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Into the Dark Waters - Fleets Composition
Nyctaeus:
Something like that. Introduction of the first Vitalius-class frigate happened after the Secession War. It's described in one of techroom entries which Su-Tehp upgraded some time ago. Vitalius was the first of the next-generation warships developed by the Syndicate.
When I estimated the numbers of warships available to factions in Exile, I wanted to put emphasis on virtually unlimited resources available to both factions. Both ORS and EFN are dozens of times larger then the most powerful contries on modern Earth. Bilions of people live in each one of them. In fact, NTF alone is several times bigger then UEF in BP continuity. With access to half of the industry of the Sol system and majority of it's mineral resources, ORS was surely capable of constructing a fleet of immense size. EFN is no different, but EFN was always more focused on capitalships so they introduced more carriers and destroyers.
Combined firepower of both factions is likely to exceed the might of EA fleet from Nostos.
Mobius:
Nostos' EA however is a bit different compared to INFR1's EA, because the former didn't rule all over Sol while the latter in fact did. As a direct consequence, the scale of the resources available to either faction would vary a lot, potentially in the 1-2 orders of magnitude range.
Considering all variables involved, it does make perfect sense to see a Sol faction with massive fleets, which raises another question - are there more Vitalius frigates than cruisers in Exile's continuity?
Nyctaeus:
Vitalius is the most numerous of ORS warships. They favour their frigate-centered doctrine thanks to their capabilities of carrying fighters and lower maintenence costs. Syndicate also use cruisers, but mostly for escort and patrol duties.
EFN is different in this regard. They have much more cruisers. Total amount of cruisers used by Federation greatly exceeds the number of frigates in active service.
Mobius:
This makes Exile's Sol factions and their respective fleets the most powerful factions to have ever been featured in a FreeSpace campaign. Right now, I can't think of anything else (besides the Shivans, of course) with comparable fleet sizes.
On a slightly unrelated note, the will to focus on frigates kind of matches what the Terran branch of the GTVA does in FS2, as the Deimos corvette is meant to be the "foundation of tomorrow's fleet" while no cruiser class is mass produced.
Nyctaeus:
The very problem of possible fleets size in FS and later in mods comes from the fact, that real power of GTA, PVN and later also GTVA was never truly measured. Considering the size of the most powerful navy of modern world - the US Navy, the GTVA would be capable of building hundreds if not thousands of cruisers, and possibly dozens of destroyers.
Why battles in FS are so small? Technical limitations of 1998 and 1999 and gameplay reasons.
The Sol system, including all the raw mineral supplies in Kupier Belt, Oorta Cloud and moons of gas gians has virtually unlimited resources by itself. And GTVA has about 25 of such worlds. GTA has probably something like half of this, just like PVN. Neo-Terran Front with their 3 system is several times larger then any state that ever existed on earth.
So any potential problems with insufficient mineral resources are effectively pointless, like portrayed in Sol: A History. The backstory of Prometheus in the times of FS2 is also straightforward stupid. Even rare, heavy elements which are abundant on Earth are everywhere in space, just because they sunk in young, hot and molten Earth. Such scenario is impossible in asteroid fields. I suspect that market of raw mineral resources will completely collapse on real-life Earth, when we start asteroid mining. Even gold and diamonds will become worth less then toilet paper.
Those factors probably deceived many modmakers into thinking, that GTVA is nothing more then 15 destroyers, 50 corvettes and 300 cruisers. GTVA can easily go three times the size of this and more. GTVA is effectively interstellar superpower.
So it's not that fleets in Exile are enormous, but custom fleets in many mods are ridiculously small :P . Inferno actually does good work, with EA and their countless destroyers. UEF is also not bad considering the fact, that Narayana frigates are actually almost as big as Orions.
...and the Shivans? 80 juggernauts seems to be enormous for us, but even loosing it was just regular, ordinary thursday for them. They probably never even noticed. The inactive juggs that didn't jump out were probably just expendable.
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