than what they are, you shouldn't have fire helios in the same place and expect it to blow, and that is why geomod is the way to go!! :p
Now stop discussing this and go model a carrier cooler and then a Ravana... than I'll see your point :p
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An Ursa bomber is a whopping 41m long and ~30m wide. The average modern-day fighter is 10-15m long and 7-15 meters wide.
An Orion probably carries 16 Ursas (Ursae?) at most. 25 Myrmidons or Apollos would be more appropriate.
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
An Orion probably carries 16 Ursas (Ursae?) at most. 25 Myrmidons or Apollos would be more appropriate.
From the tech database:
"The Orion's cavernous hanger bays easily accommodate more than two dozen fighter or bomber wings."
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The point of a destroyer is to destroy things. That's why it's called a destroyer and not a lightlymassagetheenemyer.
Nuff said.
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Chrono. You cannot sit on both sides of the fence. Your comments about heatsinks and plasma cores are based on an extrapolation of what we see in FS2. Your comments on why munitions don't explode rejects a similar extrapolation.
And yet you also ignore some things that we ALSO see in FS2. Bombers don't go boom. Even when they collide. And the supply ships, they don't go boom either. I've blown plenty up personally, had them blow up in my face, shot out while reloading, colliding and killing them. But they don't go boom with even enough force to kill me in my myrmidon, much less a large capital ship.
The ONLY time munitions explode when shot at is when they're actually in flight. And if you read the technical database, it says that the bombs WON'T arm until you get a lock (for more than one weapon in fact). While I've interpretted as to say that the fuse won't go off unless you got the lock, perhaps I got it wrong and that it won't arm and the warhead doesn't explode at all if you don't.
1) Carriers would be able to jump out at the first sign of trouble. Nothing in FS2 suggests that jumping is very accurate or quick unless special precautions are taken. Think of all the escort missions that would have been much easier if the ships simply jumped in at the node and then jumped out again immediately.
And again you ignore what I've pointed out in the campaign. There has been many cases where a quick jump would've been lifesaving. However, I've never even suggested the use of the jump drive for really shortjump (at least not in this thread). I suggested that they use the shortjump drive to just GET AWAY. This requires only one factor: speed.
Now before delving into that. I've pointed out two cases where the dialogue suggests that subspace shortjumps ought be be RELATIVELY (that is, not extremely) accurate. What I mean is that, given proper coordinates, a shortjump shouldn't land you 5 km from the intended point. If we be really conservative then you could say that 2km is a reasonable distance (the fact that the NTF jumps in at about 2km in the very first mission, every single time, supports this).
Even when the Psalmtik jumped in 9km away from us, the conversation was that of surprise and troubleshooting why that happened.
A lot of the SOC missions have either you, the rescuing forces or the "rescuing" forces jumping in within 3 km of you (usual much less).
Now, why can't you even consider the possibility that a quick jump to get away is possible? In any case where it occurred in FS2 (not FS1 since the technology seemed to have improved) you've dismissed it. While I realize that in many points of the story a quick jump to get away would've simplified thing, this does _not_ include a really shortjump to get closer to a node. This is not an example of a quick jump to get away.
So kindly show me other missions where is was shown to be impossible to jump out quickly since you've dismissed my examples of how it _might_ be possible out of hand. Since I'm using the existentalist argument, you will have to prove it's impossible.
@aldo_14
Precisely my point. I've revised my argument somewhere up there to say that destroyers ought to focus on anti-capital weaponry and armor (and even be somewhat smaller).
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The helios is an anti-matter bomb. Extrapolate that into an explaination for why it doesn't explode when damaged. :rolleyes:
In fact making ammunition cook off as soon as a ship explodes has been suggested as an SCP addition several times because there is no way to explain why the helios doesn't explode when a bomber is killed.
The reason that any capship can't immediately jump out as soon as it gets into trouble is obvious in Kings Gambit. Even though those ships were in very deep trouble they all hang around for 2-3 minutes before attempting to leave. That shows that it takes time to recharge jump engines.
2-3 minutes is plent of time for enemy forces to take out a ships engines.
If a capship has just jumped in it can't jump again for several minutes. That's the impression given by several missions.
Even if this wasn't true and the carrier could immediately jump out there is nothing to stop another ship following after it and taking some more pot shots at it.
Besides do you really believe that Command was so stupid as to lose capship after capship when it simply could have told them to jump out?
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Didn't the supply ships go BOOM really loud in FS1 and released a shockwave?
:nervous:
And one more thing... take Alpha 1 out of the equation. :D
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Hmm? The Actium jumped out immediately after command ordered them to. Command ordered Colossus to jump out. The Psalmtik jumped out immediately after its engines were fixed. The Phoenica jumps out immediately without being order.
The helios is an anti-matter bomb. Extrapolate that into an explaination for why it doesn't explode when damaged.
Easy, we don't know if antimatter may necessarily explode when coming into contact with matter in a uncontrolled manner.
It has been suggested that the anti-matter may in fact "skip" along normal matter in a similar way to how if water comes into contact with a 500 degree object, the result should be an explosion, but if the volume of water is small compared to the surface area of effect, this doesn't happen.
Since AM reactions generate gamma radiation and gamma radiation only (which doesn't really do too much to matter in terms of physical damage), it's possible that the FS2 bombs require another stage to actually convert the antimatter to explosives. Thus explaining why bombs must be armed and not simply fired dumbfire with a contact/proximity fuse.
And these are using ideas that hav been proposed in reality for how antimatter _might_ react with matter. It also seems to fit the description.
And King's Gambit is where they jumped in, and jumped out (if you don't blow them up) right? I've already said that a carrier wouldn't have jumped into an attack in the first place. So the only reason left for it to initiate a quick jump is if someone else jumps in on it. In which case, the destroyer that jumped in wouldn't be able to quickly jump again. And thus your argument of being followed doesn't work.
And Command _is_ stupid.
"Hold back the Sathanas Phoenica"
@ghostavo
I would, but that makes the carrier even more overpowered since it would then be able to have more than 2 wings of fighters protecting it, attacking, etc.
In any case, I've cited an example where I did almost nothing (I just shot some Lokis and fired one pair of Helios) and watched my wingmen, a bomber wing, a fighter wing and one corvette take out an Orion on a whim. That's right, on a whim, because Command said so.
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The example I gave of where a carrier group attempts to take on a blockade is an example of where the carrier would have jumped in to attack rather than having the enemy attack it.
In fact any situation in which the carrier has jumped anywhere makes it vulnerable.
So what you do in a like for like battle is have one destroyer leap in and force the carrier into making a jump. Then a second destroyer takes on the now immobile carrier.
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So you're saying one destroyer sits and waits for the carrier to jump in? But you never know where the carrier is going to jump to...
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If it's arriving in the system you do :D If you want to ambush it when it arrives at an Arcadia you do.
And all this is only needed if you believe Chronos arguements that command are so stupid that they'll leave destroyers to die rather than jump them out but will act to save a carrier in the same situation.
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Y'know, Freespace destroyers are carriers. It even says so in the FS Reference bible. So you're arguing about the merits of 2 hypothetical ship types that don't_even_exist as definition (either that, or they are both the same thing- your choice) in FS.
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They are hybrids as they have both massive fighterbays and anti-cap weaponry.
When we use the word "Destroyer" in this thread, I assume we are specifying these hybrids. When we say "Carrier" we specify a ship who's only purpose is to carry and deploy fighters.
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Easy, we don't know if antimatter may necessarily explode when coming into contact with matter in a uncontrolled manner.
It has been suggested that the anti-matter may in fact "skip" along normal matter....
This may be a bit off-topic but where the hell did you heard those things? Scientists produce antimatter everyday and quite easily nowadays, it's not something like subspace who don't really exist (or at least we don't know) and i'm pretty sure anti-matter and matter annichilates each other on simple contact
Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Since AM reactions generate gamma radiation and gamma radiation only (which doesn't really do too much to matter in terms of physical damage)
Gamma don't do much in term of damage? Lol, it depends on how much gamma radiation you are considering....and i bet that an antimatter bomb can produce enought to melt any kind of armor...
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*sigh
We do produce anti-matter routinely... that is we produce anti-particles routinely. Billions of them.
The problem is, 1 gram of antihydrogen would require about 12.5 million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion anti-protons and anti-electrons in total combined.
The difference of scale here is obvious.
As for the skipping factor, it's a serious and valid possiblity. Since the edges of anti-matter would immediately react in contact and produce tremendous energy, it's enough to move the antimatter just enough to not touch the matter. If there's a force pushing them together, then they'll come together and as the edges just touch and start to annihilate, it separates again.
It's not that they don't annihilate on contact, but that we don't have any way of forcing every single particle to annihilate at the same time. Unless you're suggesting that we use "force beams" to individually manipulate each particle (I won't even go into how this isn't feasible).
In Star Trek, the dilithium convertors were dreamed up (and modified in TNG) for the express purpose of providing a method to make sure the two can mix well, but in real-life AND in Freespace, there is no such thing.
Gamma radiation. It does indeed do damage to normal matter. Except it's no more than what plain light would do. In fact, it's slightly less for inorganic materials. Indeed, if you can convert ALL the gamma radiation released into heat, then you'd have a huge explosion. But you'd have to do it all at once. This would suggest a method of control. If the conversion material is close enough (a critical density let's call it) then it'll convert enough of the gamma radiation fast enough to create the explosion. If it's moved further away, the explosion resultant wouldn't nearly be even close to as powerful.
Considering how even the slightly impurities in tritium can cause a fusion bomb to fizzle (despite the fact the fusion naturally produces heat), I'd say even an anti-matter process would be at least at delicate. In fact, considering the above mentioned effect and problem, it may be even more sensitive to variation.
Finally, gamma radiation is an ionizing radiation. It does damage on the molecular scale. It's more likely that extreme levels of gamma radiation would produce an crumbling effect as it disrupts the electrons in the material. However, in that case, a bomb to deliver it would be rather inefficient. Something like the Gorgon Cannon would be much more suitable.
@aldo_1
Yes, I realize that. And I'll re-iterate, I've changed my stance several posts ago to say that destroyers and carrier should in fact be discrete (and both smaller). They should also focus on their own purposes more.
@kara
You've shown one situation where a carrier would be indeed at a disadvantage. But under my revised postulation, there would be smaller destroyers with equivalent firepower to an orion as well for situations such as blockade and installation attack.
Also, in an installation attack, the carrier could jump in 5 lighthours out and start launching fighters. The Arcadia would still have no way to know where the fighters are coming from.
As for the idea of using a destroyer to scare a carrier to run away, then send another destroyer to kill it. I'll let you think about the idea of using two destroyers to kill one carrier.
In any case, if you sent a corvette, the carrier wouldn't run since the normal fighter escort could probably disable the corvette, much less a full scale launch and attack from the carrier. Not to mention that the carrier would have at least one beam corvette guarding it.
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
As for the idea of using a destroyer to scare a carrier to run away, then send another destroyer to kill it. I'll let you think about the idea of using two destroyers to kill one carrier.
The whole thing is down to tonnage and I've already explained why 2 destroyers to one carrier fleet is fair.
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Humour me, explain to me again why a carrier, half the size of a destroyer, full of fighters and bombers would be equivalent to two destroyers full of fighters, but much less.
I mean you surely don't believe that a fighter costs more than 1% of a carrier...
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I've changed my stance several posts ago to say that destroyers and carrier should in fact be discrete (and both smaller
Actually the destroyers should be bigger than what they are... why put them more vunerable to bombers?
But under my revised postulation, there would be smaller destroyers with equivalent firepower to an orion
In any case, if you sent a corvette, the carrier wouldn't run since the normal fighter escort could probably disable the corvette, much less a full scale launch and attack from the carrier.
:wtf: Define Corvettes in FS2... I know they don't have the firepower equivalent but... they can go toe to toe with bigger ships. Like a foward facing Deimos blasting everything in it's path like there is no tomorrow!! :shaking:
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I've made a glaring error in my post. 1 gram of anti-hydrogen isn't 12.5 million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion anti-protons and anti-electrons in total combined. It is "merely" 1.2 million billion billion combined.
That's still 1 million billion times more than we have ever produced combined.
@Eishtmo
A larger one? You mean like the Colossus that took 20+ years to design and build?
It seems to me that if you take an orion, remove the fighter bays (and "empty space") then you'd have a smaller orion with the same firepower and armor. Wouldn't a smaller target be harder to hit (and indeed take less damage from the slash beams)?
And the reason why I've proposed a somewhat smaller destroyer with the same firepower as a normal destroyer is because of Kara's points. Attacking a blockade would indeed be difficult with a carrier. Now, while I don't see the problem of sending more corvettes to do the job, I don't see a problem with building a smaller than hybrid-destroyer and larger than corvette destroyer that serves the one purpose of firing beams as fast as possible.
Finally, the reason why a carrier wouldn't run from a corvette is because the corvette, despite how good they are (I personally love them), nevertheless cannot output as much firepower as a destroyer. Meaning the carrier has even more time to launch fighters from multiple launchbays simultaneously. Meaning less beams for the fighters to disable. Meaning more time for the carrier to live. Meaning more time for more bombers to be launched.
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You know what I think? Forget all that fancy-shmancy beam cannon crap. Just load it down with one or two BFGreen, and then the rest is just heavy and long range flak and heavy AAA beams. Now THATS indestructible to bombers. But anyway, remember that the Destroyers were made to carry LOTS of fighters, so they act as a floating base, not a warship.
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Some more information.
The Little Boy of Hiroshima contain about 140lbs of uranium. That's about 63.5kg.
In nuclear fission of uranium, for every 235 units mass of uranium split, 1 unit of mass is lost. That's about 0.4% lost.
About 1.38% of the uranium in Little Boy actually fissioned.
1.38% of 63.5kg is 0.8763kg or 876 grams.
0.4% of 876 grams is 3.5g
The Little Boy was 15 kilotons.
Helios are at least as powerful as the Cyclops, which is multi-megaton. Let's set it at 2 megatons.
2000 kilotons divided by 15 kilotons is 133 and a third.
This means that a Helios would have, at minimum, 233 grams of anti-matter (half of 466).
Take this antimatter and find a way to all annihilate within 1 microsecond (in a modern atomic 1us is how long it takes for 70% of the energy of the bomber to be released).
A stick of dynamite takes 420 us to explode. It is a very fast reaction of molecules. It also occurs naturally. Antimatter may not (see above post for explanantion) necessarily react this quickly since it cannot be premixed uniformly.
The particles may attract each other, but they have to be kept separate and then mixed. How can you make it so that they mix together in 1 microsecond?
This isn't part of the arguement. I was just doing some research and came upon this rather interesting information.
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Actually... you need corvettes as well as destroyers... and cruisers... you can't have an destroyer fleet, each has their task and that is where we are trying to say it would be the downfall of a destroyerless fleet!!! :mad: Not building destroyers (I consider 1,8Km the minimum requirement for a destroyer, anything below that is just some uber frigate or corvette, it is not a real destroyer), is suicide as one will try to have a balanced fleet of ships, fighter, cruisers, corvettes, destroyers, superdestroyers, juggernauts, and... well... go see inferno!! Although they have carriers, their carriers have... er... well... put one of those carriers aiming at an Orion... you'll get the picture.
I wasn't talking about an uber corvette, I only said a normal one would be a danger given the size of the carriers you purposed.
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
The problem is, 1 gram of antihydrogen would require about 12.5 million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion anti-protons and anti-electrons in total combined.
so what? i'm not arguing on how much we produce
Originally posted by ChronoReverse
As for the skipping factor, it's a serious and valid possiblity. Since the edges of anti-matter would immediately react in contact and produce tremendous energy, it's enough to move the antimatter just enough to not touch the matter. If there's a force pushing them together, then they'll come together and as the edges just touch and start to annihilate, it separates again.
That's an interesting theory indeed, it has it's points, it may in fact prove that antimatter bombs require some sophisticated way to be armed; much like a nuclear bomb don't explode if it's shoot at...
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
Actually the destroyers should be bigger than what they are... why put them more vunerable to bombers?
Bigger? Have you any idea on how big FS2 destroyers are? They are 2000 meters long while a real world US supercarrier is around 400 meters. So it means an Orion has roughtly 125 times the mass (and internal space) of a real carrier...
Why the hell do you think bigger ships are needed?
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Humour me, explain to me again why a carrier, half the size of a destroyer, full of fighters and bombers would be equivalent to two destroyers full of fighters, but much less.
I mean you surely don't believe that a fighter costs more than 1% of a carrier...
Look at the size comparison I did. I don't believe you can produce a carrier half the size of an orion. Not if you want to give it more fighters and any kind of armour. Making the flight bays seperate will also mean that you need more space.
Besides I'm not talking about the carrier alone. I'm also including the fleet needed to protect it. You always have to include the weight of the fleet in any discussion of advantages and disadvantages.
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Yes, there should be bigger destroyers... A good fleet is composed of fighters, cruisers, corvettes, destroyers, super-destroyers, juggernauts, etc... see the shivan fleet (don't come to me about comparison crap about the shivans being superior because THAT is one of the reasons they are, if you're still complaining about that, take a look at the Colossus and imagine if it was better designed (not shapped like a machine gun, more oval).
Like aldo_14 said
The point of a destroyer is to destroy things. That's why it's called a destroyer and not a lightlymassagetheenemyer.
And you can't compare mass because you don't know what kind of materials (and how dense) the ship is composed of (unless they tell you that somewhere and if that's the case I apologise)
The destroyers are already fully loaded with wings and wings of fighters and bombers. Just take a look at the entry hall and tell me, what do you see? Take a look at the description of the Orion.
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Just have a bunch of Juggernaughts. That will do the trick nicely.
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@kara
First of all, the fighters in even a destroyer _are_ stacked. Just look at the main hall.
But before that.
Even if a carrier carried exactly the same number of fighters and bombers as a destroyer, the carrier would have a sizeable advantage.
The reason is because it can launch much faster (it scales almost linearly with each additional launchbay), especially when first launching (when it takes less time for fighters to be moved into position).
But let's take on 152 fighters and bombers.
Even if the destroyer's guards manage to take out 1 fighter for each fighter they have, that still leave 50 to destroy the destroyer. And the attack has the advantage since being able to launch faster means that at a given point of time, there would be more carrier fighters flying. But let's ignore that part for now.
Your example there of the Ursas taking up a huge space is indeed valid point. But how many Ursas are there in a fleet? Considerng how many ships there are, even in a fleet of 100 (25 wings), you can't have more than 4 wings of Ursas considering that there's a least 8 type of fighters and bombers. But let's pretend every bomber is as big as it possible could be. So let's say that there's 6 wings of bombers that are Ursas. A tad less than 50.
How big are Ursa's? According to modelview it's 36x22x54. That's huge. How big are normal fighters? The widest fighter is 23x6x26 (Pegasus). The tallest fighter is 10x14x26. The typical Myrmidon is 21x11x22.
Seems most fighters are also pretty big. There's 104 of them (26 wings).
Now, let's look at the Orion and Ursas again. Let's give each of the 4 sets of 25 Ursas more than 4 times the volume required to be simply stored (because they obviously can't be stacked edge to edge).
Rename this to .jpg (http://chronoreverse.tripod.com/cgi-bin/compare.txt)
And see the large volume above the bombers? That's still a lot of room (volume equal to the Bombers and its 4x total storage space) for prepping. In fact, it's probably more than the Orion uses since it doesn't specialize in fighters. Of course, you also need space for munitions. I don't suppose that the munitions take up 50% of the Orion. And there's more than 50% of the ship left. Either way, this supports destroyers with more firepower and armor, or that carriers don't need to be bigger than a destroyer. So about 100 wings take up a little less than 50% of an orion.
Therefore a smaller carrier (I will stand corrected that 50% is too small, but 75%) is capable of carrying at the very least the same number of fighters as an Orion, but with a launch advantage. A carrier the same size as a destroyer can carry more. With the exception of a node blockade attack, the carrier retains its special advantages in battle (primarily, not being there). So even without a single cruiser to help guard it, it would still have an advantage. If a destroyer jumps in, it jumps out, the destroyer can't jump in again. Carrier launches fighters back to kill the destroyer.
Also, it's fairly obvious that even the hangar in an Orion is compartmentalized from the title screens. And if you read what I've been saying so far, I've suggested multiple _launchbays_ not multiple hangars. There's no reason why a single hangar must be associated with a single launchbay.
And so far, for my arguments, I've been using a single carrier that protected by a cruiser or a corvette. That is, not an entire fleet.
@ryuune75
My point isn't how much we produce either. But to show the degree of complexity it requires to cause antimatter to actually explode with more force than a nuclear bomb. My point (which you've agreed to) was that an anti-matter bomb, while volatile, wouldn't explode even nearly as powerfully (or even at all) without a precise sequence of procedures. Just like modern nuclear bombs.
@ghostava
Did you read my revised statements yet?
I say, that destroyers should give up the room used for fighters (which is considerable) and replace it with heatsinks, armor and more beam weaponry. This means that a destroyer of the same size as an Orion of this focused type would not only have firepower to wither the Orion, it'd be able to take a much bigger beating too.
We also wouldn't need as many of them, since they would be most useful as blockade busters (in other situations, they could jump in to mop up).
I didn't say get rid of cruisers and corvettes. In fact, I called for a balanced fleet. But corvettes would focus on anti-cap weaponry while cruisers would focus on anti-fighter weaponry.
Why?
Because cruisers can't stand again capitals anyways, so why bother? Make them more useful for killing bombs and fighters and set them to guard the carriers and destroyers which would kill the capitals.
The corvettes, they can kill fighters too, but that just drains power from the engines and the beams and underminds their primary purpose of standing up to ships larger than themselves and bloodying the enemy's nose in spite of it.
Carriers. These ships would be giant hangars floating in space for the express purpose of servicing and launching fighters. With multiple launchbays, fighters from its hangar(s) in its interior are quickly launched to establish space superiority. When an enemy capital is discovered, it shortjumps nearer and send it's fighter and bombers to shortjump again within striking distance.
AWACS. With the extended sensor range this provides, it becomes much more difficult to ambush capitals since scout wings would be seen.
@.::Tin Can::.
The reason I suggested this, is because it was becoming clear, by the end of FS2, that the versatileness of the destroyer class was starting to hurt the GTVA. The biggest example is the Colossus (which should've traded some of the hangar space for 60 wings with heatsinks instead) of course, but there's still many smaller examples like the success of the Corvettes and the rather useful (IMO) Aeolus cruiser. That and the fact that the GTVA destroyers get killed by the Shivan destroyers very quickly. They obviously need something that can take more and dish out more. Something like a destroyer without hangars. But they'll still take a lot of damage. So you need a carrier to launch a huge wave of fighters to help. This way a destroyer and a carrier can accomplish something that two destroyers previously weren't able to achieve.
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Carriers will lose against a dedicated gun-platform any day. The amount of fighters/bombers a carrier will launch can be negated by a Destroyer's own wings, or indeed anti-fighter/bomber fire from the ship itself.
If you want a real life carrier vs gun-platform fight, I point you to 1940 when HMS Glorious got jumped by the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau which neatly disposed of her, and her destroyer escort. She didn't have time to launch her torpedo bombers, and even if she had, their effectiveness would have been doubtful.
When it comes to a sci-fi setting, once energy weapons start getting thrown about you can kiss a dedicated carrier goodbye. Why waste depletable stocks of fighters when you can just fire and recharge your energy beams?
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Chrono, you've forgotten to include the amount of space taken up by the engines, reactor and other systems like navigation and sensors etc.
I believe that those systems together with the hanger bay take up the majority of the space aboard a destroyer. You seem to believe that they don't and that weapons systems take up enough space to make a large difference in the Orion's size.
Unless one of us can find definative evidence in one way or the other neither of us can win this arguement. But the fact that FS2 doesn't contain carriers seems to show that [V] agreed with me :D
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You just have to realize that the bigger the ship, the more it takes to move it and so you are going to have to put a big-ass reactor inside the Colossus to get it to move. That thing was a slow little MoFo, and when it jumped out of Subspace, it took it a while to come to a full stop. You know what I'm getting at.
Frankly, I dont think the ships have ENOUGH guns on them. I mean, sure, the Destroyer vessels like the Hecate have about 5 or 6 different beam weapons on them, but the Colossus only had like, 12. For a ship that size, thats not that much...
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[color=cc9900]Retrofit an AWACS to hold Alpha 1 and some ammunition. Sorted.
That's the sort of carrier I like.[/color]
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@kara
You may be right, but that still doesn't imply that carrier would have to be larger than a destroyer. That alone means that if you need two destroyers to kill the carrier, you'd be on the the short end of the stick.
Additionally, the carrier wouldn't need as many/large reactors since it doesn't have to power the beams. I've discounted double-jumps already so the engine recharge rate simply has to be equal to a destroyers. Servicing and launching fighters may require energy, but all the destroyers are perfectly capable of launching fighters while firing the beams.
In any case, I've already said multiple times that destroyers would still be needed, just that they'd lose the hangar bay (which takes a lot of room) and pack a more beam weapons (which you seem to think don't take up a lot of room), more armor and most importantly an extra reactor to power the beams.
Voila, you have a destroyer that has more beams that fire quicker.
Supplement it with a carrier that's capable of launching fighters like there's no tomorrow and you'd have the amazing duo. One slugs it out while the other launches a swarm to quickly disable beam turrets so that the other doesn't get blown up under the combined firepower of two destroyers.
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1. Dedicated Carrier Groups and DEstroyer groups have both pros and con's, but since today's military focuses on the first, they must be doing that for a good reason..
2. Carrier are built to carry fighters/bombers and a Carrier of a same size as a Destroyer would carry more fighters...It would have less plating and weapons tough..
3. Toda'ys carriers are pratty well armed I must say, and can fare for themselvs , even if that's NOT advisable.
4. In lot of posts I see people debating like the carriers hace no anti-cap weapons at all!? They would have something (even if it's only 1-2 SGreen). So to return to the example 3 Destroyers vs. 2 carrier and 4 corvettes.... the carriers would win...
If the Destroyer take on the Carriers first, the Corvettes would pound them good all that time..not to mention the beams on the carriers themselves and theri fighter/bombers (Helios are killers)
If the Destroyers take on the Corvettes firts, then the Carriers would lunch a supperior fighternumber and all that time the destroyers would still be under fire..
The destroyers would loose in 80% of the cases I wager...
5. We don't know the fuel requirements for the fighters(as far as we know, their reactor could last for months... remember Kappa 3?), so we cannot talk about fuel taking up tons of space....
6. Destroyers are carrier-battleship hybrids, thus they don't either have the speed and fightercapacity of a carrier, nor the armour and firepower of a batleship, but are well-rounded and effective.
7. Carriers are usualy fast... todays carriers reach about 35 knots (some battleship can allso go this fast, alltough it is rare).
8. Destroyers don't need more hull, they need better ani-fighter weapons. I charge a Ravana in a HercII and laugh where I should feel dread.
9. While I think that havng battleship and Carriers is a more powerfull combination than having destroyers, one can't say that they suck. Due to their jack-of-all-trades build, they are usefull. A smart miitary would have all - carriers, battleship AND destroyers..
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
You may be right, but that still doesn't imply that carrier would have to be larger than a destroyer. That alone means that if you need two destroyers to kill the carrier, you'd be on the the short end of the stick.
I keep saying it again and again. You have to include the tonnage of the support ships you are including in the carrier fleet. You're saying that a carrier needs an escort to protect it - if said escort has to go with the carrier everywhere the carrier goes to protect it from being toasted by enemy capships - the tonnage of the escort HAS to be included when you're making any comparison.
Let me put it this way. Suppose you have two planets at war which have equal production facilities.
Planet A produces carriers and their surrounding fleet.
Planet B produces destroyers.
It's obvious that planet B would complete more destroyers than Planet A because Planet A has to devote some of their production capabilities to producing cruisers, corvettes and even this new battleship class you keep suggesting (i.e the cut down destroyers).
You're then turning around and telling me that to make a fair comparison of the strengths of the destroyer and carrier classes Planet B would only send in 1 destroyer for every carrier fleet Planet A sent in even though the carrier is allowed to bring its entire group with it? That's patent nonsense. If Planet B produces 2 destroyers for every carrier it will have 2 destroyers to kill every carrier if it needs them. There is no short end of the stick here. I'm mearly being fair.
Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Additionally, the carrier wouldn't need as many/large reactors since it doesn't have to power the beams. I've discounted double-jumps already so the engine recharge rate simply has to be equal to a destroyers. Servicing and launching fighters may require energy, but all the destroyers are perfectly capable of launching fighters while firing the beams.
Again we get to another point I dispute with you.
First we don't know what percentage of a ships reactor power is needed for beams. It could be a relatively tiny percent in comparison with what they need to work their jump engines. In that case both the destroyer and the carrier would both have to have large and powerful reactors.
Secondly a destroyers reactors are not necessarily larger or more massive than a carriers. Don't believe me? Well the Orion and Typhon were both capable of being retrofitted with beams without the need to make them any larger. Hell even the tiny Fenris could be upgraded with beams.
Maybe the more powerful reactors a destroyer needs are more expensive than the ones on a carrier but there is no evidence whatsoever that they are larger. In fact there is evidence that the GTVA has made progress in making more powerful reactors smaller.
Originally posted by ChronoReverse
In any case, I've already said multiple times that destroyers would still be needed, just that they'd lose the hangar bay (which takes a lot of room) and pack a more beam weapons (which you seem to think don't take up a lot of room), more armor and most importantly an extra reactor to power the beams.
Voila, you have a destroyer that has more beams that fire quicker.
Supplement it with a carrier that's capable of launching fighters like there's no tomorrow and you'd have the amazing duo. One slugs it out while the other launches a swarm to quickly disable beam turrets so that the other doesn't get blown up under the combined firepower of two destroyers.
Again dependant on the size of the carrier. Remember that two destroyers can launch twice as quickly. They might be able to hold of the enemy fighter for quite a while. If they take down either ship the remaining one is left with a huge problem. If the battleship goes down first they can concentrate beam fire on the carrier which won't have much firepower to retaliate with. If they take the carrier down first they can simply jump out and take out the battleship using bombers against the now unsupported battleship.
The other problem is that the carrier group lacks versatility. The battleship has to remain with the carrier and the carrier has to remain away from combat. With two destroyers you can split them up and have them go after seperate targets. With a carrier the battleship must always stay near the carrier or risk it being jumped.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
1. Dedicated Carrier Groups and DEstroyer groups have both pros and con's, but since today's military focuses on the first, they must be doing that for a good reason..
Todays military doesn't have to worry about enemy ships teleporting in unexpectedly.
Originally posted by TrashMan
[B9. While I think that havng battleship and Carriers is a more powerfull combination than having destroyers, one can't say that they suck. Due to their jack-of-all-trades build, they are usefull. A smart miitary would have all - carriers, battleship AND destroyers.. [/B]
Well I disagree with you over which is more powerful on a ton for ton basis I fully agree with your last statement.
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Why don't we leave Alpha 1 out of this? :D
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it would be usufull though to have a small, corvette sized ships specifically designed as a mini-carrier.
they carry enough fighetrs to psoe a threat, and are not as cumbersome as large carriers, they can get out of troublespots easily.
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It makes me cringe to see how many people use the excuse: "well, everyone else does it, so this is a fact and I'm right."
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Okay, my turn to dive into this.
Destroyers and carrier groups are, for all practical purposes, equal in strength and ability to project power. So the question we should be asking is why did the species in FS begin using destroyers and all but abandoned carrier groups? For the Shivans, it's probably a simple issue of "because they can" given their numbers. The Vasudans probably did it because the GTA did it (the Typhon came after the Orion). So why did the GTA do it?
I think it's because the Orion WASN'T designed to replace carrier groups.
Okay, I know that sounds strange, but it makes sense if you think about it. The Galactic Terran Alliance was an originzation tasked with defending the human race and exploration of space. We can assume (reasonably) that the GTA was formed before the Vasudans entered the equation, and if so, then who would the GTA defend against? Pirates, criminals, the occasional errant asteroid, that's about it. So the carrier group makes more sense here as it's more flexible when dealing with this kind of enemy.
Again, reasonably, we can assume that the Orion was built and or designed prior to the discovery of the Vasudans (there is no real canon evidence for this, I might add, but it will seem reasonable in a moment), so why would they build it? Well, the Orion is a very big ship, capable of carrying a lot of supplies for very long duration voyages. It's more than capable of defending itself, has giant hanger bays for fighters and other small craft, and thus it seems to me that it's mission was to explore, the second half of the GTA's mission.
It's your spearhead, a giant ship going out into the unknown, where any number of dangers might exist. Perhaps a new race whom you'll want to impress, or asteroids that cloud the node, or something really unpleasent that wishes to destroy the ship. An Orion is much more capable of protecting itself and surviving a long journey against just about anything than a flimsy carrier and it's battle group in these situations.
The Orion changes from this exploration role to that of a main capital ship simply by the fact that the bulk of the 14 Year War is fought in places far from supply, remote locations that were likely only found because of the war itself (this, btw, is a true statement, most of the war was fought not in Vega and Antares but in the same places as FS2, Epsilon Pegsi, Capella, etc. See CB_starmap02.ani for the proof). As time goes on, and admirals cut their teeth on destroyer tactics, they start using them more and more, finding them much more effective (whether true or not) than their carrier group counterparts.
It is in this way that the destroyer takes over. It's really no different than what happened in WWII. Before the war, admirals were dedicated to the battleship, but when they were forced to use carriers to fight the war (due to Pearl Harbor), they began finding new, more effective ways to fight a war at sea. Thus the battleship was regulated to shore bombardments and the carrier became the jewel. The destroyer came up the same way.
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:yes: Makes good sense Eishtmo. Another factor is the one I suggested that unlike a carrier ground destroyer fleets can split up. That would be very useful if your main task is taking on pirates etc because sending in an entire carrier fleet seems a little bit like overkill.
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One thing people forget is that Carriers would be able to launh fighter MUCH faster than destroyers. Every carrier I made has 4 fighterbays+ 1 large hangarbay (compared to 1 fighterbay of the Orion/Hecate, it can launch 5-6 times more fighters/bombers in the same amount of time, and that is very dangerous, since even if the carrier is destroyed, the fighter/bombers will fight on - and let's not forget that a single heavy bomber wing can take out a destroyer)
Secondly, destroyers would probably be more expensive than carriers, since they have greater armour and firepower, while retaining a fighter/bomber complement(alltough smaller).
I agree that Destroyer are better exploartion vessels (since they would go alone), but carriers aren't exactly pushovers either...sonce they carry less anti-cap weaponry and armour, they would probably have a good anti-fighter defense.
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Yeah, that's been said, what, 20 times already? I agree with Eishtmo wholeheartedly.
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Secondly, destroyers would probably be more expensive than carriers, since they have greater armour and firepower, while retaining a fighter/bomber complement(alltough smaller).
Actually... carriers would cost a lot more... unless you want them to fight without fighters and bomber!
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Originally posted by TrashMan
One thing people forget is that Carriers would be able to launh fighter MUCH faster than destroyers. Every carrier I made has 4 fighterbays+ 1 large hangarbay (compared to 1 fighterbay of the Orion/Hecate, it can launch 5-6 times more fighters/bombers in the same amount of time, and that is very dangerous, since even if the carrier is destroyed, the fighter/bombers will fight on - and let's not forget that a single heavy bomber wing can take out a destroyer)
Secondly, destroyers would probably be more expensive than carriers, since they have greater armour and firepower, while retaining a fighter/bomber complement(alltough smaller).
I agree that Destroyer are better exploartion vessels (since they would go alone), but carriers aren't exactly pushovers either...sonce they carry less anti-cap weaponry and armour, they would probably have a good anti-fighter defense.
Yeah, but i could just as easily make a corvette class with 8 small fighterbays, it wouldn't make corvettes better than destroyers.
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The cost of fighter is not counted in! Not for the carrier, not for the destroyer.
If side A has 20 Destroyers and 20000 fighters and side B 20 carriers and 20000 fighters? They spend equal ammount of resources on the production of fighters, but the destroyers would cost more..
The fact remains that side A would be able to carry only approx.3000 fighters to battle, and side B 4000-5000 while the others would remain behind.
Of course, the maintainence cost of the ships is in question, since we do not know how difficult is to mantain beam cannons/armour compared to fighters, but the crew cost would definatley be higher for the Carrier... (again, fighter pilots not included)
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TrashMan, if you're going to argue logistics, don't contradict yourself in the same post.
If you're going to make a point that destroyers cost more to build, and then turn around and say that the maintenance on a carrier is more costly, you've negated your own point very neatly.
I have to say I support the destroyer side on this. It is my opinion that a destroyer is a much more offensive weapon then a carrier. All the arguements I've seen have the carrier running away at the first sign of trouble and launching strikes at a distance. A smart enemy wil force the carriers to jump out of the theater of operations long enough for them to complete a goal. (ie, neutralizing a planet) A destroyer can charge right into the thick of battle and cause serious complications for the enemy fleet. While the strike craft capacity of a destroyer is less then that of a carrier, it mounts heavy beams that can deal an equivalent amount of damage in a shorter amount of time then a reasonably sized bomber wing could.
Also notice the trend of destroyer construction in the GTVA and the consequence of that trend. Specifically, compare the Orion and Hecate. The Orion is a more powerful anti-capital ship weapon then the Hecate at the expense of fighters and anti-fighter armament. The Hecate is more geared towards fending off large groups of fighters while launching large numbers of them in return.
It is my opinion that the Hecate represents the first step in the ladder towards carrier construction. It houses more fighter/bomber craft then the Orion, and has the weaponry to defend against a similiar type of ship. As I said before, this comes at the expense of anti-capital weaponry.
The differances in the two ships can be seen in how they are used offensively. Orions are time and again seen jumping into hot battle areas and engageing the Shivan/ NTF forces head on. I can't recall a single time in the main campaign when a Hecate engaged another destroyer in an offensive mission. (The Aquitaine engaging the Moloch corvette in one of the escort missions was self defense against a smaller ship) Instead, the Aquitaine acted as a mobile fighter base, launching strikes against enemy forces in the system from far away.
From my expieriences, the destroyer is a much more effecient and centralised offensive weapon then a carrier. What it lacks in fighter complement and fighter defense, it makes up for with the firepower to destroy enemy capital ships faster and at less risk then a bomber squadron. The destroyer is an individualised unit of warfare, self-reliant and capable of carrying out it's assigned task. The carrier is a weapon that relies on others to defend it as it hangs back and launches strikes. Against the Shivans, I'll take the Orion.
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Building cost and maintainence cost are two different things....
Don't mix them together.
Carriers are weaker than destroyer but are not defensless. They allso have teeth.
And as for another scenario - In the same system, but on opposite sides, you have a a carrier group(2 carriers, 4 corvettes) and a destroyer group (3-4 destroyers).
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Carriers can launch a massive fighter/bomber force at the destroyers (FS2 fighters have inter-system jump drives). They will probably outnumber the destroyer fighter by AT LEAST 2 to 1. Destroyers themselves are slow and they can't use their anti-fighter weaponry to protect eachother, which means that evry destroyer in the group is defended only by it's own guns and fightercover. The fightercover will be ripped to shreads fast, and the bombers will take out the destoyers one by one. It the case the destroyers are really a tough nut to crack, two corvettes can jump later in, or even the whole task force.
Now those destroyers could jump out to the carriers position, but they couldn't do it instantly and would be damaged, if not destroyed by then. (Think what 4 wings of Ursas with Helios bombs can do to a destroyer). Even then, the carrier would still be defended by the corvettes, their escort fighters/bombers (the few that remained) and their own guns (not to mention that their fighters can allways jump back).
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If the destroyer group would attack, the Corvettes would tie them up long enough for carrier to build up fighter superiority (since carriers can lauch fighter MUCH faster than destroyers). Even if the carriers are destroyed, their bombers/fighters (and corvettes, in case the carriers were attacked first) would still be powerfull enough to finish off the destroyers.
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Destroyers can use the same tactics (launch all fighters first, then jump) when attacking carriers, but they culd never achive fighter superiority (since there are ALLWAYS many fighters guarding carriers), but they COULD tie them up long enough to take out the carriers. That would stll leave them, damaged by now, against corvettes and remaining fighters/bombers..
It's close, but I think a carrier group has better chances of winning with fewer losses....(what are 20 fighters compared to 15000 of ONE destroyer?)
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Carriers have to be well balanced if you're going to introduce them into FS2. Unless you increase thier size (and reduce their numbers as a consequnce), you can;t justify a carrier as superior.
Now, we have no definition of what a carrier is, beyond the description of the Orion as being one.
By nature, a carrier is a dedicated fighter/bomber carrying vessel. This implies that, in order to be different, it must have more internal space and power devoted to this task.
This means that either
a/ it's the size of a destroyer with sacrifices to armour, power and weaponry to accommodate these extra ships and supplies.
or
b/ it's much larger than, but equivalently armoured and armed to, a destroyer.
(or rather, the 2 most likely cases to make a fair comparison).
If you look at FS2, all the ships are balanced more or less based on size and role - i.e. in the general case there are no disproportionately powerful ships. If you want to make a carrier properly, you need to observe this rule.
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TrashMan... about your building cost... why build fighters if they are not going to be used? If you focus on a Carrier fleet of course you are going to build more fighters and bombers!!! You can't make up the same number of fighters and bombers for the destroyers!!!! :mad:
As for Scenarios...
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A destroyer group jumps on a carrier group (all fighter/bombers in the destroyer group were launched previously!!!) destroyers blow fleet apart, the end!! (simplistic isn't it? :D)
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This is just to say that atackers always have superiority and that scenarios are too dependant on situation at hand.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Now, we have no definition of what a carrier is, beyond the description of the Orion as being one.
Orions have never been described as carriers If you mean this line from the Tech Room:
The Orion's cavernous hanger bays easily accommodate more than two dozen fighter or bomber wings.
That does not make the Orion a carrier or imply it is one. I could say of a battleship "...the Yamato carried an unusually large number of aircraft, with four scout planes situated aft of number three turret." No one would be foolish enough to classify a Yamato as a carrier, right?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Building cost and maintainence cost are two different things....
Don't mix them together.
Carriers are weaker than destroyer but are not defensless. They allso have teeth.
And as for another scenario - In the same system, but on opposite sides, you have a a carrier group(2 carriers, 4 corvettes) and a destroyer group (3-4 destroyers).
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Carriers can launch a massive fighter/bomber force at the destroyers (FS2 fighters have inter-system jump drives). They will probably outnumber the destroyer fighter by AT LEAST 2 to 1. Destroyers themselves are slow and they can't use their anti-fighter weaponry to protect eachother, which means that evry destroyer in the group is defended only by it's own guns and fightercover. The fightercover will be ripped to shreads fast, and the bombers will take out the destoyers one by one. It the case the destroyers are really a tough nut to crack, two corvettes can jump later in, or even the whole task force.
Now those destroyers could jump out to the carriers position, but they couldn't do it instantly and would be damaged, if not destroyed by then. (Think what 4 wings of Ursas with Helios bombs can do to a destroyer). Even then, the carrier would still be defended by the corvettes, their escort fighters/bombers (the few that remained) and their own guns (not to mention that their fighters can allways jump back).
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If the destroyer group would attack, the Corvettes would tie them up long enough for carrier to build up fighter superiority (since carriers can lauch fighter MUCH faster than destroyers). Even if the carriers are destroyed, their bombers/fighters (and corvettes, in case the carriers were attacked first) would still be powerfull enough to finish off the destroyers.
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Destroyers can use the same tactics (launch all fighters first, then jump) when attacking carriers, but they culd never achive fighter superiority (since there are ALLWAYS many fighters guarding carriers), but they COULD tie them up long enough to take out the carriers. That would stll leave them, damaged by now, against corvettes and remaining fighters/bombers..
It's close, but I think a carrier group has better chances of winning with fewer losses....(what are 20 fighters compared to 15000 of ONE destroyer?)
You forget....Destroyers always have cruiser and corvette escorts of there own....especially to deal with other fighters. And those 4 wings of ursas will be reduced to 1 by enemy fighters easier than you may think......
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The differances in the two ships can be seen in how they are used offensively. Orions are time and again seen jumping into hot battle areas and engageing the Shivan/ NTF forces head on. I can't recall a single time in the main campaign when a Hecate engaged another destroyer in an offensive mission. (The Aquitaine engaging the Moloch corvette in one of the escort missions was self defense against a smaller ship) Instead, the Aquitaine acted as a mobile fighter base, launching strikes against enemy forces in the system from far away.
Save the Sathanas, the Colossus wasnt brought into battle unless the situation called for it. If you remember correctly, the Aquitaine, the Psamtik and another destroyer were originally poised to strike the Sathanas BEFORE it reached Gamma Draconis in the nebula... however the scrapped the plan because the Sathanas was ahead of their thinking.
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The Destroyer battlegroup my achive victory faster, but a carrier battlegroup can achive it with fewer losses - that's the main difference between them.
Fighters and Bobers RULE in FS2.. you think 200 fighters and 40 bombers will have a big trouble taking out 2 destroyers?
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and what would a Helios bomb do if fired into one of the carrier's fighterbays?
that would leave quite a mess wouldn't it?
destroyers are allrounders, and because of the extremely high costs involved in making one, i think that they want to have a "jack of all trades".
should there be carriers, i think they would be corvette sized, small, high mobility carriers capable of getting out of trouble as fast as possible.
also, the suggestion for "big" carriers is not very smart.
if it get's shot, you're ****ed.
really ****ed.
since it would not be made for direct combat, it would not be very heavily arm(or)ed, so one clean hit from either a couple of bombs or big beams would reduce it to a flaming fighter-sarcofagus.
on top of that, it is slow, ponderous and will nto be able to get out of the hotspot when the hotspot is all over his candyass.
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Originally posted by Jal-18
Orions have never been described as carriers If you mean this line from the Tech Room:
That does not make the Orion a carrier or imply it is one. I could say of a battleship "...the Yamato carried an unusually large number of aircraft, with four scout planes situated aft of number three turret." No one would be foolish enough to classify a Yamato as a carrier, right?
Pg.4, Freespace Reference Bible (written by volition)
In addition, such massive amounts of energy input are required to open an inter-system node, that only the largest fusion pile reactors in existence are able to sustain it. As a result, inter-system subspace travel is almost exclusively made by the largest vessels in production. This fact has made the GTA’s Orion-class destroyer/carriers a pivotal and crucial part to the GTA’s tactical forces during the T-V War.
Which, I reckon, clearly classifies the Orions' role as both an offensive weapon on it's own right, and as a fighter carrying vessel (i.e. projection of space(?) power).
Regardless, this argument is completely and utterly pointless. you're comparing the - loose - definition of a destroyer in Freespace (which includes a carrier-type role), with a completely abstract and non-existent class of ship.
You can;t possibly resolve it, because you can change the definition of a carrier to suit your argument.
(I'm use the general form of 'you' here, BTW)
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I'm still reading everyone's posts and I shall be back as soon as my midterms are over ;)
But just one thing. The orion originally was practically a carrier. It carried a (large) number of rather wimpy turrets and a decently-sized fighter force.