[Polpolion]

Edit:

Does anyone know of a mod with a MGreen beam like beam?

I think there are 4 'green' beams. The SGreen (small green), the BGreen (big green), BFGreen (big ****ing green), and the plain old Green beam.

EDIT: I just checked the tables. It does even less damage than the SGreen.

[aldo_14]

Or the GTA was so stretched post-Thresher that they only had a skeleton crew manning their warships?

[Mars]

No the green beam does less damage per time while firing, it has a sustained damage potential similar to the SRed, but it's a slasher, no none of the beams in FS2 are sutible, I know that, I mean in terms of MODs.

[Mars]

Okay, it's fairly obvious who won out, most people actually prefer the Deimos (like me). From the conversations creeping up I was thinking the Moloch would be the favorite, followed by the Sobek.

[ilya]

It could be that the Orff was evacuated, except for the bridge crew and repair teams.  Or that the rest of the crew was standing by in escape pods. ( since the Hermes is too big and only holds 20, but whatever)  Or maybe a few dozen people is all the GTA expected to lose when a cruiser was destroyed.  FS1 isn't known to be the most coherent game ever created.

That brings up an interesting point, the tech room says that all modern warships are installed with escape pods, but in any mission that escape pods must be protected, there are no more than 5(ish). Doesn't seem like a large enough number to evacuate even a small portion of the crew on any ship.

[Mars]

You just need to read a little more carefully:
Freespace 2 Tech Data:

The GTEP Hermes escape pod is now standard equipment on every GTVA warship of cruiser size or larger. Each ship has several escape pods magnetically coupled to airlocks scattered around the ship's outer hull. Not intended for whole-crew evacuations, the Hermes has space for up to 20 crew members. Each pod is propelled by a small fusion engine, enough to remove the pod from the immediate vicinity of an exploding warship. It is also capable of subspace jumps.

Bizzare if you think about it, the Hermes only saved ~1% of the Galatea's crew.

[ilya]

Ahh, I see. Must make for very interesting emergency procedures.

[Mars]

You have to wonder how they choose who gets off.

[brozozo]

I'm guessing it's a first come-first serve basis.

[StratComm]

My guess is intelligence, command, and other key personell.  Not joe-shmoe the lifepod technician.  If you can't save everyone, save the important people first.  The whole "go down with the ship" idea is noble enough, sure, but it's strategically very stupid as you lose your best commanders too quickly that way.

[aldo_14]

My guess would be whoever carries the guns.

[Mars]

Admirals Wolf, Wallace (ST), and Petrach, didn't leave on escape pods.

[Prophet]

The whole "go down with the ship" idea is noble enough, sure, but it's strategically very stupid as you lose your best commanders too quickly that way.

I suppose it is a matter of pride, honour and duty to the captains. They are responsible for the ship, so it is their job to save it. They are responsible for the safety of their crew, so it is their job to see that as many crew mambers as possible are saved. But people like the top secret SOC 6 star general guy, Mr. President and the Vasudan with the secret Fish and Headz stew recipe are vital to the alliance, but not to the function of the ship. Nor do they have any responsibilities aboard the ship. So they are the ones that would be stuffed in to life pods first (and launched outside amidst the swarming Shivans).

[Darius]

Does the ship have to have a fighterbay in order to launch escape pods? That would mean no evac for the poor corvettes and cruisers

EDIT: Reading the tech database, it would seem that escape pods are launched from the hull. I've never seen it in-game except with regard to launching from a destroyer's fighterbay.

[Prophet]

How many times you have seen a ship that the player isn't protecting, but has even slight chance of attempting evacuation? Hostile ships are destroyed quickly by uber-beamz-salvo-omgh or killer-bomb-swarmerzoik, so they rarely have time to evacuate after the situation becomes hopeless.

It can be faked by havig the escapepods appear next to the ship at appropriate time. But mission designers don't really bother with those kinds of things, exept if the ship has some greater effect on plot. It is sad, but lack of immersion always is.

[StratComm]

Part of it is that there are very real limitations on just making escape pods appear.  Even with spawning and create-ship, we still have the problem of the pods just popping into existance unless they are launched from a fighterbay.  When it was important in the retail campaign, a bay was added to the model.

[Prophet]

Part of it is that there are very real limitations on just making escape pods appear.  Even with spawning and create-ship, we still have the problem of the pods just popping into existance unless they are launched from a fighterbay. 

Player will not notice if a FREDer puts some effort in it.

[StratComm]

Yeah, well, try to do that well in code.  That's really the issue.