[Apollo]

Solaris:

This is what I want to do:

• Add BGreens or, if possible, MjolnirBeam#homes, and TerPulses, swapping out Apocalypses and Gattlers as needed. In order to enhance compatability with GTVA weaponry, it might be necessary to replace the remaining Apocalypses with Supernovas*, and/or replace the remianing burst flak with Standard Flak,  and/or Terran Turret 2s or AAAfs. The Point Defense Turrets could stay, because if anything the GTVA should consider adopting those weapons (unless they're somehow horribly inefficient).
• Add additional fuel reserves (if neccesary).

*Supernovas have lower DPS and speed than Apocalypse#Solaris, but they are likely far more ammo-efficient, considering their smaller size and the fact that they don't fire four warheads at once.

Since flak cannons require large ammunition bunkers in BP canon, they would provide much of the space for these upgrades.

Solaris:


That's one of the Solaris' big dual gattler turrets compared to a Raynor's TerPulse.  Tell me again how the Solaris has enough space for numerous TerPulse turrets.

The Mjolnir is still a very modern beam cannon, better than many (all?) blue beams.  That it isn't mounted on any GTVA ships, even the modern ones, should tell you a lot about how hard that is to do.  If new TEI ships can't do it, the Solaris can't handle it.

I admit I was wrong about the size of those turrets (those long, thin circular turrets are actually beams and not pulse cannons). Still, would it be that hard to make bigger turrets? And, is it not possible that the Raynor's TerPulse turrets are so big because the model was made that way and those turrets just made the most since for placing TerPulse? They probably aren't extremely stressful on the ship's reactor, considering that the Raynor manages to mount seven of them and still have a bunch of fighters, armor, point-defenses, beam cannons, and torpedo launchers.

The fixed MjolnirBeam is the most powerful GTVA beam cannon ever produced (it beats the HBlue, despite what the tech description says). The MjolnirBeam#home, on the other hand, is in between the BBlue and the HBlue in terms of power. The BGreen is weaker than either one, and should therefore require less power.

The Hecate is inferior because, at full strength, it still falls far short of the Solaris. The Solaris becomes comparable or slightly weaker when it runs out of torpedoes.

The critical part here is "incompatible with GTVA fleet doctrine". The GTVA has better use of its resources for building tons of new ships with Sol's industry than trying to retrofit the Solarises. Much like the UEF scrapped the old Orions, the Tevs are likely to scrap the Solarises. Remember also that from a political point of view, it would be better for them to remove from civilian sight all previous symbols of the UEF after their victory.

I like how you keep saying that retrofitting the Solarises would be a waster of resources. It would be expensive, but not as much as building a new destroyer.

Incompatable with GTVA fleet doctrine? It is right now, but what about after a refit?

Removing the Solarises for political reasons has some validity, although it would be much less wasteful to just give it a new paintjob.

Superdestroyers:

I just ran a test, and three Bellerophons could have destroyed the Keeper. The Keeper was also at 29% hull integrity at the time, and at full health those corvettes would not have been able to destroy it in one salvo. Also, the Keeper has much less armor than the Lucifer, Sathanas, or Colossus. Any of those would have likely had time to call for reinforcements.

What?  In what way is shock jumping a destroyer and its battlegroup easier than shock jumping a single big superdestroyer?  This makes no sense.
 

Er, the Colossus had already destroyed one Sathanas and knew there were others before it got destroyed.  It was destroyed because the GTVA simply cannot build a ship that can survive a Sathanas shock jump.  They couldn't then, and they can't now.  End of story.  Doing it isn't too expensive, it just can't be done.

Who said anything about the destroyer's battlegroup? In what way is shock jumping a single superdestroyer easier than shock jumping a single destroyer? True, a superdestroyer takes longer to charge its jump drives, but it also has a much greater chance of fighting its ambushers off. A Sathanas would be able to single-handedly take down a superdestroyer, but the Sathanas could also single-handedly take down several destroyers at once, considering that its primary cannons have almost no recharge time and they can one-shot any destroyer in BP, unless you count the Keeper, which is somewhere between a destroyer and a juggernaut in terms of weaponry and armor.

Also, why wouldn't a superdestroyer have its own battlegroup? Sure, a superdestroyer would slow its escort down some, but it would also give them far, far more firepower. The ideal role for a superdestroyer is to be used as a carrier in the same way a destroyer is, and then to occasionally be used for devastating shock jumps on multiple warships at once.


Hypothetical destroyer-sized warship:

If the GTVA was able to 'mass-produce' destroyers they wouldn't need the Sol industry in the first place. They've already have trouble replacing most of their Capella-era ships with new-gen ships. And if you want relatively cheap with massive firepower, you're going to aim for corvettes like the Chimera and the Bellerophon, which also are much more subspace-agile than destroyers, won't be a crippling loss if destroyed, and are perfectly able to engage, damage and eventually destroy juggernaught-class targets.

The Raynor's tech description states that it can be mass-produced.

Look at the amount of firepower the Titan and the Raynor carry while still having large fighterbays (the Titan has the largest fighterbay of any Terran destroyer). Now, imagine how much firepower they could have if they didn't carry any fighters.

At first I thought that this hypothetical warship should also have more armor, but I now think that wouldn't be the best choice. Instead, this warship should use this extra space for sprint drives and as much extra firepower as possible. Remember how devastating Serkr Team was? Now imagine if Serkr Team had been three warships with more firepower than a Raynor or Titan and still excellent subspace maneuverability. The UEF might have already lost the war.

These warships could be produced in relatively large numbers and used in teams for hit-and-run operations on entire battlegroups. Since they could quickly leave if they got into a bad situation, they would likely have very good survivability. This kind of warship would be exactly what the GTVA needs to deal with the Shivans.

ECM:

Ok, from Battuta's post I now know that the Shivans have ECM. You were right.

Ubuntu:

Bosch started a civil war through anti-Vasudanism as much as by promising a new Earth. Now, the Terrans and Vasudans in the GTVA are currently getting along badly, but there are two crucial differences: One, the GTVA and the UEF can actually give Earth back to the people, and two: the Terran branch of the GTVA (and certainly the UEF) don't have any offical dislike of Vasudans. Nothing about the Sol Gate project is designed to intentionally kill Vasudans, unlike the NTF rebellion.

I'm still not convinced that Ubuntu will somehow destroy the GTVA. You could argue that adopting Ubuntu's economic model would cause this kind of rift, but that's what the GTVA is planning to do anyway, and if it works like they think it will and goes a long way towards fixing the economy most everyone would be happy with it. There will not be many people who are angry that the GTVA isn't in a depression anymore. Also consider that fixing the economy will make the situation less volatile by making people less angry.

So, people will not be split between those who completely reject Ubuntu and those who completely accept it. It will be split between people who do accept its spiritual aspects and those who don't. And, even those who do will not be fully transformed by it.

Of course, Im talking about the hypothetical scenario where the GTVA and the UEF had never fought with each other. Now that they have, it may be too late.





As a side note, the GTVA thinks Steele wouldn't do well against the Shivans? I'm not arguing with you about that; I'm genuinely interested.

[Aesaar]

Please edit your post and format it correctly.  It's a goddamn mess right now.

Beam cannons require a specialised power grid.  The issue is that beam cannons draw most of their power at once, so the grid needs to be able to handle that kind strain.  The Solaris' weapons, apart from the Khatvanga, are all ammunition based weapons, which don't draw huge amounts of power.  If you don't do this, what you have is the problems that plagued the Typhon: overloads and blackouts.  Adding beam cannons to the Solaris would require a huge refit of most of its power grid to handle the strain.  It was worth doing with the Orions because the GTVA had no other ships that could do their job.  THIS IS NOT THE CASE HERE.  THE GTVA DOES NOT NEED SOLARISES.  THEY ARE NOT EVEN REMOTELY IMPORTANT TO THE GTVA'S MILITARY CAPABILITIES.  THE ORIONS WERE.

And as for equipping them with Mjolnirs?

That it isn't mounted on any GTVA ships, even the modern ones, should tell you a lot about how hard that is to do.  If new TEI ships can't do it, the Solaris can't handle it.

Incompatable with GTVA fleet doctrine? It is right now, but what about after a refit?

What we keep on telling you, and what you keep ignoring, is that a refit that would make it compatible is too extensive to be worth the time and opportunity cost. (opportunity cost, if you're not aware, is the opportunities you miss by pursuing a given course of action.  In this case, what could be built with the shipyards and materials instead.)

Who said anything about the destroyer's battlegroup? In what way is shock jumping a single superdestroyer easier than shock jumping a single destroyer? True, a superdestroyer takes longer to charge its jump drives, but it also has a much greater chance of fighting its ambushers off. A Sathanas would be able to single-handedly take down a superdestroyer, but the Sathanas could also single-handedly take down several destroyers at once, considering that its primary cannons have almost no recharge time and they can one-shot any destroyer in BP, unless you count the Keeper, which is somewhere between a destroyer and a juggernaut in terms of weaponry and armor.

Also, why wouldn't a superdestroyer have its own battlegroup? Sure, a superdestroyer would slow its escort down some, but it would also give them far, far more firepower. The ideal role for a superdestroyer is to be used as a carrier in the same way a destroyer is, and then to occasionally be used for devastating shock jumps on multiple warships at once.

  Maybe because a superdestroyer would probably cost as much and require as much time for construction as a standard destroyer and its battlegroup?  The Colossus took 20 years to build and the Vasudans were doing around half of the work.

For your hypothethecal destroyer: A destroyer's strikecraft are a very, very important part of its offensive and defensive capabilities.  Strikecraft are one of the few places where the GTVA is actually on good footing compared to the Shivans.  A hangar is not just empty space.  Stop thinking it is.

[Droid803]

Okay look, Apollo, if you want to refit a Solaris, you go do that okay? In your own mod.

Also, if you're going to add additional fuel reserves and replace every last damn weapon on the ship, convert its ammo stores to addition generators etc for fire directed energy weapons, you might as well build a new ****ing ship and cannibalize the old one for its armor, because that's just about all you're keeping anyway.

On the topic of strapping Mjolnirs onto random ships, they're...surprisingly bad. Mainly because they just get shot off. The whole damn thing strapped on because of aforementioned difficulties in integrating them into actual ships (or they would have done it already).

[General Battuta]

I don't think the GTVA has any particular need for the Solaris class, given the investment in R+D, planning, yard space, and actual work required. It doesn't fill a niche that's empty, and the effort involved might as well be used to build a new ship.

The UEF might somehow benefit from figuring out a way to wrangle beams on to them...but would that marginal improvement pay off, given that each Solaris is needed right now, every hour, every day?

A destroyer-class warship with no fighter complement and that space devoted to armor and weapons would offer no significant doctrinal capability not already provided by hunter-killer corvette teams and the Raynors themselves.

e: And of all these ideas a superdestroyer is the least workable, because a superdestroyer cannot be distributed for protection against massed attack.

[Phantom Hoover]

What about using it for peacetime enforcement like it is in Sol, as was outlined on the previous page between a few of Apollo and Aesaar's walls of text?

[General Battuta]

That doesn't sound like an awful idea. The biggest reason the Solaris doesn't fit with the GTVA's fleet is because it doesn't match their logistical chain. The second biggest reason is it doesn't match their doctrine: it's got a slow jump cycle and not much strategic agility at all. It can exert a lot of presence, but not move that presence very well.

To expand on the superdestroyer shootdown above: the Shivans have shown the ability to concentrate basically arbitrary force at a single point. A superdestroyer is a single point, protected by (inevitably inadequate) armor and weapons systems. The best defense against Shivan concentration is distribution and depth, and superdestroyers don't offer that as well as high-agility, highly capable smaller assets do. This is also why fighter complements are so important: they provide over-the-horizon and locally extended strike capability, as well as (grim as it sounds) a bit of an attritional cushion.

[CT27]

Even though the consensus here seems to be that the GTVA wouldn't use the Solaris as is (assuming it wins the war); surely the GTVA would make use of Paveways when it gains access to UEF technology?

[Phantom Hoover]

Well that's why you'd put it on duty guarding developed, but isolated and unstable systems: Polaris and Epsilon Pegasi were able to support the NTF rebellion, so they must have significant manufacturing and infrastructure. Indeed it seems like the best thing to do with the surviving UEF fleet would be policing, since the integration of Sol with the rest of the GTVA would be unlikely to go entirely peacefully.

[Aesaar]

Policing industrialised systems is the UEF fleet was built for, so if you want to keep it, use it for that.  Like the GTVA's Coast Guard.  It would free up the line fleets for the periphery.

[CT27]

Is one way of putting it that the UEF is a green-water navy and the GTVA is a blue-water navy?

[The E]

Very much so.

[-Norbert-]

Ubuntu:

Bosch started a civil war through anti-Vasudanism as much as by promising a new Earth. Now, the Terrans and Vasudans in the GTVA are currently getting along badly, but there are two crucial differences: One, the GTVA and the UEF can actually give Earth back to the people, and two: the Terran branch of the GTVA (and certainly the UEF) don't have any offical dislike of Vasudans. Nothing about the Sol Gate project is designed to intentionally kill Vasudans, unlike the NTF rebellion.

Think of Germany before and during WW2. Only a small minority actually were extremists bent on annihilating the jews. What the actual masses really wanted was the "tausendjährige Reich". A place where they threw off the shakles of the verseille (spelling?) treaty, where they could live in prosperity and where once again in controll of their own fate, not at the mercy of the countries who won the first worldwar.

While there is no official information of wether the NTF was the same way, it would only be logical to assume it (I know... logic and FS don't exactly go hand-in-hand, but still it would make a lot of sense).
In other words, the NTF would never have been more than a small group of terrorists if all they were about was killing Vasudans.

I'm still not convinced that Ubuntu will somehow destroy the GTVA. You could argue that adopting Ubuntu's economic model would cause this kind of rift, but that's what the GTVA is planning to do anyway, and if it works like they think it will and goes a long way towards fixing the economy most everyone would be happy with it. There will not be many people who are angry that the GTVA isn't in a depression anymore. Also consider that fixing the economy will make the situation less volatile by making people less angry.

So, people will not be split between those who completely reject Ubuntu and those who completely accept it. It will be split between people who do accept its spiritual aspects and those who don't. And, even those who do will not be fully transformed by it.

We are not talking about a cataclysm that would annihilate the GTVA here... not directly anyway.
What the security council is worried about - and rightly so - is that such widespread civil unread would seriously weaken the GTVA. And a weak GTVA is that much less effective in repelling the Shivans, should they return.
Of course there is also the potential for a coup that will see the security council overthrown and replaced by a new government, but that possibility is rather a reather remote one I think.

All your arguments seem to me as if they are only about the outcome, never considering the transition.
You can't just implement massive economic changes overnight and people won't just one day say "Okay I'm now a member of Ubuntu". Everything has a transition time. It won't matter if, in the end, people in the GTVA would have become fanatical Ubuntu devotees or just payed lip-service to their ideas. That they are starting to adopt parts of the philosophy would be the point where the hardcore traditionalists start to feel threatened.

Well that's why you'd put it on duty guarding developed, but isolated and unstable systems: Polaris and Epsilon Pegasi were able to support the NTF rebellion, so they must have significant manufacturing and infrastructure. Indeed it seems like the best thing to do with the surviving UEF fleet would be policing, since the integration of Sol with the rest of the GTVA would be unlikely to go entirely peacefully.

Wouldn't that be rather inefficient?
For the UEF ships to work effectively, the GTVA would have to re-task some of the systems manufactoring capabilities for making UEF ammo, or ship the ammo directly from Sol. Couple that with the higher maintanance cost of UEF ships compared to GTVA designs and you'll end up wasting ressources.

I really can't see the Solaris', or actually any UEF ships above cruiser size, being used in such a fashion outside of Sol, when the GTVA equivalents are so much more cost-efficient at the job.

The Sanctus, with it's big cargo bays, might make a nice deepspace scout though.... or if they replaced the torpedo launchers with whatever gear is used for external repairs, they might turn it into a "mini Anemoi".

[Phantom Hoover]

Sure, supplying UEF ships means maybe churning out less fighters, but it also means that the GTVA ships that would have been patrolling the system are now freed. It's not like UEF capships propel themselves by detonating torpedoes behind them; they wear out quickly in prolonged engagements but they're perfectly capable of flying the beat and breaking up small furballs without entire planets being turned over to producing mass driver slugs.

[MatthTheGeek]

Sure, supplying UEF ships means maybe churning out less fighters, but it also means that the GTVA ships that would have been patrolling the system are now freed.

And using UEF ships for that means spending resources and crew that would be better used for building and crewing new GTVA ships to replace them. Which is much more advantageous in the long term.

[Luis Dias]

Well I wouldn't confuse crewmen with building construction workers. Just a FYI.

[Phantom Hoover]

Except you're still going to have to police your own systems either way, so why not use the existing ships that are designed for that purpose rather than tying up warships?

[MatthTheGeek]

Well I wouldn't confuse crewmen with building construction workers. Just a FYI.

If you reread my sentence, I said you'd need the resources for building and the crewmen to crew, not the other way around !

Except you're still going to have to police your own systems either way, so why not use the existing ships that are designed for that purpose rather than tying up warships?

Err, since when are UEF ships designed to police GTVA systems ? Note it is also likely most UEF warships aren't even equipped with inter-system jump drives, drastically reducing their deployment reach.

It sounds like you are all trying very, very hard to find reasons for the GTVA keep UEF warships operational even though they have absolutely no need and no interest in them, especially in the long term. Just scrapping them and build new ships with the Sol infrastructure is so much simpler and so much more sensible for all parties involved, stop trying so hard !

[Luis Dias]

Well I wouldn't confuse crewmen with building construction workers. Just a FYI.

If you reread my sentence, I said you'd need the resources for building and the crewmen to crew, not the other way around !

My bad, I was confused by your wording there.

About the problem per se, it all depends on so many unknown factors (to us, not to the writers) that I find the discussion a little strange. For example, it depends on the fact of whether it will be advisable (or not) to have UEF crew crewing the UEF ships or not after the war. That is mostly a "depends a lot" situation. It depends on how many spare crew the GTVA has. If the GTVA has more personnel than ships, then I see no problems with them using the UEF resources. If they have a lack of personnel, then perhaps it is advisable to dock the ships, and perhaps, gasp, scrap them. It depends on how desperate the GTVA admiralty is for lack of ships. It depends on their relationship with the Vasudans. It depends on how inferiority complex creeps inside the Tevs against their Zods counterparts (in the size of their fleet, despite the "horses and bayonets" argument and so on).

Let us remember that using already built resources can be quite cheaper than building new ones (albeit better) in the short-medium term. So it makes sense to use and maintain said ships. However, we can also say that these ships are so different on their war philosophy that it makes no sense whatsoever for the GTVA to spend any resource maintaining a badly designed fleet. A compromise between these extremes is probably (?) what would happen, an adaptation of both the ships towards GTVA strategy and an adaptation within GTVA's strategy to absorb the new fleets.

Many events are to unfold before this happens though.

[MatthTheGeek]

Also, another element to note : it is much likely that at the end of the war, the UEF fleet would not only have sustain much heavier losses than right now, but also under severe disrepair and lack of maintenance due to weeks of ruined logistics. Before the GTVA could use it, they'd need to get all of them through serious R&R, probably months on drydock for some/most.

So, not only the resources to maintain them in the long run are problematic, but also simply to get them back in fighting shape to begin with.

[Luis Dias]

Again, as I said, a lot of unknowns. It takes a writer's decision to say that repairing and having those logistics back up make more sense than building ships from scratch, because it would (for instance) be ten to twenty times cheaper.

Or it could be just 2 times cheaper. And then politics / war strategy could have a different opinion and say that albeit costlier, it would make more sense to scrap the ships. Or it could be 2 times costlier, in which case there would be no hesitation.