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How should the GTVA proceed with cruisers post-Capella?

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Kie99:

--- Quote from: EatThePath on June 24, 2024, 01:06:41 pm ---If we're building ships to fight Sathanas threats, I've got one grim justification for cruisers in my head.

In a white room, just tabled stats, fleet vs fleet fight, if we assume a Sathanas has no delay from switching targets but can't switch a beam's target mid-shot, then it should a collosus in 40 seconds, or kill two destroyers every 10 seconds,or kill 4 of anything smaller every 10 seconds.

We can't really know how the costs and manufacturing capability break out, but if going just by a very crude estimate of volume then a destroyer is 'worth' around 25 corvettes, or 470-ish cruisers. It seems unlikely that it's a simple switch between "build 1 destroyer" and "build 500 cruisers", but dozens certainly seems plausible to me.

So, if you are planning for the possibility of having to fight a fully-fanged sathanas, cruisers start getting attractive because it can only kill them so fast, and when it does you lose a lot less than you would with a larger ship. It requires you to abandon the idea of your crews not being expendable, and there's a lot of other factors that muddy the waters, but I do think it's a plausible thread to pull on.

I do think there's also out-of-battle utility factors to consider. A cruiser can loiter, it can show presence and provide some measure of security. Yeah, fighters can do that some, but there's got to be a limit. The fighters have to go home after a few hours, the cruiser doesn't. And yeah, corvettes, but cruisers existing is easily justified by simply saying they can't afford as many corvettes as they'd like, and need cruisers to fill the gap. Sure, it'd be nice to just have bigger, better ships everywhere, but sometimes you just have to settle.

They can be needed for the fleet's overall operation, and still go up in smoke the minute a bomber wing or shivan cruiser notices them, that's not exactly a contradiction. At least, not the kind of contradiction that would stop a military for doing something.

--- End quote ---

I'm not sure cruisers are capable.  After you scan the Sathanas in A Monster in the Mist the briefing for the next mission says the Sathanas has weaknesses, but only the guns of capital ships are sufficient to exploit them.  In game this manifests as weapons without a certain damage flag being unable to damage the Colossus or Sathanas to below 75%.

If you're going the suicide mission route with cruisers I'd say the PVC Mauler provides the blueprint for how to do it.

BengalTiger:

--- Quote from: Kie99 on July 11, 2024, 03:13:18 pm ---
--- Quote from: EatThePath on June 24, 2024, 01:06:41 pm ---If we're building ships to fight Sathanas threats, I've got one grim justification for cruisers in my head.

In a white room, just tabled stats, fleet vs fleet fight, if we assume a Sathanas has no delay from switching targets but can't switch a beam's target mid-shot, then it should a collosus in 40 seconds, or kill two destroyers every 10 seconds,or kill 4 of anything smaller every 10 seconds.

We can't really know how the costs and manufacturing capability break out, but if going just by a very crude estimate of volume then a destroyer is 'worth' around 25 corvettes, or 470-ish cruisers. It seems unlikely that it's a simple switch between "build 1 destroyer" and "build 500 cruisers", but dozens certainly seems plausible to me.

So, if you are planning for the possibility of having to fight a fully-fanged sathanas, cruisers start getting attractive because it can only kill them so fast, and when it does you lose a lot less than you would with a larger ship. It requires you to abandon the idea of your crews not being expendable, and there's a lot of other factors that muddy the waters, but I do think it's a plausible thread to pull on.

I do think there's also out-of-battle utility factors to consider. A cruiser can loiter, it can show presence and provide some measure of security. Yeah, fighters can do that some, but there's got to be a limit. The fighters have to go home after a few hours, the cruiser doesn't. And yeah, corvettes, but cruisers existing is easily justified by simply saying they can't afford as many corvettes as they'd like, and need cruisers to fill the gap. Sure, it'd be nice to just have bigger, better ships everywhere, but sometimes you just have to settle.

They can be needed for the fleet's overall operation, and still go up in smoke the minute a bomber wing or shivan cruiser notices them, that's not exactly a contradiction. At least, not the kind of contradiction that would stop a military for doing something.

--- End quote ---

I'm not sure cruisers are capable.  After you scan the Sathanas in A Monster in the Mist the briefing for the next mission says the Sathanas has weaknesses, but only the guns of capital ships are sufficient to exploit them.  In game this manifests as weapons without a certain damage flag being unable to damage the Colossus or Sathanas to below 75%.

If you're going the suicide mission route with cruisers I'd say the PVC Mauler provides the blueprint for how to do it.

--- End quote ---

Well, the Mjolnir itself is just a bit over 100 m long, add the freighter for the engines needed to move it in place, and we are looking at a ship of like 200 meters.
That is cruiser size, and it can do damage to the largest targets.

That said, if you add armor, some defensive turrets to survive in a contested environment and then get engines big enough to push all the extra weight - it gets to corvette size really quick.

The Saths are not going to be in a vacuum, in a real battle royal there would be thousands of fighters and bombers from the Shivan side, vs hundreds from the GTVA side. Add probably dozens of Shivan cruisers and corvettes, and maybe some destroyers in the mix as well.
That Deimos does not look like such a bad decision now, does it?
The Sobek can focus both of its main beams on one target, so it's actually better at hitting targets bigger than itself, even though the Deimos has much better abilities to destroy things that are smaller than itself.

I don't think "spam ship design X" will work. The big beams need to have escorts. The escorts need to chase away anything from an SF Dragon to a Lilith if our big beams are to focus on the juggernauts. If combined into one big ship that can do it all, we lose the ability to maneuver around and get into a frontal duel.

If there is plentiful corvettes such as a Sobeks with one BVas or a rebuild of the Deimos with one Mjolnir instead of all 4 slashers, then these could simply warp into the battle space at such directions that they are outside of the Sahanas's firing arcs.
Each of those would need something like an updated Aeolus orbiting it, moving to block the most common direction enemy bombers are approaching from.

On top of that, lots of fighters. This requirement makes the Hecate a very good ship class, even though nobody gives it respect because it's not a good battleship.
A Hecate was a command and control carrier, so it could coordinate the various tactical jumps, and supply wave after wave of friendly fighters and bombers.

To have a proper battleship - the Big Hat can put all 3 of its main beams on one target, so it's like a Sobek, only way bigger. If one gets introduced into battle in such a way that it orbits a Sathanas without going into its BFRed WEZ, then it will win a 1 vs 1.

But destroyers are a topic of its own.

Colonol Dekker:
Bengal Tiger.  You still making ships etc?

BengalTiger:
I still have all the files, but I have not touched the mod Teeth of the Tiger for several months now.

I'm trying to finish off a separate project for this turn based strategy called Open General first, with great progress so far.

Then I plan to finish TotT as well..
Need to get up to speed in Blender first though.
I did learn a thing or two about programming over the years, so I should be able to FRED my way through when my probably dozen remaining ships are done.

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