[CT27]

Unless they want that to hit Mars hard, while the martian defenders are hurrying to defend Earth. It all depends on how many ships they need to provoke such an attack and how many others still remain to carry out the attack on Mars.
Oh and also wether the Martians take the bait and send enough ship towards Earth to seriously compromise their own defense and how quickly they can return to Mars, after they get wind of the GTVAs plan.

So if you were Admiral Steele (or some member of the Security Council), where would you recommend attacks be focused?  Or would you divide attention between Earth and Mars?

[Mars]

IIRC the Karunas and Narayanas are supposed to have jump turnover times of ~15 minutes, though that is from a barely canon source. Tev ships considerably better.

[MatthTheGeek]

IIRC the Karunas and Narayanas are supposed to have jump turnover times of ~15 minutes, though that is from a barely canon source. Tev ships considerably better.

They don't. Tev capital ships also need about 15 minutes to finish a recharge cycle (for example the Carthage in Delenda Est), and sprint jump drives are simply a dual jump drive, each drive needing to recharge just like any other. It can be speculated that nu-gen Tev ships can recycle their drives faster than Capella-era ships, but that speculation isn't confirmed by any released content.

Steele got the Atreus to engage jump after jump in a much faster fashion during the Blitz by throwing more juice into his dual drive, but he nearly blew his own ship's guts to oblivion by doing so.

It is to be noted that the smaller the ship is, the faster its drive(s) can recharge (as pointed during the Duke pursuit in AoA).

[LordPomposity]

It is to be noted that the smaller the ship is, the faster its drive(s) can recharge (as pointed during the Duke pursuit in AoA).

That actually supports GTVA ships having a shorter recharge cycle. The Carthage's cycle is about as long as that of a Karuna, despite the Carthage being a much larger ship.

[NGTM-1R]

(for example the Carthage in Delenda Est)

The Carthage is, frankly, ancient, and also as an OpEval ship would be rigged for safety over other concerns in a way that they couldn't completely avoid even in a combat situation. It is not likely to be a representative sample.

[-Norbert-]

I very much doubt they put in a sprint drive, without also switching out the old jumpdrive with a new one. That is if the sprint drive actually is a seperate drive, rather than the sprint and main jump drives coming in a single package in the first place.
And I think an OpEval ship isn't rigged for security, but for customization. They are there to learn as much as possible about the drive, so they should have a lot of room for adjustments, including settings that will be locked up (or hard-coded if you will) for the mass-produced varients, to find out the optimal settings.

[NGTM-1R]

The Carthage is set up to test unproven technologies. They will build in plenty of safety nets to protect the ship and its critical systems in the event something doesn't actually work the way it's supposed to. As the subspace drive is a necessity to return the ship quickly to a dock where it can be attended to in case of accident, it will be one of those systems.

And, again, the Carthage is not merely old enough to vote in WiH, it's old enough to have children who could also vote. Battuta has commented that by the time we encounter it in Delenda Est the Carthage is nearing the end of its useful lifespan even as a ship to evaluate new technologies on.

[crizza]

Steele got the Atreus to engage jump after jump in a much faster fashion during the Blitz by throwing more juice into his dual drive, but he nearly blew his own ship's guts to oblivion by doing so.

And this is stated by Feds. As far as we know he could as well have the best drive of the whole GTVA.

[Drogoth]

Steele got the Atreus to engage jump after jump in a much faster fashion during the Blitz by throwing more juice into his dual drive, but he nearly blew his own ship's guts to oblivion by doing so.

And this is stated by Feds. As far as we know he could as well have the best drive of the whole GTVA.

It's a blast furnace powered by shoveling screaming care bears inside and powering the ship on rainbows. That should be sufficiently evil for the UEF to hate him more.

Also, do Deimos Corvettes have backup drives? Or are intersystem drives on a seperate charge from Intra? I was playing through FS2 again yesterday, and on the second SOC mission, (The hijacking of the Sunder mission) I noticed the NTCv Sevrin jumps in, and like 30 seconds later jumps out.

[Aesaar]

And, again, the Carthage is not merely old enough to vote in WiH, it's old enough to have children who could also vote. Battuta has commented that by the time we encounter it in Delenda Est the Carthage is nearing the end of its useful lifespan even as a ship to evaluate new technologies on.

Which is a damn shame, because it's a cool ship.

[qwadtep]

I suppose that as a Great War veteran, the Carthage could be refitted as a diplomatic vessel or something.

[rscaper1070]

No, it should be decommissioned and turned into a museum, and then this big attack happens....oh, wait.

[Mars]

No, it should be decommissioned and turned into a museum, and then this big attack happens....oh, wait.

Admiral Adama Lopez

[MatthTheGeek]

IIRC, the Carthage was built during the Reconstruction Era, and as such never was a "Great War veteran". I can't remember if/where that was confirmed in the BP continuity though.

EDIT:

The GTD Carthage is one of the oldest capital ships still in service with the Alliance fleet. Launched towards the end of the Great War, she has participated in most major campaigns fought by the GTVA, and her accumulated combat record is unparalleled.

My mistake. Can't tell how late it was launched and whether it saw any action at all though.

[Aesaar]

FS2 doesn't say anything about it, but its description in the techroom says it was launched near the end of the Great War.

The GTD Carthage is one of the oldest capital ships still in service with the Alliance fleet. Launched towards the end of the Great War, she has participated in most major campaigns fought by the GTVA, and her accumulated combat record is unparalleled. After she was nearly destroyed during the nebula campaign, she was refitted as a Combat Evaluation Unit Destroyer, to field-test new armor, propulsion and ECM designs. Exact details are unavailable, but we do know that her anti-fighter armament has been substantially upgraded to allow her to survive in today's fighter-centric combat environment. We have also found indications that she has been fitted with a prototype version of the sprint drive, which essentially consists of a second subspace drive motivator. Her Hull plating, in combination with her extensive redesign, have increased her combat survivability by several orders of magnitude. While the ship has been in active duty for the better part of 50 years, ONI estimates that destroying her or achieving a mission kill will take a lot of careful planning and a lot of firepower.
The Carthage and her escort fleet have been under the command of Admiral Anita Lopez for 15 years, and while her command is primarily composed of old ship designs, all the rough edges have long since been worn away, and her Battlegroup is consistently found in the top 10 Percent of the GTVA's Fleet Performance evaluations.

EDIT: ninja edit'ed

[-Norbert-]

Steele got the Atreus to engage jump after jump in a much faster fashion during the Blitz by throwing more juice into his dual drive, but he nearly blew his own ship's guts to oblivion by doing so.

And this is stated by Feds. As far as we know he could as well have the best drive of the whole GTVA.

It's a blast furnace powered by shoveling screaming care bears inside and powering the ship on rainbows. That should be sufficiently evil for the UEF to hate him more.

Also, do Deimos Corvettes have backup drives? Or are intersystem drives on a seperate charge from Intra? I was playing through FS2 again yesterday, and on the second SOC mission, (The hijacking of the Sunder mission) I noticed the NTCv Sevrin jumps in, and like 30 seconds later jumps out.

Considering how inconsistant FS2 is within itself, when it comes to how long a ship need to prepare for jumps and from where they can jump, I wouldn't put too much stock into that.
For BP it's a pretty safe bet to say the Deimos' don't have sprint drives, considering that not even all of the next-gen ships seem to have them (see the two Diomedes that get blasted apart for sure). I think the Tevs will first refit their new ships, before they even consider refitting the Deimos'.

[CT27]

Sometimes it can be more expensive to upgrade a ship than to build a new one.

For example, someone once said the GTVA should upgrade the Deimos corvettes to have blue beams.  Then someone else replied it would be less effort to just build new Chimeras or Bellerophons.

[-Norbert-]

Which is just one more argument, why it's extremely unlikely that the Deimos will get sprint drives at all, much less have them already.
Though we can't completely equate the blue beams and the sprint drives. With the blue beams we know that they need meson reactors and improved powergrids to work, compared to green beams. Of the sprint drives' requirements we know pretty much nothing.
Do they need more space? Can they work with the same power supply as a single drive, by just charging up one and then the other, or do they need more power? Do they need specialized computers and/or crew to keep them working savely? Do they need more maintanance?

[MatthTheGeek]

We do know that sprint jump drive technology was made possible by advanced made in miniaturization of jump drives, so it's safe to assume that each separate drive of the dual sprint drive is smaller than a standard drive.

[-Norbert-]

But are the two together still bigger than an old single drive?