[Snail]

The mission was mainly capturing the Taranis, not protecting it. The mission designer could have just sent the Shivans to attempt to kill the Terran fighters near it.

[Clawandfang]

Okay, I concede.

[Colonol Dekker]

But they reds WILL blow it up if you give then free reign to.

[Galemp]

Some clarification here from the FS1 guru.

Originally, the largest ships in Freespace were designated cruisers (like in real life navies.) If you watch the Briefing cutscene you'll see that the Taranis icon is that of a capital ship, like the Galatea or the Lucifer.

Therefore we can assume that the Taranis was supposed to be a Demon or some other capital ship. The FS Reference Bible backs this up. For some reason, though, it was scaled back to simply a Cain, and that part of the campaign was never completed.

[colecampbell666]

I think that they realized that they wouldn't have been able to tow a Demon, or disable/disarm it for that matter, so they scaled it down.

[0rph3u5]

maybe the Taranis is something like this here:
english Wikipedia on Oste-class


ps . I think I'm interested on picking up this campaign idea
EDIT: ooohhh ... I think I've enough mission ideas together to call it mini-campaign - but I've to check if and how it would contradict "Hellgate Ikeya"

[Akalabeth Angel]

Meh, I think people forget that Cruisers in FS1 were actually a bit of a force to be reckoned with, instead of the free kills they are in FS2.

[ShadowGorrath]

SAH starts in FS1 time. Well, a bit post-FS1. Anyway, you are killing cruisers en masse.

[Sir T]

Meh, I think people forget that Cruisers in FS1 were actually a bit of a force to be reckoned with, instead of the free kills they are in FS2.

It was the advent of fighter shields that made cruisers a bit useless. Even so Lilith cruisers were still a threat with their 12 turrets with decent placement, though the FS2 version really scaled that down to 9 weak ones in favor of that anti-capital beam

[colecampbell666]

On medium, even a Cain was a threat, hell, the Ramses was hard to disarm without getting damaged.

[bfobar]

Yeah if you install the FSport and make a mission with no shields, ml16s, and whatever the heatseeking missile was for the FS1 campaign and then go try to attack any cruisers with fighter escorts, you'll respect them a little more.

Anyway, I think the old posts were overthinking things. Even though the taranis was given the destroyer icon etc, all you need is a cruiser as a command ship and some support fighters and some freighters to make a little scout force to look for nodes to interesting systems with planets to bombard.

So you have the taranis scouting around what the shivans consider an uninteresting area with low threat potential, and then the GTA bounces it, blows its escorts away, and tows the thing off. Shivan high (?hive?) command gets irate and sends the lucy over to show those pesky humans what it thinks of attempted theft.

Anyway, this would make an awesome mini-campaign to track it, bait it out, steal it, escort it to the station, and then be part of the evac escort when lucy shows up.

[bfobar]

So I spent all day thinking about a Taranis campaign. That's what I always liked about freespace, that you can think about the side stories and mods and plots, and then go try to fred them up.

Anyway, I have some questions about Taranis Canon. I need to play the fsport again to check some things, so I figured I'd ask in case anyone knows off the top of their head.

What system was the taranis in? Do we have any more info other than sector command ship and it has a few fighters and bombers escorting it when it is captured? Were shields rolled out to the whole fleet at the time of the taranis, or were they still in prototype phase? Were valks or hercs out yet? I figure a good campaign for this should stay true and not have silly planes showing up that haven't been invented yet.

[Colonol Dekker]

Valks were out before the Shivans hit the Avenger prototypes. Hercs were out roundabout the time the big G got blowed-upski. *doffs hat in mark of respect*

[Snail]

Valks were out before the Shivans hit the Avenger prototypes. Hercs were out roundabout the time the big G got blowed-upski. *doffs hat in mark of respect*

*Starts playing the bagpipes*

[Snail]

What system was the taranis in? Do we have any more info other than sector command ship and it has a few fighters and bombers escorting it when it is captured? Were shields rolled out to the whole fleet at the time of the taranis, or were they still in prototype phase? Were valks or hercs out yet? I figure a good campaign for this should stay true and not have silly planes showing up that haven't been invented yet.

The Taranis operated in the Ikeya/Betelgeuse/Beta Cygni/Ribos area. When it was captured, it was in the Ikeya system. The Valkyrie was fully deployed and all fighters on board the Galatea, at least, had shields. The Athena was available, but not yet used until the actual capture operation. The only weapon fully capable of breaking through shields was the Avenger. The Interceptor missile was just developed a few days before the capture.

[colecampbell666]

and then be part of the evac escort when lucy shows up.

Rain on Ribos IV.

[Colonol Dekker]

*cough wholefrickins41tstorm cough*


I'd play that branch / skewed campaign reality

[bfobar]

well, I have a working outline that I can turn into a campaign of the 5-7 mission length variety. Now I have to remember how to fred things that don't suck.

[ShadowGorrath]

What about the "Ship of tears" mod ?

[bfobar]

hmmmm.... I hunted those down. I'll play them and check them out.