[rscaper1070]

Does anybody know how long the Sanctus is? It doesn't say in the wiki.

[Aesaar]

If you factor in the antennae on the front and back, 730m, give or take.

If not, almost exactly 600m.

And they call it a cruiser.  Pff.

Rudimentary figures measured through the FRED grid.

[rscaper1070]

Awesome, thanks. That's about what I was guesstimating. I didn't think of using FRED as a ruler.

[headdie]

the pof file is 760meters long 608 without antennas.  and it's a cruiser out of armament rather than size, remember that many UEF warships double as freight haulers.

The UEF military officially designates the Sanctus as a next-generation cruiser, though the ship's dimensions approach those of the Vasudan Sobek class corvette. The cruiser was designed with the Federation's philosophy of generalisation in mind, and as such has enough cargo space to serve as a military freighter and transport while still performing adequately as a warship.

[Aesaar]

The Aeolus is cruiser armed.  The Hyperion is cruiser armed.  The Sanctus is a corvette, it's just not as heavy as the Deimos.  Call it a light corvette or escort corvette if you like, but it's definitely too big, too well armed, and too well armored to pass as a cruiser.  The only reason it's called that is because the UEF doesn't have a corvette designation.

If you look at the stats, it's actually much closer to the Deimos than to the Hyperion.  It combines Aeolus-level point-defenses with some fairly effective anti-capital weapons.

[Mars]

Uh... hmm. . . I think it's observable behavior in game is much more like a cruiser don't you? I also don't know what you mean by "too well armed" since a Hyperion has both more anti-fighter and anti-cap ship firepower. Even disregarding table stats, the UEF deploys them like one would expect cruisers to be deployed.

[-Norbert-]

Apart from that, who sais the UEF has to use the same classifications as the GTA and GTVA.
They could just turn the whole thing around and call a Solaris cruiser and the sanctus destroyer, if they liked, or invent completely "new" designations like battlebarge or cutter or whatever strikes their fancy.
While they obviously didn't do that, they might have slightly changed the meaning of classes, compared to the GTA classifications that the GTVA took over unmodified.

[Ryuseiken]

Apart from that, who sais the UEF has to use the same classifications as the GTA and GTVA.
They could just turn the whole thing around and call a Solaris cruiser and the sanctus destroyer, if they liked, or invent completely "new" designations like battlebarge or cutter or whatever strikes their fancy.
While they obviously didn't do that, they might have slightly changed the meaning of classes, compared to the GTA classifications that the GTVA took over unmodified.

 Very true, I mean FS in general has innacurate descriptions for their warship classes if we compare them to present day navy terminology anyways.

[Klaustrophobia]

but for my money, FS makes more sense. 

[redsniper]

Agreed. Something named DESTROYER ought to be big and bad, I think.

[Ryuseiken]

Well I agree with you there, I learned the FS system before I learned about the real one so it feels more natural to me as well. A cruiser just doesn't sound like a class of vessel that's supposed to be able to one up something called a destroyer.

[headdie]

Its actually the FS system is better suited from a certain perspective, as pointed out destroyers being massive machines of destruction, cruisers which are supposed to be fast warships are exactly that in FS, there is only really corvettes which is difficult to comment on.

[Aesaar]

Uh... hmm. . . I think it's observable behavior in game is much more like a cruiser don't you? I also don't know what you mean by "too well armed" since a Hyperion has both more anti-fighter and anti-cap ship firepower. Even disregarding table stats, the UEF deploys them like one would expect cruisers to be deployed.

Sanctus anti-capital firepower is much better than that of the Hyperion.  Those two SBlues aren't that big an improvement over the Aeolus' SGreens (nearly twice as strong, but that's not saying much).  The Sanctus has two mass drivers, two gauss cannons (each half as strong as the Karuna's), and two Warhammer torpedo launchers, and it'll kill a Hyperion in less than a minute with 80 - 60% health remaining.  The pulse cannons deal most of the Hyperion's damage, but they don't help that much.  Their fighter screens are roughly equivalent.

The Sanctus also has 67000hp, compared to the Deimos' 80000 and Hyperion's 40000 (and it has the corvette flag in the files, for whatever that's worth).

It's deployed the way it is simply because the Karuna fills the UEF's corvette role and lacks a proper cruiser.  Like it says in the description, the Sanctus occupies a role between frigate and cruiser, and since frigates are basically heavy corvettes, I'd say that makes the Sanctus a light corvette.  Its far superior combat performance when compared to actual cruisers supports this.

Agreed. Something named DESTROYER ought to be big and bad, I think.

Destroyers are called what they are in the real world because it was short for torpedo boat destroyer (as in, a ship that destroys torpedo boats), much like battleship was short for line-of-battle ship.  Now they're both official designations in their own right.

[Mars]

. . . I don't know if you've ever put them anywhere near each other, but without some serious upgrades the Hyperion kills the Sanctus in under a minute, last I checked. I'd run another "put them in the general area of each other" but my machine is, for several intents and purposes, down for the moment. I do seem to remember that it was hilariously one sided though.

Maybe I'm totally remembering this wrong?

[Aesaar]

I put them about 700-800m apart face to face (bp2-colonel AI).  It is hilariously one sided, just in the Sanctus' favour. 

The SBlues knock the Sanctus down to ~87%, then the Sanctus starts shooting its Mass Drivers, Warhammers, and UEF Heavy/Medium Turrets and tears the Hyperion to pieces.  The Hyperion might get another SBlue shot off if it's lucky.

[-Norbert-]

For it to be hilariously onesided in the Tevs favour, you'd have to place a Chimera or Bellerophon there.
What's also quite hilarious, is the "power" of the Gef cruiser. It can beat a Fenris, but everything else, including the Custos, will wipe it out with little to no trouble.

[Aesaar]

A Deimos will kill a Sanctus without too much difficulty, though it's a much fairer fight, and the Sanctus can pull off a win if the Deimos is unlucky with its TerSlashes.

And yeah, the Ancamna sucks.  Even the Cretheus(!) will laugh at it.

[Mars]

Cretheus is no joke to anything less than an Aeolus with all those pulse cannons.

I figured out why I thought that. . .

the one sided fight I was thinking of was a Sanctus in the general vicinity of a Diomedes.

[Aesaar]

I just noticed that when I had it fight a Custos.  If you can get it to ignore the Custos' Warhammers (by removing the bomb flag), it does very well.  If you don't, the Cretheus just pays too much attention to the torpedoes and barely shoots the Custos.

Yeah, any comparably sized capital ship tends to do very badly against the Diomedes.  If you fly it yourself, it's entirely possible to take out two Karunas at once (even if you start out of range).  Brilliant at anti capital work.

On a somewhat related note, I've been conceptualising a new model for it, since I'm just not that fond of the current one.

[Mars]

It was a brilliant model for its time, but like most of the Tev fleet, it's looking a little pale compared to some of the new ships rolling out. I doubt any of the current modelers of the caliber needed to take on the Titan or Raynor, for example, have any free time in their free time in which to do it.