[Apollo]

Ubuntu is partly a philosophy, but it's also a political and economic system, as the Security Council's dossier says. Therefore, adopting its economic policies would be adopting part of Ubuntu.

If you want to call every part of the UEF's government Ubuntu, fine, the economic model is part of Ubuntu, but it's a part that one that in no way relies on the cultural aspects and doesn't threaten GTVA stability at all.  Evidence: Ubuntu isn't an idea that's really taken hold in the Jovian Republic, but they happily use the economic model.

I'm still not convinced that Ubuntu poses any serious threat to the stability of the GTVA. If anything, the GTVA's war on Sol is probably damaging its stability.

The Solaris's Gattler Turrets collectively deal several thousand more points of DPS than the Raynor's Terpulse.

A Gattler Turret deals 112.5 DPS (15dmg, 1 shot every .1s, 30 shots per burst, 1s between bursts).  The Solaris has 12 of them.  A TerPulse deals 455 DPS.  The Raynor has 7 turrets and it can still use its TerSlashBlues.

I invite you to try a Raynor vs. Solaris battle in a beam/torpedo jammed environment, broadside to broadside.  Tilt the Solaris if you want, since it has more Gattlers on top.  Having done many runs of this myself, I can tell you that the Raynor wins by a huge margin.

Note: The TerPulse doesn't have the Huge flag because it needs to be able to target fighters.  This should not be taken to mean it isn't capable of killing capships.  For the purposes of this test, you should add it.

Everyone please forgive this argument about tables.

I think I was wrong about  the Gattler's DPS (I was thinking in terms of burst damage). Still, 30X15 is 450, and 450/3 is 150, not 112.5. 150 X 12 is 1,800, and 455 X 7 is 3,185, so I guess the Raynor's TerPulse are more damaging. Still, the Gattler Turrets have a longer range (4,000 as opposed to 2,400), are more accurate (better for destroying subsystems), and they have the Huge flag, which means they won't be distracted by fighters.

In a beam/torpedo jammed environment, the Raynor will win only because its TerSlashBlue will destroy the Solaris's weapon subsystem. If the Solaris intentionally destroys that turret (which is what any smart admiral would do) it will win.

And none of this changes the fact that, at short-to-medium range without any ECM, the Solaris will destroy the Raynor, usually fairly easily. Since the Shivans don't use any ECM, the Solaris's torpedoes would not be jammed in a fight with them.

I hadn't considered that. Still, its possible that their endurance could be increased, and even if it can't I don't think the GTVA has the moral justification to kill that many people who are just trying to defend themselves (It's war, I know, but I don't think the GTVA should ever have declared war on Sol).

WiH puts a huge amount of emphasis on moral ambiguity.  Both sides are right, and both sides are wrong.  It's why you have a large amount of GTVA supporters among the fanbase.  The GTVA had their reasons to declare war.  They're good ones.  Perhaps it wasn't morally right, but when the continued existence of humanity is at risk, morality becomes trivial.  Survival is more important.

[/quote]

The GTVA believes they have good reasons for the war, but really their leaders are so terrified of the Shivans that they're making stupid decisions. They will likely win their war with the UEF, but probably at signficant cost. The Feds are going to upgrade their Sancti and possibly their Karunas, which, if not a game-changer, will certainly increase the GTVA's warship casualties. There's also the unavoidable reality of those 3 Solaris destroyers, which at medium-range can match or beat anything the GTVA has with the exception of the Atreus and possibly the Carthage. They already almost lost the Hood to the Toutatis, and next time they might not be so lucky.

In any case, their fear of Ubuntu is ridiculous. If its cultural aspects can't even take over one solar system, they could not possibly take over the entire GTVA.

the GTVA keeps saying that they are unable to accept war as the only solution for the Shivans (which it obviously is);

1) Plz2quote for the GTVA ever saying the UEF is unable to accept war as a solution to the Shivans. The fact they built a huge fleet of frigates, as well as three destroyers and a reserve of fleet bombers that has always felt utterly unnecessary for them, proves otherwise.

I can't quote those exact words, but that's basically the GTVA's entire concern: that Ubuntu can't handle the reality of the Shivans, with whom communication seems impossible. In theory, that may be true, but in practice the UEF's destroyers, huge fleet of frigates, and reserve of bombers shows how dumb that concern is.

2) Where has it ever been said in the BP lore that war was obviously the only solution to the Shivans ? *cough*sekretProject*cough*, *cough*contingencyMorpheus*cough*

Nowhere, I guess. But, if the GTVA has other possible methods that just makes their fear of Ubuntu look even more ridiculous.

While Ubuntu would probably spread beyond Sol, it wouldn't be able to take over the entire GTVA.

Could you PLEASE read the FAQ instead of arguing about stuff you don't know about ?

I have read the FAQ, and I know that it contradicts what I'm saying. The thing is, since the FAQ was (in-universe) written by the Security Council, I don't think it's infallible.

The GTVA's way isn't working, and everyone knows that.

Proof that it isn't working ? Last time I checked, the GTVA's way successfully repelled two Shivan invasions and ensured the survival of humanity until now. If that is 'not working', I don't know what is.

It's not working because their economy is a train wreck, their people are repressed, and they're so terrified of the Shivans that they're invading a friendly power simply to prevent their ideas from reaching the GTVA's citizens. Oh, and they still don't have a solution for the Sathanas.

When you think about it, this is pretty stupid, since were the Shivans to deploy their entire fleet (40+ Sathanas juggernauts) there's nothing the GTVA could possibly do, short of collapsing jump nodes.

That's exactly the main GTVA contingency. Collapsing nodes. Scorched earth policy. And if that fails, mass exodus.

You would be silly to think the GTVA expects to win a war against the Shivans with brute force alone. They have multiple contingencies to enact in order to nullify the threat before it gets out of control, and they need a powerful enough fleet to enact these contingencies, not to take down the Shivan head-on.

I guess that makes sense. Still, there are a few things I think they should do differently.

It's a gamble, but it's the only solution the GTVA knows of. Do you have a better solution to propose, that wouldn't involve vague feelings from a random Nagari'd pilot ? When we're talking about the survival of humanity, the GTVA wants hard facts, which is pretty understandable.

Well, first of all, they need a way to deal with Sathanas juggernauts. I would suggest building a few superdestroyers, but that's probably too expensive. An alternative would be to make a destroyer-sized vessel without a fighterbay, so that it could carry much heavier beam weaponry than a regular destroyer. That ship would be significantly less flexible, but it would offer some of the firepower of a superdestroyer without the huge cost. A fleet of these would be able to effectively counter juggernauts.

They should also make peace with the UEF, although it may be too late at this point (the Security Council thinks that losing the war would cause a much larger one within the GTVA). An alliance could possibly give them access the Sol's shipyards, and while the UEF ships currently have poor endurance, that problem could probably be fixed and if they did it would give their military a significant boost.

They trade liberty for security, but they're right to.

I'd rather say they have their reasons to, that make sense from their point of view with the data they have available. 'Right' is a little too absolute for my tastes, let's keep this thread objective please

I don't think the GTVA has the moral justification to kill that many people who are just trying to defend themselves (It's war, I know, but I don't think the GTVA should ever have declared war on Sol).

Please now, when the GTVA has to choose between the moral high ground and the survival of humanity (in their point of view, with the data they have available), it is obvious which one they're going to choose.

The problem is that destroying the UEF isn't neccesary for the survival of humanity.

[Aesaar]

I'm still not convinced that Ubuntu poses any serious threat to the stability of the GTVA. If anything, the GTVA's war on Sol is probably damaging its stability.

We've gone over this.  Repeatedly.  It does.  See my last post to Matth for why.  Even if you don't take the Ubuntu FAQ as word of god (which you're right no to), letting it spread is a risk the GTVA can't take.

I think I was wrong about  the Gattler's DPS (I was thinking in terms of burst damage). Still, 30X15 is 450, and 450/3 is 150, not 112.5. 150 X 12 is 1,800, and 455 X 7 is 3,185, so I guess the Raynor's TerPulse are more damaging. Still, the Gattler Turrets have a longer range (4,000 as opposed to 2,400), are more accurate (better for destroying subsystems), and they have the Huge flag, which means they won't be distracted by fighters.

  My calculation:  15X30=450.  450/3, 150.  However, there's 1 second downtime between bursts, so the time between start of each burst is 4s, so it's actually 450/4, which is 112.5.

In a beam/torpedo jammed environment, the Raynor will win only because its TerSlashBlue will destroy the Solaris's weapon subsystem. If the Solaris intentionally destroys that turret (which is what any smart admiral would do) it will win.

  No, it won't.  Add Huge flag to TerPulse, remove TerSlahBlue, and Raynor still wins.  TerPulse just plain beats Gattler as an anti-ship weapon.

And none of this changes the fact that, at short-to-medium range without any ECM, the Solaris will destroy the Raynor, usually fairly easily. Since the Shivans don't use any ECM, the Solaris's torpedoes would not be jammed in a fight with them.

Yes, it does.  And the Titan destroys the Solaris if it's front-to-broadside.  But like we said before, this isn't what happens in war.  And we haven't seen the Raynor operating at peak yet.

Against the Shivans, a Solaris would operate effectively at first.  Then it would run out of torpedoes.  Resupply might not be readily available, especially considering how the Shivans wage war.  Then you're left with an expensive supercarrier with no effective weapons.  Ravana bait.

The GTVA believes they have good reasons for the war, but really their leaders are so terrified of the Shivans that they're making stupid decisions. They will likely win their war with the UEF, but probably at signficant cost. The Feds are going to upgrade their Sancti and possibly their Karunas, which, if not a game-changer, will certainly increase the GTVA's warship casualties. There's also the unavoidable reality of those 3 Solaris destroyers, which at medium-range can match or beat anything the GTVA has with the exception of the Atreus and possibly the Carthage. They already almost lost the Hood to the Toutatis, and next time they might not be so lucky.

In any case, their fear of Ubuntu is ridiculous. If its cultural aspects can't even take over one solar system, they could not possibly take over the entire GTVA.

  I'm getting really sick of saying this:

The danger is from the ideological split that would almost certainly occur were it to spread into the politically fragile GTVA.  They'd be looking at yet another large-scale rebellion, which they just can't handle ATM.  Collapse would follow, leaving the pacifists in power.

I can't quote those exact words, but that's basically the GTVA's entire concern: that Ubuntu can't handle the reality of the Shivans, with whom communication seems impossible. In theory, that may be true, but in practice the UEF's destroyers, huge fleet of frigates, and reserve of bombers shows how dumb that concern is.

Compare the size of the 2 militaries.  The entire UEF military is involved.  3-4 GTVA battlegroups are involved.  The UEF is losing, and the GTVA has been pulling their punches to avoid damage to local infrastructure.  There is no way in hell they could even come close to handling a Shivan attack.

It's not working because their economy is a train wreck, their people are repressed, and they're so terrified of the Shivans that they're invading a friendly power simply to prevent their ideas from reaching the GTVA's citizens. Oh, and they still don't have a solution for the Sathanas.

Their economy is a train wreck because they got one of their major systems wiped off the map and have been devoting a huge amount of resources to the Sol Gate.

Also, they do have a solution to the Sathanas: Chimera/Bellerophon/Titan hunter-killer groups.  Mass SSM deployment.  Bombers knocking out BFReds.  Look at how the 14th took down the Sathanas in AoA with no casualties.

Well, first of all, they need a way to deal with Sathanas juggernauts. I would suggest building a few superdestroyers, but that's probably too expensive. An alternative would be to make a destroyer-sized vessel without a fighterbay, so that it could carry much heavier beam weaponry than a regular destroyer. That ship would be significantly less flexible, but it would offer some of the firepower of a superdestroyer without the huge cost. A fleet of these would be able to effectively counter juggernauts.

They should also make peace with the UEF, although it may be too late at this point (the Security Council thinks that losing the war would cause a much larger one within the GTVA). An alliance could possibly give them access the Sol's shipyards, and while the UEF ships currently have poor endurance, that problem could probably be fixed and if they did it would give their military a significant boost.

Superdestroyers are Sathanas bait.  See what happened to the Colossus.  3 Raynors > 1 Colossus in nearly every possible way.

And what makes you think the UEF enduance problem could be easily fixed?  It isn't simple to completely refit a ship that way.  Building more Chimeras, Bellerophons, and Diomedes would be a much, much better use of shipyards than retrofitting ships that aren't as effective to start with and would only lose effectiveness in an endurance-boosting refit.

The problem is that destroying the UEF isn't neccesary for the survival of humanity.

  It is for the GTVA since, like I said, the GTVA can't survive an ideological rift ATM.

[Apollo]

I think I was wrong about  the Gattler's DPS (I was thinking in terms of burst damage). Still, 30X15 is 450, and 450/3 is 150, not 112.5. 150 X 12 is 1,800, and 455 X 7 is 3,185, so I guess the Raynor's TerPulse are more damaging. Still, the Gattler Turrets have a longer range (4,000 as opposed to 2,400), are more accurate (better for destroying subsystems), and they have the Huge flag, which means they won't be distracted by fighters.

My calculation:  15X30=450.  450/3, 150.  However, there's 1 second downtime between bursts, so the time between start of each burst is 4s, so it's actually 450/4, which is 112.5.

Ok. Well, thanks for clearing that up.

In a beam/torpedo jammed environment, the Raynor will win only because its TerSlashBlue will destroy the Solaris's weapon subsystem. If the Solaris intentionally destroys that turret (which is what any smart admiral would do) it will win.

 
No, it won't.  Add Huge flag to TerPulse, remove TerSlahBlue, and Raynor still wins.  TerPulse just plain beats Gattler as an anti-ship weapon.

I just tested it, and the Solaris still wins. In any case, the TerPulse lacks the huge flag, and adding it would go against canon. You can't prove a point by changing the tables.

And none of this changes the fact that, at short-to-medium range without any ECM, the Solaris will destroy the Raynor, usually fairly easily. Since the Shivans don't use any ECM, the Solaris's torpedoes would not be jammed in a fight with them.

Yes, it does.  And the Titan destroys the Solaris if it's front-to-broadside.  But like we said before, this isn't what happens in war.  And we haven't seen the Raynor operating at peak yet.

The Titan may destroy the Solaris if it attacks the Solaris's side, but the Solaris easily destroys it if it attacks the Titan's side. The Raynor can defend itself much better from the sides, but it has nowhere near the forward firepower of a Titan. You're correct when you say that we've never seen the Raynor's full capabilites, but we've also never seen the Solaris's full capabilites. Again, it all depends on the fluff rules, because on paper the Solaris beats the Raynor.

Against the Shivans, a Solaris would operate effectively at first.  Then it would run out of torpedoes.  Resupply might not be readily available, especially considering how the Shivans wage war.  Then you're left with an expensive supercarrier with no effective weapons.  Ravana bait.

Don't the GTVA's warships use plasma for their beams and pulse cannons? Anyway, FS ships always carry more ordnance than is physically possible for them to hold, so we really have no idea how long it would take for the Solaris to run out of torpedoes. And, even if it did, it wouldn't be that much worse off than the Hecate. It's Gattler Turrets collectively deal less sustained damage than the Hecate's beams, but they're much more accurate than those TerSlash, and the Solaris has far more armor, a larger hangar, and better turret placement than the Hecate. It would hardly be useless. 

The GTVA believes they have good reasons for the war, but really their leaders are so terrified of the Shivans that they're making stupid decisions. They will likely win their war with the UEF, but probably at signficant cost. The Feds are going to upgrade their Sancti and possibly their Karunas, which, if not a game-changer, will certainly increase the GTVA's warship casualties. There's also the unavoidable reality of those 3 Solaris destroyers, which at medium-range can match or beat anything the GTVA has with the exception of the Atreus and possibly the Carthage. They already almost lost the Hood to the Toutatis, and next time they might not be so lucky.

In any case, their fear of Ubuntu is ridiculous. If its cultural aspects can't even take over one solar system, they could not possibly take over the entire GTVA.

  I'm getting really sick of saying this:

The danger is from the ideological split that would almost certainly occur were it to spread into the politically fragile GTVA.  They'd be looking at yet another large-scale rebellion, which they just can't handle ATM.  Collapse would follow, leaving the pacifists in power.

If they're willing to start a war over something like that, they're not pacifists. Anyway, if the GTVA's citizens are even slightly scared of the Shivans (and I'm almost certain they are) no huge change would appear in their thinking, because like I said, the form of Ubuntu the GTVA is scared of has only managed to take over Earth and it goes too far against human nature to control any other places under normal circumstances. Any ideological rift would be fairly small and containable.

I can't quote those exact words, but that's basically the GTVA's entire concern: that Ubuntu can't handle the reality of the Shivans, with whom communication seems impossible. In theory, that may be true, but in practice the UEF's destroyers, huge fleet of frigates, and reserve of bombers shows how dumb that concern is.

Compare the size of the 2 militaries.  The entire UEF military is involved.  3-4 GTVA battlegroups are involved.  The UEF is losing, and the GTVA has been pulling their punches to avoid damage to local infrastructure.  There is no way in hell they could even come close to handling a Shivan attack.

The UEF is losing, partly because their Sancti aren't in wartime configuration, but mostly because Byrne and the Elders won't fight more aggressively. They actually have enough raw firepower to control the system*, and if First Fleet² (who are from Earth, the only place that Ubuntu has fully taken hold) would act more like Calder and Netreba's fleets, they might actually win.

*:I know that contradicts one of my earlier posts. I thought about it some more and changed my mind.

²: That sounds like it confirms the GTVA's fears, but, like I said, that kind of pacifism is limited to Earth and would never take hold in the full GTVA.

It's not working because their economy is a train wreck, their people are repressed, and they're so terrified of the Shivans that they're invading a friendly power simply to prevent their ideas from reaching the GTVA's citizens. Oh, and they still don't have a solution for the Sathanas.

Their economy is a train wreck because they got one of their major systems wiped off the map and have been devoting a huge amount of resources to the Sol Gate.

Also, they do have a solution to the Sathanas: Chimera/Bellerophon/Titan hunter-killer groups.  Mass SSM deployment.  Bombers knocking out BFReds.  Look at how the 14th took down the Sathanas in AoA with no casualties.

Well, first of all, they need a way to deal with Sathanas juggernauts. I would suggest building a few superdestroyers, but that's probably too expensive. An alternative would be to make a destroyer-sized vessel without a fighterbay, so that it could carry much heavier beam weaponry than a regular destroyer. That ship would be significantly less flexible, but it would offer some of the firepower of a superdestroyer without the huge cost. A fleet of these would be able to effectively counter juggernauts.

They should also make peace with the UEF, although it may be too late at this point (the Security Council thinks that losing the war would cause a much larger one within the GTVA). An alliance could possibly give them access the Sol's shipyards, and while the UEF ships currently have poor endurance, that problem could probably be fixed and if they did it would give their military a significant boost.

Superdestroyers are Sathanas bait.  See what happened to the Colossus.  3 Raynors > 1 Colossus in nearly every possible way.

The Colossus's greatest fault was that it was built on the assumption that it would never face another warship of comparable or superior strength. I guarantee you, if the GTVA were to build another juggernaut or superdestroyer they would not make that mistake. A supercapital's destruction would deal a massive blow to the GTVA's military, but a supercapital would also give them a ship that was nigh-invulnerable to most other warships.

But I didn't say they should build a supercap. I said they should build a destroyer-sized warship that trades its fighterbay for massive weaponry and armor. This seems like a good investment to me.

And what makes you think the UEF enduance problem could be easily fixed?  It isn't simple to completely refit a ship that way.  Building more Chimeras, Bellerophons, and Diomedes would be a much, much better use of shipyards than retrofitting ships that aren't as effective to start with and would only lose effectiveness in an endurance-boosting refit.

Because if the GTVA could retrofit their old TV-War era warships like the Orion with beam weaponry and flak cannons, why couldn't they increase the UEF ships' endurance? Compared to the huge retrofits that took place between FS1 and FS2, that would be relatively minor.

The problem is that destroying the UEF isn't neccesary for the survival of humanity.

  It is for the GTVA since, like I said, the GTVA can't survive an ideological rift ATM.

I still don't think they'd have any large ideological rift. Maybe a small one, but not anything sufficent to tear the GTVA apart.

[Phantom Hoover]

so has salty made apollo his apprentice or something?

[Apollo]

so has salty made apollo his apprentice or something?

Well, the difference is I'm not arguing with the mod's creators, just it's beta testers.

Still, I might be starting to sound like him. 

[Scotty]

I didn't read all of that, because it's a quote chain and I hate those, but I did notice that you assumed that whether or not a weapon carries a flag is canon or not.

I highly doubt that the $Huge flag exists in canon, if only because otherwise it makes no sense why engineers wouldn't just build it into whatever gun they felt like.

I'm being sarcastic, but the point is that tables don't really mean much aside from a vague set of guidelines that the team will use as they see fit.

[Aesaar]

I just tested it, and the Solaris still wins. In any case, the TerPulse lacks the huge flag, and adding it would go against canon. You can't prove a point by changing the tables.

The TerPulse doesn't have the Huge flag because it needs to be able to target fighters, which Huge weapons can't do.  It's an engine limitation.  This is a prime example of when tables don't reflect actual performance.

Don't the GTVA's warships use plasma for their beams and pulse cannons? Anyway, FS ships always carry more ordnance than is physically possible for them to hold, so we really have no idea how long it would take for the Solaris to run out of torpedoes. And, even if it did, it wouldn't be that much worse off than the Hecate. It's Gattler Turrets collectively deal less sustained damage than the Hecate's beams, but they're much more accurate than those TerSlash, and the Solaris has far more armor, a larger hangar, and better turret placement than the Hecate. It would hardly be useless. 

1) The Hecate isn't reliant on ammunition for its beams or the pulse cannons that have likely been fitted to many of them.  2) No, we don't know exactly how long it would take for a Solaris to run out of ammo.  What we do know is that compared to GTVA ships, it wouldn't take long at all.  This is a well established fact.  This is why I've suggested that the Solaris could be useful as a fighter base and a rapid-response shock jumper, but not much else.  As a line carrier to replace the Hecate, not likely.  To replace the TEI destroyers, no chance whatsoever. 

If they're willing to start a war over something like that, they're not pacifists. Anyway, if the GTVA's citizens are even slightly scared of the Shivans (and I'm almost certain they are) no huge change would appear in their thinking, because like I said, the form of Ubuntu the GTVA is scared of has only managed to take over Earth and it goes too far against human nature to control any other places under normal circumstances. Any ideological rift would be fairly small and containable.

The GTVA Security Council disagrees.  Given that they have more info than just the Ubuntu FAQ, and therefore more info than you or me, I'm inclined to agree with their assessment.  Statements by the team back this up.

The UEF is losing, partly because their Sancti aren't in wartime configuration, but mostly because Byrne and the Elders won't fight more aggressively. They actually have enough raw firepower to control the system, and if First Fleet (who are from Earth, the only place that Ubuntu has fully taken hold) would act more like Calder and Netreba's fleets, they might actually win.

Very, very debatable.  The GTVA has more firepower in system than the UEF does, and leadership that's very good at anticipating UEF reactions.  The UEF could certainly put up a better fight, but would they win?  Unknown.  Probably not.

The Colossus's greatest fault was that it was built on the assumption that it would never face another warship of comparable or superior strength. I guarantee you, if the GTVA were to build another juggernaut or superdestroyer they would not make that mistake. A supercapital's destruction would deal a massive blow to the GTVA's military, but a supercapital would also give them a ship that was nigh-invulnerable to most other warships.

But I didn't say they should build a supercap. I said they should build a destroyer-sized warship that trades its fighterbay for massive weaponry and armor. This seems like a good investment to me.

The Colossus was built to fight a Lucifer class enemy.  It was designed well enough that it successfully handled something much stronger (Sathanas 1).  Its problem was that it was one ship, which has a number of downsides compared to many smaller ones.  1) you're putting a huge amount of resources into a ship freakishly vulnerable to Shivan shock jumps.  2) a superdestroyer can only be in one place at once, a group of destroyers can split up if the situation calls for it.  3) bigger ships have less maneuverability, both in realspace and in subspace, and so can't redeploy as quickly.  4) 1 ship is easier to kill than a group of smaller ones.

The Raynor was built because of the lessons learned from the Colossus.  Command decided that having a larger amount of highly advanced destroyers was better than one or two juggernauts.

A significant part of the Raynor's offensive capability, especially when facing a Sathanas, is its bomber wings, which go in and destroy the enemy's beam cannons.  Removing that in favor of more armor to fight a ship which destroyed the Colossus in 20 seconds is like saying you should remove a tank's rangefinder to add a layer of tinfoil to its armor.  Not even a Vishnan Sacred Keeper can survive a Sathanas shock jump.

Because if the GTVA could retrofit their old TV-War era warships like the Orion with beam weaponry and flak cannons, why couldn't they increase the UEF ships' endurance? Compared to the huge retrofits that took place between FS1 and FS2, that would be relatively minor.

The Orions and Fenrises were retrofitted ships with beam weapons specifically designed for compatibility with those platforms.  This is why the BGreen is worse than the BVas, and why blue beams don't work on even FS2 era ships.  They're most certainly not huge retrofits.  What you want to do is change, say, the Karuna from a design made specifically for operations in a system where resupply is very close, to a light patrol carrier for a navy that operates in areas where resupply might not come for weeks at a time, especially during an encounter with Shivans.  To be very clear: A UEF battlegroup would not have survived AoA.

To do what you want to do with a Karuna, you'd need to change weapons so it would fit it the GTVA's existing infrastructure.  Well, unless you're advocating outfitting every supply depot in GTVA space with ammunitions and spare parts for the Karuna's current guns.  You'd basically be turning it into a completely different ship.  This refit would take a very long stay in a shipyard, which could instead be used to build ships that are both more effective and already fit neatly into the GTVA's fleet doctrine (like the Diomedes).  It quite simply isn't worth the time.

I still don't think they'd have any large ideological rift. Maybe a small one, but not anything sufficent to tear the GTVA apart.

See answer above.


Gah I'm really stating to hate this wall of quote stuff.

[General Battuta]

I still don't think they'd have any large ideological rift. Maybe a small one, but not anything sufficent to tear the GTVA apart.

All the mega quote stacks are totally unreadable so I'll just reply to this:

We saw the GTVA torn apart by a man who offered the promise of a Neo-Terra. Why don't you think the promise of real Terra would be enough?

[Apollo]

I didn't read all of that, because it's a quote chain and I hate those, but I did notice that you assumed that whether or not a weapon carries a flag is canon or not.

I highly doubt that the $Huge flag exists in canon, if only because otherwise it makes no sense why engineers wouldn't just build it into whatever gun they felt like.

I'm being sarcastic, but the point is that tables don't really mean much aside from a vague set of guidelines that the team will use as they see fit.

The huge flag doesn't exist in canon, but it does affect a weapon's performance by making it able to destroy warships corvette-sized and up, and preventing it from being used on fighters.  Although, I think the Big Ship flag confers the same effect, though a Big Ship weapon can still be used on fighters and I think it might get its damage cut a little against corvettes and destroyers. Not sure, though.

It doesn't really matter though, since while the Huge flag isn't canon, a weapon's performance is, and adding or removing the Huge flag will change the weapon's performance.

I just tested it, and the Solaris still wins. In any case, the TerPulse lacks the huge flag, and adding it would go against canon. You can't prove a point by changing the tables.

The TerPulse doesn't have the Huge flag because it needs to be able to target fighters, which Huge weapons can't do.  It's an engine limitation.  This is a prime example of when tables don't reflect actual performance.

The Huge flag isn't canon in and of itself, but it does affect a weapon's performance, which is canon. Therefore, adding the Huge flag is contradicting canon.

Don't the GTVA's warships use plasma for their beams and pulse cannons? Anyway, FS ships always carry more ordnance than is physically possible for them to hold, so we really have no idea how long it would take for the Solaris to run out of torpedoes. And, even if it did, it wouldn't be that much worse off than the Hecate. It's Gattler Turrets collectively deal less sustained damage than the Hecate's beams, but they're much more accurate than those TerSlash, and the Solaris has far more armor, a larger hangar, and better turret placement than the Hecate. It would hardly be useless. 

1) The Hecate isn't reliant on ammunition for its beams or the pulse cannons that have likely been fitted to many of the newer ships.  2) No, we don't know exactly how long it would take for a Solaris to run out of ammo.  What we do know is that compared to GTVA ships, it wouldn't take long at all.  This is a well established fact.  This is why I've suggested that the Solaris could be useful as a fighter base and a rapid-response shock jumper.  As a line carrier to replace the Hecate, it has no chance.

1) Why not? They fire plasma, and plasma is a form of matter. I guess it could be produced in the Hecate's reactor, but the reactor would also require matter to make plasma.

2) It wouldn't take long at all? Show me a quote from the BP team that says that.

The Solaris could replace the Hecate because it has comparable effectiveness after it runs out of Apocalypses. Before then, it will be far more capable against enemy warships.

If they're willing to start a war over something like that, they're not pacifists. Anyway, if the GTVA's citizens are even slightly scared of the Shivans (and I'm almost certain they are) no huge change would appear in their thinking, because like I said, the form of Ubuntu the GTVA is scared of has only managed to take over Earth and it goes too far against human nature to control any other places under normal circumstances. Any ideological rift would be fairly small and containable.

The GTVA Security Council disagrees.  Given that they have more info than just the Ubuntu FAQ, and therefore more info than you or me, I'm inclined to agree with their assessment.  Statements by the team back this up.

The Security Council is terrified of another Shivan invasion, and that causes them to react in an extreme manner. Earth is the only place that their concerns about Ubuntu really apply to, because it goes too far against human nature to take hold in any place that isn't specifically set up to maintain it.

The UEF is losing, partly because their Sancti aren't in wartime configuration, but mostly because Byrne and the Elders won't fight more aggressively. They actually have enough raw firepower to control the system, and if First Fleet (who are from Earth, the only place that Ubuntu has fully taken hold) would act more like Calder and Netreba's fleets, they might actually win.

Very, very debatable.  The GTVA has more firepower in system than the UEF does, and leadership that's very good at anticipating UEF reactions.  They could certainly put up a better fight, but would they win?  Unknown.

Most of the GTVA's destroyers in Sol are Hecates, which are terrible against warships at any angle except the front. The Imperieuse is powerful, but very vulnerable to flanking maneuvers. The only really scary things they have are the Atreus, the Carthage, and Serkr Team. Their Diomedes corvettes are also very dangerous, but the GTVA tends to deploy them in a manner that gets them killed at a far greater rate than any of their other corvettes.

The UEF also has numerically superior forces, so they have the firepower to retake Sol. After they forced the GTVA out, they could simply blockade the Delta Serpentis jump node with a Solaris and a few frigates, preferably positioned in a manner that would allow them to flank incoming warships.

The Colossus's greatest fault was that it was built on the assumption that it would never face another warship of comparable or superior strength. I guarantee you, if the GTVA were to build another juggernaut or superdestroyer they would not make that mistake. A supercapital's destruction would deal a massive blow to the GTVA's military, but a supercapital would also give them a ship that was nigh-invulnerable to most other warships.

But I didn't say they should build a supercap. I said they should build a destroyer-sized warship that trades its fighterbay for massive weaponry and armor. This seems like a good investment to me.

The Colossus was built to fight a Lucifer class enemy.  It was designed well enough that it successfully handled something much stronger (Sathanas 1).  Its problem was that it was one ship, which has a number of downsides compared to many smaller ones.  1) you're putting a huge amount of resources into a ship freakishly vulnerable to Shivan shock jumps.  2) a superdestroyer can only be in one place at once, a group of destroyers can split up if the situation calls for it.  3) bigger ships have less maneuverability, both in realspace and in subspace, and so can't redeploy as quickly.  4) 1 ship is easier to kill than a group of smaller ones.

1) I agree with that, and that's why I said they shouldn't build one.

2) True, but a superdestroyer is much stronger than two or three destroyers.

3) Not necessarily. The Sathanas and the Colossus both outrun most canon destroyers, although it probably does take them longer to charge their jump drives.

4) The sheer amount of armor and weaponry a superdestroyer has makes it harder to kill than several regular destroyers, simply because anything weaker than another supercapital can barely scratch it.

Also, the Colossus was only able to destroy Sathanas 1 because the former overdrove its beam cannons and the latter's were destroyed. A Colossus has absolutely no chance of defeating a Sathanas under normal circumstances.

The Raynor was built because of the lessons learned from the Colossus.  Command decided that having a larger amount of highly advanced destroyers was better than one or two juggernauts.

A significant part of the Raynor's offensive capability, especially when facing a Sathanas, is its bomber wings, which go in and destroy the enemy's beam cannons.  Removing that in favor of more armor to fight a ship which destroyed the Colossus in 20 seconds is like saying you should remove a tank's rangefinder to add a layer of tinfoil to its armor.  Not even a Vishnan Sacred Keeper can survive a Sathanas shock jump.

Having to disarm a juggernaut before you fight it is a serious problem, because destroying a Sathanas's beams takes quite a while. And, even without its beams it has so much armor that a single Raynor is nearly useless against it. A destroyer-sized warship with much heavier weaponry would be able to flank a Sathanas and deal serious damage to it without having to disarm it beforehand.

Because if the GTVA could retrofit their old TV-War era warships like the Orion with beam weaponry and flak cannons, why couldn't they increase the UEF ships' endurance? Compared to the huge retrofits that took place between FS1 and FS2, that would be relatively minor.

The Orions and Fenrises were retrofitted ships with beam weapons specifically designed for compatibility with those platforms.  This is why the BGreen is worse than the BVas, and why blue beams don't work on even FS2 era ships.  They're most certainly not huge retrofits.  What you want to do is change, say, the Karuna from a design made specifically for operations in a system where resupply is very close, to a light patrol carrier for a navy that operates in areas where resupply might not come for weeks at a time, especially during an encounter with Shivans.  To be very clear: A UEF battlegroup would not have survived AoA.

To do what you want to do with a Karuna, you'd need to change weapons so it would fit it the GTVA's existing infrastructure.  Well, unless you're advocating outfitting every supply depot in GTVA space with ammunitions and spare parts for the Karuna's current guns.  You'd basically be turning it into a completely different ship.  This refit would take a very long stay in a shipyard, which could instead be used to build ships that are both more effective and already fit neatly into the GTVA's fleet doctrine (like the Diomedes).  It quite simply isn't worth the time.

I think retrofitting one warship would be cheaper than building a new one, otherwise retrofits wouldn't exist. You have a point with the supply problem. Still, the UEF's Apocalypse could be replaced by the GTVA's Ouster (I think that's a GTVA weapon, basically an Apocalypse#Solaris clone) or Supernova. Or, the GTVA could adopt the Apocalypse, since it's already far better than their Eos. The railguns would be a bigger concern; no GTVA weapon could replace them, and the GTVA has little or no reason to use them in their own designs, which would necessitate replacing them with beam cannons; something the UEF ships aren't equipped for.

I still don't think they'd have any large ideological rift. Maybe a small one, but not anything sufficent to tear the GTVA apart.

See answer above.

Your above statement says very little about that.

[Apollo]

Sorry for double posting, but the computer I'm on right now can't edit posts for some reason.

I still don't think they'd have any large ideological rift. Maybe a small one, but not anything sufficent to tear the GTVA apart.

All the mega quote stacks are totally unreadable so I'll just reply to this:

We saw the GTVA torn apart by a man who offered the promise of a Neo-Terra. Why don't you think the promise of real Terra would be enough?

Wouldn't making peace with the UEF, allowing transit between Sol and the GTVA, and adopting Ubuntu's economic model deliver that promise?

[General Battuta]

Yes, exactly, it would deliver that promise - destroying the GTVA. Even if it's conducted peacefully, mass demographic flight from the periphery of human space into Sol would catastrophically destabilize both the GTVA and the UEF.

Or so their projections fear.

The Ouster is a Gef weapon.

[Apollo]

Yes, exactly, it would deliver that promise - destroying the GTVA. Even if it's conducted peacefully, mass demographic flight from the periphery of human space into Sol would catastrophically destabilize both the GTVA and the UEF.

Since you have access to Blueplanet's complete storyline, I won't argue with you.

Or so their projections fear.

So, are they correct?

The Ouster is a Gef weapon.

*facepalm  Damn. I thought it was an unused Tev Apocalypse clone.
 

[General Battuta]

Well, this is what one faction within the universe believes. It doesn't matter whether they're 'objectively correct' or not - what matters is that their beliefs, the information available to them, drive their policy decisions.

The Ouster will see use in R2. I get the sense a lot of R2 material got patched in to the R1 tables in some update.

[Apollo]

Well, this is what one faction within the universe believes. It doesn't matter whether they're 'objectively correct' or not - what matters is that their beliefs, the information available to them, drive their policy decisions.

But are they correct?

The Ouster will see use in R2. I get the sense a lot of R2 material got patched in to the R1 tables in some update.

Yeah, there are a whole bunch of unused weapons, like the (IIRC) Eos#Steele, Hydra, and Gauss Cannon#AA.

[General Battuta]

But are they correct?

How can anyone know unless the events they're trying to avert come to pass?

A lot of major wars have been built on economic or security projections that might, in hindsight, seem shaky - Imperial Japan's attempts to secure resources and break out of US strategic containment in the Pacific, for instance, or the US' efforts to battle a notional 'domino effect' that may or may not have actually been a danger.

I'm sure there's lively debate within the universe, as well as here on HLP, about whether the GTVA's correct.

Yeah, there are a whole bunch of unused weapons, like the (IIRC) Eos#Steele, Hydra, and Gauss Cannon#AA.

The Hydra is used in R1.

[Phantom Hoover]

so uh is anyone going to tell apollo about contingency MORPHEUS or will i have to do it

[General Battuta]

so uh is anyone going to tell apollo about contingency MORPHEUS or will i have to do it

It is certainly worth pointing out that the GTVA may have reasons to go to war beyond those revealed so far. You might even find a few hints if you look!

[Apollo]

MORPHEUS? Isn't that the contingency the GTVA enacted to deal with the Vishnans?

[Phantom Hoover]

That's what I thought at first, but remember that most of what we thought was revealed about the Vishnans and Shivans in AoA was retconned to something less tacky a deliberately skewed picture that doesn't really reflect their true nature. The gist of it is that GTVA high command believes that the UEF is at least in part under some alien influence, a scenario which, given the circumstances, they are extremely and justifiably afraid of. What we don't know is the extent and origin of this influence -- Naomi's visions are implied to be Shivan in origin, but at the same time the closing dialogue of WiH1 obviously refers to some attempt to contact the Vishnans, probably as part of The Secret Project™.

EDIT: As to the actual meat of MORPHEUS, I only realised on my second playthrough that Steele's lines in Ken are actually very illuminating: he knows he's Nagari-sensitive, and has his own regime to suppress it; so it seems that part of it consists of screening personnel and training them to resist foreign influence.

[Aesaar]

Apollo: I'm not doing this omnislashing quote wall stuff anymore.  It prevents anyone else from participating.


The TerPulse has a Big Ship Flag.  The Big ship flag doesn't allow a gun to do the final 10% to a capital ship.  Only Huge does, but other than allowing that, it has no effect whatsoever on gameplay.  The problem is that the TerPulse is a very multipurpose weapons, and is important to the Raynor's fighter screen.  So it can't have the Huge flag.  This doesn't meant it can't kill capital ships in-universe.  Stop thinking the tables are the final word on a weapon's combat performance.  If there was a flag that allowed a gun to kill a capship while still allowing it to target fighters, the team would have used it.  There isn't. 



We don't have the science on plasma beams, but given the statements by team members and the implications from the fiction, beams are much, much more ammo-efficient than torpedoes and other solid ammunition weapons are.  This isn't in any way uncertain, and the fact that you're asking for a direct quote for the Solaris having significantly less endurance than the GTVA destroyers makes me thing you're being deliberately obtuse, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and walk you through it.

The Solaris was designed for operations in the Sol system.  The designers never intended it to fight for large amounts of time independently, because in Sol, resupply is always one intrasystem jump away, which really doesn't take long.  Remember that military ships don't need to use the gate network as they have their own drives.

So perhaps you'd care to explain to me why the Solaris would have been designed for long periods of time alone when it was built specifically for operations in Sol, where logistics are barely a concern.

GTVA ships, on the other hand, were built for operations in the GTVA, where stations for resupply could be a whole other system away.  In addition, they were built for operations against the Shivans, who have a habit of destroying everything they come across, meaning that the resupply station in the next system might not even be there.  This necessitates that ships be able to perform for extended periods of time without resupply.  The Anemoi was built to improve this ability even further.  The 14th was seriously hurt by the events of AoA, despite not losing any capital ships and having two Anemois with them.  A UEF battlegroup wouldn't have survived.  They'd have run out of ammo much faster.

If that logic isn't enough for you, then I don't see the purpose of arguing with you further. 

The Solaris could replace the Hecate because it has comparable effectiveness after it runs out of Apocalypses. Before then, it will be far more capable against enemy warships.

No, a Hecate is, generally speaking, more effective than a torpedoless Solaris .  1 BGreen and 4 TerSlash are more effective than 12 Gattlers (which require ammo too, you know).  This doesn't even consider that many Hecates have probably had their big turret guns replaced by pulse weapons.  No examples, but TerPulse doesn't have the power grid problems blue beams have, and can be retrofitted on some older ships (Battuta, I'd really appreciate it if you could confirm or deny this bit).



Now, to the superdestroyer discussion:  Did you miss the fact that a Sathanas shock jump killed a Vishnan Sacred Keeper effortlessly?  You know, a juggernaut built by the only race that can match the Shivans?  The same thing happened to the Colossus, which took 20 years to build.  Superdestroyers/juggernauts/"death star" units are worthless unless you can mass produce them, which the GTVA can't do.  They have no place in modern fleet doctrine.

You claim superdestroyers/juggernauts outpace smaller ships.  In realspace, that might be the case.  It is not the case in subspace.  It's a BP general rule that the smaller the ship, the less time it takes to recharge subspace drives*.  So a destroyer can redeploy faster than a juggernaut.  A Hecate could redeploy faster than the Colossus.

*Sprint drives might make you think otherwise, but a sprint drive is basically two drives in one.

Flank the Sathanas isn't something that only a superdestroyer can do, you know.  Seriously, replay AoA.  You seem to have completely forgotten that the 14th destroyed a Sathanas with no casualties and no superdestroyers.

Also, the Colossus was only able to destroy Sathanas 1 because the former overdrove its beam cannons and the latter's were destroyed. A Colossus has absolutely no chance of defeating a Sathanas under normal circumstances.

Define "normal circumstances".  "Sit in front of each other and shoot" isn't "normal circumstances" either.

Most of the GTVA's destroyers in Sol are Hecates, which are terrible against warships at any angle except the front. The Imperieuse is powerful, but very vulnerable to flanking maneuvers. The only really scary things they have are the Atreus, the Carthage, and Serkr Team. Their Diomedes corvettes are also very dangerous, but the GTVA tends to deploy them in a manner that gets them killed at a far greater rate than any of their other corvettes.

The UEF also has numerically superior forces, so they have the firepower to retake Sol. After they forced the GTVA out, they could simply blockade the Delta Serpentis jump node with a Solaris and a few frigates, preferably positioned in a manner that would allow them to flank incoming warships.

I'm going to even bother arguing this point, because it isn't the way the war happened.  By the end of WiH, the GTVA both outnumbers and outguns the remaining UEF forces (including 1st Fleet), they don't have crumbling morale, and aren't close to complete logistical collapse.  If the secret project can't change the playing field somehow, GTVA victory is absolutely certain.

For a pre-WiH situation, I hate recommending this, because it doesn't match the strategic situation at all (and no fighters) and is therefore of dubious canonicity, but play bp2-massivebattle at a decent framerate.  GTVA almost always wins.  That's if you want a pure stand and fire measure of firepower, of course.  The actual situation is obviously more complex.

It is certainly worth pointing out that the GTVA may have reasons to go to war beyond those revealed so far. You might even find a few hints if you look!

"Did we do the right thing? We couldn't let them go forward with it, not once we knew. We will not be tools. But...was it right?"