Author Topic: BP: War in Heaven discussion  (Read 908651 times)

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
So gentlemen, we all know you made a masterpiece, but lately something nagged at me.
GTVA claimed Ubuntu has made the UEF weak and unable to adequatly defend against the Shivans.
And now we're at war. While the initial force of the 14th foundered, the 13th took over. A battlegroup of Capella era ships.
But while they fought a conventional war, Steele came in and the blitz happened.
Beam jamming is a thing, but as seen in one intro, one out of three beams hit and the UEF don't have nearly enough Oculus ships to do this.
So, we know that the blitz damaged UEF infrastructure, but with the jumpdrives avaiable and TEI ships designed to mimick Shivan tactis... why not use them that way?
Serk is a good example: Jump in, charge beams, fire a signle time and then jump out.
The TEVs don't need to destroy FED ships, they just need to damage them repeatedly, spread Shivan inspired terror and force the UEF to divert critical resources to repair badly damaged ships.
A destroyed ship is a blow to moral, but badly amaged ships sitting in shipyards for repair should realy wittle the Feds down.

Just my two cents thou^^

How the conflict is not an "instant" victory for the GTVA despite having a vastly, VASTLY superior military overall is that they are only sending the forces that can be spared. The GTVA is a military society, rightfully paranoid and ruthless in dealing with threats both foreign and domestic. The overwhelming majority of their heavy destroyer and top of the line warships are garrisoning other systems against local insurgents, and anti-Shivan patrols. In addition, nearly none of the Vasudans are involved, allowing the Terrans to settle an "internal dispute" over the government of the Sol system.

There is also only one way in and out of the Sol system, and the UEF defeats handed to the GTVA are primarily tactical ones, not strategic. The best they can do is bloody the nose of the invasion and hope for a negotiated peace. 

As for the tactics, there is a minimum amount of time need to charge subspace jumps. That number is never specified, but not even Shivans jump their warships in, fire one salvo, and retreat. It doesn't work that way in Freespace at the current tech level.

Beam jamming is likewise a temporary stalling measure. It is not a true counter to beam artillery, and it also bears repeating that the conflict in Sol does not occur over a period of years, but months. I'm almost certain a counter to that beam jamming would be discovered quickly, because that's how military tech works. It seesaws back and forth.

 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
My vague understanding is the gate can sustain a certain amount of tonnage per day, and the GTVA is maxxing that out in terms of the number of ships they can put into the field and keep repaired and supplied.  They have no qualms about sending **** tons of ships in at this point, and as I understand it they intend to intentionally overextend logistically like three days after tenebra to end the war quickly (i believe the vengeance and one other destroyer group are waiting on the other side of the node).

There is some vague implication that stealing UEF infrastructure and deploying logistics ships helps massively with the maximum sustainable number of ships.  I suppose repairs become cheaper in some way if you can set up more permanent shipyard facilities (possibly they just dont need to waste as much of their throughput on jumping warships back and forth through the node for repair and resupply in delta serpentis).

As for why serkr isn't just jumping in, melting some poor frigates face off, and then sprint driving the heck out of dodge, I too am kept awake with this question (kek).  It seems like that's unlikely to represent a big hit to their ability to do their jobs as a deterrent since they presumably wouldn't take much damage and the UEF generally doesn't seem to have the ships to spare to strike back without getting punished for it at this point.  I think that unlike the GTVA, they have a much harder time doing horrific levels of damage in the time it takes a TEI corvette's drives to cycle.  I remember some briefing or something mentioning that Steele doesn't want an escalation into some climactic final battle before he is ready, since there is a slim chance the UEF might win that.  However, it seems at this point that such an escalation would very likely result in overwhelming GTVA victory, even if not all of their ships are ready to go.  On the other hand, Steele has been pretty thoroughly painted as a perfectionist, so quite possibly this is his personal flaws coming through in insisting on a perfect solution instead of just brutally slitting the UEF's throat at this point.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
First Fleet still has horrifying bomber reserves, and if you've tested them in FRED you can see how they will absolutely mince even next-gen destroyers that aren't fully prepared with escorts, ECM, new-ass capship countermeasures, etc.

 
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
The only thing that makes me doubt that is the GTVA learned the lessons of having insufficient fighter reserves during the Great War, and all Capella area Destroyers are primarily carriers first, and line combatants second. The third gen ships like the Raynor etc, are battleships, but still carry tons of fighter wings.

For the GTA, it was barely an afterthought to lose 300+ fighters during Operation Thresher against the Vasudans, where as losing a single destroyer was a horrible defeat.

Long story short, I can't see the GTVA having clawed through the Second Incursion without sending in swarms of fighters to defend their heavy hitters.

 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
They may well have horrifying bomber reserves, but if so I think its an open question as to whether or not they would show up to do their thing when the opportunity presented itself (thereby making themselves into an actual downside to an attack).  Not a whole lot of the things seemingly managed to show up during the blitz, or even during the jovian evacuation for that matter.  At the very least, not enough of them to inflict massive losses on the tevs.

To be honest I have been beginning to suspect that the black project ships that have been disappearing into classified deployment land aren't even in Sol at the moment, which may explain the problems first fleet is having in actually fielding enough hardware for offensive and defensive ops.  This whole 'we are holding them back in reserve' as everyone screams bloody murder to not do that in general looks a lot like big wartime expenditures on secret projects that in the very least make more sense than their unclassified explanation gives them credit for.  A world war 1 example: the huge amounts of money going into a 30 caliber pistol for the US military which turned out to be hundreds of thousands of pederson devices.  Its not clear that they would have been as effective as hoped, a lot of money went into it, and people were very very angry, but it certainly had way more promise than a new sidearm.

 
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
We certainly didn't see them at Rheza Station, but the scale of the Blitz implies they must have been in use somewhere. And despite the heavy blows taken during the Blitz itself, the UEF still has enough war fighting capacity to not totally collapse within a few weeks. They are still on the losing end of the war, much like Japan in 1943, but they can still make the fight hard for the Tevs.

 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Sure, but the UEF was complaining about pretty heavy strikecraft attrition after that, and if I recall correctly the valerie was actually the biggest warship the tevs lost in the blitz, which wasn't even killed by UEF bomber reserves.

 

Offline Snarks

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Sure, but the UEF was complaining about pretty heavy strikecraft attrition after that, and if I recall correctly the valerie was actually the biggest warship the tevs lost in the blitz, which wasn't even killed by UEF bomber reserves.

It might be the biggest warship lost, but that doesn't mean all the other ships didn't take a major pounding that put them out of commission for a bit.

 

Offline Woolie Wool

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Lore question: What sort of ideologies and cultural/political/philosophical movements exist in BPverse besides Ubuntu, and how much influence have Terran and Vasudan scholarship and high culture had on each other? Do Vasudans read Hegel? Do Tev social sciences undergrads read the Vasudan classics? Are there Vasudan communists? Terran dissidents inspired by the Hammer of Light?
16:46   Quanto   ****, a mosquito somehow managed to bite the side of my palm
16:46   Quanto   it itches like hell
16:46   Woolie   !8ball does Quanto have malaria
16:46   BotenAnna   Woolie: The outlook is good.
16:47   Quanto   D:

"did they use anesthetic when they removed your sense of humor or did you have to weep and struggle like a tiny baby"
--General Battuta

 

Offline starbug

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I have a lore question, What is the lore behind the Hecate mk2, since it has no tech description of anykind. Is it one of a kind ship, or are all Hecate's being refitted to the mk2?
http://www.youtube.com/user/AnubisX1

if there is any consistancy with the Shivans, it's their lack of consistancy - -Norbert-

 
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
From what I recall it was just an upgraded version of the Hecate, similar to the F-18E Super Hornet or M1A2 Abrams. I don't think they were supposed to be unique.

 

Offline Aesaar

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
It's not unique, no.  It's an upgrade package to modernize the Hecate.  New weapons, new armor, new sensors, new command and control equipment, that sort of stuff.

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
The tevs need to deliver a non persistent nerve agent to Earth.  Something that will wipe out the buntu and then burn itself out after a few weeks.
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
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Offline crizza

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
And the whole population with it? Would solve the political theory danger thingy thou^^

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
That was the idea.  Clean slate.  Free infrastructure.
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
http://badges.steamprofile.com/profile/default/steam/76561198011784807.png

 
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
That was the idea.  Clean slate.  Free infrastructure.

But the UEF has also has the tech to do the same with GTVA (stealth fighters, atleast).

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
I think they'd have a harder time getting to the allied world's with a feasible payload undetected.
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
http://badges.steamprofile.com/profile/default/steam/76561198011784807.png

 
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Probably; I don't know how many of these Ainsharii? things they have, and how many would be necessary to wipe out an entire planet.

 

Offline Hjolnai

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Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
Genocide on that scale is thankfully not an option for either power. To use such methods is to collapse into civil war (the Terrans are already demoralized too badly to survive the guilt of murdering Earth, while the Federation derives its legitimacy almost entirely from benevolence). In addition, everyone should know the next Shivan incursion is a possibility, and they need an intact population for military and industrial personnel.

 
Re: BP: War in Heaven discussion
There's no political point to it. You don't sterilize a place you're trying to capture intact and control. It's a dumb idea.