[SpardaSon21]

Uncivilized, but deadly.

[Dragon]

That could be a good idea, but would deprive the warship of anti-cap capablity. Not to mention the inherent difficulty of firing grapeshot from a railgun (Gauss guns would work just fine though).

[Snail]

I dunno I kind of think it's a silly idea. A simple solution would be "don't approach this thing from the front".

[Dragon]

Yes, but remember that you'd be dogfighting at the time.
It's not easy to control where dogfight is taking place, not to mention that sometimes, you have to approach from the front or take a rather large detour.
Also, flanks are quite well defended on Karuna, unlike the front.

[Snail]

Yes, but remember that you'd be dogfighting at the time.

Err, in that case, if they fired they'd kill their own pilots. Not a very Ubuntu thing to do, really.

[Dragon]

Depends on spread.
Also, you could force the enemy into the cannons firing arc by making him take evasive action and try to get away from you.

[Jellyfish]

That could be a good idea, but would deprive the warship of anti-cap capablity.

In game, yes. Unless you can somehow change the weapon from the canister shot to the sabot (through scripting?) to represent the crew loading different shells as the need arises.

[General Battuta]

You can.

[Kolgena]

I'm reminded of "Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a ***** in space". With grapeshot, you're kind of multiplying the potential damages.

[PsychoLandlord]

I'm foreseeing a last, desperate "**** You" measure against the Tevs should Calder ever be in a tight spot, and should his ships computers be capable of computing the locations of Tev planets multiple millions of years in the future. It would all probably be moot by that point, but it could be a funs story to pass around later.

[Klaustrophobia]

how many amazon drones were killed in T-V/Great War era training?

None. As stated for each Training mission, you were in a Simulator. Which means no actual assets employed, even though you still flew like it was in real-space and against real assets. Therefore, no need to re-build anything.

No, (as far as we know), only the FreeSpace 2 training missions were stated to be simulators. You could fudge it and say that the FS1 ones were too, but there is absolutely zero evidence to support that.

you can't even do that (reasonably at least).  the orf was brought in to shoot at you and give its gunners practice.  a simulator wouldn't need to practice.  nor would they need to use cargo containers, drones, etc.

[Snail]

Yeah, I think there's very little basis for the FS1 training missions being simulations.

(except it was the Neptune, not the Orff)

[Scotty]

how many amazon drones were killed in T-V/Great War era training?

None. As stated for each Training mission, you were in a Simulator. Which means no actual assets employed, even though you still flew like it was in real-space and against real assets. Therefore, no need to re-build anything.

No, (as far as we know), only the FreeSpace 2 training missions were stated to be simulators. You could fudge it and say that the FS1 ones were too, but there is absolutely zero evidence to support that.

you can't even do that (reasonably at least).  the orf was brought in to shoot at you and give its gunners practice.  a simulator wouldn't need to practice.  nor would they need to use cargo containers, drones, etc.

It was always a kind of fridge brilliance how the gunners could get practice in when they aren't hitting anything.  They then replicate that performance for the whole game.

[assasing123]

you people are understimating drones.. currently to manufacture an effective "entertaintment drone" costs less than 10 thousand dollars, and they can already do maneuvers no human could on a vehicle, making drone ships is even cheaper than human controlled ones and also more effective.

http://gizmodo.com/#!drones

fear the drones...

a plant mass building those could make them cost 5$ and output a few thousands per day... just upscale them and add a simple weapon, say trebuchet launcher or morning star and we could easily and cheapily swarm a sathanas with 5 thousand drones that costed a total of lets say, 1 mill dollars? O,o cheaper than firing 2 sidewinders nowadays.... specially if you count BP technology, even smart drones would be total absolute uber cheap rape.

[redsniper]

uhhh.... applying the cost of tiny, 21st century, aerial drones to large, military-grade, 24th century space drones.....

I mean granted, yeah, they'd probably be cheaper than manned fighters for sure... but then what's the player going to do?

[Jellyfish]

Maintain those drones.

Freespace 3: the Repair Sim, where you can switch up to 50 pieces from up to 30 different drones you'll never get to fly! Ages 3 and up

[Rodo]

Drones are handled from big warships, EMP weapons + flash strikes = WIN.

[-Sara-]

I'm not sure I like the drone idea. They'd take a lot of resources to build and they all need a powerplant to move around. Unless these drone frigates would come in very limited numbers for surgical strikes or tactical uses, I don't think the GTVA has the means to maintain a fleet of them. If I were the GTVA I'd rather build 10 fightercraft than 50 drones which probably are destroyed the moment they're caught in crossfire or end up inside the targetting reticle of a hostile fighter.

[headdie]

as we already discussed though sara the GTVA probably has the industrial capacity, though would need tooling back up to produce vast numbers of drones would probably be required, evidence being apparant training procedures during the T-V great war eras

[-Sara-]

I personally can't entirely agree to that assessment, not going to take it for granted yet. To me it's not even certain if the amazon drone excists beyond the simulator and even if so it's size and sluggy speed make it an easy target. Upgrading it's maneuvring trusters and engines takes the same resources as building more versatile fightercraft. But each to their own I think.