[LordPomposity]

Conceded, still you don't have the Solaris in DE. It just isn't a comparable setting. In the first engagement, the Titan would run into serious trouble and risk. Not in DE, where they pwned the wargods without a scratch. Comparing those risks, I'd say that Steele is so much a better strategist than many of you .

The Toutatis was only barely able to break off from its own engagement in time to attack the Hood. Send in the Imperieuse about ten minutes before that, and the Toutatis wouldn't have been able to engage.

In hindsight of course that the GTVA could have done X and Y and Zed. What matters is what you can do within ten minutes, specially when you are being defeated by completely surprising technology like the beam jammer. Of course that if you had previous knowledge of this weapon you could have prepared against it and armed your ships with "tag missiles". But you didn't because you were caught with your pants down.

It's entirely possible to lose the AWACS in that mission.

Exactly. Everybody seems to be forgetting there's still a whole UEF bomber corp out there. If the Imp had warped in, with minimal fighter support too, it would have been swiftly defanged and smashed by gunships/durgas. 2nd/3rd fleets were both occupied, but I'm sure even conservative 1st fleet wouldn't have missed such a golden opportunity.

The Imperieuse would have been able to bring to bear the same strikecraft support as she did at Saturn, where I don't recall her being ganked by First Fleet bombers. Jump in the Medea alongside the Imperieuse instead of sending her on a suicide run on her own, and you have your corvette support, too.

I think everyone has forgot that the Imperieuse is a battlecarrier. With a full complement of fighters and bombers.

Including a few with BALLS OF STEELE ai.

[MatthTheGeek]

Nope, IIRC there is no BoS AI in DE. Only Little Devils.

The only point where BoS is ever used is in Blade Itself, for the ETS and turret fire rate.

[Deadly in a Shadow]

Nope, IIRC there is no BoS AI in DE. Only Little Devils.

The only point where BoS is ever used is in Blade Itself, for the ETS and turret fire rate.

BOS was used in the intro too. Ever wondered why the firing rate of the Atreus's pulse turrets was so insanely high?

[Colonol Dekker]

That looks freakin AWESOME!

I'd like to voice Atreaus Tactical for the TEV campaign if anyone from that is reading here

[Luis Dias]

The Toutatis was only barely able to break off from its own engagement in time to attack the Hood. Send in the Imperieuse about ten minutes before that, and the Toutatis wouldn't have been able to engage.

This doesn't solve the plot problem of "I have five minutes to think, command and execute all this reaction that people are talking about in the most perfect manner possible, as if there aren't any other engagements occurring elsewhere"

It's entirely possible to lose the AWACS in that mission.

It's entirely possible to die in that mission. Your point?

The Imperieuse would have been able to bring to bear the same strikecraft support as she did at Saturn, where I don't recall her being ganked by First Fleet bombers. Jump in the Medea alongside the Imperieuse instead of sending her on a suicide run on her own, and you have your corvette support, too.

That would have been suicidal. Pretty much dead. Like D-E-A-D.

If the Imperieuse had jumped alongside the Medea, the Toutatis would have commited itself a little bit earlier for da prize. It would make an exit vector in the Imp's backside / broadside, and bye bye Imperieuse.

That's the worst idea I've read on what admiral Steele could do in that situation.

[LordPomposity]

This doesn't solve the plot problem of "I have five minutes to think, command and execute all this reaction that people are talking about in the most perfect manner possible, as if there aren't any other engagements occurring elsewhere"

If there's enough time to break off the Hood and Serkr team from whatever they're doing, there's enough time to break the Imperieuse off from doing absolutely nothing. Also, unless Steele is a complete moron he probably realized that there was some chance the Agincourt was headed for a jump gate, even if he had no way of knowing which one. He had a couple weeks to put together a plan for that contingency.

It's entirely possible to lose the AWACS in that mission.

It's entirely possible to die in that mission. Your point?

Losing the AWACS is not a mission-ending scenario. Dying is a mission-ending scenario. There is no canonical information as to whether or not the AWACS survived. There is canonical information as to whether or not Laporte survived. Debating what might have been a good idea if the AWACS had been destroyed is therefore pertinent. Debating what might have been a good idea if Laporte had died is therefore impertinent.

The Imperieuse would have been able to bring to bear the same strikecraft support as she did at Saturn, where I don't recall her being ganked by First Fleet bombers. Jump in the Medea alongside the Imperieuse instead of sending her on a suicide run on her own, and you have your corvette support, too.

That would have been suicidal. Pretty much dead. Like D-E-A-D.

If the Imperieuse had jumped alongside the Medea, the Toutatis would have commited itself a little bit earlier for da prize. It would make an exit vector in the Imp's backside / broadside, and bye bye Imperieuse.

That's the worst idea I've read on what admiral Steele could do in that situation.

Ignoring again the fact that the Toutatis was engaged elsewhere and was not able to extricate herself until several minutes after the Medea was destroyed. The Toutatis was also engaged during Delenda Est, and did not break off to flank and destroy the Imperieuse when she showed up then.

And ignoring again the fact that the Imperieuse had a full air wing and the Toutatis was empty.

[Luis Dias]

This doesn't solve the plot problem of "I have five minutes to think, command and execute all this reaction that people are talking about in the most perfect manner possible, as if there aren't any other engagements occurring elsewhere"

If there's enough time to break off the Hood and Serkr team from whatever they're doing, there's enough time to break the Imperieuse off from doing absolutely nothing. Also, unless Steele is a complete moron he probably realized that there was some chance the Agincourt was headed for a jump gate, even if he had no way of knowing which one. He had a couple weeks to put together a plan for that contingency.

But he did. He placed the Serkr and the Hood in front of the jump gate waiting for the Agincourt.

This ought to be enough. No one anticipated the BeamzJam. Only after that point should you count the seconds for a comeback being thought and executed. And within those seconds you should also count the seconds of confusion among the Serkr Team of what the hell happened + communication with Steele + "WTF happened u Serkr idiots?" + "We're still trying to understand" + "It appears we are being jammed sir", "WTF how is that F possible?!?" + "No clue sir" + "Ok, LET ME THINK FOR A SECOND"

Losing the AWACS is not a mission-ending scenario. Dying is a mission-ending scenario. There is no canonical information as to whether or not the AWACS survived. There is canonical information as to whether or not Laporte survived. Debating what might have been a good idea if the AWACS had been destroyed is therefore pertinent. Debating what might have been a good idea if Laporte had died is therefore impertinent.

When the AWACS get the chance of being destroyed, isn't the wargods team all over the Hood anyway? Or can that event occur before the Serkr team goes away? If so, we could be seing a slight plot hole. But it's almost in the realm of nitpicking very specific chain of events.

Ignoring again the fact that the Toutatis was engaged elsewhere and was not able to extricate herself until several minutes after the Medea was destroyed.

If the situation was that bad, they could come sooner. It was a matter of priorities, and the admiral figured that a small support would cover the Medea situation and he could come a little later to the field. The possibility of flanking the Imperieuse is, I think, high on his priorities.

The Toutatis was also engaged during Delenda Est, and did not break off to flank and destroy the Imperieuse when she showed up then.

The Toutatis was already calculating its attack on the Hood but not Saturn. But that's a good point.

And ignoring again the fact that the Imperieuse had a full air wing and the Toutatis was empty.

I'm really not that much impressed by this, since waves of wings still take their time to launch, and in less than a minute of back and forth, the Toutatis really kicks the Imperieuse to the ground. The waves may do a good damage to the T, even bring it down, but at the cost of a good destroyer. If the T jumps into the Imp's broadside, it's game over for the Imp.

Now I don't remember the fiction, so I don't know what the excuse for the T not showing up in DE was. Probably the excuse was the same one as the Imp's in Aristea: too risky. Yes, they would probably kill the Imp, but they would take a lot of damage as well.

[LordPomposity]

Is it explicitly stated that that's the first time beam jamming was used? I don't recall ever reading one way or another, and I had assumed the UEF had been doing it for a while. The closest I can find is that the Oculus was developed in the weeks preceding the fall of Jupiter. If there's a quote to the effect that Aristeia was the first time one had been deployed in a beam-jamming capacity, then you're absolutely right.

I think the AWACS can be destroyed at almost any point in the mission, after which the Hood problem is invariably resolved by giving suicidal attack-subsystem orders to invulnerable wingmen.

And sorry for the pissy use of bold text in my previous post. The internet is serious business.

[Luis Dias]

Oh I just assumed from the conversations. They are pretty much crossing their fingers "will it work?", and then it does.

I think you hit a good spot in your "If the Imperieuse was good enough to get three Karunas, it was good enough to get two and an Agincourt" before, specially if paired with the "If the T was good enough to protect the two Karunas in Aristea, it was good enough to protect the three ones in Saturn".

I have no reply to that that doesn't feel slightly cheated. Perhaps a good question to the BP team?

And you've been completely nice Lord, nothing to apologize for. When you read yourself calling other people names that's when you have to start worrying yourself .

[Mars]

We don't know yet how fierce the attack on the T is during Delande Est. My guess is that the attack was fierce enough to threaten the Toutatis is nearly destroyed in the attack, or at least badly threatened.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah that's the kind of answer I was trying to avoid...

[MatthTheGeek]

The description of preview screenshots on ModDB state that the Big T was engaged with Serkr during the events of DE.

[Luis Dias]

There we go.

[LordPomposity]

I thought the concern over the jamming at the beginning of Aristeia was whether Calder would come through and get the AWACS into position in time, not whether the jamming would work once it did get there.

[Buckshee Rounds]

Yet one of them single handedly wiped the floor with the Wargods. When deployed properly don't underestimate the amount of damage that thing is capable of inflicting.

Not single handed, it had fighter escort and a corvette. Try debeaming it and you'll see how important those assets are.

And ignoring again the fact that the Imperieuse had a full air wing and the Toutatis was empty.

No it didn't, the Imperiuse air wing was pushed back during the Blitz. It was "restocking".

I won't dismiss the fact that having the Imp on hand in Aristeia would've probably tipped the balance in favour for Tevs, but it's clear that Steele had her on standby for a very specific scenario, one which she was deployed for and completed brilliantly. Steele keeps to his cards; deploying the Imperiuse is the very last thing he was thinking of when the Hood and Serkr were on call. Calder and Netreba attacked Jupiter for a reason: they wanted Steele occupied with defence exactly so that he wouldn't have assets available or be able to react in time to the Agincourt escaping. I doubt even he would have anticipated Serkr to be beaten. Expected maybe, in the realm of unlikely possiblities, but not actually defeated.

Steele's reaction was to send the Medea and this is a far more sound course than warping in an under-strength Titan. Unfortunately the Wargods simply wanted it more and it was their turn to win, simple as. Tevs rarely lose, tactically it's way more gray than it looks, seeing as how Calder's artillery was thrashed and presumably many UEF fighters lost.

[The E]

Yes, Aristeia marks the first time beam jamming is used. Yes, the fact that it was present was one factor for Steele not to deploy the Imperieuse there and then (Him wanting to see where the Agincourt would end up was another, as was his belief that Hood and Serkr would be enough to stop the Wargods' escape). If he had deployed the Imperieuse, not only would the success not be assured (due to beam jamming), he would also have played his ace card without the assurance of that being enough. Had one of the UEF destroyers jumped in, he would have risked not only losing Imperieuse or Hood, but Serkr as well. Not a good deal for him.

(And yes, Steele does know that this was a risk, yes, he probably caught flak over this decision, and yes, he would make the same decision even if he knew what happened after)

[Luis Dias]

yeah, that's what I mostly thought. Now how I get rid of this smug smile that invaded me?

[Snail]

By not being such a prick.

[Luis Dias]

Ah thanks that did it.

[Colonol Dekker]

Wait......wait............





There it.............



No....

It's gone.