Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: AlphaOne on January 18, 2006, 08:13:05 am
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Oki here is mi question: Would new ship classes some larger some smaller be usefull in FS universe (after Cappella)?
To get an idea of what I have in mind I will describe some of them. I want you guis to well give resons why some would work and why some will not! If you can please give some tips on the missions they would be asigned to!
The first would be a new destroyer class vessel at a max of 2 km with incredible firepower but a limited fighterbay some 30 or 50 spacecraft. This ship would be the most advanced ships ever constructed (new weapons new engines new spacecrafts new armour). you get the point!
The seccond would be a dreanought at a max of 4,5 km with much more power that a destroyer but again with limited spacecrafts.
The third would be a battleship at a max of 5 km with just 20 or 30 spacecrafts to provide fighter/bommber protection. But with massive armour and firepower.
The fourth would be the carrier! Different sizes! The largest beeing able to carry about 800 spacecrafts!
Tell me what are youre ideas pros and against..and the reasons! Thanx!
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Oki here is mi question: Would new ship classes some larger some smaller be usefull in FS universe (after Cappella)?
To get an idea of what I have in mind I will describe some of them. I want you guis to well give resons why some would work and why some will not! If you can please give some tips on the missions they would be asigned to!
The first would be a new destroyer class vessel at a max of 2 km with incredible firepower but a limited fighterbay some 30 or 50 spacecraft. This ship would be the most advanced ships ever constructed (new weapons new engines new spacecrafts new armour). you get the point!
The seccond would be a dreanought at a max of 4,5 km with much more power that a destroyer but again with limited spacecrafts.
The third would be a battleship at a max of 5 km with just 20 or 30 spacecrafts to provide fighter/bommber protection. But with massive armour and firepower.
The fourth would be the carrier! Different sizes! The largest beeing able to carry about 800 spacecrafts!
Tell me what are youre ideas pros and against..and the reasons! Thanx!
+ It definitely opens new possibilities - never a bad thing.
- It also somewhat limits some possibilities. If a single ship is *huge*, it would demand a ridiculous amount of polies to look reasonably high-poly, especially at close distances. Smaller ships (mid-size capships) are more easy to make both beautiful and poly-reasonable.
+ Entertainment, if done right - closely connected to first plus.
- Rationality. The Colossus took ~30 a to complete - even with current knowledge, ships even bigger will take a huge amount of time and resources, and the capacity is limited. Besides, I think that actually the FS universe will start going back to smaller but more technically advanced ships, precisely like naval warfare here in Earth after IIWW. There are no great battle ships built any more. The biggest role is with missile frigates offering close perimeter defence for carrier groups, then there are carriers offerinf air superiority and ground attack capacity. Then there are smaller MTB's of course...
So, instead of many huge warship classes more, I'd go for carriers. Actually, like was said in a Destroyer Thread, curent FS Destroyers actually are kind of carriers. So, perhaps double the size (at max), 3-4 times ship capacity, almost similar armament in offensive (Beamz) as the current destroyers, but many many more flak turrets for defense. Fighters and bombers provide space superiority and destroy enemy capital ships, interceptors and frigates provide cover from enemy bombers via long-range missile banks (trebuchet bank on a cap ship? DREAD, Bomberz!) and loads of anti-fighter beamz.
Frigates should be scaled somewhere between a cruiser and a corvette, perhaps being slightly more bent to corvette-size, but still a bit smaller.
So, in short. Instead of many new big ship classes, just one big (carrier) and one medium-size cap ship class would be tactically more effective, and of course in some missions there could appeare some old fellows like battered but still fit GTVD Aquitaine equipped with additional fighter bays but with reduced offensive capacity (it's not that great anyways). Besides, you can build at least 30 corvettes or perhaps 35 frigates with same basic materials as one Colossus (or even bigger ships) that give quite a much bigger a punch to an enemy. It's much more difficult to concentrate on multiple enemies all giving you the hell with flaks and anti-fighter beamz...
That's my opinion...
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When I think of FS battles... What is the need of a ship than can carry fighters and has great firepower. All fighters can make the required in-system jump to the battle. There is no need for a battleship to carri fighters in battle. Exept when attacking another system, but should there be need for fighters they can equip few with expensive drives. And once the node is clear, a carrier would arrive to service and deploy fightercover.
I'd think that powerful battleships would act as muscle. Then smaller, and more specialized, ships will make the difference. Because if GTVA learned anything from the war, it's that tactics, not brute force, will save the day (Colossus fiasko).
As I imagine the GTVA economy being quite shot after Capella, they might concetrate on smaller warships and fighter support to deal with possible encounter with large shivan warships.
Example of a ship class I came up once:
Torpedo boat (cruiser in the game). Smaller than cruiser, bigger than bomber. Very fast. Crew less than ten. Carries less than five powerfull torpedoes (about fighter sized). Perhaps one or two morningstar type turrets to ward off fighters. And a rear launcher.
Jumps in, fallows waypoints towards target (destroyer or larger). Fires its torpedoes, then passes the target (if remaining) wery closely and releases a bundle of bombs or mines from a rear launcher that impact the target. After one pass the ordanance would be depleted and the torpedo boat would jump out.
Imagine the damage it would do. And would be cheaper to maintain than a cruiser as it would be deployed only in a emergancy. Say, when a juggernaut blasts trought your backdoor. Because of it's speed, anticapbeams would be ineffective against it. And because it spends only so little time in the battle, losses would be unlikely.
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Oki here is mi question: Would new ship classes some larger some smaller be usefull in FS universe (after Cappella)?
To get an idea of what I have in mind I will describe some of them. I want you guis to well give resons why some would work and why some will not! If you can please give some tips on the missions they would be asigned to!
The first would be a new destroyer class vessel at a max of 2 km with incredible firepower but a limited fighterbay some 30 or 50 spacecraft. This ship would be the most advanced ships ever constructed (new weapons new engines new spacecrafts new armour). you get the point!
The seccond would be a dreanought at a max of 4,5 km with much more power that a destroyer but again with limited spacecrafts.
The third would be a battleship at a max of 5 km with just 20 or 30 spacecrafts to provide fighter/bommber protection. But with massive armour and firepower.
Basically super Deimos. I don't think they will be useful since it's very hard for a destroyer or above to turn towards its target. Therefore, a group of Deimos would be more effective and cheaper. They will also take forever to build, the GTVA does not seem to have the resources.
The fourth would be the carrier! Different sizes! The largest beeing able to carry about 800 spacecrafts!
Not really useful. It will be a supply nightmare. They will never be able to fully equip the carrier. Even if they could, it would be like putting all your eggs in a single basket.
The Shivans are not likely to come again any time soon. Even if they did, they would be unstoppable using the conventional force. I see the GTVA concentrate on maintaining orders and rebuilding their economy. Therefore, more cruisers, maybe even smaller gunships for escorting convoys.
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Operational Missile Cruiser (Destroyer sized)
- Carries missiles (light bomber sized, subspace drive equipped, single large warhead)
- Carries 'fighters' (mainly to provide targeting for missiles arriving via subspace)
- comphrehensive AAA grid
-- designed to deploy ordnance indirectly
Tactical Missile Cruiser (Corvette sized)
- Carries missiles (light bomber sized, subspace drive equipped, single large warhead)
- comphrehensive AAA grid
-- designed to deploy ordnance directly and provide targeting for that ordnance
Escort Cruiser (Cruiser sized)
- comphrehensive AAA grid
SWACS Cruiser (Cruiser sized)
- limited AAA grid
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I'm on the same lines as Prophet.
I don't really understand why GTVA pools resources into relatively weak ships like Myrm and destroyers. It would be wiser, both performance and tactical-wise, to focus on force projection of smaller, much more powerful tactical assets. Cruise missiles, tactical bombers, pure space-sup fighters paving way for heavy bombers, carrier groups and so on. NATO warfare, basically.
Even if a pure space-sup platform might be much more costly than a jack-of-all-trades fighter, it could be costwise much more efficient. No "hay guyz lets bomb that cruiser oh **** huge casualties uneffective weapons oh well lets fight maras in close combat instead" -moments FS is so proud of. Get in there, engage, keep the fighters in bay and let heavy assets to disable/destroy larger threats from safe distance. Disengage, recon, keep more personell safe.
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Myrmidon is a powerful fighter, it can carry four Helios torpedoes... :D
(It's a good craft even without using that easter egg - three sec banks and all)
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Oki here is mi question: Would new ship classes some larger some smaller be usefull in FS universe (after Cappella)?
To get an idea of what I have in mind I will describe some of them. I want you guis to well give resons why some would work and why some will not! If you can please give some tips on the missions they would be asigned to!
The first would be a new destroyer class vessel at a max of 2 km with incredible firepower but a limited fighterbay some 30 or 50 spacecraft. This ship would be the most advanced ships ever constructed (new weapons new engines new spacecrafts new armour). you get the point!
The seccond would be a dreanought at a max of 4,5 km with much more power that a destroyer but again with limited spacecrafts.
The third would be a battleship at a max of 5 km with just 20 or 30 spacecrafts to provide fighter/bommber protection. But with massive armour and firepower.
The fourth would be the carrier! Different sizes! The largest beeing able to carry about 800 spacecrafts!
Tell me what are youre ideas pros and against..and the reasons! Thanx!
How come every time you crop up here it's to 'suggest' some humungeous overpowered death-ship with usually the only nod to balancing being the vague concept of 'less fighters'?
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I'm still mucking about with anti-juggernaut ideas.
The list so far:
Monitor-type vessel. Essentially a flying heavy or superheavy (BF-category) beam. Cheap and possibly automated, they would be deployed against a juggernaut en masse. Maybe based on an Aeolus hull.
Corvette-sized vessel with a one-shot saturation attack using Helios or Cyclops warheads. Essentially it jumps in, dumps upwards of a hundred bombs, and jumps out again.
PTM-type vessel carrying a much smaller one-shot saturation attack using Cyclops warheads (24), roughly half of cruiser size.
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Well I dont sugest anything I just wanted good advice and good arguements on some ship sizes and theyr usefullness in a post cappela FS universe! Also I must thank you guis for all this really usefull sugestions I will take them into consideration!
The friggate was suposed to be larger than a corvette but smaller then a destroyer.But what the hell! Thanx!
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I agree with Prophet and Janos on this one. Makes loads more sense. But of course a game needs eyecandy so you can only expect massive vessels.
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No, No, Maybe, No.
Big, nasty death ships don't work in FS2. The fighter is, and always will be, the ultimate, ultimate weapon, because it's a fighter simulator, and, even if you're interested primarily in the universe (rather than the game, from a useful to mission design POV), that fighter centricity leaks over into the canon - consider The final mission of FS1, the Hammer and the Anvil, Slaying Ravana, Bearbaiting, Rebel Intercept, and... err, that one with the Mjolnirs when you're covering the node against the NTF using...Artemises I think (unless that is RI) - canonical points where fighters own capships.
So, from the point of view of the universe, and from the point of view of making fun missions, fighter related ships should be the most important. What you're proposing are capships designed to kill capships, and that's just not where GTVA ship design has to go. Consider the Shivan Threats -
Lucifer - They seemed pretty confident the Collossus' beams could kill it. If beams can kill it, then you can use Corvettes, or specially designed single BFGreen Emitter ships. If not, then you'rte forced to use nodes and bombers to kill it anyway.
Demon - Hardly a threat - kill with bombers.
Ravana - Dangerous to capships, taken out by a single bombing run.
Sathanas - Definitely a danger, and too big for bombers alone to take out, but can be destroyed by sustained conventional fire if bombers take out the four main claw guns ala bearbaiting.
Fighters and Bombers - dangerous, be can be dealt with in the traditional manner (i.e. friendly fighters)
The key element? Every Shivan ship can be dealt with, if bombers, fighters and ordinance is made available. Ships related to fighters, either carriers designed to ferry them around, or small ships designedc with fighter defence in mind are the way forward for the GTVA. Hmmmm... I should write some of this down...
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It's really rather simple logic that, in a game - with no realism* restrictions - about playing as a fighter pilot, it's good gameplay to have a role in fighting any opponent you come across.
*including 'accuracy to the source' within the definition of realism for TCs.
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When people rant about having battle-focused ships (alla batleships) would be dumb becoause long-range missiles and fighter-strikes can take them out, they forget one thing in FS.
subspace
Effectivly, subspace travel is the ONE thing that makes BB's more belivalbe to have. Why?
If you have a ship with superior anti-cap firepower and heavy armor that jumps in next to enemy warship (carrier or destroyer), it can (within seconds) tear the enemy apart or cripple it heavily before it jumps out. Plasma blobs and beams can't be slowed or countered.
Think of a damage a Orion can do when it jumps in and gives a full broadside. Now multiply that by a order of magnitude :D
A Destroyer or a dedicated carrier couldn't do that. Enemy fighter/bombers heading towards you can be slowed down by your fightercover and AAF's, and enemy bombs can be shot down. Basicly they can't deal enough damage fast enough and the enemy warship would escape with little or no damage.
However, such ships should be used as either a plot devide or scenery, since a plyer could not take it down uless you give him a super-uber-extra-invincible-bomber or you help him by giving him 30 wingman.
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Didn't we already have this argument? Didn't it result in you making up **** to counter the fact that a battleship is ****ed when dealing with ships armed with the maxim cannon?
Why are you back for more?
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As I see it, non-carrier capital ships in FS2 really are no good for pure combat roles. But then, I also don't see that as being their main mission. Rather than combat power, what they have going for them is staying power. They can go to an area of interest, park there, and remain in the area indefinitely providing a deterrence from attack. Or they can escort a freighter convoy from start to end without break, even if it takes 12+ hours.
Fighters cannot do this, they eventually need to be replaced as the pilots grow tired or run out of supplies, which can be a problem if it's in the middle of nowhere and there isn't a carrier in the area. So basically, having the mid sized capships is a means to cut down on the number of carriers needed. Without them, you could need 1-2 carriers in every system, just on the off chance you might need to escort something. But then, you can park two Aeolus cruisers in the same system instead and they can pretty much cover that base for you with much fewer resources spent, and keep your carriers near the front where they can really make a dent in the enemy.
Won't work against concentrated attacks without fighter support, of course, but that's when you jump in a carrier from a nearby system while the cruisers hold the line.
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Hit the nail on the head there Shade. That's exactly the way I've thought of them.
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While huge battleships are big and powerfull, the aren't nearly as cost effective and flexible as multiple smaller ships. Only advantage of size, that I see, is long range support. Big ships can carry bigger guns (long range beams or fenris sized massdrivers), but subspace makes all that kinda useless...
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Indeed. One would be much better off simply building another carrier/destroyer instead of a massive dedicated battleship. If you really need long range support, I'd rather go with the Homeworld solution and take one massive cruiser sized beam cannon/missile launcher, then slap a few engines on the back end and call it a frigate. Gets you long range firepower, cheap, with more flexibility as you can deploy each weapon seperately.
The one thing that a battleship might be useful for would be surprise strikes. Jump in, lay waste to everything nearby with massive beam salvos, and jump out 20 seconds later before anyone has a clue what happened. But really, this one option isn't worth the cost, not to mention destroyers (well, orion class destroyers) can already do it to a degree while carrying a ton of fighters at the same time.
It might as first glance seem like they'd be great for blockade busting, but I disagree. Mass bombers will own them in short order if they can't launch a fighter screen shortly after entering.
In closing, if you ask me, destroyers and carriers in Freespace make sense, cruisers make sense, corvettes make sense as they're really supposed to act as cruisers on steroids and do this very well indeed, hell, even the colossus makes kinda sense as a blockade buster since it can launch it's own fighter screen after breaking through a blockade. Frigates homeworld style would make sense if they existed. But battleships do not. They simple don't have a role to fill where they could survive while filling it.
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The one thing that a battleship might be useful for would be surprise strikes. Jump in, lay waste to everything nearby with massive beam salvos, and jump out 20 seconds later before anyone has a clue what happened. But really, this one option isn't worth the cost, not to mention destroyers (well, orion class destroyers) can already do it to a degree while carrying a ton of fighters at the same time.
I don't think that would be possible. Capships appear to need a few minutes to recharge their jump engines immediately following a jump. The only ship we ever see do anything different is the Iceni when it goes through the Knossos. Even then the indication seems to be that it may have been specially designed or rigged for such a manouver.
We see the NTF and GTVA lose numerous ships that might not have been lost had they simply jumped out.
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My take is that if you've planned for it and set up the drive just right, you can do it, likely with a risk of some damage to the drives if unlucky (so not something you want to do as standard). So being prepared, the Iceni could do it, but in your average mission with everything running according to factory specs, you need to let them recharge/cool down/whatever.
[Edit]There has also got to be a difference between intersystem and local jumps, so chain jumping locally wouldn't be anywhere near as big a feat as what the Iceni pulled. After all, we know that intersystem jumps require vastly more energy, so it seems reasonable that a capship capable of those would have spare energy after a local jump, and just need to let drives cool down or risk damaging them.
Finally, the delay in jumping likely also has something to do with calculating the jump (think the millenium falcon running from the 3 ISDs in starwars). So if you know where you want to jump in advance, you can precalculate the jump and save time there.
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I think an intra-system jump, while easier, is even more time consuming since you will need to make all the calculations whereas inter-system jump is more or less deterministic given the jump node as a road. I would think it will take at least 30 minutes to recalibrate the machine, recharge the jump drive and calculate the coordinate. An emergency jump can be achieved in 10 minutes. However, the ship will not know where it would end up and the jump drive will be severely damaged, thus need a day or two to repair. A fleet jump would take even longer.
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Finally, the delay in jumping likely also has something to do with calculating the jump (think the millenium falcon running from the 3 ISDs in starwars). So if you know where you want to jump in advance, you can precalculate the jump and save time there.
Considering that fighters can jump almost instantly after recieving orders I find that unlikely.
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True, didn't think about that. Guess it's just an energy/heat buildup issue then... but as mentioned, energy shouldn't be too big an issue for capships when dealing with local jumps, making it pretty much a matter of how much you are willing to risk the integrity of your jump drives if you don't let them cool down for long enough.
I can definitely see how a ship (for the SOC, for instance, or some other entity that might need to get in and out in a hurry) might be modified to make chain jumping more feasible by fitting extra massive heatsinks or by overengineering the subspace drive to make it more forgiving.
A bit like overclocking really :p Fit a bigger cooler and use a heavier-duty equipment and the risks of frying the system are greatly reduced :)
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It's possible that intra-system drives are in some way affected by the energy that passes through them during a jump, and that they need to wait for some sort of static discharge (or something analogous) before they can reactivate.
I suspect, though, that ships' drives recharge at the speed of plot.
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Their jump drives need time to recharge, it was stated in the breifing for "the kings gambit"
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Thing is that was from an intersystem jump. It's presumable that intrasystem jumps also require recharging too but I don't remember any canon evidence for that.
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King's Gambit isn't conclusive as far as local jumps go, though, as the ships have just performed an intersystem jump which is a whole different ballgame as far as energy goes. And even then, the recharge period wasn't too terribly long in that mission despite it being an intersystem jump, and for a local jump it would be an order of magnitude less. Still, I do agree that *some* time is needed for cooldown even if the energy is there... I simply think this period can be shortened considerably with the right preparations, hardware, or willingness to risk breakdown.
But regardless of any argument I may make, I suspect Aldo hit the nail on the head... the speed of plot sounds about right ;)
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Didn't we already have this argument? Didn't it result in you making up **** to counter the fact that a battleship is ****ed when dealing with ships armed with the maxim cannon?
Why are you back for more?
You silly little rabbit. :D
And what if I armed my battleship with 50 Trebuchet launchers?
Or some other long-range weapons?
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What if I just had a ship come in and seed the area with countermeasures first?
This is exactly the kind of crap we went through last time with you completely failing to realise why the battleship became largely obsolete both in wet navies and in the FS2 universe.
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It's still a waste of resources. I'd take 25 Ares fighters decked out with double trebs any day at a hundredth of the cost and 10 times the flexibility. The reason battleships don't work is that you can do the same, far cheaper, with other ship classes.
It might be a good ship, hell, it might even be a great ship, but what good does that do if you only have the resources to build one of them while your enemy can attack in 5 different places at once using a number of smaller ships?
You need flexibility and the ability to cover several places at once when the battlefield is as immense as the infinity of space, and pouring resources into just a few behemoths does not give you that.
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Indeed. One would be much better off simply building another carrier/destroyer instead of a massive dedicated battleship. If you really need long range support, I'd rather go with the Homeworld solution and take one massive cruiser sized beam cannon/missile launcher, then slap a few engines on the back end and call it a frigate. Gets you long range firepower, cheap, with more flexibility as you can deploy each weapon seperately.
Not flexible. Fixed weaponry is allways bad for your health. fire coverage is the way to go.
The one thing that a battleship might be useful for would be surprise strikes. Jump in, lay waste to everything nearby with massive beam salvos, and jump out 20 seconds later before anyone has a clue what happened. But really, this one option isn't worth the cost, not to mention destroyers (well, orion class destroyers) can already do it to a degree while carrying a ton of fighters at the same time.
True. From the moment the BB jumps in t the time the enmy jumps out - that would take time.
First for the sensor officer to report a contact and class.
Then for the captain to relise that they are screwed and order to run.
the nfor hte engine officer to actualyl engage the drive.
The nfor hte drive to warmp up and speed up (as ships don't just *pof* vanish, they stop, pick up speed and then jump out)
Best case scenario - 10 seconds. Which is enough for BB to ring your bell. (assuming he's slightly larger than an Orion but carrier little to no fighters (2 squads max.))
It might as first glance seem like they'd be great for blockade busting, but I disagree. Mass bombers will own them in short order if they can't launch a fighter screen shortly after entering.
They won't go in alone ya know. And their armor iws the key factor.
Immagine a BB and two destroyers jump in. What will you attack?
If you attack a BB first, it will take time to destroy it becouse of his superior armor. And focusing on him gives the destroyers time to launch fighters and dish out damage on their own.
If you attack the destroyers first you're even more scr*** as you'll have the BB blasting your capships apart.
Eitehr way, the advantage of BB's is that they are hard to disarm (heavily armed turrets), thus there's no simple and easy way to kill them fast.
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Fixed weaponry is not a problem when it's a standoff weapon, in effect artillery, as was the case here. You don't need to turn more than a few seconds of arc to track a slow moving target 8 kilometres away. You could still put a few flak guns on it just to give the crew a good feeling though, even if the actual effect would be minimal.
Also, if battleships can't breach a blockade alone, then what is the point of using them in the first place? If the enemy can kill, say, 3 destroyers and their fighter complements assaulting the blockade, they can sure as hell kill 2 destroyers with fighter complements and a battleship without any. And assuming both these makeups can actually win, then after it's all done the 3rd destroyer would be far more useful for in-system operations than a battleship.
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What if I just had a ship come in and seed the area with countermeasures first?
This is exactly the kind of crap we went through last time with you completely failing to realise why the battleship became largely obsolete both in wet navies and in the FS2 universe.
Ahem? When I said other long-range weapons I didn't mean misiles only.
What about long-range AAAf's? Or ultra-long-rane flak? Or jsurt lasers with maxim range?
What? they're not in FS2? Neither are 90% of ships and weapons made so far but I don't recall ever stoping anyone from making them.
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Fixed weaponry is not a problem when it's a standoff weapon, in effect artillery, as was the case here. You don't need to turn more than a few seconds of arc to track a slow moving target 8 kilometres away. You could still put a few flak guns on it just to give the crew a good feeling though, even if the actual effect would be minimal.
Also, if battleships can't breach a blockade alone, then what is the point of using them in the first place? If the enemy can kill, say, 3 destroyers and their fighter complements assaulting the blockade, they can sure as hell kill 2 destroyers with fighter complements and a battleship without any. And assuming both these makeups can actually win, then after it's all done the 3rd destroyer would be far more useful for in-system operations than a battleship.
It's not hte problem if you're the attacker. but if someone jumps you from behind?
Better to have several weaker weapons but with a wide area coverage, than a single powerfull one.
A battleship can simply unleash far more damage against enemy capships than any other ship. Don't forget only selected craft have system-system jumps in FS2. So when your destroyer jump in to break the blockade tehy either have only a few escort fighter in the air or none. And a good enemy blockade can destroy your destroyer really fast (and al lthe fighters in it to boot), before he can launch many fighters. Assuming it survives, by that time it will be damaged and probably disarmed.
It doesn't have the armor or firepower to fight off multiple enemies without ample fightercover.
The battleship has heavy armor, heavy weapons and most importatnly it can't be disabled/disarmed easily. And they usualyl have a formidable point defense too. It is designed to keep fireing from the main batteries till the end...and to stall that end as long as possible. Thus when you deploy it you KNOW you're gonna do damage to the enemy - and lots of it, weather its destroyed or not.
And of course, a batlteship has less crew than a destroyer/carrier so if it gets destroyed, les human lives are lost.
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It appears that you want to have this argument again :rolleyes: Very well. Kindly remember that we're dealing with the real FS2 universe not your own one where you're allowed to claim that the maxim was a mistake in order to dig yourself out of a hole.
Ahem? When I said other long-range weapons I didn't mean misiles only.
What about long-range AAAf's? Or ultra-long-rane flak? Or jsurt lasers with maxim range?
What? they're not in FS2? Neither are 90% of ships and weapons made so far but I don't recall ever stoping anyone from making them.
Cause they aren't in FS2 which means I can invent counterweapons to cancel them out. This is exactly what I mean by you making up ****. None of that stuff either exists in FS2 or is even hinted at. Look at your long range lasers for instance. There are no lasers in FS2 that don't disappate by around 1km. Yet you're increasing their range threefold. Fine if you're pulling weapons out of your arse so will I. What the **** are any of those weapons going to do when I start having a Maxim Mark II with a range of 9km?
See! Anyone can invent crap to win the argument. Stick to what's in FS2 or you've already lost the battle.
Anyway quite frankly you're wasting your time. I don't think that the battleship you assume to be so useful even logical within the FS2 universe.
1) Between FS1 and FS2 the Orion, Leviathan, Fenris and Typhon were all upgraded to use beam cannons instead of the blob turrets they used to have.
Difference in speed. - None.
Difference in fighter complement - None
Difference in hitpoints (and therefore armour) - None (Tell a lie. The Fenris improved
So in other words the GTVA managed to upgrade these ships to use beam cannons at absolutely no cost to the internal or external space used on them. So given that we can see that beam cannons don't take up a vastly larger amount of space than blob turrets the question that has to be asked is why didn't they simply stick beam turrets all over the damn ships?
Well the obvious answer is that the limiting factor is not internal space but something else like Reactor power, heat sink effectiveness or plain and simple cost. Whichever of those reasons is responsible it's not something that a BB will necessarily have a lot more of than a destroyer has. The fighter bay on a destroyer probably doesn't take up a huge amount of reactor power. And it almost certainly costs a shedload of money and resources to fill with fighters and weapons.
2) The Colossus represents the best that the GTVA can do in making a super ship. Took them twenty years to build. Hardly bristling with turrets is it? The Colossus has 63 turrets and is 6km long. It was the pinnicle of GTVA design. Their flagship and yet it had a relatively tiny number. Why? Yet again it looks like the beam cannons are using up a huge amount of whatever resource it is that places a limit on the number of turrets you can have. But that can't be space. Or otherwise they could have covered the ship in blob turrets. Or missile turrets! The Colossus has a pitiful number of those for its size. Even the version mentioned in the cutscene has very few. What is all that space inside the Colossus being used for? Again maybe the limit isn't size. Maybe it's money. Maybe putting 50 extra missile launchers on the Colossus would have quite simply cost too much. Or maybe it's not the weapons themselves that are expensive but the reactors to power them.
3) The Hecate is the GTVA's most recent, most advanced ship. Yet the Hecate is actually a poorer combatant than the Orion. If there is such a large gap in the amount of firepower between a BB and a destroyer why the hell didn't the GTVA build one instead of the Hecate? They'd already got the Deimos. You seriously think no one in the GTVA thought let's make a bigger version of the Deimos? Cause that's all a BB is after all.
4) Look at the Iceni. It was built as the flagship for Admiral Bosch. No expense spared no doubt. What armament does it have? ****loads. The Iceni carries as many BGreens as the Orion does. (Yet another argument that space isn't the limiting factor). Why didn't the GTVA do that with the Deimos then? Again maybe it costs too damn much to put so much expensive weaponary into one ship.
5) How much better armoured would a battleship be? Not much. Certainly not to the degree you're claiming. Firstly armour cost money. So yet again we're pushing up the cost of the battleship with every inch of armour you put on it. Armour costs you speed too so that counts against it but most importantly of all why is there an assumption that the destroyer has weak armour just cause it carrys ships? That's wet navy thinking. The destroyer is designed to go toe to toe with the enemy. At least in the case of the Hatshepsut it is. Same with the Orion.
Why is there an assumption that the extra mass of fighters on a destroyer means it must be lightly armoured but yet the extra mass of guns, reactors and heatsinks on a battleship is ignored? I don't think the difference is going to be anywhere near as large as your assumption. Especially considering that you rejected my theory that beam cannons are small last time. Maybe a battleship might have enough armour to get another salvo in but it's certainly not the monster that shrugs off enemy fire that we're hearing about.
So lets sum up. The BB isn't a viable class. Either it costs too damn much to put all those weapons on it. Or it would melt cause the heatsinks are too close together or there would be no way to power all those weapons and they'd have to take turns using them. Even if you reject that there's no real reason to think that it's any more heavily armoured than a standard destroyer. At best it's a little heavier.
Quite frankly I'm of the opinion that the GTVA considered the idea of battleships but rejected them because they realised that at best they might be able to bolt on a beam cannon or two in return for losing the massive offensive and defensive capabilities of carrying fighters. The FS2 destroyer class IS a battleship. Close to the best battleship the GTVA can build. Its just that they've bolted on fighter launching capabilities at virtually no cost.
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Artillery & long range weapons are rather useless, of course, against an agile enemy bomber force that comes in at close range.
What if I just had a ship come in and seed the area with countermeasures first?
This is exactly the kind of crap we went through last time with you completely failing to realise why the battleship became largely obsolete both in wet navies and in the FS2 universe.
Ahem? When I said other long-range weapons I didn't mean misiles only.
What about long-range AAAf's? Or ultra-long-rane flak? Or jsurt lasers with maxim range?
What? they're not in FS2? Neither are 90% of ships and weapons made so far but I don't recall ever stoping anyone from making them.
So you're randomly inventing weapons to justify a ship class? Well, why not just build a cruiser armed with a single 360 firing arch SFMBHBFGreen that can incenerate a Sathanas in one blow?
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wow.
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Fine, I'll play...
It's not hte problem if you're the attacker. but if someone jumps you from behind?
If something jumps in that is so powerful you don't have time to jump out before you're dead, it doesn't really matter where the guns are located anyway now does it? And with a big front weapon at least you managed to do some damage to other enemy ships first.
A battleship can simply unleash far more damage against enemy capships than any other ship.
Just how big is this imaginary battleship, anyway? It's got 50 treb launchers, long range AAA and flak, and can unleash more anti-capship firepower than any other ship. Are we talking 2, 3 times a Sathanas here? If so, then yes, I'll concede it'll be far better at blockade busting than 3 destroyers, but I think I'd rather have the 3 destroyers in 2 years from now than the battleship in 75-100 or however long it takes to build a ship with those specs. If you keep to the FS universe at least, as I am trying to. and if you don't, well, then it's all academic isn't it?
The battleship has heavy armor, heavy weapons and most importatnly it can't be disabled/disarmed easily. And they usualyl have a formidable point defense too. It is designed to keep fireing from the main batteries till the end...and to stall that end as long as possible. Thus when you deploy it you KNOW you're gonna do damage to the enemy - and lots of it, weather its destroyed or not.
It only takes a double helios to take out a main beam on a Sathanas. Anything can be disarmed. And keep in mind that the bigger and more powerful a ship is, the more hull area there is for your point defense to cover, so formidable point defense becomes harder to achieve.
And of course, a batlteship has less crew than a destroyer/carrier so if it gets destroyed, les human lives are lost.
Why would it have less crew? Given the armament you've mentioned so far, it is obviously a far bigger ship, and weapon systems need maintenance and crew just as fighters do. You're just carrying engineers and gunners instead of pilots.
A bit more on the size issue. Ok, maybe a destroyer doesn't make a good size comparison since it's also a carrier, but take a Deimos: They are pure warships, no fighters or anything, just guns and armor. They clock in at about 30% the size of a destroyer, with less than half the firepower and 80% the armor of an Orion. So, going by that, an Orion sized battleship with no fighterbay would have about 30% greater firepower and 2.5 times the armor. So assuming we're talking a ship in about the same size range, it is nowhere near what you're claiming it should be.
Even at 2.5 times the armor of an Orion, a single bomber squadron can kill it in 5 minutes, and that's even without using Helios bombs since those are just unfair against anything but juggernaughts. And it certainly isn't that much bigger an offensive threat than an Orion, with only 30% more firepower not to mention it's point defense systems are likely crap just as on the Orion. Of course, you could improve them, but then you'd lose some offensive firepower in exchange since there's only a finite amount of space for powerplants, heatsinks etc. So really, a supership it is not.
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The cynic in me would suggest the ship is more valuable than the crew....
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So you're randomly inventing weapons to justify a ship class?
Of course he is. Even the 50 treb launchers thing is an invention. The GTVA have had 32 years to figure it out but no one has even managed to put a Pheonix V launcher on a capship.
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Cause they aren't in FS2 which means I can invent counterweapons to cancel them out. This is exactly what I mean by you making up ****. None of that stuff either exists in FS2 or is even hinted at. Look at your long range lasers for instance. There are no lasers in FS2 that don't disappate by around 1km. Yet you're increasing their range threefold. Fine if you're pulling weapons out of your arse so will I. What the **** are any of those weapons going to do when I start having a Maxim Mark II with a range of 9km?
See! Anyone can invent crap to win the argument. Stick to what's in FS2 or you've already lost the battle.
I'm talking about possible weapons that follow FS2 tech and are completely logical and plausable.
We know Maxim exists and has ample range. Is it really that hard to belive that you can't invent a capship weapon (more room, more reactor power available) that can counter it's range? Or simply mount LOADS of maxim guns on a capship?
Don't forget we heard many things in FS2 we didn't see...such as some older ship classes
1) Between FS1 and FS2 the Orion, Leviathan, Fenris and Typhon were all upgraded to use beam cannons instead of the blob turrets they used to have.
Difference in speed. - None.
Difference in fighter complement - None
Difference in hitpoints (and therefore armour) - None (Tell a lie. The Fenris improved
I don't hnik the fightercapacity of an Orion was mentioned in FS1. Maby it was downsized. However, you musn't forget that it's the game and realistic tech balance really wan't a priority for the devs.
Probably it does have something to do wqith reactor power the beam cannons MUST require a friggin lot of it.
2) The Colossus represents the best that the GTVA can do in making a super ship. Took them twenty years to build. Hardly bristling with turrets is it? The Colossus has 63 turrets and is 6km long. It was the pinnicle of GTVA design. Their flagship and yet it had a relatively tiny number. Why? Yet again it looks like the beam cannons are using up a huge amount of whatever resource it is that places a limit on the number of turrets you can have. But that can't be space. Or otherwise they could have covered the ship in blob turrets. Or missile turrets! The Colossus has a pitiful number of those for its size. Even the version mentioned in the cutscene has very few. What is all that space inside the Colossus being used for? Again maybe the limit isn't size. Maybe it's money. Maybe putting 50 extra missile launchers on the Colossus would have quite simply cost too much. Or maybe it's not the weapons themselves that are expensive but the reactors to power them.
Colossus was a laughning stock and it was not a battleship in any way. It was a upsacaled destroyer. Besides, who ever told you a battleship HAS to be 6km long?
Allso, don't forget that a destroyer would carry far more crew than an battleship. And it would have fighterbays...storage room...mess halls..pilots quaters...fligh crew quarters...food storage..etc, etc... And that takes up a lot of room.
So basicly in a battleship you do have a lto more free room for armor, weapons & reactors.
3) The Hecate is the GTVA's most recent, most advanced ship. Yet the Hecate is actually a poorer combatant than the Orion. If there is such a large gap in the amount of firepower between a BB and a destroyer why the hell didn't the GTVA build one instead of the Hecate? They'd already got the Deimos. You seriously think no one in the GTVA thought let's make a bigger version of the Deimos? Cause that's all a BB is after all.
Well, by that same logic you could claim (if you never played FS2) that a corvette class is impossible, since it wasn't in FS1 and can't do anything a destroyer or cruiser can't. Exactly why [V] decided on class X or Y I do not know. time constraints, ease of implementation...or maby it just favored the type of gameplay they wanted.
And let's not forget the Hecate's role is that of a rear command ship/carrier...
4) Look at the Iceni. It was built as the flagship for Admiral Bosch. No expense spared no doubt. What armament does it have? ****loads. The Iceni carries as many BGreens as the Orion does. (Yet another argument that space isn't the limiting factor). Why didn't the GTVA do that with the Deimos then? Again maybe it costs too damn much to put so much expensive weaponary into one ship.
Maby to make Bosch look cool?
5) How much better armoured would a battleship be? Not much. Certainly not to the degree you're claiming. Firstly armour cost money. So yet again we're pushing up the cost of the battleship with every inch of armour you put on it. Armour costs you speed too so that counts against it but most importantly of all why is there an assumption that the destroyer has weak armour just cause it carrys ships? That's wet navy thinking. The destroyer is designed to go toe to toe with the enemy. At least in the case of the Hatshepsut it is. Same with the Orion.
Why is there an assumption that the extra mass of fighters on a destroyer means it must be lightly armoured but yet the extra mass of guns, reactors and heatsinks on a battleship is ignored? I don't think the difference is going to be anywhere near as large as your assumption. Especially considering that you rejected my theory that beam cannons are small last time. Maybe a battleship might have enough armour to get another salvo in but it's certainly not the monster that shrugs off enemy fire that we're hearing about.
Lots'. For reasons stated under 2 it would have far more room. And adding armor is a one-time expense. Once the ship is done it's done. Crewing and supplying a carrier, paying it's crew is a bigger money drain. While the Hatesphut and Orion are formidalbe ship, that CAN go toe-to-toe with an enemy, such action is allways used as a last resort. Launching and supporting fighters has allways been thier primary function, not a head-on-assault.
And you're telling me a ship designed with the sole purpose of going head-on at the enemy wouldn't do the job better?
So lets sum up. The BB isn't a viable class. Either it costs too damn much to put all those weapons on it. Or it would melt cause the heatsinks are too close together or there would be no way to power all those weapons and they'd have to take turns using them. Even if you reject that there's no real reason to think that it's any more heavily armoured than a standard destroyer. At best it's a little heavier.
I se the colossus is the base for all your assumption. Colossus pushed it's beam cannons OVER THE SPECS and let's not forget that plans for it were layed over 20 years ago. I would assume that a BB would be designed with more concetrated and heavier armament in mind, so htere would be no pushing.
Allso, it's clear that a small ship can pump out s***loads of power if designed well. Look at the Iceeni.. Or the Lucifer.
How more armored it would be is debatable. It's not like you can just give me a limit like that. I can cite you examples of battleships(actually warships of all classes) who despite similar size had a huge differennce in their armor. And it's not only how thick the armor is, but how it is devided, what kind of armor it is, and so on..
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Fine, I'll play...
If something jumps in that is so powerful you don't have time to jump out before you're dead, it doesn't really matter where the guns are located anyway now does it? And with a big front weapon at least you managed to do some damage to other enemy ships first.f/quote]
I never said it's that powerfull. Even if it's just as powerfull (think of a Orion jumping beside an other Orion wo doesn't have any anti-cap weapons on that side), the abity to counter quick and decisive is the most important thing. It doesn't even have to destroy you - cripling or damaging you ie enough of an advantage allready.
[quoteg
Just how big is this imaginary battleship, anyway? It's got 50 treb launchers, long range AAA and flak, and can unleash more anti-capship firepower than any other ship. Are we talking 2, 3 times a Sathanas here? If so, then yes, I'll concede it'll be far better at blockade busting than 3 destroyers, but I think I'd rather have the 3 destroyers in 2 years from now than the battleship in 75-100 or however long it takes to build a ship with those specs. If you keep to the FS universe at least, as I am trying to. and if you don't, well, then it's all academic isn't it?
My esitimate? Around 3km.
It only takes a double helios to take out a main beam on a Sathanas. Anything can be disarmed. And keep in mind that the bigger and more powerful a ship is, the more hull area there is for your point defense to cover, so formidable point defense becomes harder to achieve.
Depends.. How many main guns does it have? How well armored are they? When if I gave you an example where a BB has 8 main guns, each having a armor worth 20% or it's total hit points? Whic come to 160% HP. You'll destroy it before you manage to sisable it, uness usiing specific subsystem-damaging weapons, but again, they are far weaker than Helios and by the time you disarm it you're fleet will be a debris field.
Why would it have less crew? Given the armament you've mentioned so far, it is obviously a far bigger ship, and weapon systems need maintenance and crew just as fighters do. You're just carrying engineers and gunners instead of pilots.
Ye gods.. I don't belive I have to explain this...
Let's give you an example:
Iowa (276m, battleship) - 1500 crew
Nimizt (334m, carrier) - 3184+2800 air crew
I think you fail to realise just how many people are required for fighters.
for 150 spacecreaft you need twice as many pilots (double shifts) - 300 pilots
You need the air crew that repirs the planes, the hangar maintainance, the storage crew, the weapons mantainance, the MP to keep all those men in line, the cooks to preapre meals, etc...
A bit more on the size issue. Ok, maybe a destroyer doesn't make a good size comparison since it's also a carrier, but take a Deimos: They are pure warships, no fighters or anything, just guns and armor. They clock in at about 30% the size of a destroyer, with less than half the firepower and 80% the armor of an Orion. So, going by that, an Orion sized battleship with no fighterbay would have about 30% greater firepower and 2.5 times the armor. So assuming we're talking a ship in about the same size range, it is nowhere near what you're claiming it should be.
I'm thinking more something like double the firepower, double the armor.
Even at 2.5 times the armor of an Orion, a single bomber squadron can kill it in 5 minutes, and that's even without using Helios bombs since those are just unfair against anything but juggernaughts. And it certainly isn't that much bigger an offensive threat than an Orion, with only 30% more firepower not to mention it's point defense systems are likely crap just as on the Orion. Of course, you could improve them, but then you'd lose some offensive firepower in exchange since there's only a finite amount of space for powerplants, heatsinks etc. So really, a supership it is not.
BB's allways had the most formidable point-defense. The Iowa had 144 AA guns. Of course, becouse of FS limitation you wouldn' have that many, but still it would be a far to tough a nut to crack for a single squadron.
and power? Point-defense weapons use very little compared to big guns and we'r talking about a ship that's designed to wield the biggest guns. In an emergency you could allways route the power from some of the bigger guns into-point defense.
And yes - fleet actions. Hardly any ship would go alone. A group of specialized ships is far more effective if you ask me than a group of jack-of-all-trades.
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I'm talking about possible weapons that follow FS2 tech and are completely logical and plausable.
We know Maxim exists and has ample range. Is it really that hard to belive that you can't invent a capship weapon (more room, more reactor power available) that can counter it's range? Or simply mount LOADS of maxim guns on a capship?
So we're back to this argument are we? Fine. Put 50 maxim cannons on your battleship. It's still ****ed. The fighters are shooting at a slow moving, unmanouverable 2-3km long target from 3km away. The BB is shooting at a 20m long fast moving target. With a gun that does close to **** all against shields! I can take your battleship out with a very small number of fighters.
Furthermore there's not a shred of evidence that fighter weapons can even be mounted on a battleship. They certainly never were mounted on any of the larger classes in the game. So you're inventing again.
Don't forget we heard many things in FS2 we didn't see...such as some older ship classes
What in ****s name does that have to do with anything? None of the FS1 older ship classes were battleships either. I've included the FS1 ships in my theory so kindly explain what the **** they have to do with the fact that you were making up weapons in order to win AGAIN!
I don't hnik the fightercapacity of an Orion was mentioned in FS1.
It wasn't. But in FS2 the first CB shows exactly how many squadrons were stationed on the Galatea. Seeing as it blew up halfway through FS1 and was never converted to carrying beam cannons it's canon proof of how many fighters an Orion class destroyer carried in the FS1 era.
Maby it was downsized. However, you musn't forget that it's the game and realistic tech balance really wan't a priority for the devs.
Probably it does have something to do wqith reactor power the beam cannons MUST require a friggin lot of it.
I couldn't give a flying **** how you want to rewrite the game to suit your assumptions. You aren't allowed to say "I think what :v: meant to do was...." when that flat out contradicts what is in the game.
Colossus was a laughning stock and it was not a battleship in any way. It was a upsacaled destroyer. Besides, who ever told you a battleship HAS to be 6km long?
Where the **** did I say that a battleship has to be 6km long. Now you're rewriting my arguments as well as rewriting :v:'s canon to suit the points you want to make?
Besides if it was a laughing stock then it's quite probable that any BB designed by the same people would also be a laughing stock too.
Allso, don't forget that a destroyer would carry far more crew than an battleship. And it would have fighterbays...storage room...mess halls..pilots quaters...fligh crew quarters...food storage..etc, etc... And that takes up a lot of room.
Why? Why would it have less crew. The crew of a hecate. 10,000. Crew of an Orion. 10,000. Crew of a Deimos. 6,000. Seems to me that hanger bays don't use up anywhere near the kind of crew numbers you imagine. Seems like those 50 maxim turrets you're on about would actually boost the crew numbers higher than that of a destroyer. Obviously turrets require a lot of maintainence. Fighter bays aren't boosting the crew amounts by the huge amount you claim.
Besides as I've pointed out already space on the ship is not the limiting factor. If you want to rewrite FS2 canon to claim it is you'd better find some canon proof.
Anyway I have to go. I'll be back later to take down the rest of your arguments.
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If you want to draw the real world ship comparison, you shuld compare displacement, not length. In which case, you will find that a Nimitz is at 97.000 tons and an Iowa at 45.000 tons. That helps put the crew difference into a realistic perspective, now doesn't it?
So, because a far smaller Iowa has far less crew than a far bigger Nimizt, your far bigger battleship will have less crew than the far smaller Orion? Please elaborate on the logic here. And keep in mind I never said the larger battleship would have a lot more crew, I just said it wouldn't have less. Same size, it would have less, but it won't be the same size as an Orion, not even close, if you stick by the technology available in the FS universe.
Basically, you can forget the 3km idea immediately, a ship that size could never mount 8 beam cannons of greater strength than those on the Sathanas. not even by foregoing all other offensive and defensive armament. And at 20% of the hull strength per cannon? You know, actually, I'm not even going to bother, it's just too obvious where the problem is here, the size issue should be obvious to anyone reading this.
Double the firepower and armor certainly might be possible if absolutely no expenses were spared, but then you've already dropped the other stuff you've been talking about this whole thread. That certainly would not be able to mount all those 8 beam cannons, the 50 trebuchet launchers, or the long range point defense systems. You seem to forget that all these things need space, power, heat dissipation and, for the flak and missiles, ammo. And you would end up with a ship costing 2-3 times what an Orion does, while still not being able to reasonably defend itself from a bomber strike.
Finally, the Iowa may have had 144 AA guns, but they all sucked big time. If they were actually worth a damn, do you think the Iowas would still have been mothballed because they were sitting ducks for any air strike? Modern ships generally mount 2, yes, 2 AA guns, known as a close-in weapons system or CIWS, and a missile system for medium to long range defense. That's it.
They don't mount any more because unlike the Iowa guns, these things are not just bolted to the hull taking up effectively no room, but are integrated with ammo feeds, tracking systems etc and actually need space. It may only look like a small gun on the surface, but there's something like a 10x10x10 metre block of machinery and storage below decks to support it. You can't cover a ship with them for that reason, not to mention they also cost a whole lot more than your average WW2 bolt-on 20mm AA gun. The same would be true for flak and AAA turrets, at the very least, and possibly also for the lasers.
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Presumably I'm not the first person to point out there's a reason why battleships are obselete for any form of naval warfare? And that they're only used in modern terms as either missile launch platforms (Russian Kirov class) or as sea-based artillery (Utah class), neither of which are particularly useful for space borne scenarios (latter can be performed by pretty much any vessel, former is an entirely different issue in space-planet ops)? And that force-projection is invariably more effective than a large, powerful but ultimately operational range-restricted vessel? (particularly when there are highly effective fighter/bomber borne weapons against capships)
Plus, is it not worth pointing out that maybe there are restrictions beyond energy and crew anyways? The Colossus almost melted it's hull firing beam cannons at the Sath - what would the impact be of a similar number of beams spread across a smaller hull?
Wasn't it the attitude of "bigger, heavier, more guns!" that saw the battleship being superceded and made obselete by carriers and fighter aircraft in the first place?
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If you want to draw the real world ship comparison, you shuld compare displacement, not length. In which case, you will find that a Nimitz is at 97.000 tons and an Iowa at 45.000 tons. That helps put the crew difference into a realistic perspective, now doesn't it?
Funnily enough if you compare the Iowa with the British Ark Royal (http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/uk_postw.htm) you get this.
Displacement : 56,500 tons (mean war service) vs 53,060
Crew : 2,800 vs 2740
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If you want to draw the real world ship comparison, you shuld compare displacement, not length. In which case, you will find that a Nimitz is at 97.000 tons and an Iowa at 45.000 tons. That helps put the crew difference into a realistic perspective, now doesn't it?
Wrong. that's 97000 tons at ful displacement (with all the fighters loaded).
And the Iow is allsmot as big as a carrier. Did you ever see it up close, parked NEXT to a carrier? I have.
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So we're back to this argument are we? Fine. Put 50 maxim cannons on your battleship. It's still ****ed. The fighters are shooting at a slow moving, unmanouverable 2-3km long target from 3km away. The BB is shooting at a 20m long fast moving target. With a gun that does close to **** all against shields! I can take your battleship out with a very small number of fighters.
Furthermore there's not a shred of evidence that fighter weapons can even be mounted on a battleship. They certainly never were mounted on any of the larger classes in the game. So you're inventing again.
Evidence? Logic is the evidence! I can make any logical assumption I can as long as it doesn't contradict the FS universe, and this one doesn't.
Or do you honsestly belive that we today can't make a 20mm vulcan cannon version to mount on a ship? Hell, we allready have them.
The GTVA has knowledge of the workings of those fighter weapons. It has the facilities and resources to produce them. Large ships have more reactor power to feed those weapons. you honestly belive they CAN'T do it?
Why the GTVA didn't make them? I don't know.
Maby sometimes or somewhere they are used. I recall the Faustus using Subach lasers. That's cannon for you!
The question of this debate is CAN a BB work in FS universe.. and since there is no BB in ther I have to invent it. So yes, I am inventing..jsut as other people are inventing missile frigates with ling-range anti-cap missiles (which we NEVER saw in Fs universe). How come you're not assaulting their ideas and designs as "broken"?
Where the **** did I say that a battleship has to be 6km long. Now you're rewriting my arguments as well as rewriting :v:'s canon to suit the points you want to make?
Besides if it was a laughing stock then it's quite probable that any BB designed by the same people would also be a laughing stock too.
Actually you did assume it was 2-3 times hte size of a Sath.
Before accusing me of twisting your words, you should double chekc what you posted in the first place.
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Finally, the Iowa may have had 144 AA guns, but they all sucked big time. If they were actually worth a damn, do you think the Iowas would still have been mothballed because they were sitting ducks for any air strike? Modern ships generally mount 2, yes, 2 AA guns, known as a close-in weapons system or CIWS, and a missile system for medium to long range defense. That's it.
No actually, during the end of the war in the pacific they proved very effective. The Iowa was the best battleship in the world with the best AF defense and suring the times when Jap's sent kamikazi's en masse, ships of this class didn't get a scratch dispite being involved in heavy combat.
And Iowa today mounts 4 CIWS + some missile launchers. the only reason they pulled the BB's back is that there's no way for a BB to close the distance to a carrier. In FS there's subspace.
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(Irrational argument)
Ok, stop right now. Not only have we been down this path far too often for anyone's good, but we've actually had this exact same argument before to no good end. And it really doesn't help when both sides completely distort what the other is saying to prove a point. Ultimately I'm with kara on this one; battleships have served no meaningful purpose since the end of the second world war, and there is no great leveling force seen in Freespace canon to reverse this trend. Subspace pushes the trend more towards fighters and bombers than toward massive capital ships, so that argument doesn't help at all. Make up whatever counterarguments you like, but imposing wet-naval parallels from a half century ago onto a science fiction game is pretty much universally bad. I wouldn't say anything, but wading through the same tired arguments of the last time we had this discussion is trying my patience.
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Presumably I'm not the first person to point out there's a reason why battleships are obselete for any form of naval warfare? And that they're only used in modern terms as either missile launch platforms (Russian Kirov class) or as sea-based artillery (Utah class), neither of which are particularly useful for space borne scenarios (latter can be performed by pretty much any vessel, former is an entirely different issue in space-planet ops)? And that force-projection is invariably more effective than a large, powerful but ultimately operational range-restricted vessel? (particularly when there are highly effective fighter/bomber borne weapons against capships)
Plus, is it not worth pointing out that maybe there are restrictions beyond energy and crew anyways? The Colossus almost melted it's hull firing beam cannons at the Sath - what would the impact be of a similar number of beams spread across a smaller hull?
Wasn't it the attitude of "bigger, heavier, more guns!" that saw the battleship being superceded and made obselete by carriers and fighter aircraft in the first place?
AS I said before, BB's are pulled becosue they can't close to effective range fast, or escape fast. In FS2 they can do both.
And The Colossus was not designed to fight anything as big as a Sath. It didn't have beam cannons designed for that, so to do more damage it had to overload them.
A BB would have beam cannons designed for that specific purpose (and would have reactors and heat sinks where the Collie has it's fighterbays)
@Kajorama - the crew of the Iowa is 1516. I don't know wher eyou pulled that number from.
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I'm sure an Iowa is also a lot lighter if you take away it's primary armaments. Fighters are as integral a part of a carrier as 16 inch guns are for a battleship. If you are going to make a comparison, you have to compare on fairly equal terms. also, on further research it seems your crew number for the Iowa was on the low side, too, the numbers i've found all run in the 2500-2800 range.
As for your other point, almost as long does not equate to almost as big. This is not a 1d world, it is a 3d world, where width and height count too. A carrier is far wider over a far greater part of the hull than a battleship.
Finally, I've never actually seen a battleship up close, no, but I have been onboard the Ark Royal once it visited Copenhagen. Quite an impressive ship, I especially liked the massive lifts and, being a boy at the time, of course also loved the nifty missle launcher that I had a picture taken of me next to :D Not that it really matters what I've seen or not, though.
[Edit]
And Iowa today mounts 4 CIWS + some missile launchers. the only reason they pulled the BB's back is that there's no way for a BB to close the distance to a carrier. In FS there's subspace.
No, the reason they pulled them is that they could mount the same weapons on a smaller and cheaper ship, getting the same firepower with less cost. Todays frigates and destroyers can't close the distance either, yet they are in use. And there is a problem with using subspace to close the distance: It only works for stationary, pre-scouted targets. It's useless against a destroyer, for instance.
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Where the **** did I say that a battleship has to be 6km long. Now you're rewriting my arguments as well as rewriting :v:'s canon to suit the points you want to make?
Besides if it was a laughing stock then it's quite probable that any BB designed by the same people would also be a laughing stock too.
Actually you did assume it was 2-3 times hte size of a Sath.
Before accusing me of twisting your words, you should double chekc what you posted in the first place.
You do know he was refering to the size a ship based on the weaponry you described your BB had, right?
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Indeed, plus I was the one who made that estimate and no Karajorma. Sometimes it pays off to check who posts what, especially if you're going to tell someone else to double check what was posted :p
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Ok, stop right now. Not only have we been down this path far too often for anyone's good, but we've actually had this exact same argument before to no good end. And it really doesn't help when both sides completely distort what the other is saying to prove a point. Ultimately I'm with kara on this one; battleships have served no meaningful purpose since the end of the second world war, and there is no great leveling force seen in Freespace canon to reverse this trend. Subspace pushes the trend more towards fighters and bombers than toward massive capital ships, so that argument doesn't help at all. Make up whatever counterarguments you like, but imposing wet-naval parallels from a half century ago onto a science fiction game is pretty much universally bad. I wouldn't say anything, but wading through the same tired arguments of the last time we had this discussion is trying my patience.
I'm not going to dictated by you what argument are plausable or not, as *I* am the one who makes that judgment.
Wet navy comparisons are completely plausalbe in some cases, in some they are not. But granted, these were more some historical discussions...
Some of you think BB's have no use in FS. Fine, you have your arguments.
I think they do. I have my arguments.
In any case, no matter what I or you think makes any difference at all. Peopel will make what models they want and what campaigns they want.
Why a battleship? Blockade runner, heavy-fire support, ambusher.
When a destroyer jumps tough the node most of it's firepower is unavailable, as it has to luanch all ti's fighters fist. A BB can unleash 100% of it's firepower the second it jumps in. And can take more punishment. Thus it can deal more damage to the blockading ships than a destroyer.
Ambusher? Destroyer relies largely on it's fighter and bombers and they rely on bombs. Bombs can be intercepted. Beams can't.
Assuming you ambush someone you'd want to deal as much damage in the first 10 seconds as possible, before tehy can get their bearings.
A destroyer with fighters wil do a good job, especially during a longer fight, where his fighter will chip away enemy defenses (turrets, escorts) making the enmy more vulnerable over time. But in the very begining stages the enemy is still very much capable of hurting back and escaping.
A BB would jump in, relase 1-2 salvos (which sould be enough to to destroy any smaller ship or severely damage bigger ones) and get out before the fighter cover reaches it.
Why make a BB when you can have smaller ship fill the role JUST AS GOOD? Can you?
Try pitting 3 Deimoses again a Orion. Orion pawns them in seconds.
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On further research it seems your crew number for the Iowa was on the low side, too, the numbers i've found all run in the 2500-2800 range.
Ahh...now I get what the confusion is all about. During WW2 it had 2800 crew. I have this book on naval warship of hte world, but ti's recent and describes the refitted Iowa. With the computers, targeting and removal of some weapons, it's crew count realyl dropped to 1500. and the crew count of carrier increased from W2 :D
And there is a problem with using subspace to close the distance: It only works for stationary, pre-scouted targets. It's useless against a destroyer, for instance.
Ah? Destroyer move at 15m/s and intra-system jumps are very short - on the order of seconds..less than a minute for sure.
How does that prevent it from working?
Or have you meant destroyer that are constantly jumping all over the place, spending practicyl no time in realspace?
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It goes without saying that if you have a use for a battleship for a campaign of yours, go for it. That is your decision entirely and you don't need anyone's blessing or consent for it.
The reason you have an argument on your hands is that instead of simply making the campaign and the ship you need for it, you are trying to justify it and get everyone to agree that it's a good idea. I can't and won't speak for everyone, but personally I don't agree with it.
And it isn't even the idea of a battleship as such that I am opposed to, I've already conceded they have a use even if I didn't think that one use justified their cost. It is your unrealistic expectations of them. You are going well beyond the technology available in FS to reach the specs you want for it, and that is my real issue.
If the ship seemed technologically feasible, I would have no problem with it even if I thought it would be easily countered, as military equipment aquisition has never really been guided by such as common sense and it could therefore well happen. But what you have been proposing so far simply is not technologically feasible within the FS universe, and that is why I'm arguing against you on this.
[Edit] You still have to know where the destroyer is at that exact time to be able to jump in right next to it. And you can't know that without being in visual range already, which means the destroyer can see you too, and start launching bombers before you even initiate the jump to get close. You forget that while a destroyer may move slowly, the simple fact that it moves at all means you can't count on it being anywhere until you've already checked.
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Recon flights. The Pegasus loves you. :P
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Try pitting 3 Deimoses again a Orion. Orion pawns them in seconds.
Actually, I pit 5 Leviathans against an Orion. Orion couldn't even destroy one of them before exploding. 2 Deimoses, however, tore the Leviathans into pieces(with 30% and 60% health left).
In the end, a battle is won by carefully balancing the fleet and knowing when and where to strike. A spy craft or even a fleet of argo transports can shift the tide of war just as easily as any humongous battleship.
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I can definitely see how a ship (for the SOC, for instance, or some other entity that might need to get in and out in a hurry) might be modified to make chain jumping more feasible by fitting extra massive heatsinks or by overengineering the subspace drive to make it more forgiving.
A bit like overclocking really :p Fit a bigger cooler and use a heavier-duty equipment and the risks of frying the system are greatly reduced :)
Heh. Why not just put two subspace engines in?
I'd imagine a modified Hecate with just a single anti-cap beam and a load of anti-fighter beams with two jump-drives would have much better survival odds. Afterall, the Hecate doesn't really have enough to stand toe-to-toe against an Orion, but imagine if it could jump in at a distance, launch spacecraft and jump out when the Orion gets too close. And because of the second jump drive, being followed isn't as much of a problem.
Of course, it'd be annoying for mission design with multiple jumps (unless the SCP wizards make a way to do an in-mission subspace jump).
In any case, I think that a snubfighter base-carrier ought to be mobile. Even with beams, they're awfully vulnerable and as long as its an intersystem jump, the fighters could always follow.
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...but imagine if it could jump in at a distance, launch spacecraft and jump out when the Orion gets too close...
Wake up call... The fighters can jump on their own. No need for the carrier to expose itself...
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...but imagine if it could jump in at a distance, launch spacecraft and jump out when the Orion gets too close...
Wake up call... The fighters can jump on their own. No need for the carrier to expose itself...
Of course, that's right.
You don't usually equip fighters with inter-system drives for the node jumps though. So jumping through a node could possibly yield a situation like that. Like if you're trying to run a blockade. Jump in through the node and immediately activate the other drive to do an intersystem jump. Two jump drives could still be useful in some situations.
In any case, the point of the two jump drives is for increased mobility since a more carrier-oriented destroyer wouldn't want to hang around when attacked.
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You don't usually equip fighters with inter-system drives for the node jumps though. So jumping through a node could possibly yield a situation like that. Like if you're trying to run a blockade. Jump in through the node and immediately activate the other drive to do an intersystem jump. Two jump drives could still be useful in some situations.
In a blockade busting move, I consider it too risky to commit the fighters base of operations. More probable would be to sent some other ships (cruisers/corvettes), and only a small fighter cover. In a real life battle, anything can happen. And a risk is still a risk. And we saw what happened to the NTF when it tried to get past a jumpnode blockade... So committing a whaladon on a blockade run is a bigh nono.
The whole thing with fighters suggests that the inter-system subspace drive is allready a different drive from the "normal" one. And I dont really see the need for a second jumpdrive in a carrier oriented vessel. If its job is to sit his ass somewhere safe and deploy fighters. And should it be discovered, it can allways jump to another safe haven, hopefully getting rid of the attackers.
But I agree that two jumpdrives could be useful in some situations. If equipped in to somekind of fast attack cruiser/corvette, for hit-and-run tactics...
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The question of this debate is CAN a BB work in FS universe.. and since there is no BB in ther I have to invent it. So yes, I am inventing..jsut as other people are inventing missile frigates with ling-range anti-cap missiles (which we NEVER saw in Fs universe). How come you're not assaulting their ideas and designs as "broken"?
Cause none of them invent uber ships like your battleships and then insist that they are the ultimate answer to everything completely ignoring all evidence anyone else points out to the evidence. Notice when AlphaOne made the same mistake everyone pointed out the flaws in his design. Now we're doing the same to you.
I pointed out that the fact that the battleship was screwed when facing fighters simply because of the fact that it's a single big slow moving target and you completely ignored it presumably because you had no answer to that enormous flaw in the design.
Where the **** did I say that a battleship has to be 6km long. Now you're rewriting my arguments as well as rewriting :v:'s canon to suit the points you want to make?
Besides if it was a laughing stock then it's quite probable that any BB designed by the same people would also be a laughing stock too.
Actually you did assume it was 2-3 times hte size of a Sath.
Before accusing me of twisting your words, you should double chekc what you posted in the first place.
As Shade pointed out already he said that not me. Now say you're sorry.
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Actually, I pit 5 Leviathans against an Orion. Orion couldn't even destroy one of them before exploding. 2 Deimoses, however, tore the Leviathans into pieces(with 30% and 60% health left).
In the end, a battle is won by carefully balancing the fleet and knowing when and where to strike. A spy craft or even a fleet of argo transports can shift the tide of war just as easily as any humongous battleship.
Don't know with what tables you are playing, but by me the Orion pawns anything except a Ravana.
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...but imagine if it could jump in at a distance, launch spacecraft and jump out when the Orion gets too close...
Wake up call... The fighters can jump on their own. No need for the carrier to expose itself...
Of course, that's right.
You don't usually equip fighters with inter-system drives for the node jumps though. So jumping through a node could possibly yield a situation like that. Like if you're trying to run a blockade. Jump in through the node and immediately activate the other drive to do an intersystem jump.
But wouldn't the destroyer like, have to launch fihgters/bombers? And that takes time as I recall..and by that time it will be utterly pawned.
Sure it can just jump out wihtou launching fighter(but not immediately, even with 2 jump drives..it would take afew seconds..and we all seen what a few seconds can do when you have Mjlonirs), but that doesn't reayl sole the problem, as half hte enemy fleet can follow it WITH their allready deploey fighter and it would still get pawned.
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Cause none of them invent uber ships like your battleships and then insist that they are the ultimate answer to everything completely ignoring all evidence anyone else points out to the evidence. Notice when AlphaOne made the same mistake everyone pointed out the flaws in his design. Now we're doing the same to you.
I pointed out that the fact that the battleship was screwed when facing fighters simply because of the fact that it's a single big slow moving target and you completely ignored it presumably because you had no answer to that enormous flaw in the design.
I never said it was the ultimate answer to everything. It has some advanatges over other capship classes in some situations, and some disadvantages too.
The biggest disadvantage is it's szie and no fightercover. So yes, fighters/bomber are it's weakness, but that doesn't mean it's a pushover.. After all, would you consider the Colossus a pushover for fighters to take out?
As Shade pointed out already he said that not me. Now say you're sorry.
Correct. He assumed that. You just followed his comments.
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Trashman, please edit a single posts rather than making several in succession. There's no need to triple post.
Also, settle down please guys. I get the feeling the karma of this thread is getting a little intense.
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Force of habbit..
I read a post, adn quote it and reply if it merrits it and then continue on.
That way I focus on a single post at a time and don't skip things...
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Learn to change it please, continuous double or more posting adds unnecessary loading times to threads and we've never allowed it here.
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Presumably I'm not the first person to point out there's a reason why battleships are obselete for any form of naval warfare? And that they're only used in modern terms as either missile launch platforms (Russian Kirov class) or as sea-based artillery (Utah class), neither of which are particularly useful for space borne scenarios (latter can be performed by pretty much any vessel, former is an entirely different issue in space-planet ops)? And that force-projection is invariably more effective than a large, powerful but ultimately operational range-restricted vessel? (particularly when there are highly effective fighter/bomber borne weapons against capships)
Plus, is it not worth pointing out that maybe there are restrictions beyond energy and crew anyways? The Colossus almost melted it's hull firing beam cannons at the Sath - what would the impact be of a similar number of beams spread across a smaller hull?
Wasn't it the attitude of "bigger, heavier, more guns!" that saw the battleship being superceded and made obselete by carriers and fighter aircraft in the first place?
AS I said before, BB's are pulled becosue they can't close to effective range fast, or escape fast. In FS2 they can do both.
I'm not sure what you're point is. Any ship in FS1/2 can, within a reasonable time range, rapidly escape or arrive, although the actual accuracy of such a jump is open to interpretation. What the problem is, is that you also need to maneuver upon arrival into a firing position, or simply to avoid exposing your own weak side; this is why carrier/destroyer vessels (NB: the FS1 ref bible makes it pretty clear that destroyers are as much carriers as anything else) are king, because their fighter and bomber assets mean they have a massive coverage in terms of territory; if something jumps in close to a carrier, not only can the carrier retaliate with its own defensive weaponry, it can overwhelm the opposing vessel with fighter and bomber forces that operate at a level of speed and agility far above that of any capital ship. Unless you're suggesting a battleship-type class can be made to operate with both a mass of anti-fighter and anti-capital ship weaponry, without it being a very large use of resources, you're looking at a classic repeat of the problems the WW2 battleships had; gets within reasonable range of carrier, finds itself under attack from all angles by fighters/bombers whilst the carrier makes an exit.
Additionally, the concept of having precise jumps is a double edged sword; if you can say a battleship can jump in close to a carrier, it also means that there is sufficient technological tracking ability to track and harass any battleship with fighter group sorties. If you add stand-off artillery type weapons to the battleship, it then just adds further issues; how do you balance that with enemy fighter groups getting in close (because you can't just slap on aaaf weaponry without consequence), and if you use missiles like trebuchets, where does the ammo storage go?
In terms of fire coverage, again we run into the issues of heat, space, energy, etc restrictions. The Colossus was probably about as powerful as the Sathanas, but it had better fire coverage at the cost of individual damage (whereas the Sath had a great frontal attack but was very vulnerable elsewhere as a result). Even accounting for fighterbays, which only covered a tiny area (externally) of these vessels.
And The Colossus was not designed to fight anything as big as a Sath. It didn't have beam cannons designed for that, so to do more damage it had to overload them.
A BB would have beam cannons designed for that specific purpose (and would have reactors and heat sinks where the Collie has it's fighterbays)
Presumably then it would also have appropriate weaknesses, such as a lack of adequate AAAf defenses, then? Because you don't get anything without compromising somewhere else. Also, you can't just shove all the heatsinks & reactors in one place; remember you have to transfer either heat or coolant somehow, and that requires an infrastructure to do so that prevents any centralisation (plus it creates a huge vulnerable weakspot), plus additional issues in protecting said heatsinks (because you obviously can't just vent heat into the ship wholesale, if a beam cannon can generate enough to melt armour; plus I'm not sure how easy it is to vent externally, given that AFAIK you need some form of particle for heat transfer, and you're operating in a vacuum). Given that the largest ship in the fleet had difficulties powering beams to hurt a Sath, I doubt it'd be a problem easily solved in a smaller ship.
The problem is that your main justification centres around theoretical weaponry and technology; namely reducing crew requirements, longer range weaponry, assumptions about heat and energy requirements, and presuming that it's even possible to load up a ship with both long range, point defense, and anti-capship weaponry with higher armour and absolutely no consequences in terms of size/profile or cost.
Essentially a wrecking ball of a ship laden with a multitude of hitherto unseen turrets of remarkable power, range and low heat/energy requirements and possesing nigh-invulnerable armour that sits and pulverizes a willing enemy force and has no weaknesses beyond less fighters (but is somehow invulnerable to enemy bomber attack and not hunted down by more mobile enemy forces to be slowly attrited).
Unfortunately, none of the required tech is seen to exist in FS2. I suppose you can justify it (the concept) existing in campaigns set afterwards, but there's a feasibility gap in doing so as you'd expect to see countermeasures - much in the same way as a destroyer is not invulnerable to attack (and there are also very solid gameplay reasons for such).
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As Shade pointed out already he said that not me. Now say you're sorry.
Correct. He assumed that. You just followed his comments.
Wrong yet again! You made your assertion that I had said that a BB would be 6km long in a reply to a post I had written before Shade had even posted. How in ****'s name am I figuring out what Shade is going to assume further on in the thread and then following it?
I have always been on about destroyer sized battleship. You've made a poor assumption if you ever assumed that I was on about anything different.
I wouldn't be pressing this point if you hadn't (rather insultingly) told me to check my facts when it was in fact you who was in error but you did, so now you now owe me two apologies. :p
I never said it was the ultimate answer to everything. It has some advanatges over other capship classes in some situations, and some disadvantages too.
The biggest disadvantage is it's szie and no fightercover. So yes, fighters/bomber are it's weakness, but that doesn't mean it's a pushover.. After all, would you consider the Colossus a pushover for fighters to take out?
The Colossus and Sathanas have their own fighter cover. Without it, yes they are pushovers. Bearbaiting is good proof of exactly how big a pushover they in fact are. The largest ship in the Shivan armada was taken down largely by a couple of sqadrons of fighters and bombers precisely due to it's abysmal lack of fighter cover. The Colossus may have laid the final smackdown on the Sathanas but once its beam cannons were gone it was just a case of doing the same thing to its engines and then hull.
I'd say that any ship taking significant damage from another ship with no real way to stop it counts as being a pushover. Even if it takes time to do it.
And don't bother bringing up the point of the Saths poor AAA. The mission also limited the player to ships without the maxim. Same mission with good AAA but 50 maxim enabled fighters would have had largely the same effect.
When a destroyer jumps tough the node most of it's firepower is unavailable, as it has to luanch all ti's fighters fist. A BB can unleash 100% of it's firepower the second it jumps in. And can take more punishment. Thus it can deal more damage to the blockading ships than a destroyer.
Why the hell are you giving this kind of advantage to the BB? You always do this. You stack every single situation in the BBs favour and then hold it up as proof that you're correct. Any sensible commander of a blockade would have ships in subspace guarding the corridor. When the BB is spotted coming they'd simply move out of range of the BBs guns take out all the beam cannons they could with maxims and then move in to finish it off.
Given that it takes about 10 minutes to travel through a node the destroyer(s) in the blockade would have ample time to get a fair few of their fighters in the air before hand. And that's not forgetting that any self respecting blocade should have at least a couple of maxim enabled fighters on patrol constantly anyway.
Remember that the entire NTF war and the TV war before that was largely a matter of node blockades. If a BB was such an advantage against blockades surely someone would have thought of them previously.
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@ TrashMan: Fine, you love battleships. Now stop trying to force everyone else to see what a golden jewels of heaven they are.
@ Everyone else: Fine, TrashMan loves battleships. Now stop trying to force him see what a piece of crap they are.
Jesus christ! What the **** is wrong with you people?
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prophet hit the nail on the head here.
Though i had to say, i never thaught you could just "leave" ships in subspace.
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Though i had to say, i never thaught you could just "leave" ships in subspace.
There's no evidence that you can't turn a ship around in subspace and come back out the way you came in. Similarly there is none that you can't simply leave a ship in patrol in subspace.
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However, the fact that we've basically never seen it done would suggest that Subspace physics work a lot like Derelict surmised, intense traffic or use of a subspace corridor would most likely lead to said corridor incurring damage of some sort.
Or perhaps a subspace generator continues to function whilst in subspace. I haven't checked the Techroom description in a while, but isn't it possible that the subspace generator must remain active whilst in subspace, and would thus create a power-drain on all systems? That would explain why fighter-drives are rare & expensive (power constraints) and why combat inside subspace is rarely seen (the Lucifer being the only case mentioned across both games I believe), again due to power constraints prohibiting the use of weapons.
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I think that the whole subspace patrol idea goes down with the first mission of the FS2.. 'We have vectored its course into your immediate vicinity' (command about NTCv Belisarius) IMHO indicating that subspace jumps end point is determined and can even be traced by other ships when the subspace drive is engaged. Also the time when the ship arrives can be estimated '...exiting subspace momentarily'..
But those are just my opinions..
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The NTCv Belisarius, a Deimos-class corvette, has run our blockade of the Sirius jump node. We are now tracking the vessel through subspace. We have vectored its course to your immediate vicinity.
My assumption has always been that the Belisarius was tracked by ships at the Sirius jump node after it had lept in, recharged it's engines and then jumped out again.
I suppose that could be an indication that they didn't know it was coming and that it took the ships guarding the node by surprise. Equally likely though is that they did know it was coming but they just weren't good enough to hold it (In the same way that if the player is crap ships can get past the blockade in Kings Gambit).
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I allways figured that subspace jump is just that, a jump. Not a B5 like hyperspace where you can navigate normally. You set the coordinates, and jump. Next time anyone can do anything about it is when you arrive where ever you were going...
My theory about tracking ships trought subspace (intra-system jump) is that when the portal opens, it is possible to "read" from the vortex where it goes.
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Though i had to say, i never thaught you could just "leave" ships in subspace.
AFAIK...or anyone else...you can't. Derelict posited you can, but there's no real support for it.
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There's no evidence in either direction.
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@ TrashMan: Fine, you love battleships. Now stop trying to force everyone else to see what a golden jewels of heaven they are.
@ Everyone else: Fine, TrashMan loves battleships. Now stop trying to force him see what a piece of crap they are.
Jesus christ! What the **** is wrong with you people?
Very neutral reply :rolleyes:
We're jsut having a civic discussion for hte sake of discussion. I doubt any one of us will change thier minds here, but it's fun :D
Chill out.
I wouldn't be pressing this point if you hadn't (rather insultingly) told me to check my facts when it was in fact you who was in error but you did, so now you now owe me two apologies. :p
My Bad.. In all the haste I cofused the posts. I apologize.
The Colossus and Sathanas have their own fighter cover. Without it, yes they are pushovers. Bearbaiting is good proof of exactly how big a pushover they in fact are. The largest ship in the Shivan armada was taken down largely by a couple of sqadrons of fighters and bombers precisely due to it's abysmal lack of fighter cover. The Colossus may have laid the final smackdown on the Sathanas but once its beam cannons were gone it was just a case of doing the same thing to its engines and then hull.
Well, the Sath was poorly design too. It really din't have well-armored main guns and not enouhg AF defense around them either.
And don't bother bringing up the point of the Saths poor AAA. The mission also limited the player to ships without the maxim. Same mission with good AAA but 50 maxim enabled fighters would have had largely the same effect.
the Maxim issue is hte thing that bugs me the most.. It doesn't make sense..
If it's such a uber-weapon for fighters against capships (and it is9, why isn't it used anywere except in ONE mission, against shivan gas freighters??? You'd think it would be mandatory when you're assaulting large targets. And you had ample stock of it too. not to mention the fact that it's grossly unbalancing...parking 3 klicks aways from a ship and shooting at it isn't what space-fighter gameplay should be all about.. and I doubt [V] wanted it that way.
That's why I think it was a mistake.. I played FS2 several times, and only after several play-troughs have I found out about the Maxims range. If I can miss it, so could [V]'s testers.
anyway, this has realyl no significant relavance to our discussion, so let's carry on, shall we?
Why the hell are you giving this kind of advantage to the BB? You always do this. You stack every single situation in the BBs favour and then hold it up as proof that you're correct. Any sensible commander of a blockade would have ships in subspace guarding the corridor. When the BB is spotted coming they'd simply move out of range of the BBs guns take out all the beam cannons they could with maxims and then move in to finish it off.
Ships in subspace guarding a corridor? Waiting in subspace? Well, that's the first I've heard of that. Certanly not cannon.
The blockade is on the other side of the node, they don't know when an enemy is coming or what kind of enemy it is.
The attacking force would have a small fleet securing the other side, so that no recon wings can come trough and report back.
Given that it takes about 10 minutes to travel through a node the destroyer(s) in the blockade would have ample time to get a fair few of their fighters in the air before hand. And that's not forgetting that any self respecting blocade should have at least a couple of maxim enabled fighters on patrol constantly anyway.
Yes, a blockading force would have more fighters out, since they don't trave trough nodes. This is a advantage the defending force allways has, regardless if it's up against a BB or destroyer. What's your point?
I would still give a BB better damage or survival chances than a destroyer + fighter wing (exiting the node, so other fighters are inside and ready to launch)
@Aldo_14
What my point is?
Any ship can escape when attacked (but not instantly - it will take several seconds). If you're allready escaoing, you'll probably escape towards one of your bases and safety, so for now, let's assume the ship can't be chased after.
The point is that a BB can deal more damage in those several seconds upon arrival, before the enemy ship escapes, than a destroyer can.
Allso, note that when I say BB then I mean design with great coverage from main gus...I consider ships with focused weaponry dreadnoughts.
That's why a BB would be very capable of both attacking and defending, no matter his position/orientation towards the enemy.
As for ammo storage for missiles on a BB, considring how much a fighter carries and uses, a destroyer would still have much bigger weapon storage bays than a BB...But that's onyl if a BB has treb launchers..that is a onl a possibility.
The problem is that your main justification centres around theoretical weaponry and technology; namely reducing crew requirements, longer range weaponry, assumptions about heat and energy requirements, and presuming that it's even possible to load up a ship with both long range, point defense, and anti-capship weaponry with higher armour and absolutely no consequences in terms of size/profile or cost.
Crew number would be smaller since there is no fightercrew. Simple logic. It's no theory.
I never really defined a weapon range for a BB. Doesn't have to be longer.
I'm making just as much assumptions about heat and energy as you are - a BB would have several reactors, spread across (like Lucifer) It would have bigger beam cannons with a LOT bigger heatsinks - that would give it increased surface for heat dissipation. And we know it would have plenty of room to spare. and of course, the weapons wouldn't be clustered, but spaced away and heavily armoured.
Essentially a wrecking ball of a ship laden with a multitude of hitherto unseen turrets of remarkable power, range and low heat/energy requirements and possesing nigh-invulnerable armour that sits and pulverizes a willing enemy force and has no weaknesses beyond less fighters (but is somehow invulnerable to enemy bomber attack and not hunted down by more mobile enemy forces to be slowly attrited).
and of course, I never said that it wouldn't affect the cost or size in any way. That depends. It might be more expensive to build than a destroyer (without fighters...maby even with them), but it's running cost would be smaller, as it has less crew and doesn't require as much supplies.
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the Maxim issue is hte thing that bugs me the most.. It doesn't make sense..
If it's such a uber-weapon for fighters against capships (and it is9, why isn't it used anywere except in ONE mission, against shivan gas freighters???
:wtf: A quick grep of the FS2 missions shows 9 missions where the maxim is available including several where there are ships armed with them by default. What in hell are you on about :confused:
You'd think it would be mandatory when you're assaulting large targets. And you had ample stock of it too. not to mention the fact that it's grossly unbalancing...parking 3 klicks aways from a ship and shooting at it isn't what space-fighter gameplay should be all about.. and I doubt [V] wanted it that way.
That's why I think it was a mistake.. I played FS2 several times, and only after several play-troughs have I found out about the Maxims range. If I can miss it, so could [V]'s testers.
The hud even gives you indicators that show you when you can hit something with your guns so I've got no idea why it took you so long to notice the range but nonetheless FS2 is full of examples where the ships in the players wings are given substandard guns. The idea was that the player was supposed to choose his strategy. Unless you think there was some tactical reason why Command kept sending out fighters armed with the prom R after the S was back in service (well a reason other than a Just Another Day style round of lay offs :lol: )
Anway the maxim is basically a mass driver, a weapon with an incredibly high theoretical range. If anything :v: have made the range of the maxim lower than the physics would put it at. When it comes to mass drivers targetting ability is a far greater hinderance.
Ships in subspace guarding a corridor? Waiting in subspace? Well, that's the first I've heard of that. Certanly not cannon.
The blockade is on the other side of the node, they don't know when an enemy is coming or what kind of enemy it is.
The attacking force would have a small fleet securing the other side, so that no recon wings can come trough and report back.
Very well I shall use an argument we have seen in canon. You assume that a BB can leap in and attack the ships guarding the node but lets take a look at the best mission in FS2 where we see something like that actually happening, Kings Gambit. Where is the Hedetet parked in that mission? 5km from the node. Well out of the range of anything in the fleet that was coming at it.
Strikes me that this is the expected possition for a blockade. The ships in a GTVA blockade aren't just sitting there ready to be surprised by enemy forces that jump in. They're positioned away from the node ready to launch alert fighters and move in and kick the crap out of anything that does try to enter the system.
Yes, a blockading force would have more fighters out, since they don't trave trough nodes. This is a advantage the defending force allways has, regardless if it's up against a BB or destroyer. What's your point?
I would still give a BB better damage or survival chances than a destroyer + fighter wing (exiting the node, so other fighters are inside and ready to launch)
My point is that your assumption is wrong. The BB would take more damage because it has no way to reach out to the fighters with the maxims and prevent them from firing at it except for getting them in range of it's own AAA. That would give the fighters a minute or two of unapposed maxim fire against the BB.
A destroyer on the other hand can send out fighters and force the enemies fighters to dogfight. Due to that factor alone it could come out better. even a minute of sustained maxim fire is going to do serious damage.
Crew number would be smaller since there is no fightercrew. Simple logic. It's no theory.
You're making the assumption that the greater number of turrets doesn't eat into that number. You're the one sticking 50 maxim turrets on your ships. How many people do you need per turret? Cause just 10 crew = 500 extras.
I'm making just as much assumptions about heat and energy as you are - a BB would have several reactors, spread across (like Lucifer)
And we all saw what an Achilles heel that was. :)
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My main qualm with caqpships in freespace has always been situations liek the maxim/trebuchet.
In my perfect world all capships would be armed with weapons long ranged enough so you actualy had to fight them.
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@Aldo_14
What my point is?
Any ship can escape when attacked (but not instantly - it will take several seconds). If you're allready escaoing, you'll probably escape towards one of your bases and safety, so for now, let's assume the ship can't be chased after.
The point is that a BB can deal more damage in those several seconds upon arrival, before the enemy ship escapes, than a destroyer can.
Allso, note that when I say BB then I mean design with great coverage from main gus...I consider ships with focused weaponry dreadnoughts.
That's why a BB would be very capable of both attacking and defending, no matter his position/orientation towards the enemy.
As for ammo storage for missiles on a BB, considring how much a fighter carries and uses, a destroyer would still have much bigger weapon storage bays than a BB...But that's onyl if a BB has treb launchers..that is a onl a possibility.
The problem is that there's no way you can just add all that weaponry cost-free; just look at a Deimos compared to a Leviathan or Aeolus; there's no exponential increase in weapons capacity with size - more a diminishing return. If you're envisaging a 'no matter what orientation' approach, it means you can't have focused weaponry due to simple size, energy, etc restrictions that are demonstrated by the varying sized ships in FS2 (for larger vessels, compare the Colossus with the Hecate, Orion and Hatshepsut).
For example, what protection does a battleship have against long range (trebuchet) bomber attacks? And against attacks by beam weaponry? Or close range flak bombardment from a vessel with focused weaponry, or flanking assaults by smaller ships armed with beams ala the Deimos?
Perhaps to make it easier, why don't you specify an approximate size, armament and turret placement for such a ship; I'm pretty sure you'd find a weakness of some sort, as there is with all vessels.
Also, specifically, a larger magazine space constitutes a vulnerability; because that stuff would naturally have to be stored close to the turrets (for fighter munitions it can be held well-protected in internal stores with only operational stocks in the prep areas), it makes a vulnerable target for splash damage. IIRC FS1 or 2 states that support ships can cause a significant explosion when destroyed, so what of a capship-sized magazine?
Crew number would be smaller since there is no fightercrew. Simple logic. It's no theory. I never really defined a weapon range for a BB. Doesn't have to be longer.
I'm making just as much assumptions about heat and energy as you are - a BB would have several reactors, spread across (like Lucifer) It would have bigger beam cannons with a LOT bigger heatsinks - that would give it increased surface for heat dissipation. And we know it would have plenty of room to spare. and of course, the weapons wouldn't be clustered, but spaced away and heavily armoured.
and of course, I never said that it wouldn't affect the cost or size in any way. That depends. It might be more expensive to build than a destroyer (without fighters...maby even with them), but it's running cost would be smaller, as it has less crew and doesn't require as much supplies.
Firstly, several reactors constitutes a severe weakness.
Secondly, those reactors have their own requirements for cooling, energy transfer, and crucially seperation (to protect the ship from damage by internal reactor overloads), affecting size and space usage. Again, diminishing returns.
Thirdly, I'm not sure you just need surface area for heat dissapation; IIRC, heat dissipation requires transfer of that heat energy (in crude terms) to another medium; in space you're in pretty much a vacuum, so you'd need some form of active cooling (IMO part of the reason for the Colossus suffering hull damage from long-term beam firing would be these coolant systems overheating and thus affecting the outer hull; I assume the outer hull because an overheating system is a fire risk, and it's easier to vent oxygen on the outer areas of the ship).
Fourthly, as Kara pointed out, the much smaller Deimos has not a proportionally smaller crew to the Orion. (6000 to 10,000; and 30,000 to the Colossus IIRC). Given that destroyers have, what, 100-odd fighters and support, I'm not sure you'd need more than 1000 people to service them (that'd be 8-9 mechanics to each fighter, with maybe 2 pilots each on average, plus some flight support crew for arranging takeoffs, etc).
In terms of cost; the problem is that a battleship is not efficient, even if combat effective. A destroyer/carrier - even a fighterbay-equipped corvette or cruiser- has a massive projection of force, can provide fighter/bomber support and escort across an entire system, can act as a staging post for an offensive, has an extremely long range defensive net (from interceptor patrols - assuming it has no support groups, ala the Falklands RN taskforce, for perimeter defense), and is still formidably armed in order to extricate itself from tricky situations (offhand, I'm not sure I remember any destroyer-on-destroyer fights in FS2.... might be wrong, though, but IMO they would delegate it to mixed forces of cruisers and corvettes with fighter support).
A battleship, on the other hand, is a formidable ship, but one which can only have a very limited individual impact (very short range projection of power; only to the range of it's own guns) and would likely require fighter support from an allied destroyer in order to avoid it being wore down by bomber attrition. That, and it also may be much more expensive if it does have multiple reactors, etc.
So it's got less tactical flexibility than a destroyer, about the same firepower at best (because it will only have a few seconds of time to inflict it if it is powerful, and a carrier/destroyers firepower can be measured including the fighter wings it holds), cannot provide support to other vessels and may actually require to be provided it (for bomber defense), can only attack or defend a single position (opposed to bomber and fighter wings from a destroyer covering an entire system), and a similar material cost to a destroyer; To me that would make it obselete if the idea was ever even considered by the GTA/PVN/GTVA.
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Anway the maxim is basically a mass driver, a weapon with an incredibly high theoretical range. If anything :v: have made the range of the maxim lower than the physics would put it at. When it comes to mass drivers targetting ability is a far greater hinderance.
So? The laser has obscene range. Hell, years ago we shot a laser on the moon. You'd think that by FS time they'd be able to make something similar...
Very well I shall use an argument we have seen in canon. You assume that a BB can leap in and attack the ships guarding the node but lets take a look at the best mission in FS2 where we see something like that actually happening, Kings Gambit. Where is the Hedetet parked in that mission? 5km from the node. Well out of the range of anything in the fleet that was coming at it.
Strikes me that this is the expected possition for a blockade. The ships in a GTVA blockade aren't just sitting there ready to be surprised by enemy forces that jump in. They're positioned away from the node ready to launch alert fighters and move in and kick the crap out of anything that does try to enter the system.
Good argument. Strange that there havn't been ships developed designed for fast-aircraft-launch actions. Carriers wiht several fighterbays. They would be able to launcha storm after clearing the node, and the enemy destroyers would be too far away to atack it with it's guns.
However, are you sure they are that far? I recall the Vasudan destroyer being in weapons range and shotting at ships that cleared the node (adn they were shooting back).
Eitehr way, no sane admiral would send ships one by one to break a blockade, but rather he would take a more en-masse approach. Whole fleets. And that is where the BB + carrier + destroyer combination is better than 3 destroyers.
Yes, a blockading force would have more fighters out, since they don't trave trough nodes. This is a advantage the defending force allways has, regardless if it's up against a BB or destroyer. What's your point?
I would still give a BB better damage or survival chances than a destroyer + fighter wing (exiting the node, so other fighters are inside and ready to launch)
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My point is that your assumption is wrong. The BB would take more damage because it has no way to reach out to the fighters with the maxims and prevent them from firing at it except for getting them in range of it's own AAA. That would give the fighters a minute or two of unapposed maxim fire against the BB.
A destroyer on the other hand can send out fighters and force the enemies fighters to dogfight. Due to that factor alone it could come out better. even a minute of sustained maxim fire is going to do serious damage.
Somehow I think that minute of heavy beam fire is kinda more dangerous....
Crew number would be smaller since there is no fightercrew. Simple logic. It's no theory.
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You're making the assumption that the greater number of turrets doesn't eat into that number. You're the one sticking 50 maxim turrets on your ships. How many people do you need per turret? Cause just 10 crew = 500 extras.
I have no idea what you're going on about here and what's those extras you come up with.. having 50 turrets would require - 50-100 crewman more. While having 50 fightes would require 300-400 crewman more.
I'm making just as much assumptions about heat and energy as you are - a BB would have several reactors, spread across (like Lucifer)
And we all saw what an Achilles heel that was. :)
Everything has to have a weaknes...
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I should really leave this to kara, but I'm quite bored :)
Eitehr way, no sane admiral would send ships one by one to break a blockade, but rather he would take a more en-masse approach. Whole fleets. And that is where the BB + carrier + destroyer combination is better than 3 destroyers.
How do you know it's possible to send a multitude of ships at once through a node?
I have no idea what you're going on about here and what's those extras you come up with.. having 50 turrets would require - 50-100 crewman more. While having 50 fightes would require 300-400 crewman more.
Turrets need maintenance, for one thing. Then there's crew to man the things; presumably at least one, in 8 hour average shifts or so. Then there's maintaining the stuff that hooks up to the turret; energy and cooling conduits, whatever machinery and sensory ties things into the outside world (to actually see their targets), maintaining said tracking technology, etc. And also the guys who handle the ammunition storage and soforth, for the likes of flak and missile turrets.
So? The laser has obscene range. Hell, years ago we shot a laser on the moon. You'd think that by FS time they'd be able to make something similar...
I don't think that laser was capable of cutting through armour plating, though.....
Everything has to have a weaknes...
Point is how bad a weakness it is. The destroyer can be viewed as an 'average' class in many areas, but that's a consequence of having no specific, easily exploitable and key weakness. Whereas relying on multiple reactors is rather a key weakness; lose one and you at the very least lose a big chunk of your offensive capability; if you're unlucky, you could possibly lose something even more critical, like (part of your) life support or engines.
Somehow I think that minute of heavy beam fire is kinda more dangerous....
That depends on if the enemy vessel is in the FOV or in range, and if the beam hits (all beams have a miss factor); also that the incoming fighters don't hit your weapons subsystem and specific turrets, which a sensible defense would do. Plus a primarily fighter / bomber blockade is free from that.
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I should really leave this to kara, but I'm quite bored :)
The more the merrier I say :D
So? The laser has obscene range. Hell, years ago we shot a laser on the moon. You'd think that by FS time they'd be able to make something similar...
And? Did it blow up the moon? Did it do any damage at all? Thought not. The GTVA only figured out beams 30 odd years ago. They don't have long range lasers of any power.
However, are you sure they are that far? I recall the Vasudan destroyer being in weapons range and shotting at ships that cleared the node (adn they were shooting back).
The caps come into range thanks to their inertia when exiting the node. But it's worth pointing out that in that case the GTVA had the mjolnirs in position and new the enemy caps wouldn't last long so they could afford to be a little closer in order to ensure maximum damage. When dealing with a BB they'd pull even further back.
Eitehr way, no sane admiral would send ships one by one to break a blockade, but rather he would take a more en-masse approach. Whole fleets.
As Aldo pointed out there is no evidence whatsoever that you can even do that. Kings Gambit seems to point against it in fact.
Somehow I think that minute of heavy beam fire is kinda more dangerous....
Of course it is. But the BB has no one to spend one minute of heavy beam damage on. It's just slowly moving towards the enemy and taking a kicking that entire minute because it's weapons aren't in range of anyone.
As I said before even 1 wing of fighters launched immediately from the destroyer can close enough distance to the enemy fighters to prevent that tactic.
I have no idea what you're going on about here and what's those extras you come up with.. having 50 turrets would require - 50-100 crewman more. While having 50 fightes would require 300-400 crewman more.
Where are you getting those numbers from! Look at the deimos. What does it require 6000 personnel for if not for tending to the turrets? Your crewmen numbers were simply picked at random. You have no canon proof whatsoever to back them up.
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Because there's no medium to transfer heat to in space, radiators are all you c an use.
Nontheless, freespace ships have never seemed to show large radiator panels of any sort.
and the GTVA does have long range weapons, they just cant hit anything with them.
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@aldo: Although I can't remember specifics, there are several missions in the Freespace games where multiple ships are seen exiting the same subspace node at the same time - the FS1 escort mission in Alpha Centauri is the best example I could come up with in the 20 seconds it took to write this.
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But those ships are all small. There's plenty of oppertunity, but you never see anything larger than a cruiser exit subspace near another ship. A simple argument here would be that the space "inside" a node (the area from which you can enter the subspace corridor from real space) is only so large, and multiple capital class ships cannot occupy it at the same time. The physical size of the node model backs that up.
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@aldo: Although I can't remember specifics, there are several missions in the Freespace games where multiple ships are seen exiting the same subspace node at the same time - the FS1 escort mission in Alpha Centauri is the best example I could come up with in the 20 seconds it took to write this.
hi,
yes, but this was transporters and fighters.
no bigger ships.
i cant rembemer anytime to see, that any big ships jump in the same moment out of the supspace.
they came every time, one by one.
maybe the space in subspace is limit, but a shantans is very big too.
its a little bit strange ..
Mehrpack
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@aldo: Although I can't remember specifics, there are several missions in the Freespace games where multiple ships are seen exiting the same subspace node at the same time - the FS1 escort mission in Alpha Centauri is the best example I could come up with in the 20 seconds it took to write this.
Yes, but they were likely only cruiser-size and below. Trashman is suggesting three vessels of Destroyer size and above coming through the same node at the same time, roughly facing the same direction (although a radial deployment would look shiny). F*** me, the node is barely big enough to accommodate a single destroyer, let alone three vessels of larger size and a safe amount of space between them!
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It's also worth noting that not only did the GTVA know when the capships would arrive from the node but they knew on which vector they'd exit.
If you've ever set up a mjolnir in FRED you'll know that it's a pain in the arse to aim correctly but all of the Mjolnirs in Kings Gambit point in exactly the right direction and the capships are also positioned so as to close the box on the NTF ships.
That seems to suggest that capships can only leave a node facing a certain direction. Never tried looking for evidence to contradict that though so it may have just been a stupid manouver on the capships part. However if it is true Trashman's capships would all have to exit on the same vector and avoid piling into each other.
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There are a couple of times in FS1 (one of them the dreaded "Death of Hope" which screws with several other faucets of canon) where ships exit a node in multiple directions, but never in FS2 IIRC.
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Oki now that i've read all this it makes me wonder if some of the people here were accidently dropped on theyr heads when they were children?? I mean WTF where do you get 50 maxims or 50 treb launchers on a BB? That bloody thing wasnt suposed to be as big as a Sath or the colossus for that matter. It was just suposed to be slightly bigger then a dreadnought but with massive more armour and with heavier weaponry NOT NECESARILY MORE .
As for the whole fighter cover did anyone bother to read the fact that the BB would have a small fighterbay exactly for bommber/fighter protection or rather added fighter/bommber protection.
As far as I know there is no bomb/torpedo/missile that has a lockon range bigger then a few km. A beam cannon can reach up to 10 km and more (corect me if i'm wrong).
The main lesson is that I need to downsize the dreadnought and the BB.
Oh and so that I dont forget:WHAT KIND OF AN IDIOT SENDS A BB OR A DREADNOUGHT OR A DEDICATED CARRIER TO ENGAGE THE ENEMY OR SMASH A BLOCKADE ON ITS OWN?????? I figured you would send in like a dreadnought or a BB with at least a destroyer or a couple of corvettes and cruisers and a small dedicated carrier to provide that much needed "force projecion" . But hey thats just me i would not send these kinds of assets to theyr doom just because others would!
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Oki now that i've read all this it makes me wonder if some of the people here were accidently dropped on theyr heads when they were children??
Insulting behaviour will get you in trouble. Keep it to a minimum.
I mean WTF where do you get 50 maxims or 50 treb launchers on a BB? That bloody thing wasnt suposed to be as big as a Sath or the colossus for that matter. It was just suposed to be slightly bigger then a dreadnought but with massive more armour and with heavier weaponry NOT NECESARILY MORE .
The 50 maxims thing is Trashman's idea of a BB. I find it funny that even you find that excessive :)
As for the whole fighter cover did anyone bother to read the fact that the BB would have a small fighterbay exactly for bommber/fighter protection or rather added fighter/bommber protection.
In the FS universe a BB with a fighterbay is a destroyer. In your case the destroyer you're envisioning may stress front line capabilities over fighter lauching ones. That simply makes it a destroyer on the other end of the scale from the Hecate which has the exact opposite use.
Most of us are arguing against Trashman's definition of what a BB is not yours. His destoyers have no fighter cover in order to maximise their number of weapons. Most of us simply don't think that's realistic.
Personally I don't think your ship ideas were that realistic either but others had already explained why they thought that and you weren't posting any counter arguments so I've been showing Trashman why he's wrong. If you want me to start up on you too, I'm more than happy to :p
As far as I know there is no bomb/torpedo/missile that has a lockon range bigger then a few km. A beam cannon can reach up to 10 km and more (corect me if i'm wrong).
You're wrong. The BFRed and the LRBGreen have a range of around 7-8km. The other anti-capship weapons are capped at 4km and the anti-fighter ones at 1.5km.
Oh and so that I dont forget:WHAT KIND OF AN IDIOT SENDS A BB OR A DREADNOUGHT OR A DEDICATED CARRIER TO ENGAGE THE ENEMY OR SMASH A BLOCKADE ON ITS OWN?????? I figured you would send in like a dreadnought or a BB with at least a destroyer or a couple of corvettes and cruisers and a small dedicated carrier to provide that much needed "force projecion" . But hey thats just me i would not send these kinds of assets to theyr doom just because others would!
As was stated several times there's absolutely no proof whatsoever that you can have multiple ships arrive via a node that way. Sure maybe the admiral commanding the fleet wants to do that but there's no proof that he actually can. And the mission King's Gambit does rather seem to suggest that he can't.
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How do you know it's possible to send a multitude of ships at once through a node?
How do you think fleets move their ships? One by one?
We have seen the Lucifer and several fighter wings occuping the same node corridor at once.
We have allso seen transport entering the node en masse (wiht 1-2 seconds delay)
In King's Gambit the enemy warships were running from the Colossuss towards GD in no particular order.
And a fleet jumping doesn't mean they have to jump all in the same nanoseconds, but in VERY small intervals (several seconds)
There's alls othe Sathanas Issue. If it's big enough to jump trough the node, then so can two destroyers side-by side... that of course, if we assume they jumped at the exact same time.
Turrets need maintenance, for one thing.
Of course they do. But fighters need more.
A 30 turret destroyer and 150 fighters and 60-80 turrets BB.
Gee.. I wonder which needs more crew?
b.t.w. - I did a small test in Truespace where I arranged 120 fighters as seen in the FS mainhalls on how terran hangarbays look, and compared that to hte Orion. Guess what - they take a helluva lot of space. Far more than even I tought! :eek2:
I don't think that laser was capable of cutting through armour plating, though.....
It was a low-powered laser and primitive at that, whose purpose was to mesure the distance to the moon, not to do damage. GTVA has fusion reactors, power plants on fighters and far more advanced laser tech than we have now. So the damage is something they can easily increase by that time.
Point is how bad a weakness it is. The destroyer can be viewed as an 'average' class in many areas, but that's a consequence of having no specific, easily exploitable and key weakness. Whereas relying on multiple reactors is rather a key weakness; lose one and you at the very least lose a big chunk of your offensive capability; if you're unlucky, you could possibly lose something even more critical, like (part of your) life support or engines.
Again, this falls back to design - where are the reacort located? How armoured vulnerable are tehy? Does the sihp even need all of them or are some back-ups?
And back to the argument of not being able to fit all that heat sinks and weapons and reactors into it - there's a canon example you're completely wrong.
Leviathan and Fenris - same size, same shape. Leviathan has more than twice the armor and firepower.
And you're telling me you couldn't do that on a bigger scane, on a bigger hull?
That depends on if the enemy vessel is in the FOV or in range, and if the beam hits (all beams have a miss factor); also that the incoming fighters don't hit your weapons subsystem and specific turrets, which a sensible defense would do. Plus a primarily fighter / bomber blockade is free from that.
If you want good node defense your capship have to be in range to deliver the hurt. Blockading the node focuses on crippling/destroying enemy warship as fast as possible, before they can launch fighters or bring more reinforcements trough the node.
Pulling back your capships and reliyng only on fighters/bombers is a bad idea, as while they are focusing on a BB and wearing it down, more ships will jump in to provide support. In this scenario the BB is practilcy buying time as it takes a bit longer to destroy. And thus the defending fighters will have to face enemy capships point-defense and their fighter complements.
And if you amass your capship aroudn the node, you're practicly letting the BB fire off a few salvo's at them, since you can't destroy/disable him fast enoughto prevent it. And again, support jumps in and you're f***, since you have damaged capships, a enemy BB that's still "afloat" and mroe enemy capships and fighters incoming.
This is all assuming, the defending force doesn't have BB's.
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And back to the argument of not being able to fit all that heat sinks and weapons and reactors into it - there's a canon example you're completely wrong.
Leviathan and Fenris - same size, same shape. Leviathan has more than twice the armor and firepower.
And you're telling me you couldn't do that on a bigger scane, on a bigger hull?
The Leviathan pays very heavily in terms of speed for that armour. Apply the same logic to a BB and you end up with something that moves at 5m/s. If you're willing to accept that consession then fine but in previous arguments you have repeatedly stated that you see no reason why a BB should be much slower than a destroyer, even going so far as to quote wet navy speed figures for the Iowa class as if that is somehow relevent to the discussion.
If you're finally admitting that these things slow down the BB in comparison to the destroyer at least we're making some progress.
How do you think fleets move their ships? One by one?
We have seen the Lucifer and several fighter wings occuping the same node corridor at once.
We have allso seen transport entering the node en masse (wiht 1-2 seconds delay)
But we've never seen two heavy warships exit at the same time. Have we. It might not be possible for two ships large ships to enter or exit subspace like that at the same time.
In King's Gambit the enemy warships were running from the Colossuss towards GD in no particular order.
And a fleet jumping doesn't mean they have to jump all in the same nanoseconds, but in VERY small intervals (several seconds)
They may have been running but there's no indication anywhere that they were under fire from anything as they actually entered subspace. As for jumping in close to each other where do you think they'd end up if they did that? Smacking into each other!
As I said earlier there is canon evidence that capships (at least) come out of a node facing a certain direction. They'd simply steam into each other. Not to mention that they'd get in each others way.
There's alls othe Sathanas Issue. If it's big enough to jump trough the node, then so can two destroyers side-by side... that of course, if we assume they jumped at the exact same time.
Again your assuming that size is the issue here. It may not be. It could be that avoiding a subspace pile up or the simple fact that there is only one route out of a node that is the issue here.
A 30 turret destroyer and 150 fighters and 60-80 turrets BB.
Gee.. I wonder which needs more crew?
Check the WWII stats for the Iowa you're so fond of and you'll find its the BB. The big guns required upto 110 people each. Given the number of crew the Deimos requires it could easily be the same with beam cannons.
b.t.w. - I did a small test in Truespace where I arranged 120 fighters as seen in the FS mainhalls on how terran hangarbays look, and compared that to hte Orion. Guess what - they take a helluva lot of space. Far more than even I tought! :eek2:
Which surely helps my argument that you're wrong about internal space being the limiting factor on number of guns a destroyer can carry. Although to be honest all the FS2 ships appear to have tardis-like qualities. Simply stack up the number of missiles a fighter can carry next to the fighter itself for proof of that.
It was a low-powered laser and primitive at that, whose purpose was to mesure the distance to the moon, not to do damage. GTVA has fusion reactors, power plants on fighters and far more advanced laser tech than we have now. So the damage is something they can easily increase by that time.
But as I pointed out it hasn't. Beam cannons are 30 years old and have an effective range of 1.5km. Fighter lasers are even more limited. There's no canon evidence of these super long range lasers that you claim exist.
I'll deal with the rest later.
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Just place say 20 Mjolnirs, each protected by a wing of fighters, around the node. They will tore a BB into pieces. Capships could stay at a safe distance to pursue anything slipped through. Add 15 bombers wings to it, a massive fleet of 10 BBs would not have a chance. Solution? Simple. Send an de-commisioned destroyer loaded with Meson bombs. It will wipe out any small craft within a 5 click radius and severely damage any larger ships (I never quite understood the physics in it, shockwave in space?). Then send bomber wings to chase away any capships left. Then use a destroyer with fighter wings to secure the node. Much more cost effective than a BB.
I am not saying BBs are not useful. The problem with battleships is simple. They are expensive to build and very specialized. Tactically, they are cumbersome, probably also easier to detect than a cruiser or a corvette. Let's assume a typical Terran fleet contains 1 destroyer, 3 Deimos and 8 cruiser, plus 150 combat crafts. Which one would you cut for the BB? You get rid of the destroyer, suddenly you have no fighter support or command center. 3 Deimos may not be as powerful as a BB, but they can chase down 3 cruisers, so they are more versatile. 8 cruisers are needed for patrol and escorts, as well as fighter suppression for the fleet. A BB can not replace any of them whereas a combination of them can do the job a BB. Adding 2 BBs to the fleet means you will either have to increase defense budget, or you have less fleets. In the end, you could have a huge fleet of fearsome battleships that nothing could stop, yet your opponent just running around attacking your undefended systems and cut off your supply line.
That said, BBs are probably very useful to the Shivans who seem to have unlimited resources and always the aggressor. Both Ravana and Sathanas are good examples.
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Well I see a problem. the whole post was suposed to give directions (impartial,neutral) about the usefullnesss of these ship classes. While I tend to accept and understand the fact that a BB would not be that usefull I can not help think of the fact that the GTVA does not really have a powerfull warshipp capable of blasting a few corvettses or destroyers to pieces in a short amount of time. As we have seen simple bommbing runs are not suficient if you want to really hurt the enemy (Sath thing anyone??) You need a ship that cand lash out if necesary at anemy enemy warships and wich can survive a prelunged battle.
The BB was suposed to be that kind of ship. It wasnt suposed to as large as the big C or have fill the role of command ship/supership destroyer/and so on and so on. This ship was built like the Deimos pureli for combat.
Also I do not agree that by sticking 20 or 30 fighters or interceptors on a BB that makes it like a destoryer because they are not even close.
The destroyers main weapons are its fighters/bommbers and the fact that it can deply them anywhere. The BB fighter compliment is just for close range fighter/bommber protection.
But I do agree that such a ship(BB) would have to have much more powerfull AAAf defensive sistems. It would be if you desire the battering ram of an army or its artilery. While not fast it would still be suited for busting down door and taking out enemy concentration of warships. And who sais it has to be much slower then a destroyer ? Bigger ship bigger engines.
The fenris and the leviathan are a bad example because although they had different weapons and armour I dont think they had different engine power.
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How do you know it's possible to send a multitude of ships at once through a node?
How do you think fleets move their ships? One by one?
We have seen the Lucifer and several fighter wings occuping the same node corridor at once.
We have allso seen transport entering the node en masse (wiht 1-2 seconds delay)
I don't have to tell you that about 6 of us has said "yes" to that question more than once, and stated our reasoning. Perhaps reading back over the last page or so would help your memory.
There's alls othe Sathanas Issue. If it's big enough to jump trough the node, then so can two destroyers side-by side... that of course, if we assume they jumped at the exact same time.
That's a flawed argument. You're assuming the "hole" into subspace is of finite dimensions, which is not only unsupported by canon, it's also somewhat misplaced given the way subspace travel is supposed to work. Remember that the jump node model is supposed to be a HUD projection simply marking the node's location; the correct perspective would be that the area "inside" the model is the space you must be in to jump into the corridor. A sath will spill out in all directions, but as long as it occupies that space it can make the jump. A single destroyer fills the space completely, so it can jump. But it can only jump alone or in tandem with much smaller craft. There is no canon example of a corvette or destroyer making an intersystem jump simultaneously with anything other than fighters.
Turrets need maintenance, for one thing.
Of course they do. But fighters need more.
A 30 turret destroyer and 150 fighters and 60-80 turrets BB.
Gee.. I wonder which needs more crew?
Deimos. Deimos, Deimos, Deimos, Deimos. Less than 1km long, no fighters, 27 turrets, 6000 crew. Break that down, extend it to your battleship, minimum crew of 12,000. More than a Destroyer+fighter wings. Which is deceptive anyway, since you'd still need that many fighters stationed somewhere.
b.t.w. - I did a small test in Truespace where I arranged 120 fighters as seen in the FS mainhalls on how terran hangarbays look, and compared that to hte Orion. Guess what - they take a helluva lot of space. Far more than even I tought! :eek2:
I'd be interested in seeing that screenshot, because the stack-o-Ursas that's been around for a while would support that. Not really relevant to the argument at hand though.
I don't think that laser was capable of cutting through armour plating, though.....
It was a low-powered laser and primitive at that, whose purpose was to mesure the distance to the moon, not to do damage. GTVA has fusion reactors, power plants on fighters and far more advanced laser tech than we have now. So the damage is something they can easily increase by that time.
Not when you consider that beam canons are *not* lasers. High-energy particle beam weapons, not Lasers. Quite a different animal when it comes to power requirements and, more importantly, focusing. The limiting factor on such a weapon is the how long it can maintain effective energy levels before it spreads out too much. The subach is a laser IIRC, but it's only got an effective range of 900 meters or so.
Point is how bad a weakness it is. The destroyer can be viewed as an 'average' class in many areas, but that's a consequence of having no specific, easily exploitable and key weakness. Whereas relying on multiple reactors is rather a key weakness; lose one and you at the very least lose a big chunk of your offensive capability; if you're unlucky, you could possibly lose something even more critical, like (part of your) life support or engines.
Again, this falls back to design - where are the reacort located? How armoured vulnerable are tehy? Does the sihp even need all of them or are some back-ups?
And back to the argument of not being able to fit all that heat sinks and weapons and reactors into it - there's a canon example you're completely wrong.
Leviathan and Fenris - same size, same shape. Leviathan has more than twice the armor and firepower.
And you're telling me you couldn't do that on a bigger scane, on a bigger hull?
Go look up the Leviathan stats again. It's more heavily armored, yes. But it is not twice as heavily armed. The main beam is slightly more powerful and a pair of AAA beams added, but otherwise the armament is identical.
That depends on if the enemy vessel is in the FOV or in range, and if the beam hits (all beams have a miss factor); also that the incoming fighters don't hit your weapons subsystem and specific turrets, which a sensible defense would do. Plus a primarily fighter / bomber blockade is free from that.
If you want good node defense your capship have to be in range to deliver the hurt. Blockading the node focuses on crippling/destroying enemy warship as fast as possible, before they can launch fighters or bring more reinforcements trough the node.
Pulling back your capships and reliyng only on fighters/bombers is a bad idea, as while they are focusing on a BB and wearing it down, more ships will jump in to provide support. In this scenario the BB is practilcy buying time as it takes a bit longer to destroy. And thus the defending fighters will have to face enemy capships point-defense and their fighter complements.
And if you amass your capship aroudn the node, you're practicly letting the BB fire off a few salvo's at them, since you can't destroy/disable him fast enoughto prevent it. And again, support jumps in and you're f***, since you have damaged capships, a enemy BB that's still "afloat" and mroe enemy capships and fighters incoming.
This is all assuming, the defending force doesn't have BB's.
And this differs from a destroyer how, exactly? Other than the fact that it can't launch fighters to screen incoming bombers or disable defending warships, that is. It's got heavier armor, but that seemed to not matter one bit in King's Gambit. Ships coming through the node get ripped to shreads in so little time that the difference extra armor could add would be negligable.
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That said, BBs are probably very useful to the Shivans who seem to have unlimited resources and always the aggressor. Both Ravana and Sathanas are good examples.
The Ravana was a destroyer. The Sathanas had a fighter bay probably comperable in size to the Colossus. Neither are BB's.
What they are an example of is the fact I keep pointing out that fighterbays are cheap in design terms. Freespace does have battleships. However the addition of a fighterbay is so cheap (both in terms of actual money and in design considerations) that compared to issues like reactor power, heat sink usage, armour considerations etc that no one in their right mind would build one without sticking a fighter bay on it and calling it a destroyer.
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How do you think fleets move their ships? One by one?
We have seen the Lucifer and several fighter wings occuping the same node corridor at once.
We have allso seen transport entering the node en masse (wiht 1-2 seconds delay)
In King's Gambit the enemy warships were running from the Colossuss towards GD in no particular order.
And a fleet jumping doesn't mean they have to jump all in the same nanoseconds, but in VERY small intervals (several seconds)
The problem is that firstly transports and fighters are vastly smaller than a km+ long vessel, so they could exit travelling relatively alongside without risking colision or heavy weapons bombardment. If there is a physical constraint upon the size of tunnels, then even with the below Sathanas issue, it would still mean that you'd have 2 destroyers (or similar sized vessels) exiting extremely close to each other, with the resulting impared maneuverability and obscured broadsides.
However, the point I was making is that there's not any evidence for this as a fleet movement strategy, as we never see it performed by capship groups; so we can't use it as a combat situation to demonstrate a pro or con.
It possibly also leaves a vulnerability to ambush if someone is perching a destroyer (or Mjolnir set, etc) behind the arrival vector of 2 ships; arrive in-order in a queue, and you could probably maneuver the latter vessel to provide cover in a sort of 'circling the wagons' type arrangement; perhaps the frontal vessel rotating 90 degrees to use its broadside weaponry and shield the incoming vessels (to a degree)
There's alls othe Sathanas Issue. If it's big enough to jump trough the node, then so can two destroyers side-by side... that of course, if we assume they jumped at the exact same time.
Which is a good point, but also raises a seperate issue as we don't know what the restictions upon jumping are in terms of the node/tunnel formation; whether or not 2 vessels jumping simultaneously is possible, as they are accessing the same aperture to do so.
Of course they do. But fighters need more.
A 30 turret destroyer and 150 fighters and 60-80 turrets BB.
Gee.. I wonder which needs more crew?
Based on comparing the Deimos & Orion by volume - probably turrets.
On the Iowa class, each of the 9 main turrets had a crew of around 77 to 110 men (and also extended 4 decks down). The Iowa, with 45,000 tonnes displacement, 9 main turrets (406mm), 20 quad 40mm gun mounts, and 49 20mm cannon single mount, had a crew of 2,800.
The Midway class, with 59,000 tonnes displacement, had a crew of 4,800 with a theoretical maximum of 130 aircraft (100 actual; I'm not sure what the difference was, whether it was space, or lack of aircraft), and 18 127 mm guns, 84 40mm guns, and 68 20mm guns.
(note; obviously there's a few years between vessels here).
You might want to provide some reasoning as to the numbers, next time.
b.t.w. - I did a small test in Truespace where I arranged 120 fighters as seen in the FS mainhalls on how terran hangarbays look, and compared that to hte Orion. Guess what - they take a helluva lot of space. Far more than even I tought! :eek2:
What on earth makes you think that's how they're stored? The mainhalls seen in FS1/2 are quite probably launch bays or staging areas for scramble ready or mission prepped fighters, not actual storage of those held in reserve.
It was a low-powered laser and primitive at that, whose purpose was to mesure the distance to the moon, not to do damage. GTVA has fusion reactors, power plants on fighters and far more advanced laser tech than we have now. So the damage is something they can easily increase by that time.
Easily? Then why haven't they. Give me one good reason why, if it was feasible, the GTVA doesn't have that sort of close-to infinite range weaponry. Even assuming there aren't limits placed by physics restricting the damage-per-energy factor of weaponry. Or, hell, if they do, what makes you think it won't have, y'know, a logical increase in power requirements or heat build-up?
Again, this falls back to design - where are the reacort located? How armoured vulnerable are tehy? Does the sihp even need all of them or are some back-ups?
All of which place compromises upon the design. You move your reactors under armour and deeper inside the ship, and you have to place more cooling around them (for crew safety), put in countermeasures against an overload and explosion taking out the heart of the ship, place more power conduits from those reactors, allocate the same space to backups, etc - not to mention the problems if you have to service the things externally and they're buried under several feet of metal. You can't just plonk down a bunch of fusion reactors without consequences to the ship design.
And back to the argument of not being able to fit all that heat sinks and weapons and reactors into it - there's a canon example you're completely wrong.
Leviathan and Fenris - same size, same shape. Leviathan has more than twice the armor and firepower.
And you're telling me you couldn't do that on a bigger scane, on a bigger hull?
Leviathan is firstly a different frame; it has more armour and, crucially, half the speed. You could do it again on a larger frame, but would the ship be that much better? I doubt it - you'd have to compromise it. However, let us look at the turret differences that have occured to half our speed (more than half for the max oclk speed, which is 25 for the Fenris)
Fenris;
9 turrets; 5 Terran turrets, 1 LTerSlash, 2AAAf, 1 Fusion mortar
Leviathan;
9 turrets; 3 Terran turrets, 1 SGreen, 4 AAAf, 1 Fusion mortar
Hmm. Let's examine the main difference; the LTerSlash vs the SGreen
LTerSlash; fire wait; 10, damage; 150, lifetime 30
SGreen; fire wait; 45, damage;210, lifetime; 2.5
Not what I'd call a massive improvement in offensive firepower; pretty much the same gun for different uses here. But they both have 0.30 energy consumption, so let's look at the 2 Terran turrets vs 2 AAAfs, because that's the only real offensive difference. And we find the Terran Turret has the same energy use as the AAAf, which shows us how completely meaningless that statistic is. So, the only measurable difference, appears to be halving the speed to improve the hitpoints.
Going by the Fenris, maybe you could decrease the Orions' speed after bolting on some extra armour. Otherwise it's the same ship, slightly different specialisation.
If you want good node defense your capship have to be in range to deliver the hurt. Blockading the node focuses on crippling/destroying enemy warship as fast as possible, before they can launch fighters or bring more reinforcements trough the node.
Based on your view of capships being used to destroy other capships of the same class.
Except FS1 and 2 have shown that bombers take that role above anything else; they're quick, agile, far-ranging and can carry heavy weaponry as effective as beam weapons. So any defensive force of capships can just sit a few km left and let bomber wings wear down the enemy capships (hence why attack forces require immediate fighter cover from their lead destroyer, to intercept).
Besides which, I thought the battleships vast array of weaponry meant it was better than a destroyer - now it needs one to provide it fighter cover so it isn't obliterated by bomber patrols? So a battleship is effectively useless unless it can survive a long, slow trek through waves of bombers and probably Mjolnir to get its and the enemies weapons in range?
Pulling back your capships and reliyng only on fighters/bombers is a bad idea, as while they are focusing on a BB and wearing it down, more ships will jump in to provide support. In this scenario the BB is practilcy buying time as it takes a bit longer to destroy. And thus the defending fighters will have to face enemy capships point-defense and their fighter complements.
You're assuming the battleship will take longer to destroy, but in actuality - like any FS2 capital ship - all you need is a few Helios hits and the thing is doomed. and also relying on - yep - destroyers to provide it support
And if you amass your capship aroudn the node, you're practicly letting the BB fire off a few salvo's at them, since you can't destroy/disable him fast enoughto prevent it. And again, support jumps in and you're f***, since you have damaged capships, a enemy BB that's still "afloat" and mroe enemy capships and fighters incoming.
This is all assuming, the defending force doesn't have BB's.
Why? - it's slower (if it's that well armoured to survive the waves of attacks from an organized blockade - see Leviathan-Fenris), and the blockade has point defense forces tasked with destroying the turrets and stripping down the battleships subsystems before it can even come in range for them to fire. And, again, you're relying on other ships to support the battleships weaknesses; it's role is now to be a very expensive sponge to absorb enemy ranged fire.
You're assuming the battleship will take longer to destroy, anyways, but in all likelihood- like any FS2 capital ship - all you need is a few Helios hits and the thing is doomed.
What you're actually doing is hypothesising a scenario where the enemy is stupid enough to play to every strength of this posited battleship class, and also sucesfully ignores it's weaknesses. And you've still not given an example of the armour, turrets, etc of such a vessel.
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Good point Aldo.
Trashman. Post the specs of your proposed Battleship class.
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Of course, a really smart enemy wouldn't use ships for a blockade in the first place, they'd just tow in a 200.000 tonne block of solid concrete and place it 100m off the node in the arrival direction.
On the subspace issue, I never thought ships could stay in subspace indefinitely. Rather, I figure they may be able to stay a while, but whichever ship opened that particular subspace tunnel needs energy to maintain it during it's passage, so eventually they run out of fuel if it stays too long. Any ships entering the same subspoace tunnel might not need to, though, never thought about that.
As for exiting subspace simultaneously, I first of all believe the size of the subspace tunnel is dictated by the ship that opened it. So a couple of cruisers might be able to fit side by side if they jump into the same tunnel as a destroyer, while they could not if the tunnel was opened by one of the cruisers themselves. But then, I also think they could simply all open their own subspace tunnels (as seemed to always be the case for ships prior to subspace tracking) and get around it that way.
Either way though, the real issue is the risk of collision when exiting. Different ships have different stopping distances after exiting subspace, so it would be extremely dangerous for capital ships to jump into a system in very close succession. Fighters are a different story, mainly because they stop and are able to maneouver so fast after the jump that it really isn't an issue.
On the idea of parking a ship in subspace to keep watch, I think it would be possible to do so for a time but that it would be absolutely useless. The enemy would simply use subspace tracking in reverse to make sure they did not end up in the same subspace tunnel as the scout. Better to simply place it at the far node, prepped and ready to jump back when it spots an enemy. Still gives you at least a few minutes warning of an impending attack.
Of course, that's all just speculation, no real canon evidence for any of it as far as I can tell (nor any evidence against, though), but that's my take on it.
As for the battleship debate, read my previous posts, I think my position is clear.
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The idea of a battleships role as drawing fire is ridiculous. Where would you find a captain nerves of steel, who is willing to risk his ship and crew just casually saying "it can hadle it"? In a battle, everything can happen. In theory a single missle has the potential to seriously damage, if not disable, a critical system. Effectivly making the BB as useful as a beached whale. In a major battle there will be a huge amount of weapon impacts from subach to beam cannons. Warships are not made to be fired upon, they are made to destroy their enemy.
In the game, the ships are damaged wery unrealisticly. The ship remains fully functional until the last shot, after wich the ship is no more. If it would be real life, Fenris could critically damage Orion with a single shot. Suppose a crucial suppoting structure fails? Or Power transfer system gets damaged? A shot hit's an arilock and pierces the hull? Or the beam shot goes up in to the engine, damages it, causes an overload? Or maybe the kinetic energy of the impact causes someone to spill coffe in to the reactor blowing the whole **** up? Anything can happen.
Risk is still a risk. Therefore no sane commader will take his ship out on orders to "get shot at while others do the job". Especially when there are thousands of crewmembers in risk. Not to mention the extremely expensive ship. And remember that this is space. No one can jump in to the water and wait for rescue. Once the hull is breached next to you, thats it.
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Then again, in real life a battleship would have the speed and agility of a fighter as well.
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Then again, in real life a battleship would have the speed and agility of a fighter as well.
That goes well with your siggy, y'know.
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Then again, in real life a battleship would have the speed and agility of a fighter as well.
I would think so too...
Also why would any one build a battlewagon with armor plating that can not take on even the lightest hits? I mean true battleships or actually any warships for that matter would IMHO be armored to be totally immune atlest to all fighter scale primaries like MBTs are immune to assault rifles. It would be a pretty boring spacefighter sim though... and most certainly wouldnt fit into FS universe..
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Also why would any one build a battlewagon with armor plating that can not take on even the lightest hits? I mean true battleships or actually any warships for that matter would IMHO be armored to be totally immune atlest to all fighter scale primaries like MBTs are immune to assault rifles. It would be a pretty boring spacefighter sim though... and most certainly wouldnt fit into FS universe..
Well you red my post well, did you now? Or just didn't understand my point.
What happened to Bismarck or Titanic? "Oops... It wasn't supposed to do that!"
My point was that anything can happen. Not that everything will happen every time.
That is why:
Any sensible ship commander will not steer in to the fire for the sake of drawing fire. They are in SPACE! You do not want anything to break in there. Thus you will prefer to keep your ship intact as long as possible. Becauue risk is allways a risk, no matter how small are the chances of something happening. Not because you are a wuss. But because you wish to keep your ship in working order.
And no vehicle/machine/ship is immune to damage. You give me an assault rifle and I'll break a tank with it (I've been aboard army vehicles many times, and I'm pretty sure I can do it)...
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Then again, in real life a battleship would have the speed and agility of a fighter as well.
Speed maybe. Acceleration or agility, no way in hell. Both are functions of mass and the BB has more.
Anyway if we're going to talk reality there are a whole load of bigger flaws in the game :D
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None of this stuff is anymore in anyway FS related but...
Well you red my post well, did you now? Or just didn't understand my point.
What happened to Bismarck or Titanic? "Oops... It wasn't supposed to do that!"
My point was that anything can happen. Not that everything will happen every time.
That is why:
Any sensible ship commander will not steer in to the fire for the sake of drawing fire. They are in SPACE! You do not want anything to break in there. Thus you will prefer to keep your ship intact as long as possible. Becauue risk is allways a risk, no matter how small are the chances of something happening. Not because you are a wuss. But because you wish to keep your ship in working order.
And no vehicle/machine/ship is immune to damage. You give me an assault rifle and I'll break a tank with it (I've been aboard army vehicles many times, and I'm pretty sure I can do it)...
I did read your post and i did understood it
And i too have been aboard army vehicles, probably more often than i would have liked (Leo 2, BMP-2, T-72, T-55, several pasi... list goes on). And i do know that if the MBT is doing just about anything there is no way a man with only an assault rifle can do anything to it. I can break a freaking tank (or a BMP atleast ;)) with screwdriver if it is doing no resistance at all... But try to break an active tank with it.
And with reference to tanks.. Those were from time to time moved on purpose against enemy units with the knowledge that they will get hit. For example in Battle of Arras (-40) British armors would have smashed (and they originally did, as no german armor or infantry had any weapons that could penetrate the british armor) the Germans badly without the dreaded '88's. British used their heavy armor as an asset and practically as a weapon instead of using it only for defence.
Ofcourse odd things can happen but those battlewagons were purposedly made for heavy combat and most often armored so that they could safely ignore infantry & machine gun fire... Bismark was hit with weapons (356mm guns and torpedoes) made against such vessels so the fact that it got damaged is not very suprising. What i was pointing at was that you couldnt possible cause any real damage to such vessel with for example 40 mm AA gun (pretty much heaviest carried by fighters at that time)...
@ Kara:
Isnt F=ma so that if ships have equal thrust-to-mass proportions they would be equally agile and accelerate at similar levels?
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A function of mass and thrust, a battleship would have proportionaly more of both, giving it figherlike speed and agility.
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Erm, no. Speed, definitely possible. Acceleration, possible, but not feasible, you'd need as large a proportion of the ship to be thrusters as you have on a fighter, ie. 1/3 to 1/2 of the ship. But agility? No way. It's a matter of Gs really, if you pivot a 2km long capital ship as fast as you pivot a 20m long fighter, you kill the people at both ends because of the centrifugal force and sudden acceleration/deceleration.
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1: waht's wrong with engines taking up a large portion a a ship, it's entirely fesable!
2: i never said that a 2km capship would be able to swing around in a second, it will eb able to turn in a time proportional to it's own size though, wich should be good enough becasue you rarely need a battleship to hug the surface of another one.
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It could build up speed like a fighter. But in terms of agility, no. Unless you propose to have a battleship with main engines mounted all over the place. Which would be like putting holes all over for nasty things like Helios to drop in.
2: i never said that a 2km capship would be able to swing around in a second, it will eb able to turn in a time proportional to it's own size though, wich should be good enough becasue you rarely need a battleship to hug the surface of another one.
Then that's not agility like a fighter. Agility isn't how fast you can adjust proportionately, it's how fast you can turn period.
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Turning rate is only one element of agility. Agility includes things like linear acceleration.
Either way, turrets and thae fact that you could still turn fast enough anyways would balance that out.
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1) The reason filling half the hull with thrusters if not feasible for a battleship (or any warship, for that matter), is that then you no longer have a battleship, you have a speedboat. To fit that much engine in, you lose armor, weapons, reactor power, heatsinks, ammunition stores, giving you a very fast ship that can't go toe to toe with a destroyer even with no fighters involved.
2)giving it figherlike speed and agility
As far as I can tell, it says 'fighterlike' and not 'really good for a capital ship' in that sentence I quoted from you. And fighterlike would, presumably, turning somewhat like fighters can turn. It's certainly possible to improve on the maneouverability of a destroyer though, but just as with forward acceleration, doing so comes at a price in combat capability as you need to fit in the huge number of thrusters needed to achieve it.
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With the agility we must also remember the stress the G-forces cause to an object of that mass (battleship/destroyer), also applys on acceleration. You wouldn't want the crew to bang around walls during tight manouvers. Speed is hardly an issue in space thought, and thus has really nothing to do with manouverability of a vessel.
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The Leviathan pays very heavily in terms of speed for that armour. Apply the same logic to a BB and you end up with something that moves at 5m/s. If you're willing to accept that consession then fine but in previous arguments you have repeatedly stated that you see no reason why a BB should be much slower than a destroyer, even going so far as to quote wet navy speed figures for the Iowa class as if that is somehow relevent to the discussion.
True..but the Leviathan was an uppgrade of a Fenris, a ship that doesn't have much room to spare as they were both cruisers...you realyl didn't have anythign t ostrip except for engines.
A BB made from a destroyer-sized hull would have far more room as you HAVE must to strip - teh hangarbays, storage rooms and stuff. Thus, the ammount of a speed penalty, or the very penatly itself is questionable.
They may have been running but there's no indication anywhere that they were under fire from anything as they actually entered subspace. As for jumping in close to each other where do you think they'd end up if they did that? Smacking into each other!
Up, down, left and right seem to be unknows concepts for you, don't htey?
We cleary seen warship entering and exiting the node across all of it's "surface". The very center is not the only way to go.
Check the WWII stats for the Iowa you're so fond of and you'll find its the BB. The big guns required upto 110 people each. Given the number of crew the Deimos requires it could easily be the same with beam cannons.
That was WW2.. before the modernization. And by FS2 time, they'll be even more modernized.
And where do you get that Deimos crew figure? I checked all the FS2 game sources and couldn't find that mentioned nowhere.
b.t.w. - I did a small test in Truespace where I arranged 120 fighters as seen in the FS mainhalls on how terran hangarbays look, and compared that to hte Orion. Guess what - they take a helluva lot of space. Far more than even I tought! :eek2:
Which surely helps my argument that you're wrong about internal space being the limiting factor on number of guns a destroyer can carry. Although to be honest all the FS2 ships appear to have tardis-like qualities. Simply stack up the number of missiles a fighter can carry next to the fighter itself for proof of that.
But it allso helps my argument that you can clear up even MORE space for other stuff - like armor, redundant system, back-up generators and stuff :D
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However the addition of a fighterbay is so cheap (both in terms of actual money and in design considerations) that compared to issues like reactor power, heat sink usage, armour considerations etc that no one in their right mind would build one without sticking a fighter bay on it and calling it a destroyer.
I don't know wrehe the hell you got that from, but i don't recall EVER hearing in FS that fighterbays are cheap...
by StratComm
And this differs from a destroyer how, exactly? Other than the fact that it can't launch fighters to screen incoming bombers or disable defending warships, that is. It's got heavier armor, but that seemed to not matter one bit in King's Gambit. Ships coming through the node get ripped to shreads in so little time that the difference extra armor could add would be negligable.
Oh? I think the kings gambitproves my views admirably!
Just how much damage did that Orion do when he jumped in? Not much - and all of hte damage it did, it did with it's heavy weaponry. It didn't have time to launch fighters.
That's why the BB is better in such a situation - it will do more damage before it's destroyed.
Go look up the Leviathan stats again. It's more heavily armored, yes. But it is not twice as heavily armed. The main beam is slightly more powerful and a pair of AAA beams added, but otherwise the armament is identical.
It's main weaponry (the beam) is twice as powerfull..not all of it.
and where do you get the Deimos numbers from?
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However the addition of a fighterbay is so cheap (both in terms of actual money and in design considerations) that compared to issues like reactor power, heat sink usage, armour considerations etc that no one in their right mind would build one without sticking a fighter bay on it and calling it a destroyer.
I don't know wrehe the hell you got that from, but i don't recall EVER hearing in FS that fighterbays are cheap...
As opposed to heavy beam weapons, extra reactors, cooling systems, power transfer systems, armor, etc? The cost of a pressurized bay would be negligable. That's ignoring the fighters that go in it, of course, but as I've said before you can't actually count them out of the cost equation anyway. They have to be somewhere, even if that means stationed on another ship.
by StratComm
And this differs from a destroyer how, exactly? Other than the fact that it can't launch fighters to screen incoming bombers or disable defending warships, that is. It's got heavier armor, but that seemed to not matter one bit in King's Gambit. Ships coming through the node get ripped to shreads in so little time that the difference extra armor could add would be negligable.
Oh? I think the kings gambitproves my views admirably!
Just how much damage did that Orion do when he jumped in? Not much - and all of hte damage it did, it did with it's heavy weaponry. It didn't have time to launch fighters.
That's why the BB is better in such a situation - it will do more damage before it's destroyed.
Ah, but we don't know how low on supplies the ships running King's Gambit were. That was not the first blockade they had engaged in their run, and with a battlegroup in close persuit I would imagine their fighters would have been picked off in rear-guard manuvers.
And that still leaves one major problem with that justification. Is the sole purpose of a battleship is to get destroyed, but take slightly longer in doing so? You're going to throw an even more expensive piece of hardware into certain destruction, and for what purpose? To "damage" the defenders? The ships in King's Gambit cannot be used as an example of breaking a blockade, only running one. The NTF was trying to get all of its assets into the Nebular theater (or sacrafice them covering the Iceni) so they weren't actually trying to overpower the node defenders as much as they were just trying to slip through the net. Had their goals been to break the blockade, I'd imagine the NTF would have deployed their forces somewhat differently. That doesn't change my example of the speed with which a ship entering a strong blockade goes down.
Go look up the Leviathan stats again. It's more heavily armored, yes. But it is not twice as heavily armed. The main beam is slightly more powerful and a pair of AAA beams added, but otherwise the armament is identical.
It's main weaponry (the beam) is twice as powerfull..not all of it.
and where do you get the Deimos numbers from?
No it's not. It's AT BEST 40% more powerful, but has a longer fire-wait and a shorter lifetime than the "lighter" beam on the Fenris. Different purposes, but there's not even any indication that they are even functionally different weapons inside the hull. And the engines weren't removed, the ship gets slower because the extra armor adds mass.
And the Deimos numbers come from one of the briefings or the like, though I cannot remember exactly where offhand. It's canon, though, and I'm clearly not the first person to have brought it up. Anyone remember where that originally comes from? I'm guessing it's something around either "The Great Hunt" or "A Game of Tag".
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b.t.w. - I did a small test in Truespace where I arranged 120 fighters as seen in the FS mainhalls on how terran hangarbays look, and compared that to hte Orion. Guess what - they take a helluva lot of space. Far more than even I tought! :eek2:
What on earth makes you think that's how they're stored? The mainhalls seen in FS1/2 are quite probably launch bays or staging areas for scramble ready or mission prepped fighters, not actual storage of those held in reserve.
The Galatea and Bastion main halls are supposed to be fighterbas on destroyers.. And incidently, they are arranged rather well, in the shelf-like system. However, as evident fro mthe mainhalls, there is a lot of free space between the individual fighter holds, increasing the hangarbay size well above what I though it would be.
Easily? Then why haven't they. Give me one good reason why, if it was feasible, the GTVA doesn't have that sort of close-to infinite range weaponry. Even assuming there aren't limits placed by physics restricting the damage-per-energy factor of weaponry. Or, hell, if they do, what makes you think it won't have, y'know, a logical increase in power requirements or heat build-up?
simple - becoause [V] can't account for every invention, every weapons and every ship ever created by terrans. Look at it realisticly - how many fighter classes do we have today in service? How many ship classes? Heck, mroe than you and I can count.
And somehow, in FS 2 the whole terran fleet has the "vast" diversity of 2 destroyers, 3 cruisers and a dozen fighter/bombers.
If they were to maek things real, we would have 1000 differnt ships...but then again, who would ever model or invent all of them?
the question is not "does it currently exist in FS2" but rather, does FS2 permit it to exist?
All of which place compromises upon the design. You move your reactors under armour and deeper inside the ship, and you have to place more cooling around them (for crew safety), put in countermeasures against an overload and explosion taking out the heart of the ship, place more power conduits from those reactors, allocate the same space to backups, etc - not to mention the problems if you have to service the things externally and they're buried under several feet of metal. You can't just plonk down a bunch of fusion reactors without consequences to the ship design.
A good desing takes al t he things you mentioned in account. And when did you become a starship building expert? As far as I nkow, most things about FS starhsip is unknown or vauge - the rest are all assumptions.
Going by the Fenris, maybe you could decrease the Orions' speed after bolting on some extra armour. Otherwise it's the same ship, slightly different specialisation.
AS I said before, the Fenris didn't have anything you can take out to put new stuff in. an Orion has - fighterbays and al lthat comes along with them. That would clear up a lot of room for far more improvments than compared to the Leviathan.
If you want good node defense your capship have to be in range to deliver the hurt. Blockading the node focuses on crippling/destroying enemy warship as fast as possible, before they can launch fighters or bring more reinforcements trough the node.
You're assuming the battleship will take longer to destroy, but in actuality - like any FS2 capital ship - all you need is a few Helios hits and the thing is doomed. and also relying on - yep - destroyers to provide it support
And you're honestly telling me you would send a single ship to break a blockade? If a fleet is parked on the other side of hte node you will send a fleet to counter it. Otherwise ti would be suicide no matter what ship class you send in.
So support is a must - and note - I never said a battleship should be without any fighters whatsoever (even the Iowa has a halipad). It would carry 2 interceptors wings or so, to bolster it's bomber defense.
And you've still not given an example of the armour, turrets, etc of such a vessel.
For a design example I would use my Archangel (only scaled down aand with the firepower scaled down accordingly..after all, I did design it with post FS2 era in mind, so it does have more a bang-per-buck than FS2 would allow).
2.5 x the hitpoints of a Orion
8 main turrets, positioned on the top and below, 4 beam cannons on the sides, and another undefined anti-cap weapon below....and the rest is pretty much point-defense weaponry. Extreemly strong subsystems and main weapons. Ability to concetrate at least 60% of it's anti-cap firepower at any point in space.
2 small fighterbays with a squad of interceptors each.
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I don't know wrehe the hell you got that from, but i don't recall EVER hearing in FS that fighterbays are cheap...
I'm not the one whom you asked this from, but it isn't actually necessary to have canon confirmation to every thing that is proposed by someone, is it?
Fighter bays are cheap (read: cheaper than massive additional power plant, heavier weapon systems or more advanced armor), because they are basically an open space inside the ship's hull. What makes the cost here is fighters/bombers itself, and their maintenance. Building an ability to host fighters and bombers does not come very expensive. Using it is whole other thing...
And this differs from a destroyer how, exactly? Other than the fact that it can't launch fighters to screen incoming bombers or disable defending warships, that is. It's got heavier armor, but that seemed to not matter one bit in King's Gambit. Ships coming through the node get ripped to shreads in so little time that the difference extra armor could add would be negligable.
Oh? I think the kings gambitproves my views admirably!
Just how much damage did that Orion do when he jumped in? Not much - and all of hte damage it did, it did with it's heavy weaponry. It didn't have time to launch fighters.
That's why the BB is better in such a situation - it will do more damage before it's destroyed.
So, in a sustained battle your mighty BB makes some damage and gets destroyed...
...Whereas a destroyer (making almost as much damage in itself) also can launch fighters and bombers to protect itself in a sustained battle, and to add a mighty blow to the damage it makes to enemy capital ships?
Which, I must say, is also quite a bit more interesting as a mission structure, considering that FS2 is all about fighters and bombers in the end...
Unless you make the BB have hideously thick hull or otherwise make it almost impervious to bomber attacks (Lucy-shield, anyone?), it would perish quite fast when enemy destroyer unleashed its beams and bomber wings. And if you try to remain even few bits of realism in this ship, ultra-thick hull would make it more like heavily armed, subspace-jump capable installation without ability to launch fighters and without ability to move in normal space very fast... Lucy-style shields, on the other hand, demand technology that clearly isn't available to GTVA, and if you add enough flak guns that every bomb gets wasted before hitting the BB, it becomes so ridiculously unbalanced a ship class that it wouldn't very much improve the mod/mission/campaign/whatever. It's called the Superman-syndrome. Impervious to attacks, awesome destructive power... who wants to fight ship like that? GTVA would end up having every system quiet and safe thanks to the GTVBB Kompressor class ships guarding allied space. That, unfortunately, doesn't make much of a campaign...
...That is, if it would even be POSSIBLE for GTVA to build such a ship. Makes me wonder, if they could, should they not have done it by now?
On the other hand, it also makes me wonder how the hell a sivilization which has known spaceflight only a few hundred years manages to build ships that almost completely match or even outclass the ones used by a who-knows-ho-many-millions of years old space-faring race. Perhaps it just isn't POSSIBLE to build much better ships, or perhaps the Shivans have brought their R&D Department down for some reason... :rolleyes:
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13 anti-capital weapons is more than the Colossus boasted, and you're somehow fitting that into a 3km-long frame, that has fighterbays? I'm familiar with your archangel design, and there is absolutely no way it has as much space as the Colossus did inside it, even if it does only have a quarter of the armor.
And besides, you throw fighterbays, no matter how small, into the mix and it basically invalidates your entire argument. It automatically becomes a FS destroyer, with more concentration on anti-cap weaponry than carrier capabilities but a destroyer just the same.
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2.5 x the hitpoints of a Orion
8 main turrets, positioned on the top and below, 4 beam cannons on the sides, and another undefined anti-cap weapon below....and the rest is pretty much point-defense weaponry. Extreemly strong subsystems and main weapons. Ability to concetrate at least 60% of it's anti-cap firepower at any point in space.
2 small fighterbays with a squad of interceptors each.
Twice the armour, and, 2 fighterbays?! I presume this is the size of an Orion.... you'd have massive energy and cooling issues to deal with (NB: give proper turret numbers; how many flak, how many missiles, how many beam, how many laser, how many AAAf).
As the Fenris/Leviathan shows, you'd lose masses of speed and maneuverability as well as space to the increased armour mass (these things aren't shielded by energy; that's pure metal that goes there, and if you're not building out you're building it inwards). Also appears you'd have vulnerability to disabling (like any other capship) due to rear attacks; probably also a vulnerability to attacks from the direct top by other large vessels (you'd need to belly-role 90 degrees to counter, and with all that extra weight.......). 2 fighterbays probably represents a structural weakness, too; that area isn't covered by the mass of metal forming the extra armour.
Then you have a reduction of internal space for your subsystem shielding and/or space used for redundancy (this'd also need crew for maintenance).
And less beam weapons than the humble Orion (which has 6) and the same as the Hecate (4 TerSlash, 1 Big green), so it's not exceptionally powerful. So it's a big slow target with only enough fighter cover to protect itself.
NB: Deimos numbers are being derived from (probably) the 6,000 crew of the Sobek, as stated in Lion At The Gates.
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True..but the Leviathan was an uppgrade of a Fenris, a ship that doesn't have much room to spare as they were both cruisers...you realyl didn't have anythign t ostrip except for engines.
A BB made from a destroyer-sized hull would have far more room as you HAVE must to strip - teh hangarbays, storage rooms and stuff. Thus, the ammount of a speed penalty, or the very penatly itself is questionable.
The reduction in speed is not just a matter of the Leviathan stripping out its engines. It's more to do with the fact that armour is ****ing heavy! I very much doubt the Leviathan had different engines from the Fenris. It moves slower because of the weight of the armour it's carrying.
When you look at a destroyer the stuff you're stripping out is mostly open space and therefore lightweight. Especially if we are to believe your claims that the destroyers hanger bays look like those in the FS1 mainhalls. The armour you are replacing it with though is bloody heavy. Furthermore you kept claiming that beams are big and heavy too. Have you now revised this opinion in order to fit with your claims that there would be no speed reduction?
Lastly how much is the extra fusion reactor you're adding going to weigh? What about its shielding? What about the store rooms and bunks for engine crews to look after it?
Up, down, left and right seem to be unknows concepts for you, don't htey?
We cleary seen warship entering and exiting the node across all of it's "surface". The very center is not the only way to go.
Okay then. Explain why all the NTF ships in Kings Gambit leave the node on exactly the same vector then?
That was WW2.. before the modernization. And by FS2 time, they'll be even more modernized.
And where do you get that Deimos crew figure? I checked all the FS2 game sources and couldn't find that mentioned nowhere.
My bad. Wrong corvette. It's the sobek that has a crew number of 6000. Seems reasonable that the Deimos would have similar numbers though.
But it allso helps my argument that you can clear up even MORE space for other stuff - like armor, redundant system, back-up generators and stuff :D
Except I'd already explained why space is not the limiting factor on the number of turrets you can install.
simple - becoause [V] can't account for every invention, every weapons and every ship ever created by terrans. Look at it realisticly - how many fighter classes do we have today in service? How many ship classes? Heck, mroe than you and I can count.
And somehow, in FS 2 the whole terran fleet has the "vast" diversity of 2 destroyers, 3 cruisers and a dozen fighter/bombers.
If they were to maek things real, we would have 1000 differnt ships...but then again, who would ever model or invent all of them?
the question is not "does it currently exist in FS2" but rather, does FS2 permit it to exist?
So once again you're back to inventing. The GTVA has hidden lasers of unimaginable power but didn't use them against the Shivans at any of the major decisive points at which the player was present. :rolleyes: For ****s sake Trashman you really need to know when you've lost one.
For a design example I would use my Archangel (only scaled down aand with the firepower scaled down accordingly..after all, I did design it with post FS2 era in mind, so it does have more a bang-per-buck than FS2 would allow).
2.5 x the hitpoints of a Orion
8 main turrets, positioned on the top and below, 4 beam cannons on the sides, and another undefined anti-cap weapon below....and the rest is pretty much point-defense weaponry. Extreemly strong subsystems and main weapons. Ability to concetrate at least 60% of it's anti-cap firepower at any point in space.
2 small fighterbays with a squad of interceptors each.
So your ultimate battleship turns out in the end to be a ridiculously overpowered destroyer! :D
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13 anti-capital weapons is more than the Colossus boasted, and you're somehow fitting that into a 3km-long frame, that has fighterbays? I'm familiar with your archangel design, and there is absolutely no way it has as much space as the Colossus did inside it, even if it does only have a quarter of the armor.
And besides, you throw fighterbays, no matter how small, into the mix and it basically invalidates your entire argument. It automatically becomes a FS destroyer, with more concentration on anti-cap weaponry than carrier capabilities but a destroyer just the same.
No it doesnt. unless yo udefine anything that can carry fighters and shoot a destroyer..
SMALL fighterbays is the key here and hte fact that it only has a HANDFULL of INTERCEPTORS. No bombers whatsoever. It delivers it's damage with cannons. A completely different design, use and modus operandi than a destroyer.
Oh..and it can fit into that frame:
Hecate - 2120m, 150 spacecraft, 5 beam cannons
Orion - 2060m, 120 spacecraft, 7 beam cannons
BB - 3000m, 20 spacecraft, ??? beam cannons
And not I said anti-cap weapons, I didn't specify their power or kind. For the main batteries I would sue plasma turrets, and of course some beam cannons (4 to be exact)
By Aldo_14
Twice the armour, and, 2 fighterbays?! I presume this is the size of an Orion.... you'd have massive energy and cooling issues to deal with (NB: give proper turret numbers; how many flak, how many missiles, how many beam, how many laser, how many AAAf).
Havn't specified, but those weapons use very little energy. I would say around 12 AAAf, 20 flak, 10 missile lunchers and 10 terrna turrets off the top of my head.
As the Fenris/Leviathan shows, you'd lose masses of speed and maneuverability as well as space to the increased armour mass (these things aren't shielded by energy; that's pure metal that goes there, and if you're not building out you're building it inwards). Also appears you'd have vulnerability to disabling (like any other capship) due to rear attacks; probably also a vulnerability to attacks from the direct top by other large vessels (you'd need to belly-role 90 degrees to counter, and with all that extra weight.......). 2 fighterbays probably represents a structural weakness, too; that area isn't covered by the mass of metal forming the extra armour.
5 engines reduce the disabling weakness... and no, it's not vulnerable from attacks from the top - quite contrary.
2 fighterbayys are a structural weakness (but then again they are alls oby destroyers..even more so since they are bigger), but not a big one, as they are small and relativly unimportant to the ship. Besides, they are on different sides of hte ship so the chances that both get destroyed are slim.
Then you have a reduction of internal space for your subsystem shielding and/or space used for redundancy (this'd also need crew for maintenance).
And less beam weapons than the humble Orion (which has 6) and the same as the Hecate (4 TerSlash, 1 Big green), so it's not exceptionally powerful. So it's a big slow target with only enough fighter cover to protect itself.
Orion has 7.... and I havn't even stated the beam type..and like I said - think outside the box for a seconds, who said beam cannosn are it's main weapons?
NB: Deimos numbers are being derived from (probably) the 6,000 crew of the Sobek, as stated in Lion At The Gates.
In other words an asumption. the Sobek probably carried a lot of scientists and last-minute persoonel lthat had to evac the area. And even if 6000 is totaly accurate for the Sobek, it can be way off for hte Deimos.
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I want to know how you can deduce anything about the rest of the hanger from the Galatea mainhall anyway. There's one small corner of a room with a fighter in it, so how is that representative of the rest of the hanger space? Or the flight deck, not the hanger, of the Bastion? The FS2 mainhall is a better source, as you actually see racks of fighters (in relatively close proximity to one another at that) in a space that can be better estimated.
My bad. Wrong corvette. It's the sobek that has a crew number of 6000. Seems reasonable that the Deimos would have similar numbers though.
Especially since the Deimos is significantly larger than the Sobek, has more visible living space, and more turrets. And because Terran and Vasudan destroyers require almost the exact same crews, you can't go arguing that it's a species difference.
No it doesnt. unless yo udefine anything that can carry fighters and shoot a destroyer..
SMALL fighterbays is the key here and hte fact that it only has a HANDFULL of INTERCEPTORS. No bombers whatsoever. It delivers it's damage with cannons. A completely different design, use and modus operandi than a destroyer.
Oh..and it can fit into that frame:
Hecate - 2120m, 150 spacecraft, 5 beam cannons
Orion - 2060m, 120 spacecraft, 7 beam cannons
BB - 3000m, 20 spacecraft, ??? beam cannons
And not I said anti-cap weapons, I didn't specify their power or kind. For the main batteries I would sue plasma turrets, and of course some beam cannons (4 to be exact)
You'll notice that I said anti-capital ship weapons as well. If they aren't beam cannons but cause equivalent damage, then they will suffer the same design limitations that prevents beam cannons from being installed in mass numbers. If they are projectile (missiles, railguns, torpedos), then we get into ammo magazines, which you've dodged completely.
And a destroyer in Freespace is any large (2-3km) warship containing significant anti-capital weaponry and a fighterbay. So it is a destroyer. It carries fighters, it's not your "pure battleship". If you want to go get technical and drag in the wet-navy analogies as you did when you added your fighterbays into the mix, then I'll reply to that. The helipad on an Iowa is for resupply or reconissance, and you damn well know it.
Havn't specified, but those weapons use very little energy. I would say around 12 AAAf, 20 flak, 10 missile lunchers and 10 terrna turrets off the top of my head.
I'll give you the 10 terran turrets, but 12 AAAf, 20 flak, and 10 missile launchers raise all sorts of concers, both power and ammo. We've been saying that for this entire thread.
5 engines reduce the disabling weakness... and no, it's not vulnerable from attacks from the top - quite contrary.
2 fighterbayys are a structural weakness (but then again they are alls oby destroyers..even more so since they are bigger), but not a big one, as they are small and relativly unimportant to the ship. Besides, they are on different sides of hte ship so the chances that both get destroyed are slim.
Then you have a reduction of internal space for your subsystem shielding and/or space used for redundancy (this'd also need crew for maintenance).
That's got nothing to do with a battleship designation, and everything to do with how you laid out that particular ship. 5 engines is stupid overkill, especially when they are all located at tha back of the ship. One could argue that the Orion has 4, they are just all tied together.
And less beam weapons than the humble Orion (which has 6) and the same as the Hecate (4 TerSlash, 1 Big green), so it's not exceptionally powerful. So it's a big slow target with only enough fighter cover to protect itself.
Orion has 7.... and I havn't even stated the beam type..and like I said - think outside the box for a seconds, who said beam cannosn are it's main weapons?
So it's got as many beams as a Hecate and something more powerful? And this is not overpowered how?
NB: Deimos numbers are being derived from (probably) the 6,000 crew of the Sobek, as stated in Lion At The Gates.
In other words an asumption. the Sobek probably carried a lot of scientists and last-minute persoonel lthat had to evac the area. And even if 6000 is totaly accurate for the Sobek, it can be way off for hte Deimos.
Now just who's making assumptions? Why the hell would a Sobek in a war zone be carrying a bunch of scientists and last-minute personnel anyway? And as I just said, personnel numbers for Terran and Vasudan destroyers is a perfect match, so you'd have to make something up to say it was not the same in the case of a Deimos.
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The reduction in speed is not just a matter of the Leviathan stripping out its engines. It's more to do with the fact that armour is ****ing heavy! I very much doubt the Leviathan had different engines from the Fenris. It moves slower because of the weight of the armour it's carrying.
Weight would affect acceleration, not speed...realisticly.
When you look at a destroyer the stuff you're stripping out is mostly open space and therefore lightweight. Especially if we are to believe your claims that the destroyers hanger bays look like those in the FS1 mainhalls. The armour you are replacing it with though is bloody heavy. Furthermore you kept claiming that beams are big and heavy too. Have you now revised this opinion in order to fit with your claims that there would be no speed reduction?
Lastly how much is the extra fusion reactor you're adding going to weigh? What about its shielding? What about the store rooms and bunks for engine crews to look after it?
I never tough a hangar bay light..especially when filled with fighters and bombers. and the fighter/bomber weaponry..and spare parts..and pilots bunks..and mantainance crews..and all the heavy hangar machinery....
And I never claimed beams are heavy or big...
In any case while you are putting a lot of weight in, you're alls ofreeing a lot of room. It balances out..
Okay then. Explain why all the NTF ships in Kings Gambit leave the node on exactly the same vector then?
Smae vector..not the same location :D
But it allso helps my argument that you can clear up even MORE space for other stuff - like armor, redundant system, back-up generators and stuff :D
Except I'd already explained why space is not the limiting factor on the number of turrets you can install.
Did I even mention turrets in the above post?
The question is not "does it currently exist in FS2" but rather, does FS2 permit it to exist?
So once again you're back to inventing. The GTVA has hidden lasers of unimaginable power but didn't use them against the Shivans at any of the major decisive points at which the player was present. :rolleyes: For ****s sake Trashman you really need to know when you've lost one.
Of courtse I'm inventing! (in the realms of hte FS2 universe) If I didn't invent there would be nothing to add. Every time you add a new ship you ARE inventing. A
Adda missle cruiser - you're inventing! Tehre are no long-range-anti-cap missiles in FS2!
Make a dreadnought with a huge, forward fixed beam cannon! - again, no such beam cannon exists in FS2.
A fighter with subspace gliding engines? - again, such engines don't exist.
By following your train of though, most of the stuff made for FS2 by fans shouldn't be used or allowed..ever..
And lasers are not an integral part of the BB...they never were...that's just something I threw as a response to the Maxim - which I belive to be a fluke still...
So your ultimate battleship turns out in the end to be a ridiculously overpowered destroyer! :D
Becosue it can carry a few interceptors?
So, a large ship with 1 SGreen and 300 fighters would allso be a destroyer?
How about 2 BGreens and 600 fighters?
And of course, the Sathanas and Collie fit in there too, only a bit bigger?
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In other words an asumption. the Sobek probably carried a lot of scientists and last-minute persoonel lthat had to evac the area.
Yeah. Cause you get huge evacuations from an uninhabited system! :rolleyes:
Tragically, the 6,000 Vasudan officers and crew on board the Dahshor were not so lucky.
:rolleyes: for good measure.
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Trashman, post 1 post at a time. You've been warned by an admin not to do this.
I'll leave the rest of this to someone else, but these two things that really need responding to.
Weight would affect acceleration, not speed...realisticly.
Realistically, speed in space would not be capped at anything measured at 10s of meters per second. Realistically, none of this would be possible. In the context of the Freespace universe, more armor equals more weight equals lower top speed. Those are the rules. Play in the Freespace universe or get out of the debate.
I never tough a hangar bay light..especially when filled with fighters and bombers. and the fighter/bomber weaponry..and spare parts..and pilots bunks..and mantainance crews..and all the heavy hangar machinery....
And I never claimed beams are heavy or big...
I'm sorry, but the weight of one man doesn't compare to the weight of one cubic meter of reactor core shielding. Extrapolate, and the fighterbay will still have a lower density than a reactor in its place.
Oh, and...
And lasers are not an integral part of the BB...they never were...that's just something I threw as a response to the Maxim - which I belive to be a fluke still...
They are not a fluke in the Freespace universe. Just like Helios in a Myrmadon is not a fluke.
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The reduction in speed is not just a matter of the Leviathan stripping out its engines. It's more to do with the fact that armour is ****ing heavy! I very much doubt the Leviathan had different engines from the Fenris. It moves slower because of the weight of the armour it's carrying.
Weight would affect acceleration, not speed...realisticly.
Since when has anything in FS2 been realistic! Big, heavy ships in FS2 have a lower top speed than small, light ones. Stop attempting to deflect attention away from your ridiculous assumptions with nonsense about acceleration.
I never tough a hangar bay light..especially when filled with fighters and bombers. and the fighter/bomber weaponry..and spare parts..and pilots bunks..and mantainance crews..and all the heavy hangar machinery....
It's a ****load lighter than pure armour. Seeing as how armour is something tough enough to laugh off nuclear explosions it's not a huge stretch to say that it's undoubtably heavy.
And I never claimed beams are heavy or big...
You spent a whole page arguing exactly that last time we went through this.
Okay then. Explain why all the NTF ships in Kings Gambit leave the node on exactly the same vector then?
Smae vector..not the same location :D
So? They'd still pile into each other. Especially if you send the big, slow destoyer in first and then send in something lighter like a destroyer.
Of courtse I'm inventing! (in the realms of hte FS2 universe)
But you're not in the realms of the FS2 universe. You're claiming that the GTVA has a long range laser technology. We have never seen hide nor hair of this tech and yet you insist that the GTVA have it and have been developing it since present day inspite of the fact that FS1 and FS2 seem to directly contradict this assertion.
Furthermore you only ever invent in favour of your beloved BBs. You never invent technologies to balance them out. You're attempting to claim that a BB would be useful in the current FS2 universe. So kindly stick to that universe rather than skewing the entire thing in one direction to favour the argument you're trying to make.
By following your train of though, most of the stuff made for FS2 by fans shouldn't be used or allowed..ever..
Oh hear we go again with the tired old "no fan is allowed to invent" argument. You did exactly the same thing last time so I'll give you the same response. You can do whatever the **** you like in Trashmanverse. You can have beam cannons that shoot out 50 foot tall hungry bunny rabbits if you like. However if you want to claim that the BB could exist in the FS2 universe that means that you are constrained by what is present in the universe.
There is no mention, nor hint of this laser tech in FS2 and in fact what mention there is of lasers in the game directly contradicts it. Let it go. It's nothing to do with the FS2 universe.
And lasers are not an integral part of the BB...they never were...that's just something I threw as a response to the Maxim - which I belive to be a fluke still...
You can believe what the **** you like but the range of the maxim is canon.
And of course, the Sathanas and Collie fit in there too, only a bit bigger?
The Juggernaut class has always had a fighterbay. That's what differenciates them from a destroyer is simply their size.
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My bad. Wrong corvette. It's the sobek that has a crew number of 6000. Seems reasonable that the Deimos would have similar numbers though.
Crew numbers for Deimos were mentioned during radio chatter...
I was something like "..the ???? crewmembers aboard the Warspite are counting on your success!..."
Note that I am not sure about the crew numbers, but I am sure it was the Warspite command was talking about. Go dig that up.
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Yeah. Cause you get huge evacuations from an uninhabited system! :rolleyes:
Scientist observing the portal, and the techs overseeing the meson deployment.. And since both of those projects are very important to the GTVA, I would say a fain number of extra personell.
They are not a fluke in the Freespace universe. Just like Helios in a Myrmadon is not a fluke.
That's you oppinion.
Maxims break balance for any capship, making fighter assault redicolously easy. Two wings of fighters with Maxims and Trebs and you'll ccripple the enemy destroyer before it's fightercover can react and close...
Wait a sec...that just makes the destroyer calss totaly obsolete...hey, and the cruisers too - they can be taken out by 1 fighter...talk about a useless class..
It's a ****load lighter than pure armour. Seeing as how armour is something tough enough to laugh off nuclear explosions it's not a huge stretch to say that it's undoubtably heavy.
I never said armor was light - jsut tahat hangarbays aren't as light as you would suggest.
So? They'd still pile into each other. Especially if you send the big, slow destoyer in first and then send in something lighter like a destroyer.
This post makes no sense whatsoever... even if you put some other ship class for the second ship.
You constantly think of node travel like a train..
Picture a destroyer with one cruiser on each side and one corvette above and below.
All of that can fit into a node nicely.
But you're not in the realms of the FS2 universe. You're claiming that the GTVA has a long range laser technology. We have never seen hide nor hair of this tech and yet you insist that the GTVA have it and have been developing it since present day inspite of the fact that FS1 and FS2 seem to directly contradict this assertion.
Furthermore you only ever invent in favour of your beloved BBs. You never invent technologies to balance them out. You're attempting to claim that a BB would be useful in the current FS2 universe. So kindly stick to that universe rather than skewing the entire thing in one direction to favour the argument you're trying to make.
Except for lasers (which, as I said are NOT part of hte BB desing concept) everything else is completely plausable.
So I AM sticking to the FS2 universe.
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Crew numbers for Deimos were mentioned during radio chatter...
I was something like "..the ???? crewmembers aboard the Warspite are counting on your success!..."
Note that I am not sure about the crew numbers, but I am sure it was the Warspite command was talking about. Go dig that up.
It just said thousands without saying how many thousand. Not that it matters. I can just as easily substitute Sobek for Deimos in all my earlier arguments.
Scientist observing the portal, and the techs overseeing the meson deployment.. And since both of those projects are very important to the GTVA, I would say a fain number of extra personell.
What the **** are you on about. The comment is made in Lion at the Door. The mission were the Knossos is first mentioned. There were no extra personnel. Especially not anyone doing anything with meson bombs :rolleyes:
For ****'s sake Trashman try checking your sources before going off on a wild flight of fancy. In your haste to try to invent some spurious reasoning to explain why the number of vasudans on board doesn't fit with your ridiculous theory about crew numbers you've gone off and invented a wild theory explaining details from a completely different mission to the one where the comment was made. :rolleyes:
Maxims break balance for any capship, making fighter assault redicolously easy. Two wings of fighters with Maxims and Trebs and you'll ccripple the enemy destroyer before it's fightercover can react and close...
Wait a sec...that just makes the destroyer calss totaly obsolete...hey, and the cruisers too - they can be taken out by 1 fighter...talk about a useless class..
They're canon. No one gives a flying **** whether you think they unbalance the game. They're canon
I never said armor was light - jsut tahat hangarbays aren't as light as you would suggest.
They're a lot lighter than armour is.
So? They'd still pile into each other. Especially if you send the big, slow destoyer in first and then send in something lighter like a destroyer.
This post makes no sense whatsoever... even if you put some other ship class for the second ship.
It makes perfect sense. If you have several ships exiting very soon after each other in the exact same direction from points very close together you stand a very good chance of having them all bang into each other or get in each others way. If you send out the slowest of those ships first you increase that risk.
You constantly think of node travel like a train..
Picture a destroyer with one cruiser on each side and one corvette above and below.
All of that can fit into a node nicely.
Except that you have no proof whatsoever that you can exit a node like that. Kings Gambit seems to prove you can't because all the large ships in the NTF train all left the node from roughly the same point travelling in the same direction. Only the cruisers are able to jump out at any point other than the centre of the node. And they are all forced to come out on the same vector which makes it a field day for enemy slash beams.
Except for lasers (which, as I said are NOT part of hte BB desing concept) everything else is completely plausable.
So I AM sticking to the FS2 universe.
So you admit that the laser stuff you were talking about is implausable? Well that's a start. As I've said before it's one thing to extrapolate possible technology within the universe but the problem is that you favour one side. You've added new long range weapons to your BBs. You're using numbers of turrets unheard of even in ships 3 times the size of your BBs. You're using armour that is ridiculously light for the effectiveness you've given it.
And then you've taken this monster of inovation and said it must be better because it can be a destoyer with fighter escort which you haven't upgraded at all!
So what do you think, every other ship class is going to stand still while the BB is invented? What absolute nonsense. Even if I accept the technological upgrades you've made for the BB the only fair course is to give the destroyer access to the same technology. That means that the new Uber Orion would have twice the hit points, at least 30 more turrets and the maxim would also have tripple the range.
So your BB would still be ****ed over. The difference between it and the new Orion would mean that it wasn't cost effective to build them. The GTVA would just build more uber Orions.
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All these can be easily solved by shielding. Make it as large as the Colossus, so heavily shielded that it could survive a supernova, The ship is covered with Shivan Super Lasers and a new kind of Flaks that shoot out primed Meson bombs. :D
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Shhhh. Don't tell Trashman. He'll add them to his next ship and then tell us it's perfectly in line with the FS2 universe! :D
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Havn't specified, but those weapons use very little energy. I would say around 12 AAAf, 20 flak, 10 missile lunchers and 10 terrna turrets off the top of my head.
Absolutely no evidence whatsoever for that energy calculation, moreso bearing in mind that's more anti-fighter turrets than the Colossus had (18 terran turret, 12 flak, 10 missile, 10 AAAf beam), in a ship that's less than half the size. So not only do you have a reactor the size of that of the Colossus, but you have under half the internal volume; you really think that can be made up by just removing the (larger) fighterbays?
And the fighterbay on the Colossus would have had very low power requirements in comparison to weaponry (again, consider what you actually need to power using the main reactor on a fighterbay....it's not going to be exponentially bigger than the 2 fighterbays you want, anyways)
5 engines reduce the disabling weakness... and no, it's not vulnerable from attacks from the top - quite contrary.
2 fighterbayys are a structural weakness (but then again they are alls oby destroyers..even more so since they are bigger), but not a big one, as they are small and relativly unimportant to the ship. Besides, they are on different sides of hte ship so the chances that both get destroyed are slim.
2 fighterbays represent a gap in the armour of the vessel; 2 gaps (compared to a single bay on a destroyer) to be precise, where there are structural joins, pressure seals, etc. For a destroyer, that's not a major issue as it is designed for hands-off attacks, focusing on using fighters to keep threats at bay. For a battleship...well, it's been described by you as being a close-in fighter against large ships, so that's lost. You only need to lose one, anyways; the whole issue of a structural weak point is that it can be destroyed and thus compromise the entire vessel hull.
5 engines; again imposes issues of size, how you engineer that redundancy, and the number of crew required for each engine. More engines; increases the chance of a single fault (increasing complexity), also structural issues of bracing and shielding (because you need to move these to be physically apart or they're just as vulnerable to explosion damage as one big engine).
Orion has 7.... and I havn't even stated the beam type..and like I said - think outside the box for a seconds, who said beam cannosn are it's main weapons?
So you've not stated the main weapons? Given that beams are the most effective form of energy weapons in Freespace, you could only have missiles/projectiles as a main anti-cap weapon then.... and, guess what - ammo! Which needs space, no?
And it has less beams than an Orion.......
In other words an asumption. the Sobek probably carried a lot of scientists and last-minute persoonel lthat had to evac the area. And even if 6000 is totaly accurate for the Sobek, it can be way off for hte Deimos.
NB: typo, mission was A Lion At the Door, not Gate. Apologies; although maybe you should have actually checked the text yourself.....
Anways..... a corvette is sent in order to attack and blockade a node from Shivan space to GTVA, and they add personnel?! Moreso, the debrief explicitly says "6,000 Vasudan officers and crew". And these ships were combat-deployments to intercept & destroying deploying Shivan forces following the destruction of the Vigilant & discovery of the knossos, not perform and scientific or evacuation task.
Of course, the Deimos could quite conceivably carry over 6,000 crew; it does have more turrets (26 vs 22) and is over 100m long (obviously not done a volume comparison, though). It's more likely than less; especially as Vasudans appear to be physically larger (Thus probably requiring more living space, slightly taller ceilings, etc)
I'd note your battleship also has a pifflingly small amount of defense fighters, which means that it is still useless operating at a system-wide level (it can't provide escort or cover for anything beyond itself). Plus the battleship doesn't have bombers, which means it surrenders any control of how far ranged the battlefield is; any fighter carrying capship can sit at beyond the battleships gun range and wear it down with bomber attacks until it (the attacker) has a tactical edge. Unless, I suppose, you equip your magic-o-ship with a vast amount of long range torpedos (as they're the only FS2 weaponry with the type of range to even come close to matching the range of a bomber force), in which case you have, again, issues of storage for those munitions.
(A destroyer based force can pretty easily strip away a 20-fighter defense; namely it sends bomber wings to use Trebuchets to disarm/disable the battleship, with the intent of either wearing it down or drawing out the fighters to beyond AAAf range - at which point the space superiority wings from the attacking destroyer can engage and destroy those interceptors.)
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Maxims break balance for any capship, making fighter assault redicolously easy. Two wings of fighters with Maxims and Trebs and you'll ccripple the enemy destroyer before it's fightercover can react and close...
Wait a sec...that just makes the destroyer calss totaly obsolete...hey, and the cruisers too - they can be taken out by 1 fighter...talk about a useless class
Yes, maxims eat capital ships for lunch, but that does not render capital ships obsolete or useless.
Destroyers still have their fighter cover, and they don't need to close if they're properly equipped, such as with trebuchets. As any self respecting fighter escort should be. So to assault a destroyer, you still need to be able to overpower or at least distract it's fighter escort. Further, you disregard one of the major disadvantages of the maxim: It's an energy hog. You don't get to shoot for very long before you have to wait for energy to recharge again, giving time for defenders to respond even if they don't have trebs.
And maxim or no, all capital ships are vulnerable to bombers, yet this still does not render them useless. It comes down to something that was discussed a lot of pages ago, which was the real point of capital ships in FS2. And it wasn't firepower or survivability, it was the ability to operate independantly for long periods of time. If fighters could do this, cruisers would be largely useless, as would any other warship not capable of carrying and supporting fighters and bombers. But fighters can't do this, so all these capital ship classes do have a place, regardless of their vulnerability.
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My 2 cents on the origional topic:
Super massively huge destroyers with a bazillion anti cap weapons and maybe 6 fighters crammed in the back somewhere near the trash jettison chutes is not sensible. If the army and is spending your money wisely, the capital ships need to be versatile. With pirate interdiction, patrol, rescue, and location defense taking up most of their time, the cap ships need big hangar bays. Those get constant use while the uber gun on the nose maybe gets shot at something serious maybe 10 times in the ship's career.
To draw a parallel, in the WWII pacific theater, most of the american naval military might, sorties, etc was wrapped up in the bazillion baby aircraft carriers we had deployed. Sure the missouri battleship was impressive, but most japanese vessels were sank and islands captures with air support from the baby carriers. The biggest battleship in the world was fielded by the Japanese during this time (the Yamoto -- totally huge too), and it was sent straight to the bottom by american aircraft without ever shooting its main guns at an american target. (I think. I'm pulling this all from memory. It's in wikipedia anyway.)
So in freespace, I think the alliance should look at the shivans to realize what does and does not work. A sathanas can make mincemeat out of anything the GTVA dreams of unless a little bomber with 4 helios bombs knocks out its four forward pointing beams of doom. Then a fenris with a CAP can take it out. The really useful shivan ship IMO was the Moloch. This thing had a nice little pack of missles, flak, and beams with good firing arcs, and a fighter bay -- all packed into a corvette chassis. A similar Terran corvette would be much cheaper than a destroyer to make and man, and far more versitile for filling out battle groups, exploring, whacking pirates, whatever. Sure a big new vasudan destroyer could smoke one, but I doubt it could smoke 20 at once, which is probably how many such corvettes you could build with the cost to make and man one superdestroyer.
I think the alliance would start building more corvette class ships. I would guess two new models would be needed. 1 slightly larger than the deimos carries similar armament and houses maybe 3-4 wings of interceptors and light bombers. 2 similar size but has the firepower similar to an aeolus carrying 6-8 wings of various light and heavy fighters and bombers. Round this out with a couple deimos corvettes refittied with one LRGBeam instead of two slashes in the nose, and you've got a nasty little battle group.
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Wikipedia needs itself checked then...Yamato fired its main battery at the planes. :p Type 93 San Shiki shells.
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nope that would be my brain that needs checked. But my point still stands. It sank. And cap ships can't target fighters with the primaries, everyone knows that! :p
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Infact Yamato fired its main guns also against US (escort) carrier group during the battle of Samur Sea and destroyed atleast one destroyer and one escort carrier before withdrawing undamaged. And those San Shiki shells (sort of flak shell) were quite nice invention if they had worked properly which they didnt.. I think many people at that time would have wanted 460 mm flak cannons, designed to drop a whole formation of airplanes with a single shot...
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(as an aside...) The Yamatos sister ship, the Musashi, was also sunk by aircraft.
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Infact Yamato fired its main guns also against US (escort) carrier group during the battle of Samur Sea and destroyed atleast one destroyer and one escort carrier before withdrawing undamaged. And those San Shiki shells (sort of flak shell) were quite nice invention if they had worked properly which they didnt.. I think many people at that time would have wanted 460 mm flak cannons, designed to drop a whole formation of airplanes with a single shot...
Gambier Bay was sunk by 14-inch and 8-inch shells. (Attributed to the Kongo and one of the heavy cruisers; probably one of the three that was sunk, since no one seems to know which exactly.) The DDs and DEs were sunk by cruiser main battery or battleship secondary battery fire. (Several of them took hits from battleship shells, but were not fatally damaged by them. That makes a rather impressive testament to the sturdiness of the ships and the STS steel they were built out of.) Yamato, in fact, was almost a non-factor in the battle, as it ended up caught between torpedo spreads and could only head north (away from the enemy) at top speed for 10 miles and hope a torpedo didn't crawl up its stern.
Yamato is generally not credited with having actually hit an enemy with its main battery. Musashi is believed to have killed one or two aircraft with main battery fire before she was sunk. Thus the largest naval rifles that ever were used in combat probably inflicted, at best, six casualities on the enemy.
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Different sources.. i have seen Yamato been credited variably from 0 to 2 sinkings but i dont which is the truth though.
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I recally the Yamato actually being flooded and run aground near the harbor, to be used as a static defense..
But enough military history for now :D
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Absolutely no evidence whatsoever for that energy calculation, moreso bearing in mind that's more anti-fighter turrets than the Colossus had (18 terran turret, 12 flak, 10 missile, 10 AAAf beam), in a ship that's less than half the size. So not only do you have a reactor the size of that of the Colossus, but you have under half the internal volume; you really think that can be made up by just removing the (larger) fighterbays?
And the fighterbay on the Colossus would have had very low power requirements in comparison to weaponry (again, consider what you actually need to power using the main reactor on a fighterbay....it's not going to be exponentially bigger than the 2 fighterbays you want, anyways)
Nor is there anything to disprove them.
Think of it this way - the Colossus dumped far more power trough his cannons that they were designed to take - obviously it had power to spare.
Secondly, just how many guns you *could* mount on a ship frame is questionalbe. Just coause the Collie has 12 beam cannons and the Orion 7, doesn't mean that the Collie couldn't carry more - it jsut mean that it was designed with 12 in mind. After all, why plump 30 cannons if 12 are more than enough to do the job, as evident by hte breaking of hte NTF.
Sicne hte Collie was designed to fight several light vessels, it really didnt need more guns, or especialyl mroe powerfull guns. Alltough we all know that you can allways make a more powerfull gun, it the collies's case it wasn't needed.
Allso consider one other fact - teh common fighter has a power plant of it's own that powers the shield, engines and weapons. It provides a lot of power as 6 Subachs are more dangerous and powerfull than a terran Turret.
Now, strip that fighter of hte engines, hte cockpit and the shield generator.. add armor and place it on a swiveling mount, attach it to hte warship hull.
Congratualtions - you just got a self-powered PDS turret.
Of course, the Tryinity suggest that even small turrets are powered from the main reactors...at least for cruisers that is....that, or they needed every bit of power they could get.
Whatever the case, self-powered light turrets are possible. Big guns on the other hand.....
2 fighterbays represent a gap in the armour of the vessel; 2 gaps (compared to a single bay on a destroyer) to be precise, where there are structural joins, pressure seals, etc. For a destroyer, that's not a major issue as it is designed for hands-off attacks, focusing on using fighters to keep threats at bay. For a battleship...well, it's been described by you as being a close-in fighter against large ships, so that's lost. You only need to lose one, anyways; the whole issue of a structural weak point is that it can be destroyed and thus compromise the entire vessel hull.
5 engines; again imposes issues of size, how you engineer that redundancy, and the number of crew required for each engine. More engines; increases the chance of a single fault (increasing complexity), also structural issues of bracing and shielding (because you need to move these to be physically apart or they're just as vulnerable to explosion damage as one big engine).
Some destroyers have 2 bays you know...like hte Hatspthuh - and it allso has the most HP.
anyway, Immagine the fighterbay on the BB more as a modular attachment that actually a gap in it's armor. If the bay get's blown off a new one can be installed.
and engines... most shivan ships have more than 5 engines... the Hecate has 7. I'd consider 5 a optimalnumber...especially if they aren't clustered together.
So you've not stated the main weapons? Given that beams are the most effective form of energy weapons in Freespace, you could only have missiles/projectiles as a main anti-cap weapon then.... and, guess what - ammo! Which needs space, no?
I was actually thinking the main armament being beam cannons and heavy plasma blob guns. No ammmo.
I'd note your battleship also has a pifflingly small amount of defense fighters, which means that it is still useless operating at a system-wide level (it can't provide escort or cover for anything beyond itself). Plus the battleship doesn't have bombers, which means it surrenders any control of how far ranged the battlefield is; any fighter carrying capship can sit at beyond the battleships gun range and wear it down with bomber attacks until it (the attacker) has a tactical edge.
20-24 interceptors is enough of a defense force, but you're right - they only serve to protect it and do recon. A BB's role is to complement other ship classes - so a BB would practicly allways be following a destroyer, serving as a bodyguard of a sort.
And like I said - the range analogy is useles in FS2 due to subspace jumps. Destroyer is to far aways? - either jump to safety or jump right next to it.
And maxim or no, all capital ships are vulnerable to bombers, yet this still does not render them useless.
True...but bombs can be intercepted, maxim shots can't... For bombing to be effective you'd need to come close and let them go at the last possible second, thus exposing yourself to enemy fire. With a maxim you're well out of range of capship weapons.
and given the fact that a wing of fighters can rape any cruiser WITHOUT A SCRATCH, I'd say they are useless.
460 mm flak cannons,
now there's an idea for FS2!!! I'll get right on it!
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I recally the Yamato actually being flooded and run aground near the harbor, to be used as a static defense..
But enough military history for now :D
The Yamato was sunk in 300m of water 200km off Okinawa. The Mushasi was sank at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and the 3rd Yamato class vessel - the Shinano - was converted to an aircraft carrier during construction (following the Battle of Midway), and sunk by 6 torpedos from the USS Archerfish (sub); this was before the ship had its hull compartments completed.
Nor is there anything to disprove them.
Think of it this way - the Colossus dumped far more power trough his cannons that they were designed to take - obviously it had power to spare.
Secondly, just how many guns you *could* mount on a ship frame is questionalbe. Just coause the Collie has 12 beam cannons and the Orion 7, doesn't mean that the Collie couldn't carry more - it jsut mean that it was designed with 12 in mind. After all, why plump 30 cannons if 12 are more than enough to do the job, as evident by hte breaking of hte NTF.
Sicne hte Collie was designed to fight several light vessels, it really didnt need more guns, or especialyl mroe powerfull guns. Alltough we all know that you can allways make a more powerfull gun, it the collies's case it wasn't needed.
Allso consider one other fact - teh common fighter has a power plant of it's own that powers the shield, engines and weapons. It provides a lot of power as 6 Subachs are more dangerous and powerfull than a terran Turret.
Now, strip that fighter of hte engines, hte cockpit and the shield generator.. add armor and place it on a swiveling mount, attach it to hte warship hull.
Congratualtions - you just got a self-powered PDS turret.
Of course, the Tryinity suggest that even small turrets are powered from the main reactors...at least for cruisers that is....that, or they needed every bit of power they could get.
Whatever the case, self-powered light turrets are possible. Big guns on the other hand.....
You have a self-powered turret with a substantially larger blast radius when destroyed than a normal turret, too. It's also not made clear if there is an operational lifetime for fighter reactors (thinking about this....is it ever explicitly stated what powers a fighter?); it's a lot easier to replace or alter a fighters' reactor in the engineering bay every couple of weeks than to take a point-defense cannon offline.
It's pretty obvious the GTVA wouldn't have weakened the Colossus in any way beyond necessary; the 5-6km frame would not have been designed prior to deciding the armament of the vessel (That'd be an insane way to set down a design), but as a consequence as to 'how do we make a juggernaut?' And you can't always make a more powerful gun; there are always limiting factors on what becomes feasible and - even more important - economical in terms of heat, space, power.
Also, IIRC the Colossus wasn't using all it's weaponry attacking the Sath; so there'd be a degree of freedom to re-route it, although doing so had clear and damaging consequences; put it this way, it strained the hell out of that vessel to 'upgrade' the beams; even if it had the spare energy (and we don't know if it did, or it shut down half the systems and near-overloaded the reactor), there were structural consequences to that level of output.
Some destroyers have 2 bays you know...like hte Hatspthuh - and it allso has the most HP.
anyway, Immagine the fighterbay on the BB more as a modular attachment that actually a gap in it's armor. If the bay get's blown off a new one can be installed.
and engines... most shivan ships have more than 5 engines... the Hecate has 7. I'd consider 5 a optimalnumber...especially if they aren't clustered together.
As I said, destroyers have better point defense (Escort fighters - and lots of them), so a single structural weakness is less at risk. There's no way you could attach a 'modular' fighterbay without making that fighterbay even more suusceptible to destruction (because it will have deliberate 'weakness' in the engineering to reduce the impact of its destruction upon the frame in that case); so you're effectively making your main source of ranged defense deliberately vulnerable.
AFAIK the Hecate only has, what, one or 2 engine subsystems. Don't confuse the issue of the engine controls with the physical engine apertures; if you have multiple engineering depts, again you have structural issues there in integrating them; yes, you reduce the vulnerability to disarmament, but you have to wire up and isolate the departments. Otherwise, based on FS, attacking individual engine thrusters doesn't really make much difference. In any case, again, the Hecate isn't really intended to fight close in to targets.
I was actually thinking the main armament being beam cannons and heavy plasma blob guns. No ammmo.
So heavy energy requirements & heat, approximating or exceeding the Colossus' across a frame about half the size. Especially if you want those plasma turrets to be any cop; because they are pretty useless as is, and you were talking about an effective point defense for when this thing is ambushed by multiple mobile foes.....
20-24 interceptors is enough of a defense force, but you're right - they only serve to protect it and do recon. A BB's role is to complement other ship classes - so a BB would practicly allways be following a destroyer, serving as a bodyguard of a sort.
And like I said - the range analogy is useles in FS2 due to subspace jumps. Destroyer is to far aways? - either jump to safety or jump right next to it.
Then why don't we see every FS1/FS2 capship battle punctuated by micro-jumps into exact flanking positions every 5 seconds? Of course, actually jumping into subspace isn't risk free; based on the players' jumping, you have something like 5-10 seconds when you can't maneuver or (possible - not checked with capships) fire. So each time your battleship jumps to reposition (unless it runs away, of course), it'd be exposing the rear to prolonged fire. And if you make the fighters cover that, then you isolate them from the protection of the bulk of the BS whilst it's in-transit, and physically seperate the two.
And in what way is a battleship any better than a corvette or cruiser battlegroup, then? All it is in that case, is a bigger and less maneuverable single target replacing multiple units able to flank and destroy targets. Especially given that the only real value of a battleship in that context is as heavy-weapons support (which cruisers and corvettes have; hell, they can just ramp up the beams like the Colossus did, based on your suggestion, and they can tactically jump out independently, covering each others arses).
True...but bombs can be intercepted, maxim shots can't... For bombing to be effective you'd need to come close and let them go at the last possible second, thus exposing yourself to enemy fire. With a maxim you're well out of range of capship weapons.
and given the fact that a wing of fighters can rape any cruiser WITHOUT A SCRATCH, I'd say they are useless.
Not much different than any capship, is it? Couple of trebs to knock out an area of turreting, and they're all screwed; and that's ignoring the obvious ability to use the blind spot provided by the thrusters (and for something as heavy as a ship with 2.5 times the armour plating of an Orion, you'd need pretty damn big thrusters; the Leviathan lost over half it's speed vis-a-vis the Fenris, and it didn't have the doubling of turrets).
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Nor is there anything to disprove them.
Think of it this way - the Colossus dumped far more power trough his cannons that they were designed to take - obviously it had power to spare.
Wrong! Try again.
We're having difficulty stabilizing the power grid, Command. Shutting down non-essential systems.
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Heat sinks were not made for this kind of abuse, Command! We'll melt down our cannons if we push any harder.
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Secondary and Tertiary reactors are down! Fire control is on the verge of redline! We're giving it all we got!
So yeah, the colossus basically blew out most of its power plants just to ramp up the power on 4 of its 12 beams. And it could sustain those power levels for a very short time only.
Secondly, just how many guns you *could* mount on a ship frame is questionalbe.
Just coause the Collie has 12 beam cannons and the Orion 7, doesn't mean that the Collie couldn't carry more - it jsut mean that it was designed with 12 in mind. After all, why plump 30 cannons if 12 are more than enough to do the job, as evident by hte breaking of hte NTF.
Sicne hte Collie was designed to fight several light vessels, it really didnt need more guns, or especialyl mroe powerfull guns. Alltough we all know that you can allways make a more powerfull gun, it the collies's case it wasn't needed.
That's retarded. So the ship was designed for 12 beams. Sure. I'll buy that. But then by extension the consequences of mounting that much firepower was that the hull had to be 6km long and the requirement for 30,000 crew. Think about that, because (other than the armor) your "ideal battleship" sounds almost exactly like the Colossus but occupying less physical space.
Some destroyers have 2 bays you know...like hte Hatspthuh - and it allso has the most HP.
anyway, Immagine the fighterbay on the BB more as a modular attachment that actually a gap in it's armor. If the bay get's blown off a new one can be installed.
and engines... most shivan ships have more than 5 engines... the Hecate has 7. I'd consider 5 a optimalnumber...especially if they aren't clustered together.
Say it with me now, "Hatshepsut." It's not that hard :rolleyes: Anyway, don't think of the Hatshepsut as having two fighter bays, think of it as one bay with two launch/recovery ports. Like the Typhon before it, there's rather strong implications that the bay is actually located deep inside the vessel, where it's more heavily protected from incidental fire. Sure, the launch tubes can get destroyed, but the many valuable fighters and pilots within would not be. And having that redundant launch corridor helps ensure that they do not get trapped in the belly of their ship should one tube become disabled in the heat of battle.
The only FS ship with more than 5 engines is the Sathanas, and there's no stated reason for why it needs all of them (6). The Hecate, like many other ships, has (I believe) 3 engine subsystems, none of which are particularly resiliant to damage.
I was actually thinking the main armament being beam cannons and heavy plasma blob guns. No ammmo.
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20-24 interceptors is enough of a defense force, but you're right - they only serve to protect it and do recon. A BB's role is to complement other ship classes - so a BB would practicly allways be following a destroyer, serving as a bodyguard of a sort.
And like I said - the range analogy is useles in FS2 due to subspace jumps. Destroyer is to far aways? - either jump to safety or jump right next to it.
As has been said repeatedly, if you've got 12+ heavy anti-capital energy weapons on a Destroyer-size spaceframe, then you've got more firepower on a smaller frame than the Colossus. You just can't do that.
And jumps: that really would apply to every ship in Freespace if it were true (including the target and any strike craft in the area). The trouble is that making a subspace jump requires a non-trivial amount of energy to accomplish, and on a ship that's already putting more strain than normal on its reactors to power the bazillion weapons you've got it bristeling with that could easily be asking too much of the reactor. Or it would mean taking your weapons offline to acomplish a jump. Never mind that jumping in-mission is pretty canonically impossible.
And I might add, you're now redefining the role of your battleship. It's gone, over the course of this thread, from being the be-all, end-all weapon of destroyer doom to a support ship for a destroyer, a roll for which a pair of Corvettes seem more than adequately suited.
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It's pretty obvious the GTVA wouldn't have weakened the Colossus in any way beyond necessary; the 5-6km frame would not have been designed prior to deciding the armament of the vessel (That'd be an insane way to set down a design), but as a consequence as to 'how do we make a juggernaut?' And you can't always make a more powerful gun; there are always limiting factors on what becomes feasible and - even more important - economical in terms of heat, space, power.
And the desing for the Collie was made 20 years ago.
12 beam cannons must have sounded redicolously overpowered back then.
I very much doubt it used the latest tech, due to the long time of it's construction.
AFAIK the Hecate only has, what, one or 2 engine subsystems. Don't confuse the issue of the engine controls with the physical engine apertures; if you have multiple engineering depts, again you have structural issues there in integrating them; yes, you reduce the vulnerability to disarmament, but you have to wire up and isolate the departments. Otherwise, based on FS, attacking individual engine thrusters doesn't really make much difference. In any case, again, the Hecate isn't really intended to fight close in to targets.
Let me put this another way - the hecat has 5 distinct engine - 2 large ones, 2 on the fin and 1 on the front....No wait - it has two more on the front section, behind those strange structures...
As has been said repeatedly, if you've got 12+ heavy anti-capital energy weapons on a Destroyer-size spaceframe, then you've got more firepower on a smaller frame than the Colossus. You just can't do that.
Sez you:D
And jumps: that really would apply to every ship in Freespace if it were true (including the target and any strike craft in the area). The trouble is that making a subspace jump requires a non-trivial amount of energy to accomplish, and on a ship that's already putting more strain than normal on its reactors to power the bazillion weapons you've got it bristeling with that could easily be asking too much of the reactor. Or it would mean taking your weapons offline to acomplish a jump. Never mind that jumping in-mission is pretty canonically impossible.
So who said the BB would be shooting when it jumps out - by your own example, the destroyer would be out of range, sending it's fighters, so where exactly is the danger? If the DD is out of range of the BB's guns, the opposite is allso true, and by the time the DD's fighters reach the BB, ti will alrleady have jumped without fireing a shot.
Result - boths ships get out undamaged.
However, if both ships are close enough and in cannon range, the destroyer is the one that get's f****. Put an Orion vs a Hecate and in two salvos the Hecat is gone. Now if hte BB has moe firepower than the Orion, than the enemy destroyer (Orion OR Heacete) gt's pulverized in a single salve...which would take about...6 seconds? And it takes more for a destroyer to jump out.
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And you all seem to forget that th BB doesn't exist as a class in FS2...nor does a missle corvette..nor a gunship.
In order to put them, you have to invent them. and in order for them to work you have to invent something else too - in the case of missle corvettes you need powerfull-capship torps... Or in case of a BB, heavy plasma cannons or something else
Unless of course you want to limit new calsses to only those which use only standard FS2 weapons.
Of course, that ship wouldn't be set in FS2, but shortly after (since the prospect of such a ship existing, and not being seen at all is redicolous).
The exact power requirements of those plasma cannons are debatable as is the power and number of the reactors are not set and depend on multiple factors.
For instance, a weapon might have far more effective power usage (less power is lost), thus increasing it's damage without increasing power requirements. Or it could have saome ammo-dependant weapons.
Either way, the space cleared by the huge fightrbays leaves a lot of room for reactors and ammo storage. Given the fact that you know about FS2 internal ship design and technical components as much as I do (read - zilch), you can't stand there are claim with any certanty (or validity) that such a class is impossible in the FS2 universe at all.
After all, we sen the Gigas, the Odin, that uber-faustus fomr Trascend, that Corvette with beefed-up beam cannons from Depsperation, etc, etc...
Interesting how you go on a merry little crusade against a ship class, while ignoring 100000 other ship classes that display teh same (or more) things you claim to be impossible.
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And the desing for the Collie was made 20 years ago.
12 beam cannons must have sounded redicolously overpowered back then.
I very much doubt it used the latest tech, due to the long time of it's construction.
Very well then why not compare it with the Hecate. Your BB has more firepower and hitpoints than two Hecates. Yet the Hecate IS new. It does feature the best the GTVA can do. The same is true when you compare it against the Hatshepsut which is also fairly new. Your BB is ridiculously overpowered even when compared against ships that are built very close to the time it supposedly will be.
Interesting how you go on a merry little crusade against a ship class, while ignoring 100000 other ship classes that display teh same (or more) things you claim to be impossible.
It's not a crusade against the BB. It's the fact that
a) You only put new weapons on the BB and refuse to give the same advantage to other new ships.
b) You refuse to see that once you do give the same advantage to the other new ships the BB starts to look woefully inadequate.
I'd be just as scathing if anyone else did the same thing with another class.
Look at the other ships you mention and you'll see what I mean. The Gigas may be new but the other ships in the GTVA have also been upgraded. It's also worth pointing out that Inferno is set some time after FS2 so it's not like these ships popped up out of nowhere. Similar comments can be made for all the other ships you mention.
You're now putting uber plamsa cannons on the BB. There's nothing like that in the GTVA. The blob turrets on the GTVAs destroyers are only really useful for shooting down bombs and bombers\gunships. Yet you've suddenly invented this brand new super powered version which can do serious damage to capship out of nowhere and stuck it on your BB. Where are the new superweapons for destroyers then? Where is the version of the new super dense armour you're putting on the BB for them? Where is the destroyer's turret upgrade so that it can have a number that isn't based on old tech like the Colossus (and presumably the Hatshepsut and Hecate)?
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And the desing for the Collie was made 20 years ago.
12 beam cannons must have sounded redicolously overpowered back then.
I very much doubt it used the latest tech, due to the long time of it's construction.
Thus the same applies to your miracle ship-o-doom.
Let me put this another way - the hecat has 5 distinct engine - 2 large ones, 2 on the fin and 1 on the front....No wait - it has two more on the front section, behind those strange structures...
How many engine subsystems does it have? Because those are what you have to destroy ingame, aren't they? Shooting the glows has no effect upon the engines in Fs, does it?
Sez you:D
Says any form of logical reasoning by looking at existing examples.
So who said the BB would be shooting when it jumps out - by your own example, the destroyer would be out of range, sending it's fighters, so where exactly is the danger? If the DD is out of range of the BB's guns, the opposite is allso true, and by the time the DD's fighters reach the BB, ti will alrleady have jumped without fireing a shot.
Result - boths ships get out undamaged.
However, if both ships are close enough and in cannon range, the destroyer is the one that get's f****. Put an Orion vs a Hecate and in two salvos the Hecat is gone. Now if hte BB has moe firepower than the Orion, than the enemy destroyer (Orion OR Heacete) gt's pulverized in a single salve...which would take about...6 seconds? And it takes more for a destroyer to jump out.
You weren't reading, were you? The destroyer - if it's even in the area - has bomber and fighter wings attacking the BS at close range. The BS only has a limited degree of point defense and a minor force of interceptors for defense. Bombers and fighters can close down the BS a lot quicker than it can maneuver, and probably before it can jump - and if they can't, any ship that it jumps in close to can similarly jump out before it can even fire (because those jumps can be predicted accurately; as seen in FS2s' first mission). Even assuming such precision microjumps (and their required millisecond timing) are even possible, which we have never seen, even when they'd be battlewinners in FS1/2. Presumably, because if they were canonically possible, you'd never have battles; ships would just pop in and out of existance, dancing around each other without ever being able to warm their beams to fire.
And the whole point of a destroyer is it can stay out of beam cannon range if it is at risk. It only needs to close in to fire once the bomber wings have done their job and stripped the BS of offensive weaponry and maneuvering capacity.
And you all seem to forget that th BB doesn't exist as a class in FS2...nor does a missle corvette..nor a gunship.
In order to put them, you have to invent them. and in order for them to work you have to invent something else too - in the case of missle corvettes you need powerfull-capship torps... Or in case of a BB, heavy plasma cannons or something else
Unless of course you want to limit new calsses to only those which use only standard FS2 weapons.
Of course, that ship wouldn't be set in FS2, but shortly after (since the prospect of such a ship existing, and not being seen at all is redicolous).
The exact power requirements of those plasma cannons are debatable as is the power and number of the reactors are not set and depend on multiple factors.
For instance, a weapon might have far more effective power usage (less power is lost), thus increasing it's damage without increasing power requirements. Or it could have saome ammo-dependant weapons.
Either way, the space cleared by the huge fightrbays leaves a lot of room for reactors and ammo storage. Given the fact that you know about FS2 internal ship design and technical components as much as I do (read - zilch), you can't stand there are claim with any certanty (or validity) that such a class is impossible in the FS2 universe at all.
After all, we sen the Gigas, the Odin, that uber-faustus fomr Trascend, that Corvette with beefed-up beam cannons from Depsperation, etc, etc...
Interesting how you go on a merry little crusade against a ship class, while ignoring 100000 other ship classes that display teh same (or more) things you claim to be impossible.
Firstly, most ships are well balanced. Offhand, the Gigas is the only one I know offhand, and that's huge and Shivan. Kind of different paradigm - you can get away with pretty much anything if it's Shivan. Perhaps even a capship with the armament of a Sathanas at half the size.
Secondly, this is an arguement for the feasibility of ships within Freespace 2, not the divergent branch of canon that a campaign represents. You can invent any sort of exotic uber-ship you want in your own little campaign-defined reality - that's different from applying it in general to freespace.
Thirdly, this is also about the lack of consideration for the multitude of weaknesses that a ship such as a BS has and how the enemy would exploit them. The more you have to invent new and unknown technology to justify not just the tactical use but very existence of such a ship, the further you move away from plausibility either within Freespace or even within your own universe. For all the justification you can place in your own made up background, regardless of how divergent from FS, there is still always going to be a point where people look and think 'wait, that's totally unbelievable'.
Fourthly; the Freespace 2 universe. Note - 'Freespace 2'. Not 'post Freespace 2', not 'Freespace 2 if xx happened and we discovered superbeams powered by a 9V duracell'.
Finally; I can't think, offhand, of a ship class as infeasible as the BS proposed here, nor one which as blatantly displays the 'MORE BEAMZZ!!!' type attitude that fails to consider such elementary things as balance, believability, plausibility, and key weaknesses. I'm sure if I did see one being pushed, I'd have the same attitude to it as here. If I shoved a Super BFGReen on the Damocles and justified it as 'being powered by an exotic new GTVI reactor', I'd expect to be - rightly - castigated for it. Same as if I shoved more than 6 (max) light slashers on the thing.
Hell, the Pellestrom beam in CoW was probably the same case; the only reason I got away with that was probably because it had a huge installation (more or less) dedicated to powering the thing,.
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Very well then why not compare it with the Hecate. Your BB has more firepower and hitpoints than two Hecates. Yet the Hecate IS new. It does feature the best the GTVA can do. The same is true when you compare it against the Hatshepsut which is also fairly new. Your BB is ridiculously overpowered even when compared against ships that are built very close to the time it supposedly will be.
Actually, no. The Hatesputh is a heavy hitter and a BB compared to it wouldn't be redicolously overpowered. After all, in exchange for 120 fighters you get approx. twice the armor and firepower. A fair trade.
It's not a crusade against the BB. It's the fact that
a) You only put new weapons on the BB and refuse to give the same advantage to other new ships.
b) You refuse to see that once you do give the same advantage to the other new ships the BB starts to look woefully inadequate.
Not really. Like I said, the plasma turret isn't a requirement, and no where have I said that other ship wouldn't have it..at lesat not in that calibre.
Look at the other ships you mention and you'll see what I mean. The Gigas may be new but the other ships in the GTVA have also been upgraded. It's also worth pointing out that Inferno is set some time after FS2 so it's not like these ships popped up out of nowhere. Similar comments can be made for all the other ships you mention.
You're now putting uber plamsa cannons on the BB. There's nothing like that in the GTVA. The blob turrets on the GTVAs destroyers are only really useful for shooting down bombs and bombers\gunships. Yet you've suddenly invented this brand new super powered version which can do serious damage to capship out of nowhere and stuck it on your BB. Where are the new superweapons for destroyers then? Where is the version of the new super dense armour you're putting on the BB for them? Where is the destroyer's turret upgrade so that it can have a number that isn't based on old tech like the Colossus (and presumably the Hatshepsut and Hecate)?
Not uber.. Less damage than a beam cannon, but better fire rate. Comparable to a BGreen, possibly weaker.
Oh - did i forgot to mention the fact that in my own ship tables (which I used play and test the BB) the Terran Huge Turrets do 1000 damage and have a far greater range? And that the Orion and HEacat are both beefed up (Orion 27 turrets - more AF power, the Heacte 4 moe turrets, but gets more THT's)
And armor - well it's not just what typ of armor you use, but allso what quality it is (as evidenced by the fact that the 406mm armor of the Iowa proved better than the 460mm of the Yamato), how much of it you put, WHERE you put it and in how much layers...
by Aldo_14
You weren't reading, were you? The destroyer - if it's even in the area - has bomber and fighter wings attacking the BS at close range. The BS only has a limited degree of point defense and a minor force of interceptors for defense. Bombers and fighters can close down the BS a lot quicker than it can maneuver, and probably before it can jump - and if they can't, any ship that it jumps in close to can similarly jump out before it can even fire (because those jumps can be predicted accurately; as seen in FS2s' first mission). Even assuming such precision microjumps (and their required millisecond timing) are even possible, which we have never seen, even when they'd be battlewinners in FS1/2. Presumably, because if they were canonically possible, you'd never have battles; ships would just pop in and out of existance, dancing around each other without ever being able to warm their beams to fire.
And the whole point of a destroyer is it can stay out of beam cannon range if it is at risk. It only needs to close in to fire once the bomber wings have done their job and stripped the BS of offensive weaponry and maneuvering capacity.
If the DD is out of BB's cannon range (but is in visual range) that it will take the fighters/bombes FAR more time to close the distance than it will take the BB to jump (unless you think you cna close 6000meters in 10 seconds). And I wasn't talking about micro-jumping next to the destroyer that was previosuly 10klicks away - I was talking eiher about jumping to safety OR jumping next to the DD when the DD is FAR away.
If the DD is way out, and just send bombers in, again, torpedos are utterly slow. The second the bombers start jumping in the BB can start the jump-out sequence. Given the typical bomb lock time, speed and fire distance, from the moment the bomber jumps in to the moment the bomb reaches the hull (if not intercepted) a lot of time passes - more than enough time for the ship to jump out. Bombs are slow weapons, and bombers aren't realyl fast either.
We know the jumping time for capships is roughly 6-7 seconds. The time from when a cap emerges from subspace to when it opens fire is 3 seconds. So the DD can't escape in time to avoid 1 salvo from the BB, as those are direct and near-instant hit weapons.
And the BB doesn't have pitifull Point-defense. It has more Point-defense than any destroyer (during WW2, BB's had the most AF guns, and even the modified Iowa has more point-defense weapons than a carrier). Mostly flak guns (since they practicly don't use any power, they'd be ideal..ammo storage really isn't a problem)
Finally; I can't think, offhand, of a ship class as infeasible as the BS proposed here, nor one which as blatantly displays the 'MORE BEAMZZ!!!' type attitude that fails to consider such elementary things as balance, believability, plausibility, and key weaknesses. I'm sure if I did see one being pushed, I'd have the same attitude to it as here. If I shoved a Super BFGReen on the Damocles and justified it as 'being powered by an exotic new GTVI reactor', I'd expect to be - rightly - castigated for it. Same as if I shoved more than 6 (max) light slashers on the thing.
Then you ain't thinking hard enough...or not thinking at all.
There's not reason to invent any new gizmo for a BB to work...the long-range AF lasers are just an (feasable) idea, not a requirement. An the heavy plasma cannons are everything but far-fetched ... GTVA has that technology for god knows how-long. Capships like the Orion don't even use capital-grade only versions (thy shoot THT's at fighters for crying out loud, so it can't be a capship-only weapon lik a BGreen).
But even without it the BB could still work.
It has it weakneses, such as speed and suceptability to AMASSED figter attacks. It complements some other classes while at the sam time not making anyone of them obsolete. I'd call that balanced.
And uber-ship-of-doom? You got some crazy ideas there..what's so uber about it?
Size? - There are bigger
Fightercapacity? - there are FAR better
Speed? - there are better
Power projection - there are better
Armor and firepower (in it's size class) - now there's where it shines (alltough Collie or Sath would still pulverize a BB of destroyer size)
the uses of BB are breaking blockades, direct assaults against hardened targets and battlegroup support.
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Actually, no. The Hatesputh is a heavy hitter and a BB compared to it wouldn't be redicolously overpowered. After all, in exchange for 120 fighters you get approx. twice the armor and firepower. A fair trade.
Not when every evidence seen is that armour and firepower would logically have far more of a negative effect on the same frame and reactor (specifications) than those fighters, as evidence by pretty much any comparison you can make between capships. You've massively overestimated the weight, power requirements and space of fighters (or underestimated that of armour and turreting) in order to self-justify. We can see by the Sobek-vs-Orion/Hecate exactly how little crew, in actuality, fighters require (for an example).
Not really. Like I said, the plasma turret isn't a requirement, and no where have I said that other ship wouldn't have it..at lesat not in that calibre.
So any advantage that the enemy can have becomes 'not a requirement'. Doesn't that mean your super-new beams, ultralight armour, massively parallelised yet somehow spaceless engines, gigantically powerful lunchbox sized reactor, etc, are 'not requirements' then?
Not uber.. Less damage than a beam cannon, but better fire rate. Comparable to a BGreen, possibly weaker.
Oh - did i forgot to mention the fact that in my own ship tables (which I used play and test the BB) the Terran Huge Turrets do 1000 damage and have a far greater range? And that the Orion and HEacat are both beefed up (Orion 27 turrets - more AF power, the Heacte 4 moe turrets, but gets more THT's)
And armor - well it's not just what typ of armor you use, but allso what quality it is (as evidenced by the fact that the 406mm armor of the Iowa proved better than the 460mm of the Yamato), how much of it you put, WHERE you put it and in how much layers...
Your little quasi-universe is not FS2 canon, regardless of what you change to the Orion or Hecate. Thus it's of no relevance unless we're solely debating the BS within your universe, which we're not doing, because you make up the rules for that whole kit and kaboodle. I'm sure I could table up a situation where your BS got raped by a co-ordinated flanking cruiser attack; that wouldn't be any more valid. In any case, it's not exactly hard to 'rig' a FRED test; in every other post in this thread you've been eager to dismiss or ignore the tactical problems raised with a BS.
And armour can't just be summed up as something as simple as 'quality'; you can't just invent some super-armour that's lightweight and strong yet never, ever seen anywhere else and use that as a justification.... if anything, it's even worse as a justification because it can be extrapolated to apply to every ship, thus removing any sense of advantage. The only canonical, same tech era (later era, in fact, if only by months) comparison of increased armour strength is the Fenris-Leviathan, and that has very obvious results upon speed and maneuverability.
Not to mention you kind of ignored the whole multiple reactor+shielding issues (as well as various power/heat related constraints) when considering internal mass to suit yourself.
The 'where' is also pretty much irrelevant as we don't have a locality based damage model to use when comparing hitpoints; you can't say that xx of a Hecate is well protected but yy isn't, so you can't do that for any sort of other ship either (only exception being physical or otherwise subsystems which do have seperate percentage damage modifiers).
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Not when every evidence seen is that armour and firepower would logically have far more of a negative effect on the same frame and reactor (specifications) than those fighters, as evidence by pretty much any comparison you can make between capships. You've massively overestimated the weight, power requirements and space of fighters (or underestimated that of armour and turreting) in order to self-justify. We can see by the Sobek-vs-Orion/Hecate exactly how little crew, in actuality, fighters require (for an example).
I havn' seen no conclusive evidence. What you have is assumptions and estimates.
I do not overestimated the space requred for fighters - I calculatd it back home. Or do you want me to post a pic of it?
So any advantage that the enemy can have becomes 'not a requirement'. Doesn't that mean your super-new beams, ultralight armour, massively parallelised yet somehow spaceless engines, gigantically powerful lunchbox sized reactor, etc, are 'not requirements' then?
No uber-beams, no uber-armor, no uber-engines. They are your constructs, not mine.
The only thing that can be debated about is th reactor power.
Your little quasi-universe is not FS2 canon, regardless of what you change to the Orion or Hecate. Thus it's of no relevance unless we're solely debating the BS within your universe, which we're not doing, because you make up the rules for that whole kit and kaboodle. I'm sure I could table up a situation where your BS got raped by a co-ordinated flanking cruiser attack; that wouldn't be any more valid. In any case, it's not exactly hard to 'rig' a FRED test; in every other post in this thread you've been eager to dismiss or ignore the tactical problems raised with a BS.
I don't get you..maby it's my english..
first you say that I game the BB a weapon other ships don't have. Then when I say otehr ships have the same weapon you are allso not satisfied? If you fear that that's not cannon, you don't have to worry.. that's a special table set I use when making my campaign..I do have the standard FS2 tables and hte BB works with them too.
There is NO NEED for new weapons, alltough it would be nice to have the plasma gun.
But one simple thing that seems to elude your grasp is ---- the shi pis not supposed to be cannon. It can't be canon. It's just supposed to be able to function in the limitations of the canon universe. And large caliber Plasma Turrets are everything BUT impossible.
And armour can't just be summed up as something as simple as 'quality'; you can't just invent some super-armour that's lightweight and strong yet never, ever seen anywhere else and use that as a justification.... if anything, it's even worse as a justification because it can be extrapolated to apply to every ship, thus removing any sense of advantage. The only canonical, same tech era (later era, in fact, if only by months) comparison of increased armour strength is the Fenris-Leviathan, and that has very obvious results upon speed and maneuverability.
Not to mention you kind of ignored the whole multiple reactor+shielding issues (as well as various power/heat related constraints) when considering internal mass to suit yourself.
I have over 2500 books at home...half of those fall to naval ship...most of those about naval warship and their different aspects. And they do go into VERY much detail about armor....the same pinciples work in space too.
Being heavily armored doesn't mean to have armor that is thicker than everything else - but to have it devided and placed optimally and an armor of suficient thickness and quality to witstand most of that the enemy is supposed to throw at you.
I never said anything about a "new" armor type - you're (again) putting words in my mouth.
The 'where' is also pretty much irrelevant as we don't have a locality based damage model to use when comparing hitpoints; you can't say that xx of a Hecate is well protected but yy isn't, so you can't do that for any sort of other ship either (only exception being physical or otherwise subsystems which do have seperate percentage damage modifiers).
No we don't have localy based damage but the overal armor effectivnes must be approximated with a HP count, regardelss how inssuficiant it is. Suffice to say that BB would have an overall better armor placement (and slightly thicker armor too) and thus this can only be represented by increase of HP. If you find antehr way, please tell me.
b.t.w. - tehre are obviously different types of armor in FS2. The Deimos is stated as having a specific armour type, suggesting that maby older ships don't - either becouse or design, age or cost issues.
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I havn' seen no conclusive evidence. What you have is assumptions and estimates.
I do not overestimated the space requred for fighters - I calculatd it back home. Or do you want me to post a pic of it?
By all means do.
No uber-beams, no uber-armor, no uber-engines. They are your constructs, not mine.
The only thing that can be debated about is th reactor power.
So you either have a huge set of additional reactors and all that entails, or magic beams and engines - uber in fact - with bugger all power and cooling requirements. Or both; this is a Colossus reactor and turret set in a hull half the size, after all.
I don't get you..maby it's my english..
first you say that I game the BB a weapon other ships don't have. Then when I say otehr ships have the same weapon you are allso not satisfied? If you fear that that's not cannon, you don't have to worry.. that's a special table set I use when making my campaign..I do have the standard FS2 tables and hte BB works with them too.
There is NO NEED for new weapons, alltough it would be nice to have the plasma gun.
But one simple thing that seems to elude your grasp is ---- the shi pis not supposed to be cannon. It can't be canon. It's just supposed to be able to function in the limitations of the canon universe. And large caliber Plasma Turrets are everything BUT impossible.p.
And it can't function as you describe it within the canon universe. That's the whole point. It requires these hypothetical weapons to defend itself, justified by a purely hyopthetical assumption about the power, cooling, crew and space requirements for those weapons that is, if anything, contradicted by the required size for the big C and the canon crew numbers for the Sobek vs a destroyer. Not to mention an enemy that is wilfully ignorant of the inherent weaknesses of such a design, or the imaginary super armour that is somehow over twice the strength with no consequences whatever.
I have over 2500 books at home...half of those fall to naval ship...most of those about naval warship and their different aspects. And they do go into VERY much detail about armor....the same pinciples work in space too.
Being heavily armored doesn't mean to have armor that is thicker than everything else - but to have it devided and placed optimally and an armor of suficient thickness and quality to witstand most of that the enemy is supposed to throw at you.
I never said anything about a "new" armor type - you're (again) putting words in my mouth.
No, you did; because by implication it would be used in FS2 ships including the very-recent Hecate design; and thus it wouldn't pose any sort of advantage for a Bs using it but in actuality exactly the same restrictions as it does upon any other ship type. Maybe if you thought a bit more about your statements, I wouldn't have to point out the logical problems in them.
No we don't have localy based damage but the overal armor effectivnes must be approximated with a HP count, regardelss how inssuficiant it is. Suffice to say that BB would have an overall better armor placement (and slightly thicker armor too) and thus this can only be represented by increase of HP. If you find antehr way, please tell me.
It means you can't claim armour placement in one place would result in an overall increase in HP as the enemy would ignore that segement and concentrate upon the weakest area of the ship; as we can't represent that targeting in FS2, the ship is only as strong as the weakest area of its hull. Now, if you want the BB to have thicker armour overall, then fine, except you need to factor that in and either increase reactor size and space use, or slow it down.
b.t.w. - tehre are obviously different types of armor in FS2. The Deimos is stated as having a specific armour type, suggesting that maby older ships don't - either becouse or design, age or cost issues.
So it's your benchmark for the supportable turrets-per-metre of hull, speed, etc, then? The Deimos is described at the most advanced ship in the fleet; "their Vasudan-designed reactor core provides more energy per ton than any other allied ship class". You can't suppose anything that is stronger, faster, etc than the Deimos (within context of scale) without exceeding FS2 canon. Albeit the armour is described as designed for better beam protection, which isn't really reflected in actual gameplay as there's no 'armour damage' type modifier to alter the affect of different weapon types.
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I do not overestimated the space requred for fighters - I calculatd it back home. Or do you want me to post a pic of it?
Post a pic of your assumptions of armour and turret weight and power restrictions (Which you may have noticed that Aldo said was possibly your mistake).
That said you might as well post the pic anyway. It proves nothing but it would be nice to see.
No uber-beams, no uber-armor, no uber-engines. They are your constructs, not mine.
But they are uber. You've got more than twice the armour, beams which use less power and generate less heat than anything else in the entire FS2 universe and engines that can push your ridiculously heavy monstrocity at the same speed as a destoyer (or from your previous thread faster!)
That's not Aldo's constructs. That's your inability to come up with something that fits sensibly with anything else in the universe.
first you say that I game the BB a weapon other ships don't have. Then when I say otehr ships have the same weapon you are allso not satisfied?
You've given the other capships a THT upgrade while giving the BB upgrades to power, engines, beams, armour and fighter capacity. That's unfair.
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I havn' seen no conclusive evidence. What you have is assumptions and estimates.
I do not overestimated the space requred for fighters - I calculatd it back home. Or do you want me to post a pic of it?
I said two pages ago that I'd like to see that picture. It has nothing to do with estimated weight though, so I'm not sure what it would prove. Never mind that the assumptions that aldo is making, like those I am making, are based off of FS canon, whereas yours are based on your own imagination. Again, stick to canon or it is all completely meaningless.
I don't get you..maby it's my english..
first you say that I game the BB a weapon other ships don't have. Then when I say otehr ships have the same weapon you are allso not satisfied? If you fear that that's not cannon, you don't have to worry.. that's a special table set I use when making my campaign..I do have the standard FS2 tables and hte BB works with them too.
There is NO NEED for new weapons, alltough it would be nice to have the plasma gun.
But one simple thing that seems to elude your grasp is ---- the shi pis not supposed to be cannon. It can't be canon. It's just supposed to be able to function in the limitations of the canon universe. And large caliber Plasma Turrets are everything BUT impossible.
The point is, if you are going to be able to justify a ship in the freespace universe, you should be able to justify it using the weapons and features available in the FS universe. Super blobs, ultimate reactors, Mithril armor; none of that actually exists in the FS universe so any justification for your pet class has to exist without any of those features. I don't give a damn what you do to your own personal tables, we're arguing about FS tech, not Trashverse tech, so stick to it. That's the complaint.
I have over 2500 books at home...half of those fall to naval ship...most of those about naval warship and their different aspects. And they do go into VERY much detail about armor....the same pinciples work in space too.
Being heavily armored doesn't mean to have armor that is thicker than everything else - but to have it devided and placed optimally and an armor of suficient thickness and quality to witstand most of that the enemy is supposed to throw at you.
I never said anything about a "new" armor type - you're (again) putting words in my mouth.
It's implicit. You are still exhibiting classic naval warfare (specifically, historical naval warfare) thinking, where specific threats can only approach along specific vectors. In a wet navy, to armor against torpedos, you add an armor belt around the waterline and below. To armor against shells, you plate the deck. To armor against missiles, you strengthen the hull walls above the surface. And so on. Unfortunately for you, we're not talking about a wet navy. We're talking about a space fighter sim. Key word: space. There is not really a defining "up" or "down" in space, much less a restricting vector for which an attack can come, so you cannot specifically armor the areas where your enemy is most likely to hit you. He could come at you from any direction. Therefore, you have to protect all of the ship equally, which means heavier armor all around, which then means more mass (thus lower speed) and less internal volume. If your 2.5x strength armor does not incur those penalties to speed and manuverability that you are insisting it does not, it's a "new armor type", whether you state it explicitly or not.
No we don't have localy based damage but the overal armor effectivnes must be approximated with a HP count, regardelss how inssuficiant it is. Suffice to say that BB would have an overall better armor placement (and slightly thicker armor too) and thus this can only be represented by increase of HP. If you find antehr way, please tell me.
b.t.w. - tehre are obviously different types of armor in FS2. The Deimos is stated as having a specific armour type, suggesting that maby older ships don't - either becouse or design, age or cost issues.
The Deimos armor is considered state-of-the-art, so is the absolute best the alliance can offer in all respects. It's expensive, and it's only on the Deimos because it's state-of-the-art. That said, there's not really any proof that hitpoints would scale linearly with a size increase (and in fact it is less likely than more for simple geometry reasons), so saying that a battleship 3 times as long as the Deimos would have 3 times the hitpoints isn't valid. If you want to get in to the math then that's fine, but I'm not going to write out the proof if I don't need to.
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BTW. While you're arguing about that armor and hitpoints thing... Remember that ships durability is influenced by the hull structure. Like what kind of material it is, dense are the supporting structures and how is the structure designed and build. Not much use having a mithlir armour when the weight bearing structure behind it crumbles and the whole wall floats off in to space.
You cant glue some armour in to triton and make it a warship, if the structure isn't designed to handle that kind of stress.
Just thought I'd thorw some fuel in to the fire :D
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It's interesting that the Deimos is both an argument for and against BB.
Against: Deimos is a very effective killing machine. It's far more powerful than cruisers, yet still versatile enough. I really don't see the need to have a Battleship to do the samething. Maybe change the slashes to BGreen to attack bigger ships.
For: Deimos is interesting as they were totally unnecessary before the Great war. The lack of power weapons means cruisers like Leviathan was more than enough. However, things changed greatly since than. Powerful beam weapons created the necessity for much higher survivability, whereas AAA beams prevent the military from relying totally on fighters. Deimos was created as a standalone battleship, pretty much to fill the same role as old Leviathans. What is it to say that even high survivability would not be needed if Beams became even more powerful?
I consider the Ravana to be a battleship rather than a destroyer. It does provide fighter cover, but Demons do much better jobs with greater beam coverage. Ravana was designed for one thing only, tore apart anything standing in front of it while live to brag about it. With enough fighter coverage, a group of Ravanas are the most dangerous.
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Actually, the most effective argument for a BB would be the Iceni. 3 BGreens on a hull not much larger then that of Deimos, with superior durablity.
Edited for misplaced word; proof I needed to go to sleep.
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I consider the Ravana to be a battleship rather than a destroyer. It does provide fighter cover, but Demons do much better jobs with greater beam coverage. Ravana was designed for one thing only, tore apart anything standing in front of it while live to brag about it. With enough fighter coverage, a group of Ravanas are the most dangerous.
And yet, destroyer it is. That's why this whole argument makes no sense, given the constraints of the universe, battleships are destroyers and vice versa. It's re-inventing the wheel to try and reconcile them.
And the Ravana is actually listed as being more of a fighterbase than the Demon, interestingly enough, instead of the other way around. This may be more related to hull strength than firepower, but that's the official line.
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Actually, the most effective armament for a BB would be the Iceni. 3 BGreens on a hull not much larger then that of Deimos, with superior durablity.
Indeed, i've always thought of the Iceni as an excellent example of a 'Pocket Battleship' for pretty much the same reasons you described...
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I consider the Ravana to be a battleship rather than a destroyer. It does provide fighter cover, but Demons do much better jobs with greater beam coverage. Ravana was designed for one thing only, tore apart anything standing in front of it while live to brag about it. With enough fighter coverage, a group of Ravanas are the most dangerous.
But it's a destroyer. It has lots of fighters. And yet it still manages to pack all that anti-capital ship badassery into it's hull. Your argument for battleships is actually an argument against them. My whole point is that anyone designing a battleship in the FS2 universe would realise that destroyers are battleships with a fighterbay attached and put one on. Even Trashman has ended up having to conceed the point that fighter bays are cheap and stick a quarter sized fighter bay on his design.
For: Deimos is interesting as they were totally unnecessary before the Great war. The lack of power weapons means cruisers like Leviathan was more than enough. However, things changed greatly since than. Powerful beam weapons created the necessity for much higher survivability, whereas AAA beams prevent the military from relying totally on fighters. Deimos was created as a standalone battleship, pretty much to fill the same role as old Leviathans. What is it to say that even high survivability would not be needed if Beams became even more powerful?
You're making a false assumption though. You're assuming that this is a linear progression. The Deimos doesn't have a fighterbay because you couldn't put much inside a Deimos. It's too small. The Shivans did put a fighterbay on the Moloch but as we can see it couldn't do more than carry a few ships. The designers of the Deimos and Sobek probably thought about a fighterbay and decided it wasn't worth it for a single squadron. Same goes for the Iceni. On the other hand if you made the Iceni 2km long you'd suddenly find you had lots of space inside the ship that wasn't being used. So why not open up a section and turn it into a fighterbay?
So the Iceni isn't an argument for the battleship at all.
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Actually, the most effective argument for a BB would be the Iceni. 3 BGreens on a hull not much larger then that of Deimos, with superior durablity.
Edited for misplaced word; proof I needed to go to sleep.
Yes, I agree. However, to me Iceni is an anomaly. A plot tool if you will. I doubt the GTVA would be able to mass produce the Iceni.
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Assumtions, assumptions..
Geez people, cool down and read carefully before you start putting words in my mouth..
firstly - I never specified the speed of a BB. Show me where I gave an exact number. Nowhere? Good..next point.
The reactor power, number and workings are all speculations of yours and you're using what you THINK is the canon limit to cripple the BB class.
Let's look at it this way - a few cannon facts.
If you look at the Heacte (which some of you say is the most advanced and the best the terrans can do) youd notice that for a ship it's size (bigger than an Orion) it's woefully underpowered. Yui'+d expecct the newer ship to have a far more advanced reactor than a Orion, and wield more firepower, right.
And yet it doesn't. If you look only at the Hecate you8'd might conclude (falsly) that the best terran generator can't pump out enouhg power for more than 4 TerSlash and 1 BGreen..
and then you have the Oldie Orion that has twice the firepower...either it has more reactors or better ones - that would be the logical assumption.
How would you explain that? It makes no sense..what could be hoggin all that power? the extra 30 fighters? nope.. the AF defense? No way several flak and AAF guns can drain more power than a BGReen.
What then?
Could it be that is was simply designed like that?
Or what about the Iceni? - according to you is SHOULDN'T exist..after all it packs MORE power than a Hecate in a smaller frame!
Is there any theoretical limit of hte reactor size and power in FS universe? nope. Do we know how effective the mass/energy conversion is and how much heat is produced? nope.
The only thing we know is that the Colossus power grid was damaged during the battle with the Sath, however that's more than inconclusive - maby it suffered some damage from the Repulse? Maby the conduits weren't designed to pump so much power into those 4-5 cannons and that caused a backlash and destabilized the reactors? As any engineer will tell you, pumpin more power trough a wire than it's designed to transmit is BAD for everytihng - on both sides of the wire.
We don't even kbow what type of reactor it had - after all it was designed 20 yearrs ago.
And no..in order to function withing FS2 universe, the ship doesn't have to wook with only canon FS2 weapons (even if the BB could work without them to, so even if you could disprove this argument, it certanly doesn't work against it) - it just musn't use things that go out of the framework or are too far out. Like I said, the THT is plasma-based and it's not powerfull either, as it's not a dedicated anti-cap weapon. Given that the terran posses that tech for years, is it unbelivable that they MAY have heavier verions of it but that they didn't mount of capships before?
If you still claim it's impossible, then you're allso claiming that a missile cruiser/corvette cannot function in FS universe, as it would need it's own set of missiles, and we havn't seen them in cannon, so it can't work.
Answer that...
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It's been there since the begining actually..ever since the very fist verions of my BB was released.
It's implicit. You are still exhibiting classic naval warfare (specifically, historical naval warfare) thinking, where specific threats can only approach along specific vectors. In a wet navy, to armor against torpedos, you add an armor belt around the waterline and below. To armor against shells, you plate the deck. To armor against missiles, you strengthen the hull walls above the surface. And so on. Unfortunately for you, we're not talking about a wet navy. We're talking about a space fighter sim. Key word: space. There is not really a defining "up" or "down" in space, much less a restricting vector for which an attack can come, so you cannot specifically armor the areas where your enemy is most likely to hit you. He could come at you from any direction. Therefore, you have to protect all of the ship equally, which means heavier armor all around, which then means more mass (thus lower speed) and less internal volume. If your 2.5x strength armor does not incur those penalties to speed and manuverability that you are insisting it does not, it's a "new armor type", whether you state it explicitly or not.
You're again wrong. Armor placement is allways important.
I might have far thicker armor around ammo storage, the engines, fire control, reactor and main guns.
And while you COULD attack where teh armor is thinner(if you know where that is..visually you can't see much) and do damage, that damage won't be critical. So you can blast the forward mess hall? The extra bunks? Crew quarters? The Kitchen? Half hte corridors?
Who cares if it isn't critical! That's the differnce!
A BB will be turned into a smoldering pile of metal, but it's critical systems will still be in tact and it will still shoot. A lesser ship would allready be disabled or destroyed by the same ammount of punishemt.
Oh one more thing - teh Deimos is very well armed with a special armor (sez so in the tech room) and still has excellent speed. And it's the only hip reported with that armor type (you can assume otehr have it but you can't prove it...actually I think Iceni had it too). Are you tellimg meit's new if my BB is covered with that? And it surely isnt' magical..
EDIT: will post the fighterbay pic later
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And yet, destroyer it is. That's why this whole argument makes no sense, given the constraints of the universe, battleships are destroyers and vice versa. It's re-inventing the wheel to try and reconcile them.
And the Ravana is actually listed as being more of a fighterbase than the Demon, interestingly enough, instead of the other way around. This may be more related to hull strength than firepower, but that's the official line.
To me, a destroyer is the center of a fleet, much like a modern aircraft carrier. It usually stay behind the front line, command the fleet, provide fighter cover, only provide fire support if necessary. The fighters and bombers are the offensive weapons, not the beam cannons. The Ravana does not fit the profile. It's designed to attack right in front, tear enemy line open, so the rest of the fleet can break through. Something has to cover its ass, or it's toasted. I doubt it was ever the flagship of a Shivan fleet.
Battleship and destroyers are never going to be too different. They share the same platform, which means they have similar constraints. They just have different emphasis. Battleships emphasize raw fire power, destroyers emphasize fighter cover, balanced fire support, communication and command infrastructure. A battleship is simply a specialized destroyer. That's why I don't see battleships act alone. They are only the vanguards of the fleet.
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I consider the Ravana to be a battleship rather than a destroyer. It does provide fighter cover, but Demons do much better jobs with greater beam coverage. Ravana was designed for one thing only, tore apart anything standing in front of it while live to brag about it. With enough fighter coverage, a group of Ravanas are the most dangerous.
But it's a destroyer. It has lots of fighters. And yet it still manages to pack all that anti-capital ship badassery into it's hull. Your argument for battleships is actually an argument against them. My whole point is that anyone designing a battleship in the FS2 universe would realise that destroyers are battleships with a fighterbay attached and put one on. Even Trashman has ended up having to conceed the point that fighter bays are cheap and stick a quarter sized fighter bay on his design.
Destroyers are not battleships with a fighter bay. Battleships are destroyers without proper fighter coverage and command infrastructure, but far more front firepower. Destroyers act as the leader of a fleet (or battlegroup). Normally, you should never have more than 1 destroyer in the battlegroup. It would just be a waste of resources. Destroyers can act as the defense center of a system. Maintain order, weed out pirates, etc... Battleships can do none of that. They are specialized destroyers for large scale battles only. They need other destroyers to provide fighter cover and other battleships to cover their rare. However, they are far more effective against enemy cap-ships, since they do not rely on bombers as their offensive weapons. I personally don't tihnk that battleships even need fighter bays, they will never provide proper fighter cover anyway. The Ravana is a Shivan battleship, maybe they have the technology to put more stuff into its limited hull. Still, we see that it's very vulnerable acting alone.
That being said, Terrans will not need battleships in the near term. They do not have endless resources like Shivan does. If each battlegroup needs 2-3 battleships, the cost will be unbearable. They can never hope to outgun the Shivans anyway, so why bother.
You're making a false assumption though. You're assuming that this is a linear progression. The Deimos doesn't have a fighterbay because you couldn't put much inside a Deimos. It's too small. The Shivans did put a fighterbay on the Moloch but as we can see it couldn't do more than carry a few ships. The designers of the Deimos and Sobek probably thought about a fighterbay and decided it wasn't worth it for a single squadron. Same goes for the Iceni. On the other hand if you made the Iceni 2km long you'd suddenly find you had lots of space inside the ship that wasn't being used. So why not open up a section and turn it into a fighterbay?
So the Iceni isn't an argument for the battleship at all.
Because the extra spaces are need for more powerful reactors and armors. What's the use of fighter bay if the destroyers can provide fighter cover for the fleet? I do not support the argument that others are making that Battleship can act alone. They can't. They can never provide enough fighter coverage to survive an onslaught of bombers. One battleship has no hope against one destroyer. However, 2 battleship plus 1 destroyer with crusier escorts can kill a destroyer with cruiser escorts faster and with less casualties than 3 destroyers. (Assuming bombers are more expensive to build than fixing battleship's hull and subsystems).
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Assumtions, assumptions..
Geez people, cool down and read carefully before you start putting words in my mouth..
firstly - I never specified the speed of a BB. Show me where I gave an exact number. Nowhere? Good..next point.
The reactor power, number and workings are all speculations of yours and you're using what you THINK is the canon limit to cripple the BB class.
Let's look at it this way - a few cannon facts.
If you look at the Heacte (which some of you say is the most advanced and the best the terrans can do) youd notice that for a ship it's size (bigger than an Orion) it's woefully underpowered. Yui'+d expecct the newer ship to have a far more advanced reactor than a Orion, and wield more firepower, right.
And yet it doesn't. If you look only at the Hecate you8'd might conclude (falsly) that the best terran generator can't pump out enouhg power for more than 4 TerSlash and 1 BGreen..
and then you have the Oldie Orion that has twice the firepower...either it has more reactors or better ones - that would be the logical assumption.
How would you explain that? It makes no sense..what could be hoggin all that power? the extra 30 fighters? nope.. the AF defense? No way several flak and AAF guns can drain more power than a BGReen.
What then?
Could it be that is was simply designed like that?
Or what about the Iceni? - according to you is SHOULDN'T exist..after all it packs MORE power than a Hecate in a smaller frame!
Is there any theoretical limit of hte reactor size and power in FS universe? nope. Do we know how effective the mass/energy conversion is and how much heat is produced? nope.
The only thing we know is that the Colossus power grid was damaged during the battle with the Sath, however that's more than inconclusive - maby it suffered some damage from the Repulse? Maby the conduits weren't designed to pump so much power into those 4-5 cannons and that caused a backlash and destabilized the reactors? As any engineer will tell you, pumpin more power trough a wire than it's designed to transmit is BAD for everytihng - on both sides of the wire.
We don't even kbow what type of reactor it had - after all it was designed 20 yearrs ago.
And no..in order to function withing FS2 universe, the ship doesn't have to wook with only canon FS2 weapons (even if the BB could work without them to, so even if you could disprove this argument, it certanly doesn't work against it) - it just musn't use things that go out of the framework or are too far out. Like I said, the THT is plasma-based and it's not powerfull either, as it's not a dedicated anti-cap weapon. Given that the terran posses that tech for years, is it unbelivable that they MAY have heavier verions of it but that they didn't mount of capships before?
If you still claim it's impossible, then you're allso claiming that a missile cruiser/corvette cannot function in FS universe, as it would need it's own set of missiles, and we havn't seen them in cannon, so it can't work.
Answer that...
Let's put it this way. Giving the equivalent technology and cost. A battleship should be equivalent to a destroyer in term of overall effectiveness. It can be more effective in one area by sacrificing effectiveness in other areas. It's always a trade off. You can't just say a battleship is more advanced than existing destroyer. If so, why not just upgrade existing destroyers or build new ones rather than creating a brand new type of ships? It has to be inferior in some perspective. So according to you, what's the weakness of your battleships?
The Iceni is one of a kind. Bosh spend a lot of time and money on it. It might cost even more than the Hecate. It may only be able to serve 2 or 3 years before it breaks down. It was never designed to be a long term solution anyway. I wouldn't use it as an argument just like I would not use the Bravos. :)
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BTW, please do not say that battleship or any other ships can jump in, shoot, then jump out before anybody could react. If so, we will just have a bunch of ships, shifting in and out of subspace, never firing a shot. I think it takes at least 30 minutes to calculate a intrasystem jump. Any thing faster than that would be dangerous since you could jump right into a sun (say 10% chances). It's fine for suicide missions, but no captain would do it on a regular basis. You can not do the calculation up front either since there are too many variables.
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Let's look at it this way - a few cannon facts.
If you look at the Heacte (which some of you say is the most advanced and the best the terrans can do) youd notice that for a ship it's size (bigger than an Orion) it's woefully underpowered. Yui'+d expecct the newer ship to have a far more advanced reactor than a Orion, and wield more firepower, right.
And yet it doesn't. If you look only at the Hecate you8'd might conclude (falsly) that the best terran generator can't pump out enouhg power for more than 4 TerSlash and 1 BGreen..
and then you have the Oldie Orion that has twice the firepower...either it has more reactors or better ones - that would be the logical assumption.
How would you explain that? It makes no sense..what could be ho; in essence it reflects the cumulative damage of a single hit anywhere on the shipggin all that power? the extra 30 fighters? nope.. the AF defense? No way several flak and AAF guns can drain more power than a BGReen.
What then?
Could it be that is was simply designed like that?
Orion; 16 turrets (3 AAF, 3 Terslash, 3 Big Green, 4 Terran Huge, 3 Terran turret)
Hecate; 27 turrets (5 Terran, 1 Terran Huge, 6 Std. Flak, 2 LR Flak, 2 Heavy flak, 6 AAAf, 4 Terslash, 1 Green beam)
The techroom also describes the Orion as being 'retrofitted' for new beam weapons. Which can include the provision of new power sources; we can probably justify some form of increased efficiency in the 45+ year history of the Orion in that context. In any case, the Hecate has at least equal firepower; it's just not anti-capship firepower but fighter defense. This type of scenario is often referred to using the magical word 'balance'.
And no..in order to function withing FS2 universe, the ship doesn't have to wook with only canon FS2 weapons (even if the BB could work without them to, so even if you could disprove this argument, it certanly doesn't work against it) - it just musn't use things that go out of the framework or are too far out. Like I said, the THT is plasma-based and it's not powerfull either, as it's not a dedicated anti-cap weapon. Given that the terran posses that tech for years, is it unbelivable that they MAY have heavier verions of it but that they didn't mount of capships before?
If you still claim it's impossible, then you're allso claiming that a missile cruiser/corvette cannot function in FS universe, as it would need it's own set of missiles, and we havn't seen them in cannon, so it can't work.
Answer that...
Yes we have; trebuchets. There's your stand-off weapon right there.
ou're again wrong. Armor placement is allways important.
I might have far thicker armor around ammo storage, the engines, fire control, reactor and main guns.
And while you COULD attack where teh armor is thinner(if you know where that is..visually you can't see much) and do damage, that damage won't be critical. So you can blast the forward mess hall? The extra bunks? Crew quarters? The Kitchen? Half hte corridors?
Who cares if it isn't critical! That's the differnce!
A BB will be turned into a smoldering pile of metal, but it's critical systems will still be in tact and it will still shoot. A lesser ship would allready be disabled or destroyed by the same ammount of punishemt.
Well, that's another of the gigantic assumptions we talk about, isn't it? That other ships would have some illogical placement of key systems by design, just so you can say your battleship is more formidable. Do you really think the GTVA puts the engine, weapon, etc subsystems in the most vulnerable places? Or maybe the larger-than-ship-geometry subsytem boxes represent the cumulative damage effect upon a certain area of the ship.
One problem is that any part of the ship represents an element of structural integrity; as well as the obvious issue of turrets (and any ship so reliant on it's own weaponry would be immediately targeted in that manner, that's the whole point of fighterbays and bombers ahead of pure turret defense or offence), any impact to your hull would have reciprocal effects in terms of crew, life support, etc; for example, you lose your inegrity in one section and you compromise decks above and below that, possibly lose power conduits, etc; it's impossible to put all your critical systems within the inner hull so long as you have weaponry, weapons, comms, sensors, etc on the outer hull; these will never be isolated. A secondary possible issue is that the more space between the device (say turret, comms sensor, engines) and the 'control' (reactor, engineering, weapons command, bridge), the more cabling and connections there are inbetween the two to go wrong.
The main problem is that you're describing a suicide ship - one that fights until destroyed, even assuming your strange hypothesis of every enemy ever playing right to its strengths is met. No crew or captain in their right minds would serve onboard a ship tasked with 'fight until you die' missions; unless you want to put Stalinist comissars to shoot them for retreating. Moreso, it's an incredibly wasteful philosphy; if your ship is designed to have all non combat critical systems in the most vulnerable areas, then you're looking at long times in repair docks until it can actually take a crew on board - you lose the bunks, food supply, r&r and you can't support your crew; and you can't fight without a crew.
NB: Pegasus/Ptah stealth recon can be used to pinpoint weaknesses in the armour. In any case, it'd only be a short while before combat weaknesses were exposed, especially for a ship designed to operate in such a kamikaze manner. Regardless, as we have no locational damage system we havbe noe concept of placing non-critical systems in unarmoured areas, etc; we have one value representing the structural strength of the ship.
Oh one more thing - teh Deimos is very well armed with a special armor (sez so in the tech room) and still has excellent speed. And it's the only hip reported with that armor type (you can assume otehr have it but you can't prove it...actually I think Iceni had it too). Are you tellimg meit's new if my BB is covered with that? And it surely isnt' magical..
I actually had trouble deciphering this, but from what I can tell.... if you use the Deimos as your basis for armour and speed relationship, you must also use it for calculating the feasible number of turrets. Also, it's worth noting that hitpoints will not necessarilly increase with size in any case; in actuality it shouldn't, as the hitpoints value is a general value reflecting the ship as a whole.
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To me, a destroyer is the center of a fleet, much like a modern aircraft carrier. It usually stay behind the front line, command the fleet, provide fighter cover, only provide fire support if necessary. The fighters and bombers are the offensive weapons, not the beam cannons. The Ravana does not fit the profile. It's designed to attack right in front, tear enemy line open, so the rest of the fleet can break through. Something has to cover its ass, or it's toasted. I doubt it was ever the flagship of a Shivan fleet.
So you want to re-write the definition of what a destroyer is to suit yourself? The game is quite clear on the point that the Ravana is a destroyer. It is simply one that has a good offensive potential too. That's it.
Furthermore we frequently see destroyers doing front line combat. Look at the assult on the Ravana, the various node blockades etc. Destroyers were always up there on the front lines kicking arse. The Hecate is actually the only destroyer we don't see doing this. If you're forming your opinions of what a destroyer is based on the Hecate you've chosen the wrong destroyer.
Battleship and destroyers are never going to be too different. They share the same platform, which means they have similar constraints. They just have different emphasis. Battleships emphasize raw fire power, destroyers emphasize fighter cover, balanced fire support, communication and command infrastructure. A battleship is simply a specialized destroyer. That's why I don't see battleships act alone. They are only the vanguards of the fleet.
I agree with you on the idea that there will be front line and rear line destroyers (compare Orion and Hecate if you need an example of that) but for ****s sake stop calling a destroyer a battleship. The game is quite clear on the name of the class and on a thread like this it just serves to confuse everyone.
Destroyers are not battleships with a fighter bay. Battleships are destroyers without proper fighter coverage and command infrastructure, but far more front firepower.
Only in your mind. We are not subservient to your made up definitions. Especially when they contradict the game.
The Ravana is a Shivan battleship, maybe they have the technology to put more stuff into its limited hull. Still, we see that it's very vulnerable acting alone.
:wtf: The Ravana singlehandedly took out the GTD Delacroix and damaged the rest of the battle group (presumably including the Aquitane which after all probably was part of the battle group). In fact if the player flies badly the Ravana takes out the Champion, the Khenmu, the Heisenberg, the Yakiba, and the Somtus as well. So it's obvious that the Ravana can handle itself.
You're making the assumption that the Ravana doesn't carry a lot of fighters but you have no evidence whatsoever for that claim. We faced fighters from the Ravana in the two missions before Slaying Ravana and you're completely failing to count the number of fighters seen in that mission as well as the fairly large number that must have been used up kicking the **** out of the fleet. I really doubt that the Ravana is a low in fighters as you seem to believe.
Because the extra spaces are need for more powerful reactors and armors.
I don't buy it. When you double the size of a ship you don't simply double its internal volume. You quadruple it. You'd have plenty of space left over even with the bigger reactors and armour.
What's the use of fighter bay if the destroyers can provide fighter cover for the fleet? I do not support the argument that others are making that Battleship can act alone. They can't. They can never provide enough fighter coverage to survive an onslaught of bombers. One battleship has no hope against one destroyer. However, 2 battleship plus 1 destroyer with crusier escorts can kill a destroyer with cruiser escorts faster and with less casualties than 3 destroyers. (Assuming bombers are more expensive to build than fixing battleship's hull and subsystems).
I don't buy that either. The three destroyers can launch fighters and bombers three times as fast. That's a much larger effect that you make it out to be. Hell use the maxim effect I've mentioned before and the fighters could probably do it without the destroyers even getting scratched.
BTW, please do not say that battleship or any other ships can jump in, shoot, then jump out before anybody could react. If so, we will just have a bunch of ships, shifting in and out of subspace, never firing a shot. I think it takes at least 30 minutes to calculate a intrasystem jump. Any thing faster than that would be dangerous since you could jump right into a sun (say 10% chances). It's fine for suicide missions, but no captain would do it on a regular basis. You can not do the calculation up front either since there are too many variables.
Whilst you're telling people what to do how about I suggest not quadruple posting? The edit button is there for a reason and as you can see I've managed to respond to all your posts in one single post.
Anyway while I disagree with mini-jumps too the comment about it taking 30 minutes to calculate an intrasystem is complete bull. Go play Kings Gambit again as it seem to be a requirement for this discussion for lots of other reasons anyway.
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STOP IT ! You guis are giving me a head hurt!
First of all who said a battleship has to as big as the C or as small as a destroyer?? And where did that ridiculous ideea of putting some 12 or 13 cannons on a battleship came..?? Come on you just can't do that. Even I realized that its ridiculous! The mai ideea behind a BB was to be bigger then a destroyer, smaller then the C yet have a much bigger punch then the most powerfull destroyer in the GTVA the Orion!
Also If let's say a detroyer has a top speed of 30m/s (i'm not sayng that it does its just a example) then a BB would have a speed of lest say 20m/s .Get mi point??
Also while the role of a BB would be limited compared to that of a destoyer you still need a ship that can take out fast an ORION for example which the GTVA does not have at the moment. While you could use bommbers then again so could you use fighters to protect that target. Just how many destroyers would you need to take down a shivan juggernought (sp.?) . This ship would be used primarili to take out warships not engage in large tactical operation or something like that.
Here are mi specs:
3,5-4km long with lets say double the armour of the most heavely armoured ship in the GTVA.
tops speed: dont know exactly since I dont know the max speed of a destoyer in FS.
Weapons: well I was thinking like 3 BFG and 2 LRBG as well as lets say 3 or 4 slahs beams. of course this mai be a bit much but as you can see the ideea is to have mainly heavi weaponry. Then you would have lets say 3 to 5 AAAF beams as well as at least 8 missile launchers and at least 8 flack guns. If it is overpowered please feel free to downsize just remember that the emphasis is on the heavy weaponry. Also if it is not too ridicouloss you could implement a fisghterbay of some 24 interceptors.
Then again you could leave it blank with no interceptors what so ever but provide it with a permenant escort of a destoyer or a speacialized carryer the same size as a destroyer but a lot more fighters and no ant-ship weaponry execp for some flacks and AAAF beams and stuff like that.
As I said above if these specs are too out of sinc please feel free to adjust them but keep in mind 2 things:heavy armour and heavy weaponry.
Also there were some other ship classes that I wanted your opinions on like the dreadnought which could be basicly a little bigger then a destroyer say 500 to 700m longer with about the same size of fighterbay maibe a little smaller then a DD but with say like the beam cannons of the Orion the antifighter capabilities of the Hecate or which destoryer has the best AAAF capabilities but with more armour like say 50% more armour. Take into acount that this ship would still have to be smaller the its bigger brother the BB. If lest say the Hecate is at about 2.2 km long this ship would be 2.8 or at maximum 3 km long no bigger it still has to be at least if not much more then just 500 m smaller then a BB.
Also there were the idea of using very advanced destroyers at a max of 2 km long but with specialized features.
They must still have a decend fighterbay but must be also fast moving must a HP of equal if not slightly bigger HP(max 10 or 15 %) then theyr bigger brothers and still have a firepower equal to the Orion.
Notice that I took the orion as a template because it has a good fighterbay size and very good anti-cap weaponry while at the same time beeing able to take a pounding and sice the Orions are taken out of service and the Hecate is useless when taking on anithing bigger then a corvette I wanted something to fill the gap.
I doubt Terran prive would let the Vasudans as having the only decent destroyer.
Also there was the question regarding a friggate class warship similar to the one Boch had! Also creating new specialized corvettes which would be something like the Aeouleus cruiser in the role they played (sp?). Very deadly to foghters/bommbers but with a lest say small fighterbay and a beam cannon mounted on the front. This ship would be used mainli as a anti-fighter screen. A very deadly one at that.
Tell me what you think! Please excuse the spelling and the long post!
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The techroom also describes the Orion as being 'retrofitted' for new beam weapons. Which can include the provision of new power sources; we can probably justify some form of increased efficiency in the 45+ year history of the Orion in that context. In any case, the Hecate has at least equal firepower; it's just not anti-capship firepower but fighter defense. This type of scenario is often referred to using the magical word 'balance'.
Game balance and universe balance (or logical balance) are two different things. I ask you to explain the vast difference in power output between the ships. If both have the same power output, why not fit better anti-cap weapons on the Hecate, for you claim they take up very little space?
The thing is - the [V] guys aren't physicists and ship constructors - whatever universe tehy make is bound to have a few holes in it, wether for the sake of game balance or becouse they simply didn't know better.
Whatever - the Iceni is the best proof that a BB is possible in the FS universe, as it's everything a BB would be, only in a smaller package. So..since you can't
Yes we have; trebuchets. There's your stand-off weapon right there.
And it's allso a fighter-based weapon. Have we ever seen any capship use it? I don't think so...
Well, that's another of the gigantic assumptions we talk about, isn't it? That other ships would have some illogical placement of key systems by design, just so you can say your battleship is more formidable. Do you really think the GTVA puts the engine, weapon, etc subsystems in the most vulnerable places? Or maybe the larger-than-ship-geometry subsytem boxes represent the cumulative damage effect upon a certain area of the ship.
One problem is that any part of the ship represents an element of structural integrity; as well as the obvious issue of turrets (and any ship so reliant on it's own weaponry would be immediately targeted in that manner, that's the whole point of fighterbays and bombers ahead of pure turret defense or offence), any impact to your hull would have reciprocal effects in terms of crew, life support, etc; for example, you lose your inegrity in one section and you compromise decks above and below that, possibly lose power conduits, etc; it's impossible to put all your critical systems within the inner hull so long as you have weaponry, weapons, comms, sensors, etc on the outer hull; these will never be isolated. A secondary possible issue is that the more space between the device (say turret, comms sensor, engines) and the 'control' (reactor, engineering, weapons command, bridge), the more cabling and connections there are inbetween the two to go wrong.
Well, I guess you should go then and tell all of hte ship costructors that made ships in WW2 and all that are making them now that they are all total idiots. For you see, the reasons above were the reason BB's were so hard to kill.
There's nothing illogical about the placament of things - it all had it's purpose nad reasons..and there were many.
from cost, to mass, to internal volume, bulkheads or sotage compartment to god knows what else. And the purpose of the ship in question was allso important - after all, why up the cost of a carrier by putting armor and making it slower when you don't have to and when it's unlikely it will be attacked at close range anyway?
Smage guiding principles apply to FS2 ship and any vessels everywhere..
The main problem is that you're describing a suicide ship - one that fights until destroyed, even assuming your strange hypothesis of every enemy ever playing right to its strengths is met. No crew or captain in their right minds would serve onboard a ship tasked with 'fight until you die' missions; unless you want to put Stalinist comissars to shoot them for retreating. Moreso, it's an incredibly wasteful philosphy; if your ship is designed to have all non combat critical systems in the most vulnerable areas, then you're looking at long times in repair docks until it can actually take a crew on board - you lose the bunks, food supply, r&r and you can't support your crew; and you can't fight without a crew.
Strange...WW2 bb's were designed that way and they were never short of crew or captains. It's not a kamikaze approach, it's the "I can take more than you and still fight back" approach.
EDIT:
@AlphaOne - if you're making your own campaing or something like that, I suggest you download my Archangel Battleship from Hades Combine. It's a bit too overpowered for your tastes, but that's what the table editing is for. Other then that, it fits your specifications rather nicely....
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STOP IT ! You guis are giving me a head hurt!
If you're only going to post every few days you can hardly complain if we entertain ourselves when you aren't posting. :)
First of all who said a battleship has to as big as the C or as small as a destroyer?? And where did that ridiculous ideea of putting some 12 or 13 cannons on a battleship came..??
Blame Trashman. Read the topic through. Much of what has been said is applicable to your ideas too. Especially any stuff about why the BB isn't worth the amount it would cost to build it.
Here are mi specs:
3,5-4km long with lets say double the armour of the most heavely armoured ship in the GTVA.
tops speed: dont know exactly since I dont know the max speed of a destoyer in FS.
Weapons: well I was thinking like 3 BFG and 2 LRBG as well as lets say 3 or 4 slahs beams. of course this mai be a bit much but as you can see the ideea is to have mainly heavi weaponry. Then you would have lets say 3 to 5 AAAF beams as well as at least 8 missile launchers and at least 8 flack guns. If it is overpowered please feel free to downsize just remember that the emphasis is on the heavy weaponry. Also if it is not too ridicouloss you could implement a fisghterbay of some 24 interceptors.
I would say that your ship is actually fairly reasonable in design terms. The GTVA could possibly build a ship exactly like yours given what they learned from the Colossus (might have to tone down the biggest cannons perhaps but the rest seems reasonable).
The objection isn't could the GTVA build such a ship it's would they build such a ship. Most of us think that they wouldn't. Look at the Colossus. Your ship is 2/3 it's length. I doubt the GTVA could build such a ship in under 5 years even if they bolt Colossus tech directly on to it. If they have to make new stuff up for it (which they would seeing as how the Colossus never actually had BFGreens or LRBGreens) then you're probably looking at double or triple that.
If the need to take down Destroyers is so pressing surely the time would be better spent on making better bombs and bombers as you could get those off of the drawing board much faster.
Also there was the question regarding a friggate class warship similar to the one Boch had! Also creating new specialized corvettes which would be something like the Aeouleus cruiser in the role they played (sp?). Very deadly to foghters/bommbers but with a lest say small fighterbay and a beam cannon mounted on the front. This ship would be used mainli as a anti-fighter screen. A very deadly one at that.
Now this I have much less of an objection to. The fighterbay on a corvette or frigate class would probably be quite small but as long as you don't overpower the beams then I don't have an objection to a corvette that specialises in fighter killing over anti-cap.
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Game balance and universe balance (or logical balance) are two different things. I ask you to explain the vast difference in power output between the ships. If both have the same power output, why not fit better anti-cap weapons on the Hecate, for you claim they take up very little space?
AFAIK no-one other than you has claimed turrets are in some way low space or low complexity. Um... in any case, the tbl entries give the Orion and the Hecate exactly the same reactor values (and the same speed and hitpoints). So it's clearly a tradeoff of heavier beam weaponry for AAAf, and possibly some internal space (the Hecate is something like 100m longer) for flak ammunition (as it's undefined as whether this is energy or munitions based).
So...there is no difference in power output atall to explain.
The thing is - the [V] guys aren't physicists and ship constructors - whatever universe tehy make is bound to have a few holes in it, wether for the sake of game balance or becouse they simply didn't know better.
Given that we're operating in a purely theoretical universe, it doesn't matter all that much beyond what we can derive of Freespaces physics.
Whatever - the Iceni is the best proof that a BB is possible in the FS universe, as it's everything a BB would be, only in a smaller package. So..since you can't
The Iceni also disproves your notions of exponential weaponry counts. It's also a ship designed and built to run, not fight. So you're concept of a smaller battleship is a vessel built to escape capture, not one which played any sort of front line combat role (hell, for the majority of the NTF rebellion it seems to have been hidden as an asteroid). There's a solid reason for that, of course; Bosch wasn't fighting a war, he was creating a distraction.
And it's allso a fighter-based weapon. Have we ever seen any capship use it? I don't think so...
We've seen capital ships use MX-50s, which are weapons capable of being used by fighters and bombers. It's not a big jump to assume that Trebuchets are similarly usable; the issue comes, as stated, with the storage requirements for large quantities of these weapons (technically, there's no table restriction upon it, although obviously that's not a canon indication). That's vastly different from taking the BFGreen or similar, and assuming you can build a longer range version without severe penalties such as heat and energy requirements; particularly because the self-enclosed and self-propelled nature of a guided missile means it has a lot less design implications; offhand, all you need is a launch system (a glorified tube-with-hole), a rearm system (trickier, but proven technology for other missile types), and a designation system (already exists for targeting ships with beams, other missile types, etc). We're not talking anything that requires a sudden technological advancement here. In essence, we have a proven weapon, and a proven basis for a launch system.
Well, I guess you should go then and tell all of hte ship costructors that made ships in WW2 and all that are making them now that they are all total idiots. For you see, the reasons above were the reason BB's were so hard to kill.
There's nothing illogical about the placament of things - it all had it's purpose nad reasons..and there were many.
from cost, to mass, to internal volume, bulkheads or sotage compartment to god knows what else.
Battleships - and I presume you must mean the WW2 version - weren't actually hard to kill once the fighter came along. that's why they were all dumped or relegated to shore bombardment. The problem is that, firstly, this is a spaceship. You can't just get the crew to pop out on deck and easily transfer over supplies; you lose the living supplies onboard a spaceship, you lose the ship. It's closer to a submarine in operating principles (except can't 'surface'). Secondly, you can't 'hide' key systems, and if you can, it's not going to offer any advantage over every other ship in existence. So any impact (compared to other ships armour and vulnerability) shuffling about subsystem locations has is negligible at best.
And the purpose of the ship in question was allso important - after all, why up the cost of a carrier by putting armor and making it slower when you don't have to and when it's unlikely it will be attacked at close range anyway?
But I thought you were saying ships could jump in and engage at close range willy-nilly thanks to subspace?
So are you now citing the weight and resulting speed loss of heavy armour as a disadvantage? Doesn't that effectively cripple your 2.5x Orion battleship? Now it can't move fast atall, and it must be engaging destroyers at long range!
Smage guiding principles apply to FS2 ship and any vessels everywhere..
Smage? I presume you must mean same, here. Except, er, you've made up your own principles in order to validate a class of ship based on an obsolete naval design.
Strange...WW2 bb's were designed that way and they were never short of crew or captains. It's not a kamikaze approach, it's the "I can take more than you and still fight back" approach.
Tell the Yamato, the Musashi, the Bismarck, the Tirpitz, the Prince of Wales, Jean Bart, or Roma that they could 'take more'; all were either sunk or disabled by small, light, aircraft. Hence why they became obsolete as soon as naval based air-force projection was introduced, because aircraft carriers can operate well outside a battleships firing range. That's why the Tirpitz spent it's last days in a fjord, hiding.
Given that the same basic facts of range apply in FS2, and it's now well established that 'air' power dominates over larger immobile vessels, any captain worth their salt would surely question the logic of sending their ship in to act as a sacrificial lamb purely to draw fire from an enemy they can't even hit.
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Specialized mid-sized capships would make sense to me, as well. The underlying problem with a battleship, ignoring all the arguments about whether this or that is possible or not, is that it just takes up too much time and resources to construct for being both vulnerable to bomber strikes as all capships are, and only able to be in one place at any time.
Corvette sized ships do away with both as they are much less of a loss if they do get jumped by bombers, and you can get something like 3-4 of them for the price of one of the proposed battleships allowing them to cover several areas at once.
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AFAIK no-one other than you has claimed turrets are in some way low space or low complexity.
Actually I've claimed that they do take up low amounts of space given the free beam upgrades the FS1 ships got. Well actually I've said that beams don't take up more space than plasma or flak turrets. Whether all three take up a lot of space is another matter.
The main point though was that the reason why all the turrets on the Orion weren't changed from TT and THT to beams is not just a matter of space.
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Now this I have much less of an objection to. The fighterbay on a corvette or frigate class would probably be quite small but as long as you don't overpower the beams then I don't have an objection to a corvette that specialises in fighter killing over anti-cap.
The only problem, I've found, is that the restrictions upon such small 'carriers' are hard to show just via tables. You could maybe have 20-30 fighters on a Deimos, but you'd only be able to operate for a very limited time before needing to resupply; perhaps not even being able to repair damaged fighters. I always loved the idea, myself, of having cruisers or even cargo ships head into battle with a wing of stripped-down fighters clamped onto their sides, able to deploy in seconds if necessary simply by undocking.
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Well that's surely a problem for the mission designer to show rather than anything that should be in the tables :)
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Well that's surely a problem for the mission designer to show rather than anything that should be in the tables :)
Absolutely, but it's rather annoying when concepting these kinds of ships.
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AFAIK no-one other than you has claimed turrets are in some way low space or low complexity. Um... in any case, the tbl entries give the Orion and the Hecate exactly the same reactor values (and the same speed and hitpoints). So it's clearly a tradeoff of heavier beam weaponry for AAAf, and possibly some internal space (the Hecate is something like 100m longer) for flak ammunition (as it's undefined as whether this is energy or munitions based).
So...there is no difference in power output atall to explain.
S owhat are you trying to tell me? That the Hecate was badly desgned, considering what weapons you could mount on her, or that the few Af beams and flak guns require as much power as several beam cannons?
The Iceni also disproves your notions of exponential weaponry counts. It's also a ship designed and built to run, not fight. So you're concept of a smaller battleship is a vessel built to escape capture, not one which played any sort of front line combat role (hell, for the majority of the NTF rebellion it seems to have been hidden as an asteroid). There's a solid reason for that, of course; Bosch wasn't fighting a war, he was creating a distraction.
Irrelavant what it was used for - what it could do is what matters. You claimed that that ammount of powerfull weapons culdn't be mounted on a small frame or that there wouldn't be enough power for htem. And yet, a 800m ship holds more firepower than the hecate. Scale it up to destroyer size and you get a BB.
So it IS possible withing the FS universe to build one... touche!
Battleships - and I presume you must mean the WW2 version - weren't actually hard to kill once the fighter came along. that's why they were all dumped or relegated to shore bombardment. The problem is that, firstly, this is a spaceship. You can't just get the crew to pop out on deck and easily transfer over supplies; you lose the living supplies onboard a spaceship, you lose the ship. It's closer to a submarine in operating principles (except can't 'surface'). Secondly, you can't 'hide' key systems, and if you can, it's not going to offer any advantage over every other ship in existence. So any impact (compared to other ships armour and vulnerability) shuffling about subsystem locations has is negligible at best.
Yeazh right...coming from a man with a P.H.D. in starship construction, I'm very well inclined to belive you :doubt:
Battelships WERE harder to kill than otehr vessels. You drop a 500kg bomb on it's turet, the turret crew scratches it's head. Yo udrop that bomb on a carrier, the bomb blasts trough the deck and into the hangarbay.
Carriers have been going down from 1-2 bombs or torpedo its. For a BB you need much more.
But anyway, telling me you can't shield critical system differntly from ship to ship is bogus.
Teh abiltiy for a ship to survive the battle is if you ask me more important than the crews mess hall or sleeping accomodations. Tehy can sleep in the corridors.. and besides, friendly bases are a jump away.
Teh difference is not that a BB has the critical systems heavily armored and others lightly - it has EVERYTHING armored, but the critical systems are even mroe armored. In any case, think of it as a destroyer with subsytems that are 3 times as tough.
But I thought you were saying ships could jump in and engage at close range willy-nilly thanks to subspace?
So are you now citing the weight and resulting speed loss of heavy armour as a disadvantage? Doesn't that effectively cripple your 2.5x Orion battleship? Now it can't move fast atall, and it must be engaging destroyers at long range!
What? Micro-jumps? No way - I hate that idea. I'm talking normal jumps..like from one planet to anotehr..those sorts of distances..
and yes, surprisingly, you forget one thing that makes FS different that RL battles - the abiltiy to escape allmsot instantly...
The fact that NTF, the Shivans or even the GTVA don't use it very much is simple - you wouldn't be able to kill the enemy. After all, if you could jump out the second your hull integrity gets compromised (less than 50% or 30% ..hatever), wouldn't you do it?
No sense in staying and dying when there's nothing realyl important to gain.
that abiltiy reduces the BB's supcetivness to fighter/bomber attacks if it's alone. When attacked by something it can't handle alone it simply jump out towars a frienldy base or fleet. Not liek you can disable/destroy it fast enough to stop it - not even with 500 bombers you couldn't... it would jump out before you ene aquired lock, let alone the slooooow bomb reached it.
Given that the same basic facts of range apply in FS2, and it's now well established that 'air' power dominates over larger immobile vessels, any captain worth their salt would surely question the logic of sending their ship in to act as a sacrificial lamb purely to draw fire from an enemy they can't even hit.
Obviously, "fleet actions" and "subspace drives" are unknonw terms to you.
1. BB has better armor and point-defense than any destroyer.
2. BB can jump out if in trouble..big armor makes it highly unlikely (read: impossible) you can destroy it fast enough wiht bombers alone
3. heavy weapons = dead enemy warship if it's weapons range
Situation 1:
2 BB, and 1 Hecate hold the node.
3 destroyer try to break the blockade
Situation 2:
Reverse roles. The attacker is now the defender.
Situation 3:
3 destroers vs. 3 destroyers
What do you think the outcome would be?
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oh...here's the pic of 100 fighters or so, cramped up in a Orions bay
I was actually being rahter mercifull, since I used mostly perseus fighters (very small ones) to fill the Orion with and I even cramped them more than the mainhalls show. It doesn't show very well from this angle, the bay extends into the Orion a bit, it can't follow the runway exactly, as it doesn't leave enough room for the central strip.
Of course, the box isn't the actualy fighterbay, but rahter the volume representation.
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A double post and then you forgot to add the picture! :D
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S owhat are you trying to tell me? That the Hecate was badly desgned, considering what weapons you could mount on her, or that the few Af beams and flak guns require as much power as several beam cannons?
Few? It has 11 more turrets - that's almost twice as many - and is 100m longer (and thus probably higher mass and engine requirements). Also it only has one less beam cannon, and 3 more AAAf.
Irrelavant what it was used for - what it could do is what matters. You claimed that that ammount of powerfull weapons culdn't be mounted on a small frame or that there wouldn't be enough power for htem. And yet, a 800m ship holds more firepower than the hecate. Scale it up to destroyer size and you get a BB.
So it IS possible withing the FS universe to build one... touche!
Firstly, it's 998m long (and rather dense in terms of volume within that length)
Secondly, it does not have the firepower of the Hecate. It has 3 Big Greens compared to the Hecates' 5 (1 big green + 4 slashing), less flak, and absolutely no AAAf beams. This is a ship that's actually very vulnerable to fighter attack as a result of that.
Yeazh right...coming from a man with a P.H.D. in starship construction, I'm very well inclined to belive you
Battelships WERE harder to kill than otehr vessels. You drop a 500kg bomb on it's turet, the turret crew scratches it's head. Yo udrop that bomb on a carrier, the bomb blasts trough the deck and into the hangarbay.
Carriers have been going down from 1-2 bombs or torpedo its. For a BB you need much more.
But anyway, telling me you can't shield critical system differntly from ship to ship is bogus.
Teh abiltiy for a ship to survive the battle is if you ask me more important than the crews mess hall or sleeping accomodations. Tehy can sleep in the corridors.. and besides, friendly bases are a jump away.
Teh difference is not that a BB has the critical systems heavily armored and others lightly - it has EVERYTHING armored, but the critical systems are even mroe armored. In any case, think of it as a destroyer with subsytems that are 3 times as tough.
Right, because you're any more qualified than me on the design of these things. You've magicked up the super-strong extra armour for the subsystems, I notice......either way, you can't avoid the issue of the weight of that armour. Any placement of 'dispensible' systems to improve surviveablity is something that will be done by every other ship; why the hell would any ship use a less than optimum placement of systems?
Plus if you have crew sleeping in corridors, etc, then they impinge repair work (not to mention it would destroy morale) or anything that requires access via or in those corridors. Also, you can't assume help is a jump away (Assuming the jumpdrives and engines are even operational by this stage; those would be first targets for bombers), particularly for a ship intended to jump into hostile territory and hold it's position there. And what's the point of surviving a battle if the next stage is 3 months in drydock being repaired in order to be habitable? (just so it can crawl back into another wave of bomber attacks)
And, again, I note that battleships are now considered obsolete and not used by any of the major navies, whereas carriers form the lynchpin of all modern naval groups. Force projection is king in the battlefield; it doesn't matter if your vessel has weaker armour, or less guns, if it keeps you out of your firing range, and it its.
What? Micro-jumps? No way - I hate that idea. I'm talking normal jumps..like from one planet to anotehr..those sorts of distances..
and yes, surprisingly, you forget one thing that makes FS different that RL battles - the abiltiy to escape allmsot instantly...
The fact that NTF, the Shivans or even the GTVA don't use it very much is simple - you wouldn't be able to kill the enemy. After all, if you could jump out the second your hull integrity gets compromised (less than 50% or 30% ..hatever), wouldn't you do it?
No sense in staying and dying when there's nothing realyl important to gain.
that abiltiy reduces the BB's supcetivness to fighter/bomber attacks if it's alone. When attacked by something it can't handle alone it simply jump out towars a frienldy base or fleet. Not liek you can disable/destroy it fast enough to stop it - not even with 500 bombers you couldn't... it would jump out before you ene aquired lock, let alone the slooooow bomb reached it.
So the ship is built to retreat whenever any form of sensible tactics are used against it? Only attacking small targets unprotected by fighter cover? Isn't that something any bomber wing can do, just as - or more - effectively? Did you ever consider that perhaps it's just not possible to jump out that quickly? Take 'Slaying Ravana' - why would that ship just sit there and take that punishment, when it can escape to friendly territory (and being Shivan, has the most effective jump drives known)? Why not jump out at 15% hull, when it's had it's pound of flesh? Same for the Sathanas getting positively raped by the Colossus, with no beam weapons - why didn't it just evacuate?
Obviously, "fleet actions" and "subspace drives" are unknonw terms to you.
1. BB has better armor and point-defense than any destroyer.
2. BB can jump out if in trouble..big armor makes it highly unlikely (read: impossible) you can destroy it fast enough wiht bombers alone
3. heavy weapons = dead enemy warship if it's weapons range
More supposition and logic stated as blind fact, I note.
1/ Absolutely no evidence to justify that. You've cited a battleship the strength and armament of the Colossus, that is half the size - that's a fairly ludicrous concept in it's own; why do you think the Colossus was 5-6km long? To give the contractor ****s n' giggles? Hell, there's not even any evidence you can-crucially - fit a reactor of that power level into a destroyer sized vessel.
2/Absolutely no canonical evidence to support that is even possible (in fact, it's more contradicted by what we see in FS2)
3/Enemy does not have to engage in weapons range. In fact, if we accept 2, it never will!
Other facts to consider;
1/ Destroyers have far greater force projection range than any 'pure' capital ship thanks to numerous fighter and bomber wings
2/ Bombers are the most effective form of anti-capship attack, especially now we have the Helios and Trebuchet bombs. The latter allows operation outside AAAf beam range.
3/ Indications of comparative corvette and destroyer crew numbers indicate that fighterbays have a comparatively minimal impact on crew numbers
4/ The Colossus reactors could not power weaponry above it's standard loadout without damaging the ship and overloading heatsinks
5/ Armour decreases speed and maneuverability (see Fenris Vs Leviathan; the newer, heavier ship is slower by a substantial amount)
6/Every example you've given of this sort of 'painless' upgrade with magic new technology has been rather rubbish. Such as the Lev/Fenris, the Orion/Hecate, and the Iceni/Hecate comparisons. There is no canonical evidence that any FS2 technology is without penalty.
Situation 1:
2 BB, and 1 Hecate hold the node.
3 destroyer try to break the blockade
Situation 2:
Reverse roles. The attacker is now the defender.
Situation 3:
3 destroers vs. 3 destroyers
What do you think the outcome would be?
1/Win for attacker. Initial waves of fighters and bombers are equipped with inter-system drives and used to strip down battleship weaponry; fighters perform interceptor protection. With the battleships disabled and/or disarmed (or tactically retreating due to heavy damage), the attacking destroyers can enter the system, launch their full fighter complement and have at least a 2:1 numerical advantage over the sole destroyer. Of course, this is with the same caveat as 3). An alternative is to simply outmaneuver the blockade; engage the the battleships (as they are the most vulnerable to disablement, given their slow speed) with fighters and bombers to disable or just distract them, and jump the destroyer ASAP into a new location. This can then be used to harrass and flank blockade ships, using the destroyers bomber wings to either directly engage the capital ships or to thin out the enemy interceptor ranks. (as the destroyer 'should' hang back for fighter/bomber cover, it may never be directly engaged; the emphasis would be stripping down the battleships and establishing space superiority; as soon as one side has numerical advantage of fighters/bombers, they effectively control the node)
2/Win for defender. All 3 destroyers stand off beyond beam range (about 5 km, perhaps), and launch a full complement of bombers (estimating around 60 per ship, that would be about 180 bomber wings versus a maximum - on the same estimates with 20 per BS - of 110 interceptors). Bombers again use long range weaponry to disarm and disable the battleships, and a clear numerical advantage allows defensive fighters to swiftly establish space superiority and permit bombers to operate with impunity. It's possible the battleships may escape, but their low speed and lack of a fighter complement leaves them extremely vulnerable to bomber raids in open space; also, if they have sustained significant damage to life-vital areas of the ship it'd only be a matter of time before the crew was unable to function.
Of course, in 1 and 2 there is absolutely no purpose in the battleship that a 3 or 4 strong corvette force wouldn't perform. In fact, those corvettes would be more effective due to their increased flexibility of movement and thus tactical positioning. I personally would never sent a homogenous destroyer force to break a blockade, but use a staged attack with a number of corvettes or cruisers intended to arrive, and rapidly maneuver to try and split enemy fields of fire.
3/Depends on tactical positioning. Defenders have the advantage of locality and preparation, and are likely to win as a result; the main issue is how many fighter and bomber assets can be deployed by the defenders before full scale combat begins. It's quite likely the destroyers will never fire at each other in 'anger', but that their bombers will do the killing job.
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I personally would never sent a homogenous destroyer force to break a blockade, but use a staged attack with a number of corvettes or cruisers intended to arrive, and rapidly maneuver to try and split enemy fields of fire.
This was quite likely the strategy the GTVA used against the NTF. It didn't work.
The best canon evidence indicates that only one ship of cruiser size or above can enter or exit a node at the same time. (During "The Death of Hope" the Shivans managed two cruisers at once. Yet another aspect of the canon this mission messes with, or possibly just an indication of the Shivans' superior subspace capablities.) With only one capital craft able to exit a node at a time, the battleship concept begins to look much better. We already know that it is possible to knock out cruisers and corvettes practically as they come out of subspace, one by one.
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Situation 1:
2 BB, and 1 Hecate hold the node.
3 destroyer try to break the blockade
Situation 2:
Reverse roles. The attacker is now the defender.
Situation 3:
3 destroers vs. 3 destroyers
What do you think the outcome would be?
Okay. I'll bite. Cause my answer is slightly different from Aldo's. Situations like this aren't a simple numbers game. In all cases I'm using a sensible definition of what a BB is not your ridiculously uber version. I'm also assuming that all three attackers can jump through the node at the same time. I happen to believe they can't but if we use that as the model then it will always be the defender who wins regardless of which ships are involved.
Situation 1.
Variable. It all depends on whether the destroyers can get the 2 minutes that they need to recharge their engines and jump out without being destroyed. If they can the defenders are ****ed. The attackers can jump to a rally point, launch fighters and send them in against the defenders. If they were sensible they will have realised that the destroyer was the biggest threat to them and targetted it during their run past the BBs. If they've managed to destroy it that will really screw the BBs. 3 destroyer's worth of fighters and bombers vs whatever the enemy destroyer managed to get into the air before it was destroyed? The BBs are basically sitting ducks.
Without additional node defences like Mjolnirs I'm going to give this one to the attacker. I doubt that the BBs are going to be able to kill two of the destroyers in the couple of minutes that are needed for the drives to recharge and even at 5% hull a destroyer can still launch all of it's fighter craft. It is possible a clever defender could win but the odds are stacked against him.
Situation 2.
Defenders. The BBs have to get in range of the enemy capships before they can do anything. Furthermore the destroyers really don't care if the enemy does run the blockade. They've got subspace tracking and can have fighters at the enemies new location instantly (fighter drives appear to be able to make an in-system jump within a matter of seconds.)
Situation 3.
Defenders. Unless it's a surprise attack the defenders are going to lose less air support in the initial exchange. Without one side doing something monumentally brilliant or stupid the defenders should be able to parlay that initial advantage into a victory.
This was quite likely the strategy the GTVA used against the NTF. It didn't work.
The best canon evidence indicates that only one ship of cruiser size or above can enter or exit a node at the same time. (During "The Death of Hope" the Shivans managed two cruisers at once. Yet another aspect of the canon this mission messes with, or possibly just an indication of the Shivans' superior subspace capablities.) With only one capital craft able to exit a node at a time, the battleship concept begins to look much better. We already know that it is possible to knock out cruisers and corvettes practically as they come out of subspace, one by one.
The problem is that your battleship would arrive first. Then what does it do? Soak up the punishment from the destroyers fighter support until the attackers have managed to get it far enough away from the node that they can dare to send in a destroyer? During this time it's completely vulnerable to attack from fighters or bombers armed with trebs and maxims. If it starts to lumber towards any particular destroyer that destroyer can move faster than it can and continually stay out of its range. All the while launching more fighters and bombers. Once the BB has recharged its engines it can jump out but the fighters can instantly follow it and disable and destroy it where ever it does choose to pop up.
If you are making an attack against a node you need fighters out there as quickly as possible in order to support your ships.
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I personally would never sent a homogenous destroyer force to break a blockade, but use a staged attack with a number of corvettes or cruisers intended to arrive, and rapidly maneuver to try and split enemy fields of fire.
This was quite likely the strategy the GTVA used against the NTF. It didn't work.
The best canon evidence indicates that only one ship of cruiser size or above can enter or exit a node at the same time. (During "The Death of Hope" the Shivans managed two cruisers at once. Yet another aspect of the canon this mission messes with, or possibly just an indication of the Shivans' superior subspace capablities.) With only one capital craft able to exit a node at a time, the battleship concept begins to look much better. We already know that it is possible to knock out cruisers and corvettes practically as they come out of subspace, one by one.
Although the success of blockades is somewhat linked to the players achievements elsewhere in several missions; the very first sees the Sirius and Alpha Centauri blockades fail if the player loses both Iota transports. The Kings Gambit also mentions NTF forces sucessfully running a number of blockades (and IIRC shows how a blockade operates, although I don't really remember the mission), and at least one cruiser ran the Knossos blockade. So it's far from impossible; it seems that the standard tactics are to arrive, and then jump to rally before coming back and attacking the enemy. (NB: it's hard to tell if the primary blockade method is to stop entry or exit; the latter IMO makes sense if you can have variable exit vectors for a jump, or multiple simultaneous jumps).
And the problem I have with the BS class is that it isn't designed to be fast or agile in that sense; it's a sponge to soak up turret fire (because there's no real way to make a capship invulnerable to bombers without sacrificing it's use for offensive purposes). And with FS capship weaponries, it's easily possible to sit back out of range and hit via bombers - in fact, it seems standard practice. So all the primary advantages the BS class is suposed to bring over a destroyer are pretty much neutralized by standard blockade tactics; FS2 shows that any blockade can be breached, but that one key aspect is hunting down those ships. Now, a destroyer has the fighter and bomber firepower to cover (pretty much) that system; a BS doesn't.
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Why does everyone always refer to the iceni as a frigate, i'm preety sure the game always calls it a corvette...
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Why does everyone always refer to the iceni as a frigate, i'm preety sure the game always calls it a corvette...
Because it's referred to as Bosch' command frigate in a briefing; plus it's not quite the same size or spec as the Cv ships (people take the NTF part as support for that sometimes, although it seems the same situation as the GTVA Colossus). I think - offhand - the only point where 'corvette' is used is in the tbl entries for the filename and short reference name. And one of the flags. It's tricky to define.
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Few? It has 11 more turrets - that's almost twice as many - and is 100m longer (and thus probably higher mass and engine requirements). Also it only has one less beam cannon, and 3 more AAAf.
It may just as well have 20 mroe. Those are mostly flak and terran turrets. BGreens use more power than slashers, and the Orion has more beams overall. And if your'e triyng to tell me that several flak guns, 3 AAF's and laser turrets use more power than a BGreen, then you need your head examined.
Secondly, it does not have the firepower of the Hecate. It has 3 Big Greens compared to the Hecates' 5 (1 big green + 4 slashing), less flak, and absolutely no AAAf beams. This is a ship that's actually very vulnerable to fighter attack as a result of that.
And as we all know, slashers are utterly useless. Teh Iceni would rape the Hecate in a 1vs1 battle.
PDF weapons can't take up much power, as a fighter reactor can easily supply several Kayers, which is more powerfull than any PDF weapon mounted on a capship.
And of course, the BB would be bigger....
Right, because you're any more qualified than me on the design of these things. You've magicked up the super-strong extra armour for the subsystems, I notice......either way, you can't avoid the issue of the weight of that armour. Any placement of 'dispensible' systems to improve surviveablity is something that will be done by every other ship; why the hell would any ship use a less than optimum placement of systems?
why do they do that now?
Plus if you have crew sleeping in corridors, etc, then they impinge repair work (not to mention it would destroy morale) or anything that requires access via or in those corridors. Also, you can't assume help is a jump away (Assuming the jumpdrives and engines are even operational by this stage; those would be first targets for bombers), particularly for a ship intended to jump into hostile territory and hold it's position there. And what's the point of surviving a battle if the next stage is 3 months in drydock being repaired in order to be habitable? (just so it can crawl back into another wave of bomber attacks)
Are you telling me a destroyer would sustain such damage better? That it's armor would prevent the mess hall or bunks from getting trashed?
And do yo uthink it's better to survive a battle, but spend the next 3 months in drydock, or to lose the ship completely?
So the ship is built to retreat whenever any form of sensible tactics are used against it? Only attacking small targets unprotected by fighter cover? Isn't that something any bomber wing can do, just as - or more - effectively? Did you ever consider that perhaps it's just not possible to jump out that quickly? Take 'Slaying Ravana' - why would that ship just sit there and take that punishment, when it can escape to friendly territory (and being Shivan, has the most effective jump drives known)? Why not jump out at 15% hull, when it's had it's pound of flesh? Same for the Sathanas getting positively raped by the Colossus, with no beam weapons - why didn't it just evacuate?
Running away from something you cant't handel is hte only sane tactics.. Or are you saing a destroyer would stay if 500 bombers jumped in beside it?
If the BB has heavy armor, good PDF and several interceptors, than it can defend itself more than adequatly against bomber attacks...unless of course they are mass attacks, but then again, no ship can survive mass attacks.
And the Ravana isn't getting away, since if it did, you wouldn't be able to finish the mission. The game isn't fun if there's no big explosions ..Gameplay before logic and realism, remeber?
More supposition and logic stated as blind fact, I note.
True, but you are the one using them.
1/Win for attacker. Initial waves of fighters and bombers are equipped with inter-system drives and used to strip down battleship weaponry; fighters perform interceptor protection. With the battleships disabled and/or disarmed (or tactically retreating due to heavy damage), the attacking destroyers can enter the system, launch their full fighter complement and have at least a 2:1 numerical advantage over the sole destroyer. Of course, this is with the same caveat as 3). An alternative is to simply outmaneuver the blockade; engage the the battleships (as they are the most vulnerable to disablement, given their slow speed) with fighters and bombers to disable or just distract them, and jump the destroyer ASAP into a new location. This can then be used to harrass and flank blockade ships, using the destroyers bomber wings to either directly engage the capital ships or to thin out the enemy interceptor ranks. (as the destroyer 'should' hang back for fighter/bomber cover, it may never be directly engaged; the emphasis would be stripping down the battleships and establishing space superiority; as soon as one side has numerical advantage of fighters/bombers, they effectively control the node)
Few fighters/bombers equipped with such drives - surely not enough to overpower the interceptors from the BB's and the DD AND the PDF of the ships as well (as they would be parked right next ot hte node)
And destroyer entering the system will be fired upon by the 2 BB's and and quickly destroyed. Given that they can only launch 1 fighter wing at a time - and at a very slow pace if what we've seen in game is any evidence, destroiyer entering with little or no fightercover are toast. Plain and simple.
2/Win for defender. All 3 destroyers stand off beyond beam range (about 5 km, perhaps), and launch a full complement of bombers (estimating around 60 per ship, that would be about 180 bomber wings versus a maximum - on the same estimates with 20 per BS - of 110 interceptors). Bombers again use long range weaponry to disarm and disable the battleships, and a clear numerical advantage allows defensive fighters to swiftly establish space superiority and permit bombers to operate with impunity. It's possible the battleships may escape, but their low speed and lack of a fighter complement leaves them extremely vulnerable to bomber raids in open space; also, if they have sustained significant damage to life-vital areas of the ship it'd only be a matter of time before the crew was unable to function.
On this we agree. With the full fightter complement of hte DD's in air, ANY attcking ships, unless they enter in force or escorted with a lot of specialized DPF cruisers will bet quickly overrun.
However, if a BB does get away, it will pull enemy fighters/bombers after it to chase it, thus reducing some of hte pressure from the other two ships. If it jumps close to an enemy installation or something, it can live long enough ot do some serious damage before going down..Teh attacker would stil llose though.
3/Depends on tactical positioning. Defenders have the advantage of locality and preparation, and are likely to win as a result; the main issue is how many fighter and bomber assets can be deployed by the defenders before full scale combat begins. It's quite likely the destroyers will never fire at each other in 'anger', but that their bombers will do the killing job.
for resons stated above, the defender will win. Defenders typicly have the advantage sinvce they can wield more fighters/bombers at the start, while the attackers can start deploying them onyl after tehy jumped in, with only minimal fighter protection while it's deploying. Of course, if the attacker manages to survive long enough to depoly a adequate fightercover, the battle can turn either way.
However, looking at the possible losses in these scenarios, it's better for hte defender to have BB's, as with them any enemy capship clearing the node would be destroyed faster - and thus would be able to dish out less damage to the defender.
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1/ Absolutely no evidence to justify that. You've cited a battleship the strength and armament of the Colossus, that is half the size - that's a fairly ludicrous concept in it's own; why do you think the Colossus was 5-6km long? To give the contractor ****s n' giggles? Hell, there's not even any evidence you can-crucially - fit a reactor of that power level into a destroyer sized vessel.
There is cannonical evidence.. the Iceni for one. And Like I said, you don't know the limitation of most FS2 tech, so you can't scream "impossible".. Especialyl since I have nowhere stated that it would have 14 beam cannons or the like. I belive I said 4 cannons(and I havn't even stated which type) and heavy plasma turrets (weaker than beamz) OR, if you insist on no THT's beam cannons and TREB launchers.
2/Absolutely no canonical evidence to support that is even possible (in fact, it's more contradicted by what we see in FS2)
I would like to see that evidence that stops ships from jumping out once the enemy has arrived.
And following CANON evidence of bomber speed, the distance tehy arrive from the target, the lock time and release range and hte bomb flight speed, it takes quite some time for the bomb to actualyl reach the warships hull.
Here, make a test if you don't belive me - set up a bomber wing to arrive some distance fro mthe warship (standard distance is usually 2000 meters), arm them wit hstandard bombs and order them to attack. Time how long it taakes for hte bomb to actualyl reach the warship...
3/Enemy does not have to engage in weapons range. In fact, if we accept 2, it never will!
It will if it has to or if you come to him. It's not like ambushes or node blockades or X other possible scenarios never happened in FS2.
1/ Destroyers have far greater force projection range than any 'pure' capital ship thanks to numerous fighter and bomber wings
True. That's a destroyers greatest asset. But it's not too much of a use if the enemy can calculate your position based on the bombers jumpin in or find you with long-range sensors and hten come and take the fight to you.
2/ Bombers are the most effective form of anti-capship attack, especially now we have the Helios and Trebuchet bombs. The latter allows operation outside AAAf beam range.
Effective? Varries depending on the target.
The speed with which they can destroy targets? Generally not very good.
3/ Indications of comparative corvette and destroyer crew numbers indicate that fighterbays have a comparatively minimal impact on crew numbers
Depends what you coinsider minimal.. 3000-4000 people ain't small
4/ The Colossus reactors could not power weaponry above it's standard loadout without damaging the ship and overloading heatsinks
Inconclusive. Colossuss took damage before that and in that battle. They overloaded the power grid. Reactors can go down from that you know. Desings were made 20 years ago, and the type and age of reacotrs is allso unknown. It takes more than 1 ship to make a acceptable sample.
5/ Armour decreases speed and maneuverability (see Fenris Vs Leviathan; the newer, heavier ship is slower by a substantial amount)
True. But to what point it's not clearly established. Nor the formula for that - is hte faloww linera? exponential? Besides, the Fenris and Leviathan are old ships with old engines. Command briefings mentioned advances in fusion drive technology...look at the Deimos - bigger and heavier than the Leviathan, but a lot faster.
6/Every example you've given of this sort of 'painless' upgrade with magic new technology has been rather rubbish. Such as the Lev/Fenris, the Orion/Hecate, and the Iceni/Hecate comparisons. There is no canonical evidence that any FS2 technology is without penalty.
What painless upgrades?
Any comparison I made stay. Especially the last two.
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Irrelavant what it was used for - what it could do is what matters. You claimed that that ammount of powerfull weapons culdn't be mounted on a small frame or that there wouldn't be enough power for htem. And yet, a 800m ship holds more firepower than the hecate. Scale it up to destroyer size and you get a BB.
So it IS possible withing the FS universe to build one... touche!
The Iceni is actually the most top of the range ship in FS2. I've always attributed that to the fact that the Iceni was Bosch's command and he spared no expense on it. I've always further thought that command wouldn't build Iceni class frigates for the GTVA because they were quite simply too expensive like the Aeolus.
I've always said that you can't simply scale up the Iceni because the resulting ship would also be too expensive. That results in destroyers using cheaper heatsinks and engines etc that can't take the strain as well.
On the other hand you say that it's possible to scale up the Iceni and cost be damned. I don't believe it but fine. Lets see where that argument takes us. Lets start scaling up.
The Iceni does pack a fair bit of power into its hull. So a BB using Iceni tech would be quite formidible. More than a match for the humble Orion or Hecate. But wait. We seem to have fallen into your favourite pitfall yet again. Where is the destroyer based on Iceni tech? Cause the Hecate sure as **** isn't it. Yep. It's gotten missed out again and you're pitting an uber BB (although this time based on canon info at least) against a bog standard destroyer.
Once you scale up the destroyer too using the same rules you used for the BB you end up in the same situation. The BB has only a little bit more power than the equivalent destroyer. Nowhere near enough to make it as superior to the destroyer as you claim.
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It may just as well have 20 mroe. Those are mostly flak and terran turrets. BGreens use more power than slashers, and the Orion has more beams overall. And if your'e triyng to tell me that several flak guns, 3 AAF's and laser turrets use more power than a BGreen, then you need your head examined.
Not just power for the weapon though, is it? It's power for moving the turret, linking it to the hull and ship systems, etc. In any case, the two have the same reactor power. 90 and 90. Look at the tables.
Note; all beams have the same power consumption of 0.3 (in turn the same as terran turrets), so it's a lifetime issue; not to mention the AAAf has a faster refire rate, so it will have fired several times in the time it takes to refire a 'main' beam.
And as we all know, slashers are utterly useless. Teh Iceni would rape the Hecate in a 1vs1 battle.
PDF weapons can't take up much power, as a fighter reactor can easily supply several Kayers, which is more powerfull than any PDF weapon mounted on a capship.
And of course, the BB would be bigger....
Firstly, the Iceni and Hecate would only fight 1-on-1 if the Hecate completely screwed up - otherwise it'd be fighters plus the Hecate, and it'd be a short fight. That's why destroyers are the kings of Freespace capships.
And why aren't Kaysers mounted on capships already, then, if it's so easy? Need I point out that all the Terran Turrets - despite having greater damage - use a tenth of the energy of a Kayser? That kind of implies switching them would kill the reactors, given the Colossus vs the Sathanas (and yes, it does ask the question why the reactors are so pish; probably because it's calculated on the same linear scale as fighters or something).
why do they do that now?
They don't. Cite evidence they do.
Are you telling me a destroyer would sustain such damage better? That it's armor would prevent the mess hall or bunks from getting trashed?
And do yo uthink it's better to survive a battle, but spend the next 3 months in drydock, or to lose the ship completely?
Makes very little difference in a war against the likes of the Shivans. Point being is that a destroyer is designed to avoid being in a position to incur that damage; the S.O.P. is (what is this, the 5th time I've said this?) to operate beyond weapons range using bombers. It's not designed to absorb damage, but avoid it. How many times in FS2 does the Aquitane have to RTB for repairs?
Running away from something you cant't handel is hte only sane tactics.. Or are you saing a destroyer would stay if 500 bombers jumped in beside it?
If the BB has heavy armor, good PDF and several interceptors, than it can defend itself more than adequatly against bomber attacks...unless of course they are mass attacks, but then again, no ship can survive mass attacks.
A destroyer would of course run, but a destroyer has a ranged point defence of fighter patrols to prevent that happening. A BS has nothing - any substantial attack will overwhelm what scant fighters it can commit, and open it up to long range bombing. FS1 and 2 pretty clearly show that the only effective bomber defense is escort fighters; even the Sathanas was ultimately killed by them. With the trebuchet, it's even easier to strip down a capship ready for the kill.
And the Ravana isn't getting away, since if it did, you wouldn't be able to finish the mission. The game isn't fun if there's no big explosions ..Gameplay before logic and realism, remeber?
Then presumably you'd be more than happy to have every ship from Fenris to Mentu to Hatshepsut armed with BFGreens on every turret? Or is that a tacit admission your logic is not actually logical here?
Few fighters/bombers equipped with such drives - surely not enough to overpower the interceptors from the BB's and the DD AND the PDF of the ships as well (as they would be parked right next ot hte node)
And destroyer entering the system will be fired upon by the 2 BB's and and quickly destroyed. Given that they can only launch 1 fighter wing at a time - and at a very slow pace if what we've seen in game is any evidence, destroiyer entering with little or no fightercover are toast. Plain and simple.
Firstly, another assumption as to the numbers of inter-system drives. Secondly, another massive assumption that BS' can quickly destroy a destroyer - based on your hypothetical uberbeams with no reactor requirements, I presume. Of course, in any blockade the defender will have the advantage; although you've not cited any advantage for a BS class not more than adequately covered by a few corvettes and cruiser (or even RBCs). So it'd be a bit of a waste of resources for any BS class when you have cheaper alternatives.
On this we agree. With the full fightter complement of hte DD's in air, ANY attcking ships, unless they enter in force or escorted with a lot of specialized DPF cruisers will bet quickly overrun.
However, if a BB does get away, it will pull enemy fighters/bombers after it to chase it, thus reducing some of hte pressure from the other two ships. If it jumps close to an enemy installation or something, it can live long enough ot do some serious damage before going down..Teh attacker would stil llose though.p.
That applies to any escaping vessel. However, the size and armour of a BB would mean it is the least mobile vessel and thus easiest for bombers to track down at leisure; ever notice that the majority of ships running blockades are smaller and nimbler capships like the Deimos and (IIRC) Fenris? In any case, the deployment of bombers would not be enough to erode space superiority at the node, due to a >2:1 advantage for the defenders. And with the enmy destroyer exposed in this way, and hence it's fighter cover lost, the BS' would be easy pickings for bomber raids.
for resons stated above, the defender will win. Defenders typicly have the advantage sinvce they can wield more fighters/bombers at the start, while the attackers can start deploying them onyl after tehy jumped in, with only minimal fighter protection while it's deploying. Of course, if the attacker manages to survive long enough to depoly a adequate fightercover, the battle can turn either way.
However, looking at the possible losses in these scenarios, it's better for hte defender to have BB's, as with them any enemy capship clearing the node would be destroyed faster - and thus would be able to dish out less damage to the defender.
Again, you're assuming that a BS can somehow inflict damage at a greater rate than a bomber wing from a destroyer. Simple logic - the amount of mountable turrets on any ship is limited to a certain feasible limit (as can be determined by looking at GTVA ships), and those turrets have neither the range nor power (based on FS2 weaponry) to reach or destroy vessel launching bomber wings before said bombers can intercept and destroy the vessel. The BS' only advantage over the destroyer is thus likely to be short range firepower, the sort of thing the destroyers' tactical operations are designed to negate.
Furthermore, the BS is more vulnerable than a pair of, for example, corvettes in this example as the attacker can focus their efforts and firepower on that single ship rather than multiple maneuvering and possibly flanking vessels.
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1/ Absolutely no evidence to justify that. You've cited a battleship the strength and armament of the Colossus, that is half the size - that's a fairly ludicrous concept in it's own; why do you think the Colossus was 5-6km long? To give the contractor ****s n' giggles? Hell, there's not even any evidence you can-crucially - fit a reactor of that power level into a destroyer sized vessel.
There is cannonical evidence.. the Iceni for one. And Like I said, you don't know the limitation of most FS2 tech, so you can't scream "impossible".. Especialyl since I have nowhere stated that it would have 14 beam cannons or the like. I belive I said 4 cannons(and I havn't even stated which type) and heavy plasma turrets (weaker than beamz) OR, if you insist on no THT's beam cannons and TREB launchers.
Plasma turrets - don't exist. It's purely hypothetical technology you've invented to support your ideas. If you want treb launchers, you need to handle ammunition storage issues.
2/Absolutely no canonical evidence to support that is even possible (in fact, it's more contradicted by what we see in FS2)
I would like to see that evidence that stops ships from jumping out once the enemy has arrived.
And following CANON evidence of bomber speed, the distance tehy arrive from the target, the lock time and release range and hte bomb flight speed, it takes quite some time for the bomb to actualyl reach the warships hull.
Here, make a test if you don't belive me - set up a bomber wing to arrive some distance fro mthe warship (standard distance is usually 2000 meters), arm them wit hstandard bombs and order them to attack. Time how long it taakes for hte bomb to actualyl reach the warship...
Name me one good reason why crippled - not disabled - Shivan vessels hang around to be destroyed? Why doesn't the Repulse flee the Colossus? It's pretty obvious it's not simply a case of flicking a switch for a destroyer to jump.
Oh, it takes 65 seconds for an Orion (Uhuru) to recharge and jump, 60 seconds for an Aeolus (Liberty), 90 for a Deimos (Pax), and 70 for a Leviathan (Liberty). that's from the Kings Gambit, where it is explicitly stated the NTF ships are only staying long enough to re-energize their drives and jump to a rally point.
3/Enemy does not have to engage in weapons range. In fact, if we accept 2, it never will!
It will if it has to or if you come to him. It's not like ambushes or node blockades or X other possible scenarios never happened in FS2.
2 excludes this; it's a contradiction. If we allow rapid escapes, we remove effective ambushes.
1/ Destroyers have far greater force projection range than any 'pure' capital ship thanks to numerous fighter and bomber wings
True. That's a destroyers greatest asset. But it's not too much of a use if the enemy can calculate your position based on the bombers jumpin in or find you with long-range sensors and hten come and take the fight to you.
Likewise for the BS; it can be engaged at will by bombers. If it moves to attack, then that would mean the destroyer can just jump away. Not to mention the assumption bombers will always jump directly to-and-from their base... if we assume what you say is true and they can be tracked back, they'll do the opposite and stage jumps ahead of enemy capships.
2/ Bombers are the most effective form of anti-capship attack, especially now we have the Helios and Trebuchet bombs. The latter allows operation outside AAAf beam range.
Effective? Varries depending on the target.
The speed with which they can destroy targets? Generally not very good.
Just look at the game - take, for example, attacking the Sath (decimated a blockade, and then crippled by one bomber pilot). A wing of bombers can carry enough Helios torpedos to destroy pretty much anything (you'd send more than one to hit a large target, of course). A fighter alone can destroy a cruiser - with primaries.
3/ Indications of comparative corvette and destroyer crew numbers indicate that fighterbays have a comparatively minimal impact on crew numbers
Depends what you coinsider minimal.. 3000-4000 people ain't small
Less than double the number of people (6000 vs 10,000) on a ship that's almost a kilometer and a half longer? (Sobek vs Orion - and the Sobek is actually newer, too). That's not even the same linear increase as with the Colossus.
4/ The Colossus reactors could not power weaponry above it's standard loadout without damaging the ship and overloading heatsinks
Inconclusive. Colossuss took damage before that and in that battle. They overloaded the power grid. Reactors can go down from that you know. Desings were made 20 years ago, and the type and age of reacotrs is allso unknown. It takes more than 1 ship to make a acceptable sample.
See previously quoted in-mission comments. The Colossus had to shut down other systems to maintain fire.
5/ Armour decreases speed and maneuverability (see Fenris Vs Leviathan; the newer, heavier ship is slower by a substantial amount)
True. But to what point it's not clearly established. Nor the formula for that - is hte faloww linera? exponential? Besides, the Fenris and Leviathan are old ships with old engines. Command briefings mentioned advances in fusion drive technology...look at the Deimos - bigger and heavier than the Leviathan, but a lot faster.
Except you can't just invent technology improvements and stay 'in' the universe. Because the Hecate is just as new as the Deimos.
6/Every example you've given of this sort of 'painless' upgrade with magic new technology has been rather rubbish. Such as the Lev/Fenris, the Orion/Hecate, and the Iceni/Hecate comparisons. There is no canonical evidence that any FS2 technology is without penalty.
What painless upgrades?
Any comparison I made stay. Especially the last two.
You said the Orion had more reactor power - it doesn't. You said it was better armed than the Hecate - it isn't (just a different flavour). You said the Iceni was better armed than the Hecate; again, it has less turrets and bugger all anti-fighter weaponry. The Iceni being a very good example as you wanted to scale it up, and it's probably the only capship in the game build solely to run away from enemies rather than actually fight.
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...Firstly, the Iceni and Hecate would only fight 1-on-1 if the Hecate completely screwed up - otherwise it'd be fighters plus the Hecate, and it'd be a short fight. That's why destroyers are the kings of Freespace capships.
Yeah, well... That's quite canon, isn't it? Meaning the Command screwing things up... I think that fight would be like this in FS2:
§Briefing§
Alpha Wing, you're out for a standard patrol. Your loadout has been optimized for this kind of mission (**** yeah...). You'll be relieved by Epsilon Wing. Questions?
...
§Mission§
-5 mins of patrolling and wingmen hitting the Hecate
Command: We're detecting a huge subspace rupture! It's the 3xScaled Iceni class Battleship, NTBB Kompressor! Defend us, Pilots!
Command: Our fighter bays are malfunctioning! It'll take 20 minutes to get anything to your support! Do your job, Alpha! Destroy the beam turrets of that battle ship!
Command: Our Beam cannons have been sabotaged! We cant return the fire! Destroy the battleship with your dual Subachs, pilots!
:shaking:
Freespace canon: Anything can happen, and it usually does. Superior ships are being destroyed by inferior, beam cannons are useless when you need them, fighter bays cannot be used when mission balance demands and it fits the campaign; Colossus doesn't realize that the Sathanas doesn't have anything to give back and melts its heat sinks for no reason other than story-telling related ones....
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The problem is that your battleship would arrive first. Then what does it do? Soak up the punishment from the destroyers fighter support until the attackers have managed to get it far enough away from the node that they can dare to send in a destroyer? During this time it's completely vulnerable to attack from fighters or bombers armed with trebs and maxims. If it starts to lumber towards any particular destroyer that destroyer can move faster than it can and continually stay out of its range. All the while launching more fighters and bombers. Once the BB has recharged its engines it can jump out but the fighters can instantly follow it and disable and destroy it where ever it does choose to pop up.
If you are making an attack against a node you need fighters out there as quickly as possible in order to support your ships.
During that point in time the battleship is engaging enemy heavy assets in the area. You need beam emitters for an effective blockade, bombs just don't deliever the damage as reliably and rapidly as beams. Beam cannon mean capital craft, and capital craft are what a battleship is meant to engage.
Yes it will be a damage sponge. Bombs will be expended, beams will have to recharge. You don't mount an assault with a single ship. Others will follow. In this case its being a damage sponge is a useful function. It will draw fire off the ships that follow, allowing them to engage the enemy more effectively. (Or, in the case of a destroyer, conduct flight operations with much lesser problems then if they were the focus of attention.) This becomes more important when you consider the velocity of a ship exiting subspace appears to be related to its mass; a battleship, which has much less empty space inside then a destroyer, and hence greater mass, will exit subspace faster; one would be able to send in a follow-on ship more quickly. (It is also possible it would be notably faster then a destroyer. If the Colossus can get up to 25m/s then surely the GTVA can build a battleship-type able to do so as well.)
You're standing here trying to pretend a battleship has absolutely no use; we both know, and we both have acknowledged (I'll dig out the topic if you insist.), that's not true. They are uniquely suited to the role of breaching a hostile blockade, in much the same manner as the Colossus was. They can deliever massive firepower instantly and with 100% reliablity against an enemy capital craft, unlike multiple bomber wings. They are also not viable replacements for the destroyer type, but I have never argued that they were.
Although the success of blockades is somewhat linked to the players achievements elsewhere in several missions; the very first sees the Sirius and Alpha Centauri blockades fail if the player loses both Iota transports.
This sounds like mission designer hyperbole to me...considering there is no way that Iota, carrying civilian refugees and being cast adrift empty after the Psamtik recovered them, could have that kind of influence.
The Kings Gambit also mentions NTF forces sucessfully running a number of blockades (and IIRC shows how a blockade operates, although I don't really remember the mission), and at least one cruiser ran the Knossos blockade. So it's far from impossible; it seems that the standard tactics are to arrive, and then jump to rally before coming back and attacking the enemy.
This is a conclusion unsupported by evidence. The actions of the NTF ships in The King's Gambit and The Scilian Defense (and previously) should not be taken to represent the tactics used for assaulting a node blockade, because the NTF wasn't doing that. As you say, they were running the blockades. No attempt was made to take and hold any of the nodes. No attempt was made to establish a supply chain. They had the sole purpose of getting through the Knossos.
And the problem I have with the BS class is that it isn't designed to be fast or agile in that sense; it's a sponge to soak up turret fire (because there's no real way to make a capship invulnerable to bombers without sacrificing it's use for offensive purposes). And with FS capship weaponries, it's easily possible to sit back out of range and hit via bombers - in fact, it seems standard practice. So all the primary advantages the BS class is suposed to bring over a destroyer are pretty much neutralized by standard blockade tactics; FS2 shows that any blockade can be breached, but that one key aspect is hunting down those ships. Now, a destroyer has the fighter and bomber firepower to cover (pretty much) that system; a BS doesn't.
Ah. This is where the problem comes. The only successful invasion breaches of blockades that occurred in FS2 were things Alpha 1 wasn't present for: the NTF's breaching of the Sirius-Epsilon Pegausi blockade, and the GTVA Colossus' breach of the NTF blockade going the opposite way. (It isn't known whether the NTF made a serious, or even any, attempt to blockade Regulus against the Colossus. They may well not have.) In both cases they came to stay, and logistics would demand they seize and hold the node. Jumping further insystem (where, as The Scilian Defense illustrates, they can be attacked by previously uncommited, and therefore undamaged, defense units before they can recover) does not gain them anything that it does not also give the enemy.
Thus a true assault would be fought at the node, to smash or drive off the defenders and secure the attacker's lines of supply. Someone has to lead it, and for this role, a battleship type of craft would be ideal. A destroyer could serve the purpose (and probably did, for the NTF), but this has risks that make it less attractive: primarily the possible loss of the destroyer, and all those fightercraft you're fighting to get into the battle, also the problems posed by conducting flight ops under heavy fire.
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To me, a destroyer is the center of a fleet, much like a modern aircraft carrier. It usually stay behind the front line, command the fleet, provide fighter cover, only provide fire support if necessary. The fighters and bombers are the offensive weapons, not the beam cannons. The Ravana does not fit the profile. It's designed to attack right in front, tear enemy line open, so the rest of the fleet can break through. Something has to cover its ass, or it's toasted. I doubt it was ever the flagship of a Shivan fleet.
So you want to re-write the definition of what a destroyer is to suit yourself? The game is quite clear on the point that the Ravana is a destroyer. It is simply one that has a good offensive potential too. That's it.
Furthermore we frequently see destroyers doing front line combat. Look at the assult on the Ravana, the various node blockades etc. Destroyers were always up there on the front lines kicking arse. The Hecate is actually the only destroyer we don't see doing this. If you're forming your opinions of what a destroyer is based on the Hecate you've chosen the wrong destroyer.
There's no such thing as a battleship in the game. The game classifies anything bigger than a Corvette, yet smaller than a super destroyer, a destroyer. If calling it a battle destroyer make you feel better, than be my guest.
And what did we get from destroyers in the front line? They usually get destroyed or barely being saved by alpha 1. Orion by itself is a pretty powerful destroyer in term of firepower. The GTVA apparently favours the Hecates more since it's more balanced.
Battleship and destroyers are never going to be too different. They share the same platform, which means they have similar constraints. They just have different emphasis. Battleships emphasize raw fire power, destroyers emphasize fighter cover, balanced fire support, communication and command infrastructure. A battleship is simply a specialized destroyer. That's why I don't see battleships act alone. They are only the vanguards of the fleet.
I agree with you on the idea that there will be front line and rear line destroyers (compare Orion and Hecate if you need an example of that) but for ****s sake stop calling a destroyer a battleship. The game is quite clear on the name of the class and on a thread like this it just serves to confuse everyone.
Ok, ok. Battle destroyer than. Orion is more of a battle destroyer than a carrier destroyer. But it's a legacy, so it's not well designed to be either.
Destroyers are not battleships with a fighter bay. Battleships are destroyers without proper fighter coverage and command infrastructure, but far more front firepower.
Only in your mind. We are not subservient to your made up definitions. Especially when they contradict the game.
You are simply being argumentative here. We are not talking about FS2, we are talking about new ship classes in future FS games. The beauty of FS series game is that it's fully customizable. I can create a sailboat that does not have a reactor but sails on solar wind if I want.
The Ravana is a Shivan battleship, maybe they have the technology to put more stuff into its limited hull. Still, we see that it's very vulnerable acting alone.
:wtf: The Ravana singlehandedly took out the GTD Delacroix and damaged the rest of the battle group (presumably including the Aquitane which after all probably was part of the battle group). In fact if the player flies badly the Ravana takes out the Champion, the Khenmu, the Heisenberg, the Yakiba, and the Somtus as well. So it's obvious that the Ravana can handle itself.
You're making the assumption that the Ravana doesn't carry a lot of fighters but you have no evidence whatsoever for that claim. We faced fighters from the Ravana in the two missions before Slaying Ravana and you're completely failing to count the number of fighters seen in that mission as well as the fairly large number that must have been used up kicking the **** out of the fleet. I really doubt that the Ravana is a low in fighters as you seem to believe.
What can I say, the Shivans are better ship builders than the Terran. If their worst destroyer can stand up against puny Terran/Visudan battle group. :) The missions are designed to create an urgency for the players. Almost all missions having unrealistic odds against the players. Try pit the Ravana against a Terran fleet in FRED2, see how it was flanked and destroyed easily.
I don't really have time to go back and check, but I don't think the mission states explicitly that those fighters are from the Ravana's fighter bay. If they are, than the Ravana carries infinite number of fighters since I believe one wing of them will spawn forever. The compaign is funny that way, it is more for fun than for real. Doesn't mean that you can't create another compaign that give the user a better odd, but more difficult tasks. For example, have to keep all team members alive to win a mission.
Because the extra spaces are need for more powerful reactors and armors.
I don't buy it. When you double the size of a ship you don't simply double its internal volume. You quadruple it. You'd have plenty of space left over even with the bigger reactors and armour.
So what, I will have backup reactors. More beams. Make it more powerful and harder to destroy. My point is that it needs to sacrifice something to get more fire power and armor.
What's the use of fighter bay if the destroyers can provide fighter cover for the fleet? I do not support the argument that others are making that Battleship can act alone. They can't. They can never provide enough fighter coverage to survive an onslaught of bombers. One battleship has no hope against one destroyer. However, 2 battleship plus 1 destroyer with crusier escorts can kill a destroyer with cruiser escorts faster and with less casualties than 3 destroyers. (Assuming bombers are more expensive to build than fixing battleship's hull and subsystems).
I don't buy that either. The three destroyers can launch fighters and bombers three times as fast. That's a much larger effect that you make it out to be. Hell use the maxim effect I've mentioned before and the fighters could probably do it without the destroyers even getting scratched.
No, the destroyers will not be scratched, but a large number of the bombers and fighters will be destroyed. They may not cost much, but the pilots are invaluable. You are suggesting putting their life in danger unnecessarily.
BTW, please do not say that battleship or any other ships can jump in, shoot, then jump out before anybody could react. If so, we will just have a bunch of ships, shifting in and out of subspace, never firing a shot. I think it takes at least 30 minutes to calculate a intrasystem jump. Any thing faster than that would be dangerous since you could jump right into a sun (say 10% chances). It's fine for suicide missions, but no captain would do it on a regular basis. You can not do the calculation up front either since there are too many variables.
Whilst you're telling people what to do how about I suggest not quadruple posting? The edit button is there for a reason and as you can see I've managed to respond to all your posts in one single post.
Anyway while I disagree with mini-jumps too the comment about it taking 30 minutes to calculate an intrasystem is complete bull. Go play Kings Gambit again as it seem to be a requirement for this discussion for lots of other reasons anyway.
I am sorry, but I am not telling people what to do. I am asking them with reasons. I am not a moderator here. I have no right to tell people what to do. I can only beg them. Also, I was replying to different people. Not much point relying 4 different people in 1 post.
Kings Gambit did not prove anything. First of all, they are not doing two intra system jumpings. Inter-system jumping is a lot more deterministic since the worm hole is already there. Secondly, it's a suicide mission in the first place. The NTF ships were just trying to run the blockade. They don't really care if they lose 10% of their ship. They will jump at the first chance and then regroup later.
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During that point in time the battleship is engaging enemy heavy assets in the area. You need beam emitters for an effective blockade, bombs just don't deliever the damage as reliably and rapidly as beams. Beam cannon mean capital craft, and capital craft are what a battleship is meant to engage.
When it's just destroyers vs destroyers I'll conceed your point that the best thing to do is to get up close and make them eat beam fire as soon as they enter the system but you're claiming that the BB can soak up damage far better than the destroyer and that it can dish out the hurt far better than destroyers can. The defending side are aware of this fact and you won't even let me change tactics to deal with it? Doesn't that strike you as hideously unfair? Why would the defenders play to the strengths of their enemy?
Any sensible commander would draw his capships out of range of the node arm his bombers and fighters with a mixture of Helios, trebs and maxim cannons. The treb strike would denude the BB of as much anti fighter as possible clearing a path for the bombers to deliver the hurt (preferably against the engines)
To insist that the defending side would have to use the same techniques they used against a ship equal in power to them makes no sense at all.
This becomes more important when you consider the velocity of a ship exiting subspace appears to be related to its mass; a battleship, which has much less empty space inside then a destroyer, and hence greater mass, will exit subspace faster; one would be able to send in a follow-on ship more quickly. (It is also possible it would be notably faster then a destroyer. If the Colossus can get up to 25m/s then surely the GTVA can build a battleship-type able to do so as well.)
Wait a second. All four GTVA destroyers have a top speed of 15m/s. Even the Hecate which is designed to run away from the enemy. You've admitted that the BB is more massive than the destroyer and yet for some reason you think its's going to be faster? :wtf: Now you're falling into Trashman's pitfall of giving the destroyer enormous advantages that you aren't giving to the other side.
The Colossus is that fast cause
a) More money was spent on it. It was flagship of the GTVA fleet and they gave it only the best.
b) It's skimped on other things. Most notably the size of it's hanger. It's 3 times larger than a destroyer yet only carries 180 fighters and bombers (60 x fighter or bomber wings of 3 ships as shown in the cutscene) rather than the 450 it would carry if we're talking about a linear scale up from the Hecate.
Personally I reckon that a) is a much larger factor than b)
You're standing here trying to pretend a battleship has absolutely no use; we both know, and we both have acknowledged (I'll dig out the topic if you insist.), that's not true.
Who says I'm saying that the BB has no use? If 20 BBs suddenly fell out of the sky I have no doubt that the GTVA would use them. What I'm saying is something completely different. I'm saying that they aren't economically viable. Same as the Aeolus. They quite simply cost too much to be worth producing when there is another class (The Deimos in the class of the Aeolus and the destroyer in the case of the BB) which is a more sensible way to spend your money.
They are uniquely suited to the role of breaching a hostile blockade, in much the same manner as the Colossus was. They can deliever massive firepower instantly and with 100% reliablity against an enemy capital craft, unlike multiple bomber wings.
Yes but is that worth the money? Remember it takes years to build a BB or destroyer and only minutes to kill it. Is that really worth it when compared against the price of a bomber? You're talking about using the BB to soak up damage. So the GTVA is going to lose a lot of them if it uses them that way.
They are also not viable replacements for the destroyer type, but I have never argued that they were.
No one said that you did. No one said that Trashman did. Stop bringing it up as an argument cause it really isn't.
There's no such thing as a battleship in the game. The game classifies anything bigger than a Corvette, yet smaller than a super destroyer, a destroyer.
Exactly. Which is why you shouldn't be calling the ravana a battleship. The game very clearly states that it isn't. You've invented the battleship class, and then shoved the Ravana in there to make some point about battleships being good. However the Ravana is, was and forever shall be a destroyer which means that far from participating in this discussion you're mearly arguing the merits of different destroyer classes and muddying the waters by trying to make out that some of them are destroyers.
The fact that the Ravana can carry a full complement of fighters and still attack on the front lines is a testiment to how powerful the destroyer class actually is. It shows why the battleship class which other on this thread are arguing in favour of, is actually largely pointless.
You are simply being argumentative here. We are not talking about FS2, we are talking about new ship classes in future FS games. The beauty of FS series game is that it's fully customizable. I can create a sailboat that does not have a reactor but sails on solar wind if I want.
And if you make that ship 5m long and call it a super juggernaut I'm going to call you on it. :p
What can I say, the Shivans are better ship builders than the Terran. If their worst destroyer can stand up against puny Terran/Visudan battle group. :) The missions are designed to create an urgency for the players. Almost all missions having unrealistic odds against the players. Try pit the Ravana against a Terran fleet in FRED2, see how it was flanked and destroyed easily.
Try including all the fighters you'd need to do that and you'd crash it. FRED2 experiments aren't worth much in this kind of discussion because whichever way you stack them I can come along and stack them another way. Who says that the Ravana went toe to toe with the entire battlegroup at one time? More likely it softened up the battlegroup with fighters and bombers. That probably explains why it had so few left of either by the time it came to Slaying Ravana.
I don't really have time to go back and check, but I don't think the mission states explicitly that those fighters are from the Ravana's fighter bay.
The Shivan warship we encountered has been designated the SD Ravana. Allied forces have been deployed to engage this vessel.
Given the number of Shivan fighters our wings have encountered, we knew an enemy destroyer had to be lurking somewhere within the nebula. Our impaired visibility and diminished sensor range made locating their base of operations difficult. Command hoped our offensive against the two Shivan cruisers would lure the destroyer from its hiding place.
Now it's possible that command was wrong about the source of the fighters but somehow I doubt it. There probably is another destroyer somewhere out there but when the player returns to the nebula some 6 missions later it's not to find a very heavy shivan presence.
If they are, than the Ravana carries infinite number of fighters since I believe one wing of them will spawn forever. The compaign is funny that way, it is more for fun than for real. Doesn't mean that you can't create another compaign that give the user a better odd, but more difficult tasks. For example, have to keep all team members alive to win a mission.
Which is why arguing based on what you can do in FRED is pointless and no one is doing it. Far better is to argue :v:'s intent based on the storyline as that is a truer picture of the way they saw the universe
So what, I will have backup reactors. More beams. Make it more powerful and harder to destroy. My point is that it needs to sacrifice something to get more fire power and armor.
No one disputes that you can have more beams on a BB than a destroyer. What those of us who think they're economically unsound say is that for reasons of money, time and the resulting power of the ship you end up with they aren't worth it. Once again look at the Colossus before you try deciding on what you can put inside a BB. It's nowhere near as much as you may have claimed.
No, the destroyers will not be scratched, but a large number of the bombers and fighters will be destroyed. They may not cost much, but the pilots are invaluable. You are suggesting putting their life in danger unnecessarily.
:wtf: You're advocating sticking the entire BB in the line of fire which it can't return and you're having a go at me over lost pilots? You're talking about losing at least 10,000 people. And on top of that I don't even think you're going to lose that many bomber pilots at all. Once the AAAf beams are down the bombers can launch without even having to receive any heavy fire from the BB.
I am sorry, but I am not telling people what to do. I am asking them with reasons. I am not a moderator here. I have no right to tell people what to do. I can only beg them. Also, I was replying to different people. Not much point relying 4 different people in 1 post.
Yes their is. Multiple posting is frowned upon here. Trashman has already been warned by an admin for doing it.
Kings Gambit did not prove anything. First of all, they are not doing two intra system jumpings. Inter-system jumping is a lot more deterministic since the worm hole is already there. Secondly, it's a suicide mission in the first place. The NTF ships were just trying to run the blockade. They don't really care if they lose 10% of their ship. They will jump at the first chance and then regroup later.
There are a large number of other examples in the game of ships jumping out in less than half an hour. In fact I can't see any supporting evidence for it taking that long. You've made the extrodinary claim, you find the proof.
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When it's just destroyers vs destroyers I'll conceed your point that the best thing to do is to get up close and make them eat beam fire as soon as they enter the system but you're claiming that the BB can soak up damage far better than the destroyer and that it can dish out the hurt far better than destroyers can. The defending side are aware of this fact and you won't even let me change tactics to deal with it? Doesn't that strike you as hideously unfair? Why would the defenders play to the strengths of their enemy?
Any sensible commander would draw his capships out of range of the node arm his bombers and fighters with a mixture of Helios, trebs and maxim cannons. The treb strike would denude the BB of as much anti fighter as possible clearing a path for the bombers to deliver the hurt (preferably against the engines)
To insist that the defending side would have to use the same techniques they used against a ship equal in power to them makes no sense at all.
Actually it does. There are good reasons for setting up a blockade the way one sees it in The King's Gambit, reasons which a battleship would be better equipped to deal with, yet does not obivate. If you can put enough firepower on the enemy to either render their ship useless as a fighting platform or destroy it outright in those first few seconds, you've won the battle almost before it starts. That is exactly how the blockade seen in The King's Gambit is designed to operate. The defender is set and ready, knows where the attacker will appear, and merely has to point their guns in that direction and wait. An attacker has to drop from subspace, locate his enemy, and then attack them. The defender can start shooting the moment subspace opens. A node blockade is very nearly the only way in space warfare as Freespace practices it to gain the advantage of a free salvo. This confers both a physical advantage, that of unreplied damage on the enemy, and a pyschological one, the initiative. No one adapts well to having been hit in the face the moment the round started.
So, assume you have a blockade as you describe. Congradulations, you have bought yourself relative safety if the first ship through the node is a battleship. You have also given the enemy room to manuver and time to accomplish that manuvering in. This is something you will rather regret if your conditional that a battleship will always lead (and it will not; tactical evolution begets more of the same) should prove false and the first ship through turns out to be a destroyer, who you have now given the opportunity to launch fighters. Or worse yet, you could get a number of cruisers, possibly even two or three corvettes, which you have given both the time to arrive and to deploy before you can alter your plans to combat the decidely different threat they pose. You have also squandered any advantage you could possibly have gained via the deployment of fixed defenses, as these can now be safely bypassed.
In fact, if what you are proposing were effective at all, why wasn't The King's Gambit blockade set up that way? A battleship is merely the antiship function of a destroyer writ large. The same fundemental tactics that would defeat a battleship's antifighter defenses and render it helpless as you describe would be even more effective against a destroyer, yet more so against a cruiser or corvette. Why were they not adopted?
Wait a second. All four GTVA destroyers have a top speed of 15m/s. Even the Hecate which is designed to run away from the enemy. You've admitted that the BB is more massive than the destroyer and yet for some reason you think its's going to be faster? :wtf: Now you're falling into Trashman's pitfall of giving the destroyer enormous advantages that you aren't giving to the other side.
Actually not. The point about subspace entry and exit stands (Go build a mission where several cruisers and an Orion warp in, entry points along a straight line. The Orion's exit speed is much higher, and it travels much further from the line before stopping.), and as an antiship platform, manuverablity and speed would be more desirable traits for it to have then in a hybrid one...and that it lacks integral fightercover, and so would be in even MORE trouble then a Hecate if caught flat-footed.
(Speaking of the Hecate, from whence comes this idea it was designed to run away? The very figure you cite militates heavily against it. The conclusion that it was intended for a rear-area role is easily enough reached, but the conclusion it was designed to run away seems totally unwarranted from available evidence. Rather it seems far more likely the GTVA assumed it would be safer then it actually turned out to be.)
Who says I'm saying that the BB has no use? If 20 BBs suddenly fell out of the sky I have no doubt that the GTVA would use them. What I'm saying is something completely different. I'm saying that they aren't economically viable. Same as the Aeolus. They quite simply cost too much to be worth producing when there is another class (The Deimos in the class of the Aeolus and the destroyer in the case of the BB) which is a more sensible way to spend your money.
I'll grant that you haven't said it explictly, however as you've concluded against it in every post you've made in this thread (and in most posts in previous threads on the subject), actually stating it would be rather redundant. It's already implicit, after all.
There is truth to the argument that multirole ships are more economically viable. There is also truth to the adage "Jack of all trades, master of none." Some degree of specialization is a necessity.
More to the point, specialization is probably where the GTVA will head now, because if they are to ever have any hope against the Shivans it is now clearly through superior quality, not superior quantity. The Shivan force of FS1 was small, no more then a few destroyers in size. Had that been the size of the FS2 Shivan force the GTVA would have been able to bury (almost literally) it beneath an avalanche of ships, and we would have had a very short game. The GTVA's plans for a second war with the Shivans seem, based on their rapid response and application of considerable combat power (despite the ongoing NTF Rebellion) seem to have been predicated on doing just that. They could afford to not specialize, as numerical superiority would cover the shortcomings of not doing so.
But there are eighty Sathanas juggernauts out there somewhere, presumably backed up by a suitable number of combatant and auxilary craft. There is no hope for the foreseeable future of building a fleet that can defeat them if that fleet resembles the current GTVA fleet roster. The easiest way for one to gain an advantage over a generalist, then, is to do one thing and do it well. Offensive action against the Shivans is not doomed to failure. The Nebular Campaign proved the Shivans do not defend very well. Offense also has the obvious advantage of keeping the battle out of the GTVA (and a Sathanas fleet can't nuke your star if it isn't in your system). And for offense, a battleship will serve well. (Particularly given the known Shivan focus on the taking and holding of subspace nodes.)
The GTVA will also need defenders at some point as well, ships that can hold the line against a juggernaut assault. These craft will need to be survivable and able to deliever the heavy, beam-based (Helios has no supercap tag...) firepower to defeat a juggernaut in a quick and decisive manner. (Because you have 80 of them to kill, maybe more, and attrition will be a losing game.) A battleship can fill this role too.
Cost is a factor, of course. But in another sense it very much isn't. When it comes to preventing racial annihilation, cost is no object. The GTVA spared no expense in the construction of the Colossus not because it was their flagship, but because it was their best hope. It assumed the role of flagship by default.
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This sounds like mission designer hyperbole to me...considering there is no way that Iota, carrying civilian refugees and being cast adrift empty after the Psamtik recovered them, could have that kind of influence.
Yeah, I'm not citing it as an actual causal thing but more an oddity that makes it harder to judge.
This is a conclusion unsupported by evidence. The actions of the NTF ships in The King's Gambit and The Scilian Defense (and previously) should not be taken to represent the tactics used for assaulting a node blockade, because the NTF wasn't doing that. As you say, they were running the blockades. No attempt was made to take and hold any of the nodes. No attempt was made to establish a supply chain. They had the sole purpose of getting through the Knossos.
Ah. This is where the problem comes. The only successful invasion breaches of blockades that occurred in FS2 were things Alpha 1 wasn't present for: the NTF's breaching of the Sirius-Epsilon Pegausi blockade, and the GTVA Colossus' breach of the NTF blockade going the opposite way. (It isn't known whether the NTF made a serious, or even any, attempt to blockade Regulus against the Colossus. They may well not have.) In both cases they came to stay, and logistics would demand they seize and hold the node. Jumping further insystem (where, as The Scilian Defense illustrates, they can be attacked by previously uncommited, and therefore undamaged, defense units before they can recover) does not gain them anything that it does not also give the enemy.
Thus a true assault would be fought at the node, to smash or drive off the defenders and secure the attacker's lines of supply. Someone has to lead it, and for this role, a battleship type of craft would be ideal. A destroyer could serve the purpose (and probably did, for the NTF), but this has risks that make it less attractive: primarily the possible loss of the destroyer, and all those fightercraft you're fighting to get into the battle, also the problems posed by conducting flight ops under heavy fire.
I would say it's pretty obvious that the way to attack a node blockade is not to engage at the node but to jump to rally and then re-engage from that position; it means the attacking side has control of the time and method of attack, which is exactly what they sacrifice if they resolve to break the blockade at the node end. It transforms the defender from having a clear FOF at the node, to having to redeploy to either hunt down escapees, or to defend against an attack that can now come from anywhere. Whilst it's true that the enemy will itself have assets to defend against that, the point still remains that it can no longer just focus defensive efforts on one position; either it moves forces from the node to hunt down the enemy (weakening the blockade), or has to prepare from flanking attacks from deep in-system. I think - I'm not sure - the example of the NTD Repulse also shows it's neither possible nor easy to precision target a destroyer and just jump in to destroy it, otherwise the GTVA wouldn't need to launch an attack simply to draw it in. (and you repeat this tactic with a battleship; but for the same reasons they didn't attack with the Colossus initially, you'd need a destroyer for launching the initial decoy attack with fighters and bombers; at which point you have to question whether those bombers are not as powerful as a battleships main guns, and I'd say they are)
And the arguement against the battleship in that scenario is not just that it has a vastly reduced effective range to even a single bomber wing, but also that a corvette and cruiser force can be easily as effective (and has a greater chance of at least one ship bursting through); that's what I was referring to previously; the ability for even those smaller ships to evade destruction at a blockade.
NB: why on Earth is there an 'invest in Quebec' advert being popped up here?
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Well from I have read so far the main objection gainst the BB is the fact that it would cost a LOT of money and it does not have the firepower projection of the destroyers(fighters/bommbers) . This is quite true. But this ship wasnt designed to do that. A BB is designed to provide raw firepower from its beams against enemy warships while I REPEAT a dedicated carrier sends in wave after wave of bommbers and fighters to take care of the enemyes out of range. Oh and sa so not to forget I do believe that a BB with 3-5 AAAf beams and at least 8 missile launchers and at least 8 flack guns can defend itself in an adequate manner against enemy bommber runs and lets not forget that I said that it should have a small fighterbay 20 or 30 interceptors.
You can try and attack that thing with 50 bommbers at once and I do believe that lets say 25 interceptors can take them down quite fast and easy.
And another thing why would a ship that is at a max of 4 km long(I prefered the 3.5km long version) take some 10 years to build??? Also I am sure that if the GTVA wanted to reconstruct the C they would take at best 10 to 15 years max if not even less time with less costs then the original. Why?? Simpli because the C was the first ship of its class so everithing had to be designed tested then posibly redesigned and retested and so on and so on..which we all know that is a very time consuming operation and very money draining thing.
Also while specialized ships mai be the way to ge in the future remember that you risk falling into the other extreme of ships that are too specialized and when facing different situations you risk losing the battle because you dont have the adequate ship for the job.
And as not to be screamed at because the BB class doesnt exist in FS then I will use Battle Destroyer . The original ideea waas to have 6 or 8 of these Battle destroyers built over an area of lets say 20 to 40 years along with the smaller dreadnoughts (I dont have another ship class designation for this so..fell free to help) and dedicated escort carriers and fleetcarriers not to mention the specialized corvettes and the friggates and new class of destoyers like the 2 km long one very advanced tech weaponry and so on. This way you have a pack of detroyers (lets call them S1 class for now) that altough are almost equal size to the standard destroyers they tend to have a superior firepower bot in terms of fighter/bommbers but also in terms of main weaponry as well as beeing faster more manouverable and with some stealth features included. Oki now i'm gooing off fishing but you get mi point.
Imagine a fleet of lets say 1 BB 2 Dr. 3 or 4 destroyers (classical ones) some 2 or 3 figgates 4 or 5 crovettes and say 8 cruisers ! Not this is a fleet ment to dish out damage. Also you could replace the 3 or 4 destroyers with two fleet carrier (over 450 spacecrafts total) or 2-3 escort carriers total of 300 to 350 spacecrafts.
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An idea i had a while ago for an unconventional battleship design was a ship consisting of three big interconnected orbs in a equilateral triangular shape, with the outer surface of the orbs having many beam/flak turrets. The whole structure also rotated around its center axis, so every point in 3D space near the battleship would theoretically have the same beam/flak coverage.
Unfortunately, this type of ship would never work in FS2, because the physics engine doesnt seem to account for inertia... :blah:
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Actually it does. There are good reasons for setting up a blockade the way one sees it in The King's Gambit
Yes they were. But notice the explaination I gave at the start of my post that this was a strategy for dealing with the appearance of 3 capships through the node at the same time? Did you further notice that I said I don't believe that was the way things work in the FS2 universe? Did you not notice that I said that if the ships have to jump in one at a time the defenders are always going to win?
The fact is that if the capships are going to jump in one at a time the King's Gambit deployment is a good one regardless of whether you are dealing with BBs or Destroyers.. If you notice the cases where I've mentioned using a Stand Off deployment have all centred around situations which I feel are unrealistic (3 capships exit at once, Single destroyer vs single Trashman Uber Battleship).
When dealing with a realistic battleship I'd be fully in favour of the destroyers getting in there and mixing it up because I do not feel that a BB has a huge advantage over a destroyer unless the designers are willing to take an enormous hit in its top speed and manouverability (Something which so far you and Trashman have completely refused to do).
The point about subspace entry and exit stands
Did I ever disagree with it? Nope. Thought not.
But actually here's a question. Is the speed a ship leaves subspace a function of it's mass or of the size of the hole in subspace it needs to make in order to break through to realspace (i.e the ships size)? I've got no idea but it's definately worth considering before you claim that a battleship will travel further. If the size of the hole is the factor that causes it to be spat out further then maybe the BB and destroyer would travel about the same distance.
as an antiship platform, manuverablity and speed would be more desirable traits for it to have then in a hybrid one...and that it lacks integral fightercover, and so would be in even MORE trouble then a Hecate if caught flat-footed.
Just because it would be a desirable trait doesn't mean that it automatically gets it as if by magic. Having 20 uber cannons of death would be a desirable trait on a Hecate. Doesn't mean that it gets them. Given that you have already stated that it weighs more than a destroyer it should be pretty obvious that destroyer class engines aren't going to push it at the top speed of a Hecate. You want to move faster than a destroyer you either have to weigh less than a destroyer or pay through the nose in terms of space or money for more powerful engines. What are you willing to give up on the BB to have those engines?
(Speaking of the Hecate, from whence comes this idea it was designed to run away? The very figure you cite militates heavily against it. The conclusion that it was intended for a rear-area role is easily enough reached, but the conclusion it was designed to run away seems totally unwarranted from available evidence. Rather it seems far more likely the GTVA assumed it would be safer then it actually turned out to be.)
I was taking the piss out of the Hecate for being useless at anti-cap. Ignore the comment :)
More to the point, specialization is probably where the GTVA will head now, because if they are to ever have any hope against the Shivans it is now clearly through superior quality, not superior quantity. The Shivan force of FS1 was small, no more then a few destroyers in size. Had that been the size of the FS2 Shivan force the GTVA would have been able to bury (almost literally) it beneath an avalanche of ships, and we would have had a very short game. The GTVA's plans for a second war with the Shivans seem, based on their rapid response and application of considerable combat power (despite the ongoing NTF Rebellion) seem to have been predicated on doing just that. They could afford to not specialize, as numerical superiority would cover the shortcomings of not doing so.
But there are eighty Sathanas juggernauts out there somewhere, presumably backed up by a suitable number of combatant and auxilary craft. There is no hope for the foreseeable future of building a fleet that can defeat them if that fleet resembles the current GTVA fleet roster. The easiest way for one to gain an advantage over a generalist, then, is to do one thing and do it well. Offensive action against the Shivans is not doomed to failure. The Nebular Campaign proved the Shivans do not defend very well. Offense also has the obvious advantage of keeping the battle out of the GTVA (and a Sathanas fleet can't nuke your star if it isn't in your system). And for offense, a battleship will serve well. (Particularly given the known Shivan focus on the taking and holding of subspace nodes.)
I'm sorry but i don't buy that at all. I don't see how offensive action by smashing through Shivan held nodes is going to do anything apart from bringing a fleet of Sathanases down on the GTVA all the faster. The battleship is completely ****ed when dealing with the Sathanas. It can't beat it in a one on one battle and it can't launch bombers which can strip it of it weapon either.
The GTVA are ****ed if they ever meet the sathanas fleet again. I fail to see why you imagine having BBs is going to help anyone in the slightest. I'm going to give this entire argument a :wtf: cause I really don't have the faintest clue what you're on about.
Cost is a factor, of course. But in another sense it very much isn't. When it comes to preventing racial annihilation, cost is no object. The GTVA spared no expense in the construction of the Colossus not because it was their flagship, but because it was their best hope. It assumed the role of flagship by default.
But we're assuming that the Destroyer has been made cost effective too. So what happens if we start using the most expensive technology on that too? Again you're making a one sided argument. The el-cheapo destroyer is obsolete so therefore the only choice is the big expensive BB. Where's the big expensive destroyer in your argument?
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The Iceni is actually the most top of the range ship in FS2. I've always attributed that to the fact that the Iceni was Bosch's command and he spared no expense on it. I've always further thought that command wouldn't build Iceni class frigates for the GTVA because they were quite simply too expensive like the Aeolus.
I've always said that you can't simply scale up the Iceni because the resulting ship would also be too expensive. That results in destroyers using cheaper heatsinks and engines etc that can't take the strain as well.
On the other hand you say that it's possible to scale up the Iceni and cost be damned. I don't believe it but fine. Lets see where that argument takes us. Lets start scaling up.
The Iceni does pack a fair bit of power into its hull. So a BB using Iceni tech would be quite formidible. More than a match for the humble Orion or Hecate. But wait. We seem to have fallen into your favourite pitfall yet again. Where is the destroyer based on Iceni tech? Cause the Hecate sure as **** isn't it. Yep. It's gotten missed out again and you're pitting an uber BB (although this time based on canon info at least) against a bog standard destroyer.
Once you scale up the destroyer too using the same rules you used for the BB you end up in the same situation. The BB has only a little bit more power than the equivalent destroyer. Nowhere near enough to make it as superior to the destroyer as you claim.
The cost of the Iceni is unknown, so it really makes no sense to pull that argument.
And no matter how much you scale up a destroyer, it still has al least a third of it's internal volume devoted to fighter/bomber deployment and repair. And that volume on a BB would go to armor/rector/weapons.
I mean what you are proposing is far more redicolous than anythin I have. You're practicly proposing a uber ship that has EVERYTHING - speed, armor, firepower, fightercapacity. Where are it's weakneses?
Not just power for the weapon though, is it? It's power for moving the turret, linking it to the hull and ship systems, etc. In any case, the two have the same reactor power. 90 and 90. Look at the tables.
Note; all beams have the same power consumption of 0.3 (in turn the same as terran turrets), so it's a lifetime issue; not to mention the AAAf has a faster refire rate, so it will have fired several times in the time it takes to refire a 'main' beam.
We both know that those table entries are not used and are something that was dropped. Not to mention that they make no sense either.
It can't be lifetime issues either, as the BGreen deos LOADS and LOAD more damage than a AAF and stay on for several seconds while the AAF fires 3 times in a half-second peroid.
Firstly, the Iceni and Hecate would only fight 1-on-1 if the Hecate completely screwed up - otherwise it'd be fighters plus the Hecate, and it'd be a short fight. That's why destroyers are the kings of Freespace capships.
And why aren't Kaysers mounted on capships already, then, if it's so easy? Need I point out that all the Terran Turrets - despite having greater damage - use a tenth of the energy of a Kayser? That kind of implies switching them would kill the reactors, given the Colossus vs the Sathanas (and yes, it does ask the question why the reactors are so pish; probably because it's calculated on the same linear scale as fighters or something).
And didn't it occur to you that the Iceni is allso a lot smaller. Scale it up to destroyer size and the table turns..Sure the fighters/bomber woul probably destroy it - but not before it waxes the Heacte.
As for turret power - look above.
They don't. Cite evidence they do.
I meant - they have and do now, in RL. Tak a look at the blueprints of varios naval warships, and you'll see that ammo placement varries greatly on them.
If they can place BB grade armor on all of them, why don't they?
Liek I said - speed, design and cost issues.
How many times in FS2 does the Aquitane have to RTB for repairs?
Get's trashed 2 times during the campaign. The return to base for repairs is nowehre mentioned but it does get badly damaged in both missions.
A destroyer would of course run, but a destroyer has a ranged point defence of fighter patrols to prevent that happening. A BS has nothing - any substantial attack will overwhelm what scant fighters it can commit, and open it up to long range bombing. FS1 and 2 pretty clearly show that the only effective bomber defense is escort fighters; even the Sathanas was ultimately killed by them. With the trebuchet, it's even easier to strip down a capship ready for the kill.
We've seen 3 fighter wings fighting off hundereds of enemy fighters/bombers (but of course, they didn't all come at once). So how do you know that 24 interceptors + the BB's heavy PDS couldn't hold back what a destroyer thrws at them?
then again, against 150 bombers ALL attacking at once, no ship stands a chance..fightercover or not. The only recourse is to run before the bombs reach you and try to thin their numbers.
Firstly, another assumption as to the numbers of inter-system drives. Secondly, another massive assumption that BS' can quickly destroy a destroyer - based on your hypothetical uberbeams with no reactor requirements, I presume. Of course, in any blockade the defender will have the advantage; although you've not cited any advantage for a BS class not more than adequately covered by a few corvettes and cruiser (or even RBCs). So it'd be a bit of a waste of resources for any BS class when you have cheaper alternatives.
No assumptions
The DD and 2 BB can filed 150+50 spacecraft. You're telling me you're sending mroe than 200 ombers with inter-system drives? Even if you are, don't forget that hte capships are parked right next to the node - their PDS turrets will join the fight, thus making it highly unlikely that you'll overpower/swarm the defense.
And secondly - it's no assumption. Take a Orion and time how long it take for it to destroy another destroyer. With one full broadside it will bring the other DD to 30%.
Even if the BB is only 30% more powerfull it will take the nemy destroyer in one salvo in 90% cases. Surely no ship jumping in can survive long enough to re-charge the jump drives or launch enough fighters with TWO BB's and 1 DD shooting.
Again, you're assuming that a BS can somehow inflict damage at a greater rate than a bomber wing from a destroyer. Simple logic - the amount of mountable turrets on any ship is limited to a certain feasible limit (as can be determined by looking at GTVA ships), and those turrets have neither the range nor power (based on FS2 weaponry) to reach or destroy vessel launching bomber wings before said bombers can intercept and destroy the vessel. The BS' only advantage over the destroyer is thus likely to be short range firepower, the sort of thing the destroyers' tactical operations are designed to negate.
Erm..since we're talking about a defense scenario then the enemy WILL be within fire range as it clears the node..
Plasma turrets - don't exist. It's purely hypothetical technology you've invented to support your ideas. If you want treb launchers, you need to handle ammunition storage issues.
Aren't THT's plasma-based? Those slow blobs don't look like lasers to me...
Name me one good reason why crippled - not disabled - Shivan vessels hang around to be destroyed? Why doesn't the Repulse flee the Colossus? It's pretty obvious it's not simply a case of flicking a switch for a destroyer to jump.
Oh, it takes 65 seconds for an Orion (Uhuru) to recharge and jump, 60 seconds for an Aeolus (Liberty), 90 for a Deimos (Pax), and 70 for a Leviathan (Liberty). that's from the Kings Gambit, where it is explicitly stated the NTF ships are only staying long enough to re-energize their drives and jump to a rally point
Right. It does tak at least a minute to re-energize jump drives ona ship. However, we don't know if ship that havn't jumped in recently allready have their jump-drives charged or if all ships must first charge them (as tehy cannot stay in the cgarged state).
However, given the swift departure of the Sobek when hte Sath cleared the portal, I'd say if you're prepared, you can jump out allmost immediately.
the shivans on the other had are strange. They never do seem to place much value on survival. They nevr withdew, even when loosing badly..
2 excludes this; it's a contradiction. If we allow rapid escapes, we remove effective ambushes.
Not really.. The question is how rapid (how long it takes to escape) and how much damage you can deal in that short time window.
Likewise for the BS; it can be engaged at will by bombers. If it moves to attack, then that would mean the destroyer can just jump away. Not to mention the assumption bombers will always jump directly to-and-from their base... if we assume what you say is true and they can be tracked back, they'll do the opposite and stage jumps ahead of enemy capships.
And thus we have a sweet merry-go-round. The only limitation is the drive re-charge.
However, the destroyer is in a worse position if ambushed - the BB can do more damage to it before it jumps out than vice-versa.
See previously quoted in-mission comments. The Colossus had to shut down other systems to maintain fire.
As I said before Inconclusive for reasons stated above.
Except you can't just invent technology improvements and stay 'in' the universe. Because the Hecate is just as new as the Deimos.
I'm not inventing anything. Mass/size and speed are connected but that connection isn't linear.
A Deimos has more mass than a Fenris yet it's faster.
A Hecate has mor mass tha a Deimos but it's slower.
And exactly when each ship enetered service is nowhere mentioned, nor how many Hecatesor Deimoses are out there.
Yeah, well... That's quite canon, isn't it? Meaning the Command screwing things up... I think that fight would be like this in FS2:
§Briefing§
Alpha Wing, you're out for a standard patrol. Your loadout has been optimized for this kind of mission (**** yeah...). You'll be relieved by Epsilon Wing. Questions?
...
§Mission§
-5 mins of patrolling and wingmen hitting the Hecate
Command: We're detecting a huge subspace rupture! It's the 3xScaled Iceni class Battleship, NTBB Kompressor! Defend us, Pilots!
Command: Our fighter bays are malfunctioning! It'll take 20 minutes to get anything to your support! Do your job, Alpha! Destroy the beam turrets of that battle ship!
Command: Our Beam cannons have been sabotaged! We cant return the fire! Destroy the battleship with your dual Subachs, pilots!
Freespace canon: Anything can happen, and it usually does. Superior ships are being destroyed by inferior, beam cannons are useless when you need them, fighter bays cannot be used when mission balance demands and it fits the campaign; Colossus doesn't realize that the Sathanas doesn't have anything to give back and melts its heat sinks for no reason other than story-telling related ones....
:LOL: Never has a truer thing been said!
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The fact is that if the capships are going to jump in one at a time the King's Gambit deployment is a good one regardless of whether you are dealing with BBs or Destroyers.. If you notice the cases where I've mentioned using a Stand Off deployment have all centred around situations which I feel are unrealistic (3 capships exit at once, Single destroyer vs single Trashman Uber Battleship).
Stop it with the Uberness allready and calling in "mine" like I invented th term battleship and am somehow slanering the holy FS universe wit hthe very concept. There is on uberness - get it allready
When dealing with a realistic battleship I'd be fully in favour of the destroyers getting in there and mixing it up because I do not feel that a BB has a huge advantage over a destroyer unless the designers are willing to take an enormous hit in its top speed and manouverability (Something which so far you and Trashman have completely refused to do).
Speed and manuverability of a ship is a result of many interacting factors. It's not jsut as simple as - hey, it's a BB so it HAS to be this fast/slow, or hey, it's a DD so it has to be THIS fast.
After all, neither all the BB's or all carriers in WW2 had the same speeds - there was much variation between them in many factors, not only speed. In fact, the Iowa BB was faster than any carrier (albeir, somewhat smaller too).
I'm sorry but i don't buy that at all. I don't see how offensive action by smashing through Shivan held nodes is going to do anything apart from bringing a fleet of Sathanases down on the GTVA all the faster. The battleship is completely ****ed when dealing with the Sathanas. It can't beat it in a one on one battle and it can't launch bombers which can strip it of it weapon either.
But it can - attack from the rear! Or directly fro the side at close-range. I had a Deioms destroy it that way, since the Sath can put enough distance to turn adn fact it:D
And one-on-one? A BBwouldn't the ubership of doom - hell the Sath tre Colli apart who was roughly the same size. They are not in the same weight category so a more fair battle would be 2 BB's against a Sath.
On more thing - cost is purely a speculation. We hav NO IDEA how much things cost in FS universe.
Hell, you might conclud that fighters cost a friggin lot, since a 2km destroyer carries a farely small number of them compared to it's size and the bigegst battles we've sene involved a few wings.
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The cost of the Iceni is unknown, so it really makes no sense to pull that argument.
And no matter how much you scale up a destroyer, it still has al least a third of it's internal volume devoted to fighter/bomber deployment and repair. And that volume on a BB would go to armor/rector/weapons.
I mean what you are proposing is far more redicolous than anythin I have. You're practicly proposing a uber ship that has EVERYTHING - speed, armor, firepower, fightercapacity. Where are it's weakneses?
AFAIK you've still not posted anything to support that fighterbay space definition. Also, all Kara is proposing is using the same upgrades to weaponry, reactors, armour etc that you're applying for your BS class, in order to fairly compare; if you're hypothesising a new battleship class with new armour, new turret types (plasma), it's only fair we compare a ship built using those to a destroyer (or, indeed corvette/cruiser groups) built using them.
We both know that those table entries are not used and are something that was dropped. Not to mention that they make no sense either.
It can't be lifetime issues either, as the BGreen deos LOADS and LOAD more damage than a AAF and stay on for several seconds while the AAF fires 3 times in a half-second peroid.
The no sense part is your opinion, surely. You've just pointed out the difference in lifetime there; a singular fire from a BGreen will take up xx time, but during xx time you will have an AAAf beam using a cumulative energy from it's yy fires. Additionally, the AAAf beams all (IIRC) have a shorter warmup period, allowing more individual firing actions over a set period of time. Less power, yes, but faster firing. Classic tradeoff.
And didn't it occur to you that the Iceni is allso a lot smaller. Scale it up to destroyer size and the table turns..Sure the fighters/bomber woul probably destroy it - but not before it waxes the Heacte.
As for turret power - look above.
You're assuming it's even possible to linearly scale up the capacity of a ship; a simple comparison between (say) the Deimos and Hecate or the Sobek and Hatshepsut (or cruiser-to-carrier, i.e. Mentu to Sobek) shows armour is not linearly related to size. Also, again assuming the Hecate wouldn't just retreat in that sort of hypothesised mismatch and leave it's bombers there; all it has to survive is, what, a minute or 2?
I meant - they have and do now, in RL. Tak a look at the blueprints of varios naval warships, and you'll see that ammo placement varries greatly on them.
If they can place BB grade armor on all of them, why don't they?
Liek I said - speed, design and cost issues.
We can't exactly cite RL issues if you want to support a battleship class, because the BS class is proven and shown to be completely obselete as a naval warfare vessel in RL (granted, it still has uses as a mobile artillery battery, but IMO that's not really got an analogue in space combat).
Get's trashed 2 times during the campaign. The return to base for repairs is nowehre mentioned but it does get badly damaged in both missions.
So, it never RTBs.
We've seen 3 fighter wings fighting off hundereds of enemy fighters/bombers (but of course, they didn't all come at once). So how do you know that 24 interceptors + the BB's heavy PDS couldn't hold back what a destroyer thrws at them?
then again, against 150 bombers ALL attacking at once, no ship stands a chance..fightercover or not. The only recourse is to run before the bombs reach you and try to thin their numbers.
Remove Alpha 1 from that 3 fighter wing statement. In any case,we've seen numerous times a determined combined fighter-and-bomber attack will take down a large capship without adequate fighter cover. It's self evident; your average bombers holds about, what, 4 Helios (actually more, but assume not all can/will be fired due to attrition or miss)? So we have 4 Helios per bomber, 16 per wing. Thats' 32,000 damage per wing. So you need about 10 wings of bombers for a hypothetical 250,000 hitpoint capship (actually, less than 10, but being very conservative here). That's 40 bombers total; about 2/3 of what I'd say a sensible destroyer complement is. You can decide how reasonable it is to assume the Helios will be standard weaponry in your hypothetical technology era. Now, you have 20 fighters up against them; so add 5 or 6 wings of fighters (20-24), and you have space superiority. And shove another 2 wings for cover/reinforcements and to take down turrets and engines. That's 32 fighters, 40 bombers. Wee bit over half a destroyers' complement (150, isn't it?), which is scarcely exceptional for a large scale attack. And that's assuming the destroyer doesn't move in to attack once the battleship is ground down and disarmed on a flank or so.
Now, the BS can run. That's about all it can do, though, because it doesn't have an adequate fighter screen to cover itself. If the attackers are patient enough, they can just take their time pummelling it from Treb range to disarm it; granted, you'd need a lot of ammo, but it's a very low cost strategy in terms of losses.
No assumptions
The DD and 2 BB can filed 150+50 spacecraft. You're telling me you're sending mroe than 200 ombers with inter-system drives? Even if you are, don't forget that hte capships are parked right next to the node - their PDS turrets will join the fight, thus making it highly unlikely that you'll overpower/swarm the defense.
And secondly - it's no assumption. Take a Orion and time how long it take for it to destroy another destroyer. With one full broadside it will bring the other DD to 30%.
Even if the BB is only 30% more powerfull it will take the nemy destroyer in one salvo in 90% cases. Surely no ship jumping in can survive long enough to re-charge the jump drives or launch enough fighters with TWO BB's and 1 DD shooting.
Nope, just the forward screen is inter-system. I made that pretty clear. Secondly, have you timed an Orion vs Orion with fighter cover from both? Finally, if the Orion is that powerful, there's not really any need for a BD, is there? I mean, you have the sheer firepower there, and the only justification for a more armoured BS is to make up some magic new armour that gives it an exponential increase in hitpoints that is grossly disproportionate to its size.
Erm..since we're talking about a defense scenario then the enemy WILL be within fire range as it clears the node..
Uh...why? There's a bomber screen - even ignoring Mjolnirs, etc as would be used in reality - for the purpose of close-range interdiction and weakening larger ships to be an easy kill. Especially given your concept of some close range dueller.
Aren't THT's plasma-based? Those slow blobs don't look like lasers to me...
Oh, so you mean Terran Turrets?
Right. It does tak at least a minute to re-energize jump drives ona ship. However, we don't know if ship that havn't jumped in recently allready have their jump-drives charged or if all ships must first charge them (as tehy cannot stay in the cgarged state).
However, given the swift departure of the Sobek when hte Sath cleared the portal, I'd say if you're prepared, you can jump out allmost immediately.
So the destroyer can retreat once attacked as easily as the BS can? (except the destroyer is quicker and longer ranged by extension of the fighter/bomber screen)
Not really.. The question is how rapid (how long it takes to escape) and how much damage you can deal in that short time window
Um, yes, it does. If you can rapidly jump out, then ambushes become impossible as the enemy can always outmaneuver you by just jumping away.
And thus we have a sweet merry-go-round. The only limitation is the drive re-charge.
However, the destroyer is in a worse position if ambushed - the BB can do more damage to it before it jumps out than vice-versa.
Again, that's not as likely as you state; a destroyer can - and probably does - have a fighter and bomber screen patrolling and guarding it (so bang goes the issue of bomber launch time and up goes damage). Also, in order to ambush a ship, the BS needs to have a support force; if the BS shows up, it becomes obvious the area is too dangerous to send in the destroyer to attack (and it seems obvious you can't just track a vessel in-system and jump straight to it, otherwise they wouldn't have to draw the Repulse in); so the BS would now be reliant upon a fighter/bomber support from a destroyer to operate a diversion. At which point the BS doesn't have much advantage over just sending in that destroyer and the remainder of its bomber wings.
As I said before Inconclusive for reasons stated above.
Inconclusive? :wtf: The ship is not under fire atall from the Sath (it's basically test-gunnery), and it states in the messages the heat sinks are overloading and they need to shutdown systems to maintain the fire.
I'm not inventing anything. Mass/size and speed are connected but that connection isn't linear.
A Deimos has more mass than a Fenris yet it's faster.
A Hecate has mor mass tha a Deimos but it's slower.
And exactly when each ship enetered service is nowhere mentioned, nor how many Hecatesor Deimoses are out there.
Numbers of Deimos/Hecate doesn't matter (certainly not for any reason I see). Both the Hecate and Deimos are described as 'new' - in particular the Deimos has a Vasudan reactor - so we can reasonably assume a rough parallel of technology. The Fenris/Leviathan, however, are old, so you wouldn't expect them to have a linear match with the new corvette class vessels (it's reasonable to assume no new Fenris/Lev are being built, as the corvettes are designed to replace them according to the tech description; so any upgrades to the vessels to equip beams would be constricted by the original design, not to mention the possibility that adding beams to these old cruisers reduced the power available to the engines).
It will, of course, not be a linear mass-speed connection, as there is the issue of energy. Just compare the Aeolus (272m, 30mps, 38,000 HP) to the Fenris/Leviathan (former is 20mps and only 8000 HP, latter is 35,000 HP but 10mps) to get an idea of the factor of age and thus technology upon the ships. The Orion is also indicative of this - although by sacrificing defense turrets rather than speed. Of course, the Orion may have been upgraded with new reactors or somesuch to allow beam firing; it's hard to judge which is more likely.
EDIT: remind me; what advantage does this BS have over corvette groups using the same technology?
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Oki now the reason why the "BattleDestroyer" has such a small fighterbay is to game balance it. I mean come on if that thing could carry lets say 100 spacecrafts you would all say then whats the point this thing is way to powerfull its like "the perfect" ship with no weakness it can deploy a good number of fighters and bommbers can dish out huge damage from its beams can take hit after hit and so on and so on..! Come on you guys were the ones that jumped me and almost ripped mi head of for sugesting somehting similar to this BB but a lot more powerfull it was almost the perfect warship. Now that I've cut off a piece of its arms and legs you state that its useless..???
Make up your mind! And btw. how is this BB more useless then the Hecate class destroyers wich aside from providing fighter/bommber support it is useless as a warship. It cant take in damage , it cant dish out damage in adequate fashion soo......what is its use?? I mean you could have 2 deimos and a dedicated small carrier do the same job. and they would be more versatile at least that is what i believe. They can cover a larger area at the same cost of a destroyer !
Tell me please when your ships are totaly *****'d up because well lets see.....they engines were disabled and theyr fisghterbays and you have a strong enemy force headed for them and some of theyr beam cannons have been taken out can you wait till you gather a sizebla force to counter that threat?? Or if lets say you have a "battledertoyer " just waiting for some action and you have the means to deply it fast to where the action is how much of an impact would it make.??
Of course you will say hey this is purely speculative things like this cant happen in FS you cant have an entire fleet disabled like that! Well then I sugest you go play FS again because you can and it happens a lot more often then you might think. At least that is what I remember. You know the whole Aquitane business and the cruiser and god knows how many other ships that are not mentioned to the player.
Just imagine how good a BB would of been guarding one of those subspace portals along with a destoryer and a couple of corvettes! Of course the way the GTVA high command thinks (idiots) they would put these ships right in front of the portal. But imagine the posibilities of a ship that can bring to the battle at least 4 beam cannons at once. Powerfull ones at that. (Bgreens and LRBGReens) add to this the firepower from the bommbers taking off from the destroyer and the firepower from the corvettes..... :eek2: I see Sath gooing gooing...ups its gone...sure its not enough to destroy an entire fleet but...you get the point.
I'm confused as to the whole ship with bigger mass travels further when exiting subspace? :confused: I ahve noticed something like that but i'm not sure what to make of it??!!
Also here is a stupid question: Why did the C burn out most of its reactors when it was nowhere near using all of its beamcannons??? I mean how much power do ypu need to power up those beamcannons?? And if uses that much power then the C was domed from the begining since it couldt take on multiple destroyers at once even if its life depended on it! They would of burnt out the power relays and the reactors the instant ity brought all of its beammcanons online right???
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AFAIK you've still not posted anything to support that fighterbay space definition.
Also, all Kara is proposing is using the same upgrades to weaponry, reactors, armour etc that you're applying for your BS class, in order to fairly compare; if you're hypothesising a new battleship class with new armour, new turret types (plasma), it's only fair we compare a ship built using those to a destroyer (or, indeed corvette/cruiser groups) built using them.
http://dj.rogueserv.com/TRASHMAN/Pics/FighterVolume.JPG
For reasons stated a few posts before, this is a very generous definition of fighter space, compared to the mainhalls of hte Galatea.
And no, no NEW armor as I said before. Whatever the Deimos is using only thicker.
And even I did use newer armor, why would the destroyer have that? It's purpose is not a slug-fest. Hell you can put heavy armor on carriers today but no one seems to be doing that, now do they?
The no sense part is your opinion, surely. You've just pointed out the difference in lifetime there; a singular fire from a BGreen will take up xx time, but during xx time you will have an AAAf beam using a cumulative energy from it's yy fires. Additionally, the AAAf beams all (IIRC) have a shorter warmup period, allowing more individual firing actions over a set period of time. Less power, yes, but faster firing. Classic tradeoff.
The damage/second ratio doesn't come close even in the wildest dreams - the weapons aren't even in the same size class.
That's like saying a 406mm shell has the same energy requirements as 10 20mm ones!!!
You're assuming it's even possible to linearly scale up the capacity of a ship; a simple comparison between (say) the Deimos and Hecate or the Sobek and Hatshepsut (or cruiser-to-carrier, i.e. Mentu to Sobek) shows armour is not linearly related to size. Also, again assuming the Hecate wouldn't just retreat in that sort of hypothesised mismatch and leave it's bombers there; all it has to survive is, what, a minute or 2?
A Hecate can't survive against an Orion for a minute, let alone against something with bigger firepower.
We can't exactly cite RL issues if you want to support a battleship class, because the BS class is proven and shown to be completely obselete as a naval warfare vessel in RL (granted, it still has uses as a mobile artillery battery, but IMO that's not really got an analogue in space combat).
This supports differences in armor placement, not a ship class as a whole. And nothing is really an analogy for space combat
Actually, the BB makes far more sense in FS2 then it does in RL as speed and range are not much of a factor in FS2 due to subspace.
So it never RTB's
It's nowhere stated that it does, but if it can repair itself from 14% hull to full without going back to base, so can a BB. ;7
Remove Alpha 1 from that 3 fighter wing statement. In any case,we've seen numerous times a determined combined fighter-and-bomber attack will take down a large capship without adequate fighter cover. It's self evident; your average bombers holds about, what, 4 Helios (actually more, but assume not all can/will be fired due to attrition or miss)? So we have 4 Helios per bomber, 16 per wing. Thats' 32,000 damage per wing. So you need about 10 wings of bombers for a hypothetical 250,000 hitpoint capship (actually, less than 10, but being very conservative here). That's 40 bombers total; about 2/3 of what I'd say a sensible destroyer complement is. You can decide how reasonable it is to assume the Helios will be standard weaponry in your hypothetical technology era. Now, you have 20 fighters up against them; so add 5 or 6 wings of fighters (20-24), and you have space superiority. And shove another 2 wings for cover/reinforcements and to take down turrets and engines. That's 32 fighters, 40 bombers. Wee bit over half a destroyers' complement (150, isn't it?), which is scarcely exceptional for a large scale attack. And that's assuming the destroyer doesn't move in to attack once the battleship is ground down and disarmed on a flank or so.
You're forgetting that Helioses are very easily taken down and that's it's the only weapon (along with the Cyclops) that can destroy a BB (remeber the supercap flag). You're assuming all bombs will hit, which tehy will not, especialyl since a BB would have formidalbe PDS (a must since it doesn't have much fights)
And a BB would be a hard target to disarm, since it's turrets woulld be heavyily armed too. Not that it can't be done, but it's just isn't nearly as easy as with a destroyer.
Nope, just the forward screen is inter-system. I made that pretty clear. Secondly, have you timed an Orion vs Orion with fighter cover from both? Finally, if the Orion is that powerful, there's not really any need for a BD, is there? I mean, you have the sheer firepower there, and the only justification for a more armoured BS is to make up some magic new armour that gives it an exponential increase in hitpoints that is grossly disproportionate to its size.
A destroyer jumping in wouldn't have much fightercover..only some of it's fighters would have IS drives, otehr would have to wait in the hangarbay and he can't launch them immediately anyway.
And there is no magic new armor. Let that go allready. Neither is there a hit point increase disproportionate to it's size. Learn to count. :nod:
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Uh...why? There's a bomber screen - even ignoring Mjolnirs, etc as would be used in reality - for the purpose of close-range interdiction and weakening larger ships to be an easy kill. Especially given your concept of some close range dueller.
Ehm? Why????
Well, since you know the enemy can only come tough the node, then you can allso position your ships next to it, so when the enemy jumps in he WILL be inside weapons rage and can't do anything about it.
Oh, so you mean Terran Turrets
Yeah, just bigger and badder.
So the destroyer can retreat once attacked as easily as the BS can? (except the destroyer is quicker and longer ranged by extension of the fighter/bomber screen)
Yeah it can. But in those 6 seconds that it takes for a ship to jump out a BB can unleash hell, while the DD can't. Massive damage in the opening barrage - that's what the BB is for. As Sung Tsu said:
"If your first strike is hard eungh, there won't be a need for the second one!"
Again, that's not as likely as you state; a destroyer can - and probably does - have a fighter and bomber screen patrolling and guarding it (so bang goes the issue of bomber launch time and up goes damage).
You forget -> bomb lock time + bomb travel time >> beam fire and hit time.
During the first 4 seconds of the BB jumping in, the defense bombers hasn't even aquired a lock and the BB has allready it's beams charged up and ready to fire (if it didn't fire alrleady)
Also, in order to ambush a ship, the BS needs to have a support force; if the BS shows up, it becomes obvious the area is too dangerous to send in the destroyer to attack (and it seems obvious you can't just track a vessel in-system and jump straight to it, otherwise they wouldn't have to draw the Repulse in); so the BS would now be reliant upon a fighter/bomber support from a destroyer to operate a diversion. At which point the BS doesn't have much advantage over just sending in that destroyer and the remainder of its bomber wings.
Ambush implies you know where the enemy is - wether by long range sensors or recon.
Inconclusive? :wtf: The ship is not under fire atall from the Sath (it's basically test-gunnery), and it states in the messages the heat sinks are overloading and they need to shutdown systems to maintain the fire.
It got damaged in the fight with the NTF adn the Repulse.
And it's clearly mentioned overloading the power grid. It doesn't matter how powerfull a reactor you have if the power grid can't handle the power.
Think of it this way - part of the energy goes back to the reactor since th wirs can't simply conduct that much, thus causing the reactor to overheat. The same for heatsinks. If you overload stuff, it tends to break down ya know...
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There's no such thing as a battleship in the game. The game classifies anything bigger than a Corvette, yet smaller than a super destroyer, a destroyer. [/quote[
Exactly. Which is why you shouldn't be calling the ravana a battleship. The game very clearly states that it isn't. You've invented the battleship class, and then shoved the Ravana in there to make some point about battleships being good. However the Ravana is, was and forever shall be a destroyer which means that far from participating in this discussion you're mearly arguing the merits of different destroyer classes and muddying the waters by trying to make out that some of them are destroyers.
The fact that the Ravana can carry a full complement of fighters and still attack on the front lines is a testiment to how powerful the destroyer class actually is. It shows why the battleship class which other on this thread are arguing in favour of, is actually largely pointless.
This whole thread is about how to expand FS, not how FS2 works. Basically people are arguing whether a new class of ships would be useful, hence the name of the thread. I used Ravana as an example since it's battleship like. If you insists on arguing on what Ravana is. Then let's create another ship, say Anavar. Exacly looks like Ravana. Remove the fighter bay, upgrade the beam cannons to 2 BFRED and 2 LRED, then can I call it a battleship?
What can I say, the Shivans are better ship builders than the Terran. If their worst destroyer can stand up against puny Terran/Visudan battle group. :) The missions are designed to create an urgency for the players. Almost all missions having unrealistic odds against the players. Try pit the Ravana against a Terran fleet in FRED2, see how it was flanked and destroyed easily.
Try including all the fighters you'd need to do that and you'd crash it. FRED2 experiments aren't worth much in this kind of discussion because whichever way you stack them I can come along and stack them another way. Who says that the Ravana went toe to toe with the entire battlegroup at one time? More likely it softened up the battlegroup with fighters and bombers. That probably explains why it had so few left of either by the time it came to Slaying Ravana.
Sigh... I would if I could get FRED working on linux and a better machine. Try this. One hecate destroyer, 2 Aeolus escorting. 1 wing of Ursa, 2 wings of Medusa, 2 wings of Herc II, 3 wings of Myrmindon. 1 wings of Perseus. 3 waves. Other side: One Hecate, 2 Aeolus, 2 Anavars. 9 wings of Myrmindon, guarding mode. 3 waves. Two teams start at 9 clicks apart. Alpha 1 sit and watch. I think FS_OPEN will be able to handle it. The point is that the team 2's Myrmindons and Aeolus can hold enemy fighters and bombers at bay, whereas the Anavars can kill the destroyer from a distance, thus force enemy fighters to withdraw.
I don't really have time to go back and check, but I don't think the mission states explicitly that those fighters are from the Ravana's fighter bay.
The Shivan warship we encountered has been designated the SD Ravana. Allied forces have been deployed to engage this vessel.
Given the number of Shivan fighters our wings have encountered, we knew an enemy destroyer had to be lurking somewhere within the nebula. Our impaired visibility and diminished sensor range made locating their base of operations difficult. Command hoped our offensive against the two Shivan cruisers would lure the destroyer from its hiding place.
Now it's possible that command was wrong about the source of the fighters but somehow I doubt it. There probably is another destroyer somewhere out there but when the player returns to the nebula some 6 missions later it's not to find a very heavy shivan presence.
It would not be the first time the GTVA intelligent is wrong, or the last time for that matter. They have the habit of being too optimistic, and withhold information like they just did one mission ago.
If they are, than the Ravana carries infinite number of fighters since I believe one wing of them will spawn forever. The compaign is funny that way, it is more for fun than for real. Doesn't mean that you can't create another compaign that give the user a better odd, but more difficult tasks. For example, have to keep all team members alive to win a mission.
Which is why arguing based on what you can do in FRED is pointless and no one is doing it. Far better is to argue :v:'s intent based on the storyline as that is a truer picture of the way they saw the universe
The the problem is :v: hasn't updated the universe for 6 years. People are getting bored. People are creating new campaigns. Inventing new ships and even new governments. :v: sold their Universe already.
[quote[
So what, I will have backup reactors. More beams. Make it more powerful and harder to destroy. My point is that it needs to sacrifice something to get more fire power and armor.
No one disputes that you can have more beams on a BB than a destroyer. What those of us who think they're economically unsound say is that for reasons of money, time and the resulting power of the ship you end up with they aren't worth it. Once again look at the Colossus before you try deciding on what you can put inside a BB. It's nowhere near as much as you may have claimed.
Huh, which side are you arguing for? It was you who claim that we can have fighters no matter what. I said no, because there's not enough space, we will have to strip the fighter bay to add reactors and new beams. Now you are telling me that "It's nowhere near as much as you may have claimed"? I am confused.
No, the destroyers will not be scratched, but a large number of the bombers and fighters will be destroyed. They may not cost much, but the pilots are invaluable. You are suggesting putting their life in danger unnecessarily.
:wtf: You're advocating sticking the entire BB in the line of fire which it can't return and you're having a go at me over lost pilots? You're talking about losing at least 10,000 people. And on top of that I don't even think you're going to lose that many bomber pilots at all. Once the AAAf beams are down the bombers can launch without even having to receive any heavy fire from the BB.
I never argueed that sticking the entire BB in the line of fire. That's the problem of replying too many people using the same post, you get confused. I think BBs need to be supported by other ships so that there's minimum risk for themselves. Never leave your warships without fighter cover, that's the proven rule in this game.
I am sorry, but I am not telling people what to do. I am asking them with reasons. I am not a moderator here. I have no right to tell people what to do. I can only beg them. Also, I was replying to different people. Not much point relying 4 different people in 1 post.
Yes their is. Multiple posting is frowned upon here. Trashman has already been warned by an admin for doing it.
Then an admin can warn me and ban my ID. I had to delete half of your note since it had nothing to do with me.
Kings Gambit did not prove anything. First of all, they are not doing two intra system jumpings. Inter-system jumping is a lot more deterministic since the worm hole is already there. Secondly, it's a suicide mission in the first place. The NTF ships were just trying to run the blockade. They don't really care if they lose 10% of their ship. They will jump at the first chance and then regroup later.
There are a large number of other examples in the game of ships jumping out in less than half an hour. In fact I can't see any supporting evidence for it taking that long. You've made the extrodinary claim, you find the proof.
How would you feel that if instead of NTF destroyer jumped in to save their cruisers, all your careful plans were rendered useless by the NTF cruisers jumping out right before it exploded? It's not a claim, it's a suggestion. I am sure you know FS2 inside out, I love your FAQ. I don't care what :v: intended though, :v: is not making FS3 anymore. Delayed jumps make more sense, IMO.
The bottom line is would it be interesting to have battleships in a new campaign? I think it would if it's designed carefully. I do think BBs can only be used in larger battles, which means that it should be used discretely since FS engine is not very good in supporting large battles. In my new campaign, I have a scenario where a NTF Deimos Blade lure away a large part of GTVA destroyer Independent's fighter squadrons and escorting cruisers (which by itself is a lame trap to lure NTF destroyer Rage out). The mission is to keep Blade alive. Then in the second mission, the Rage jumped in on top of 2nd fleet headquater, destroy the Hapless Independent and the base. My problem has always been that the Rage does not have enough firepower (it's short on bombers, that's why a front assault is risky) to destroy the Independent before its fighters are recalled. An additional BB (captured and modified Ravana, no fighter bay) would fit nicely in there.
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http://dj.rogueserv.com/TRASHMAN/Pics/FighterVolume.JPG
For reasons stated a few posts before, this is a very generous definition of fighter space, compared to the mainhalls of hte Galatea.
Oh, firstly that doesn't look like a third. Secondly, that separation (horizontal) is excessively large compared to what is necessary. Imagine the mainhall as a launch preparation area; the individual fighters there are separated for loading, maintenance. But the reserve fighters - assuming space is an issue anyways - can be far more tightly packed so long as they can be moved to the prep area/s relatively quickly..
Also - and this may be a trick of perspective - it looks like the further back groups are higher up, so the actual volume box size is skewed.
And no, no NEW armor as I said before. Whatever the Deimos is using only thicker.
And even I did use newer armor, why would the destroyer have that? It's purpose is not a slug-fest. Hell you can put heavy armor on carriers today but no one seems to be doing that, now do they?
And thicker armour reduces internal space. Although the Deimos armour is specifically designed as not being thicker but as a special type designed for beam-defense, IIRC (compressed molybednum sheathing or something).
The damage/second ratio doesn't come close even in the wildest dreams - the weapons aren't even in the same size class.
That's like saying a 406mm shell has the same energy requirements as 10 20mm ones!!!
That's because a 406mm shell is a different size and calibre. You can't possibly compare an energy weapon with an ammunition based explosive shell, they're entirely different paradigms. IT's be like, I dunno, comparing the total powder explosion force for firing a machine gun at full auto for 30 seconds versus a bolt action rifle for 30 seconds.
A Hecate can't survive against an Orion for a minute, let alone against something with bigger firepower.
What about when it's bombers are deployed and engaging the Orions'- or others- weaponry? You consistently ignore fighter and bomber deployment for a destroyer - it's principal form of attack and defense(!).
This supports differences in armor placement, not a ship class as a whole. And nothing is really an analogy for space combat
Actually, the BB makes far more sense in FS2 then it does in RL as speed and range are not much of a factor in FS2 due to subspace.
If that were true it'd exist already, in a bastardly-huge form. Unless you mean the big C, I suppose (worth noting; the Colossus had an achilles heel of supply convoys). Truth is that for all the benefits of subspace, it doesn't reduce but increase the superiority of a carrier; now it's feasible for that type of vessel to have an offensive range of an entire system or beyond. So the BS can run, but it can't hide from bombers
You're forgetting that Helioses are very easily taken down and that's it's the only weapon (along with the Cyclops) that can destroy a BB (remeber the supercap flag). You're assuming all bombs will hit, which tehy will not, especialyl since a BB would have formidalbe PDS (a must since it doesn't have much fights)
And a BB would be a hard target to disarm, since it's turrets woulld be heavyily armed too. Not that it can't be done, but it's just isn't nearly as easy as with a destroyer.
Perhaps not as easy, but the point is that you don't need to put your primary fleet capship anywhere near the thing.
I'm not assuming all bombs will hit. Not only did I over-assume the number strikes-per-ship (also ignoring re-arms), the 40 bomber calculation would result in over 70,000 more damage than assumed; and I don't believe your 250,000 magic armour is even possible, not least on a ship so small. Moreso, I ignored the effect of fighters (once they'd polished off the small BS fighter escort) which had targeted the hull. Also, heavily armoured turrets just impact your mass-speed issues. And possibly the turrets' individual mobility, but I'm not sure on that one.
Plus I sincerely doubt a BS could have 'formidable' PDS and capship-raping firepower (more than the Colossus but half the size!), and magic superstrength armour and super-fast engines (so it's not slow as **** will al that mass) and hyper-powerful reactors.
A destroyer jumping in wouldn't have much fightercover..only some of it's fighters would have IS drives, otehr would have to wait in the hangarbay and he can't launch them immediately anyway.
Again, you're assuming the numbers of IS drives. And we have the old piggybacking chestnut, although I'm against that one myself. Or the even nuttier option of bolting half the fighters to the deck, but that's probably not canon (despite the Aquitane-nebula thing).
And there is no magic new armor. Let that go allready. Neither is there a hit point increase disproportionate to it's size. Learn to count.
Look at the hit points for a corvette vs destroyer (I'll remind you - 80,000 to 100,000). Explain how you can pack another 150,000 points into the same size frame without compromise.
Well, since you know the enemy can only come tough the node, then you can allso position your ships next to it, so when the enemy jumps in he WILL be inside weapons rage and can't do anything about it.
And also within enemy weapon range, which is where ships are most vulnerable. Given that you know the enemy starting position, you can place low-cost and effective bomber assets and just corral them in with perimeter capships. Hell, if you can destroy a Hecate in a minute with beams, why in the name of all that is holy would you sit them in beam range, when you have bomber support to strip down the enemy? Especially with an envisaged BS class designed for close-range attacks.
Yeah, just bigger and badder.
So more energy use?
Yeah it can. But in those 6 seconds that it takes for a ship to jump out a BB can unleash hell, while the DD can't. Massive damage in the opening barrage - that's what the BB is for. As Sung Tsu said:
"If your first strike is hard eungh, there won't be a need for the second one!"
You forget -> bomb lock time + bomb travel time >> beam fire and hit time.
During the first 4 seconds of the BB jumping in, the defense bombers hasn't even aquired a lock and the BB has allready it's beams charged up and ready to fire (if it didn't fire alrleady)
Don't have the tbls to check, but I'm not sure any significant beam has a warmup time that short. Plus you'd only get one fire from it....... and you'd need to maneuver the ship into firing position and target the cannon. I have no doubt, if it picked the conditions, a BS would win; but how often could it pick it's battlefield, and how useful would it be across an entire system (vs a destroyer; you're looking at similar resources)?
Let's consider actually performing this sort of ambush. Because, again, I bring back the example of the Repulse - for every effective BS attack, you'd need a supporting force to provide a decoy and you would rely on destroyer support. Oh, and, again, why is this better and cheaper than a hunter-killer group of corvettes or perhaps a bomber force?
Ambush implies you know where the enemy is - wether by long range sensors or recon.
Which, again, leads to the Repulse. That mission is evidence the GTVA cannot just 'find' a ship; in any case, intelligence gathered from a recon flight (and how the hell could you scout an entire system with fighters?) would only be of very short term value, as the target could just zip into subspace and be lost once more (very likely if you don't have stealth fighters). So you need to draw the target out (the GTVA also did that against the Ravana IIRC, although nebula is a nasty area for sensors anyways); draw it out with the BS, and you show the enemy your hand, so you need to use a smaller force, for exactly the same reasons as the GTVA did not use the Colossus until the Repulse had arrived.
It got damaged in the fight with the NTF adn the Repulse.
And it's clearly mentioned overloading the power grid. It doesn't matter how powerfull a reactor you have if the power grid can't handle the power.
Think of it this way - part of the energy goes back to the reactor since th wirs can't simply conduct that much, thus causing the reactor to overheat. The same for heatsinks. If you overload stuff, it tends to break down ya know...
Which again raises the issues of power infrastructure for larger turrets, especially conductivity over a limited space and the resulting heat.
To quote Stratcomm
We're having difficulty stabilizing the power grid, Command. Shutting down non-essential systems.
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Heat sinks were not made for this kind of abuse, Command! We'll melt down our cannons if we push any harder.
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Secondary and Tertiary reactors are down! Fire control is on the verge of redline! We're giving it all we got!
So the amount of energy required for that amount of beam fire, is more than the Colossus can or is built to handle - either it's heat sinks, or it's reactors (sounds like secondary and tertiary overloaded).
And IIRc the hull is 100% at the start, the mission text from Feint,Parry, Riposte only mentions 'minor' damage, plus the many preceeding briefs never mention any sort of damage to the Colossus (I have a suspicion the scripting was actually supposed to destroy the Repulse before that collision could occur, not sure). I'm reasonably sure the Colossus is engaged in numerous actions against NTF warships after the collision, too, so it's not like they wouldn't have picked up and repaired any fire control problems.
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The fact that the Ravana can carry a full complement of fighters and still attack on the front lines is a testiment to how powerful the destroyer class actually is. It shows why the battleship class which other on this thread are arguing in favour of, is actually largely pointless.
And think just how powrfull it would be if you add more beam cannons and more PDS's?
Pwerfull enough to destroy a destryer in a single salvo?
No one disputes that you can have more beams on a BB than a destroyer. What those of us who think they're economically unsound say is that for reasons of money, time and the resulting power of the ship you end up with they aren't worth it. Once again look at the Colossus before you try deciding on what you can put inside a BB. It's nowhere near as much as you may have claimed.
Colossus ain't a BB. And it ain't the benchmark for everything either. 1 ship does not a rule make...
And according to FS2, it practicly won the war against NTF by itself.
Multiple posting is frowned upon here. Trashman has already been warned by an admin for doing it.
Yup. When there's so much text to go trough and so much posts, you get lost... It's simply better organized to respon to one person in one post, insted of mixing it all up in one and then getting other people confused.
An additional BB (captured and modified Ravana, no fighter bay) would fit nicely in there.
Don't use shivan ships in the GTVA arsenal.. Capturing a fighter is a whole different deal than capturing a destroyer. No to mention all the shivan on board you have to subdue first :shaking:
By Aldo_14
Oh, firstly that doesn't look like a third. Secondly, that separation (horizontal) is excessively large compared to what is necessary. Imagine the mainhall as a launch preparation area; the individual fighters there are separated for loading, maintenance. But the reserve fighters - assuming space is an issue anyways - can be far more tightly packed so long as they can be moved to the prep area/s relatively quickly..
Also - and this may be a trick of perspective - it looks like the further back groups are higher up, so the actual volume box size is skewed.
I can make other pics, but I never said it was exactly a third. And if you havn't noticed, I used mostly perseus fighters to fill the bays with (which are the smallest fighters the GTVA uses) and allso put less space between individual fighters than shown in the mainhalls. And allso the two stacks of ships are clsoe than they should be, as they are allmost blocking the fighterbay entrance.
The mainhall I'm refering to is the Galatea - the one that shows a Orions fighterbay with fighters stacked up on those shelvs and an Ursa getting ready to take off and the fightrbay exit onto the launch ramp in the background.
That's because a 406mm shell is a different size and calibre. You can't possibly compare an energy weapon with an ammunition based explosive shell, they're entirely different paradigms. IT's be like, I dunno, comparing the total powder explosion force for firing a machine gun at full auto for 30 seconds versus a bolt action rifle for 30 seconds.
My example may stink but saying that a weapon that does 60000 damage in 50 seconds uses less power than a weapon that does maby 1000 in the same time period (3 shots at 40 dmg each every 10 seconds for 50 seconds = 600 dmg so even less) is redicolous.
ONE BGreen has the damage over time ratio of over 50 AAAF's!!!!
What about when it's bombers are deployed and engaging the Orions'- or others- weaponry? You consistently ignore fighter and bomber deployment for a destroyer - it's principal form of attack and defense(!).
I'm not ignoring it, it's just that you an't destroy it fast enough! The Orion will allready get a salov off before your bombers even aquire lock. Can they take out all of it's anti-cap weapons in 20-25 seconds? Considering the speed of the Cyclops and Helios - highly unlikely.
If that were true it'd exist already, in a bastardly-huge form. Unless you mean the big C, I suppose (worth noting; the Colossus had an achilles heel of supply convoys). Truth is that for all the benefits of subspace, it doesn't reduce but increase the superiority of a carrier; now it's feasible for that type of vessel to have an offensive range of an entire system or beyond. So the BS can run, but it can't hide from bombers
So gunboats, missile corvettes adn any other concievable class has no worth in FS universe, since if they did, the DEV's would have put them tehre in the first place? Your reasoning sometimes astounds me.
Oh...let's not forget that the ability to move quickly means that you can run towards a friendly fleet or base OR to turn the tables and chase the carrier (as the BB an now close the distance within seconds). Sure, the fighters/bombers would follow...but for a few seconds the DD would be without those fighters/bombers and those few sedconds can very well be fatal...
Plus I sincerely doubt a BS could have 'formidable' PDS and capship-raping firepower (more than the Colossus but half the size!), and magic superstrength armour and super-fast engines (so it's not slow as **** will al that mass) and hyper-powerful reactors.
What's so "magical" with formidable PDS or anti-cap power? It sacrifices fightrcapacity for that. And you claim it's not a fair trade since fighters are better and BB's are useless. Are you arguing that it should have even MORE firepower or less?
Look at the hit points for a corvette vs destroyer (I'll remind you - 80,000 to 100,000). Explain how you can pack another 150,000 points into the same size frame without compromise.
Easily. Look at the cruisers -
Fenris - 10 000 HP
Leviathan - 35 000 HP
Aeolus - 35 000 HP
And Aeolus is faster AND has a killer AF defense...
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Easily. Look at the cruisers -
Fenris - 10 000 HP
Leviathan - 35 000 HP
Aeolus - 35 000 HP
And Aeolus is faster AND has a killer AF defense...
Yes, and it's also so expensive that only a very limited amount have been manufactured, and it's still just a goddamn cruiser. It's a powerful cruiser, but it's ****ed against a concentrated fighter/bomber/assault fighter assault or a corvette.
*Which kinda reminds me of the fact that a wing of Medusas or even Herc 2's could disable a Shivan destroyer in short amount of time and the rest would be easy, but Command doesn't do such things. WE GO IN FOR THE KILL AND GLORIOUS DEATH IN HAIL OF EVIL SHIVAN GUNFIRE
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Unfortunately, I have to stop making long, well-thought-out posts in this thread, because every time I do HLP goes down.
So I'm just going to point out that Janos, you're the one who compared the GTVA to the Imperium of Man. :p
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Unfortunately, I have to stop making long, well-thought-out posts in this thread, because every time I do HLP goes down.
So I'm just going to point out that Janos, you're the one who compared the GTVA to the Imperium of Man. :p
There can be no bystanders in the battle for survival. Negotiation is surrender. Kill the Shivan or die trying!
DEATH AND GLORY
It would be actually kinda nice to make a campaign based solely around the aspect that GTVA has become as lunatic and insane as Imperium of Man. It couldn't be serious, though, but I imagine it could have some awesome mass battles.
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I can make other pics, but I never said it was exactly a third. And if you havn't noticed, I used mostly perseus fighters to fill the bays with (which are the smallest fighters the GTVA uses) and allso put less space between individual fighters than shown in the mainhalls. And allso the two stacks of ships are clsoe than they should be, as they are allmost blocking the fighterbay entrance.
The mainhall I'm refering to is the Galatea - the one that shows a Orions fighterbay with fighters stacked up on those shelvs and an Ursa getting ready to take off and the fightrbay exit onto the launch ramp in the background.
i.e. a launch preparation area.
My example may stink but saying that a weapon that does 60000 damage in 50 seconds uses less power than a weapon that does maby 1000 in the same time period (3 shots at 40 dmg each every 10 seconds for 50 seconds = 600 dmg so even less) is redicolous.
ONE BGreen has the damage over time ratio of over 50 AAAF's!!!!
I didn't say less, I said roughly equivalent, i.e. not 60 times as much or so. Not having the weapons tbl hand, I can't check damage figure. Albeit, did you consider the miss ratio as well?
I'm not ignoring it, it's just that you an't destroy it fast enough! The Orion will allready get a salov off before your bombers even aquire lock. Can they take out all of it's anti-cap weapons in 20-25 seconds? Considering the speed of the Cyclops and Helios - highly unlikely.
Lasers? (technically, you could launch without lock, but that'd be unlikely in actual combat) If you want a vis-a-vis comparison, you have to launch the bombers as well, because they are the main firepower of a destroyer. And do you have the lock/refire time rates for a beam turret?
So gunboats, missile corvettes adn any other concievable class has no worth in FS universe, since if they did, the DEV's would have put them tehre in the first place? Your reasoning sometimes astounds me.
Quite possibly, yes. Why else would they be omitted? I mean, Volition would have picked the most logical classes to add to the game. Fighter/bomber power is the most important, so there are destroyers. Beams are the new main weapon for capship attack, so we have the corvettes. And the Colossus, because everyone loves a 5km or so long monster ship.
Oh...let's not forget that the ability to move quickly means that you can run towards a friendly fleet or base OR to turn the tables and chase the carrier (as the BB an now close the distance within seconds). Sure, the fighters/bombers would follow...but for a few seconds the DD would be without those fighters/bombers and those few sedconds can very well be fatal...
I'm not sure I understand you. So what, it can retreat well? So can anything in FS. I'm not sure what your point is; in micromaneuvering, the BB would be very slow due to the same weight, etc, things seen in other ships. Given that the BS' advantage is in close range constricted combat, I would have thought mobility to be it's greatest enemy (it's what did in the battleship in the post-WW2 world)
What's so "magical" with formidable PDS or anti-cap power? It sacrifices fightrcapacity for that. And you claim it's not a fair trade since fighters are better and BB's are useless. Are you arguing that it should have even MORE firepower or less?
Less (than what you suggest). Firstly, you have all that extra armour; so you lose internal space thickening the hull. Then, you have to speed up the engines to compensate and move the thing, so you need more energy already than for a fighterbay. So you install another reactor. Except that reactor needs radiation/damage shielding, so you lose more internal space. And then you have extra turrets. Which - assuming your reactor is strong enough - not only do you need extra crew for them along with the reactor (a lot of crew, several times more than for fighters, going by the corvette vs destroyer numbers as well as slightly dodgy naval analogies), you need to have a load of extra conduits to supply them with power. And then you have heat; you need to find a way to dissipate it out with active cooling, because there's no easy transmission medium to radiate to space (even the Colossus struggled over prolonged firing). Again, more space and possibly power used up.
By that point, you've probably used up any space gains for the fighterbay. And we've seen from FS2 that the Colossus is probably the only ship able to sustain any sort of 'dual' turreting; the other ships focus on one or the other. for the number of turrets that would compensate for the loss of 130 fighters/bombers vis-a-vis a destroyer, I doubt the same size hull would work. And then you run into cost issues; something so huge, yet not only is it not much better than a mixed force group of cruisers/corvettes, but it's designed to operate at a range it's primary target (destroyers) are designed to avoid. Because the only justification after all, of a BS is to kill destroyers; anything smaller is easily fighter/bomber fodder in any case.
Easily. Look at the cruisers -
Fenris - 10 000 HP
Leviathan - 35 000 HP
Aeolus - 35 000 HP
And Aeolus is faster AND has a killer AF defense...
Aeolus is a good few decades newer- like the Deimos and Hecate are. It's a bit pointless to compare ships seperated by, what, 40 or 50 years of tech?
Didn't I already say that 2 posts before?
Mentu is, of course, stronger than all of those (60,000), just with a bit **** weaponry. But if we compare the Mentu, Sobek, we can see again there is not a linear size progression (322m, 60000 vs 608m, 80000 - also 5ms slower). So we have a size ratio of 1.8 but armour only 1.3 x stronger. Or the similarly aged Orion + Leviathan (size 253m to 2023m; 7.9x longer - hp 100000 to 35000; 2.857x stronger). Or the Deimos vs Hecate (717 to 2174; 3.03x longer and 80,000 to 100,000; 1.25x stronger). The Colossus does, to be fair, buck this trend.... but then again, it's very much a special case ship, same as the indestructible Lucifer in FS1.
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The cost of the Iceni is unknown, so it really makes no sense to pull that argument.
It can be infered quite easily though. Let me ask you this. If the Iceni wasn't either
a) party to some kind of huge technological leap
b) very expensive
how do you account for the difference between the Iceni and the Deimos. The Deimos is only slightly smaller than the Iceni and yet the Iceni is vastly superior to it. What made the difference between the two?
And no matter how much you scale up a destroyer, it still has al least a third of it's internal volume devoted to fighter/bomber deployment and repair. And that volume on a BB would go to armor/rector/weapons.
I mean what you are proposing is far more redicolous than anythin I have. You're practicly proposing a uber ship that has EVERYTHING - speed, armor, firepower, fightercapacity. Where are it's weakneses?
Cost. Quite simply you could build two or three non-uber destroyers for the cost of one of the uber battleships or uber destroyers. Which is why I wouldn't build one in the first place. But seeing as you are ignoring economics completely and refusing to even accept that they may have an importance then you should be comparing like with like and that mean uber money is no object destroyer vs your loadsamoney BB.
You can't allow your BBs to be built using the very latest technology and the very latest turrets and then say that it's a great design because it can beat ships that weren't built with that tech.
Speed and manuverability of a ship is a result of many interacting factors. It's not jsut as simple as - hey, it's a BB so it HAS to be this fast/slow, or hey, it's a DD so it has to be THIS fast.
After all, neither all the BB's or all carriers in WW2 had the same speeds - there was much variation between them in many factors, not only speed. In fact, the Iowa BB was faster than any carrier (albeir, somewhat smaller too).
And this variablilty arises from what? Magic? The way the gods felt the day that the ship was launched? Or due to the size and power of the engines compared with the weight of the ship? Big engines >> small engines. Expensive engines >> cheap engines. Heavy ships << light ships. You take all three factors, roll them together and then you end up with the reason why your ship is fast or slow.
On the other hand you've taken the destroyer. Ripped out the hangar bays (which based on your own picture are mostly empty space!) and replaced them with heavy and bulky reactors and heat sinks. You've refused to accept that the BBs engines are more expensive or bigger than those on the destroyer. In fact as far as I can tell they are the same ones as the destroyer. Yet despite that fact you somehow believe that the BB should move at the same speed as the destroyer or faster?
But it can - attack from the rear! Or directly fro the side at close-range. I had a Deioms destroy it that way, since the Sath can put enough distance to turn adn fact it:D
And one-on-one? A BBwouldn't the ubership of doom - hell the Sath tre Colli apart who was roughly the same size. They are not in the same weight category so a more fair battle would be 2 BB's against a Sath.
:wtf: Since when have the Shivans given a flying **** about fair battles? Are you trying to tell me that an invasion of Shivan space would be successful because the Shivans would try to make it a fair fight? Are you trying to tell me that when storming Shivan nodes the Sathanas Juggernauts would turn their arse to face the BBs so as to give them a sporting chance?
ANY GTVA ship trying to storm Shivan space is ****ed. Plain and simple. Anyone who believes that battleships would pull them out of that one is setting themselves up for an even bigger fall than Command did with their "we will be ready to face the challenge" speech extoling the virtues of the Colossus
Hell, you might conclud that fighters cost a friggin lot, since a 2km destroyer carries a farely small number of them compared to it's size and the bigegst battles we've sene involved a few wings.
Haven't you just spent the last nine pages claiming that a 2km destroyer uses up a significant proportion of its internal space on fighters?
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Dammit. Delete this post!
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Easily. Look at the cruisers -
Fenris - 10 000 HP
Leviathan - 35 000 HP
Aeolus - 35 000 HP
And Aeolus is faster AND has a killer AF defense...
Yes, and it's also so expensive that only a very limited amount have been manufactured, and it's still just a goddamn cruiser. It's a powerful cruiser, but it's ****ed against a concentrated fighter/bomber/assault fighter assault or a corvette.
"The GTC Aeolus is the first cruiser class ever produced by the RNI shipyards orbiting Laramis II. Only two dozen of these cruisers were put into service in GTVA fleets, with production ending in 2365. Allied Command assigns Aeolus-class ships primarily to guard slow-moving convoys against fighter and bomber wings, as these cruisers are severely out-gunned by most capital ships in service today. Their flak and AAA turrets serve as marvelous deterrents to smaller craft, however."
I don't see the cost mentioned anywhere..
i.e. a launch preparation area.
Are you sure it's not the fighterbay? It has all those fighters stacked up on those shelf-like things and that area looks very big.
And if it's not, then it mean it must be somewhere else on the ship taking up even MORE room..
I didn't say less, I said roughly equivalent, i.e. not 60 times as much or so. Not having the weapons tbl hand, I can't check damage figure. Albeit, did you consider the miss ratio as well?
Albeit, did you consider the range? (BGreen has 4000 range, does 1200 damage, stays on for 4 secs)
AAF
$Fire Wait: 5.5
$Damage: 14
+Weapon Range: 1500
So that's 3x14 = 42 every 5.5 seconds
or 458.1818181818181 over 60 seconds
not even remotely close.
Lasers? (technically, you could launch without lock, but that'd be unlikely in actual combat) If you want a vis-a-vis comparison, you have to launch the bombers as well, because they are the main firepower of a destroyer. And do you have the lock/refire time rates for a beam turret?
I told you - just warp in a beam-freed destroyer next to a potential target and see how long it will take it to fire.. 3-4 seconds Max.
Quite possibly, yes. Why else would they be omitted? I mean, Volition would have picked the most logical classes to add to the game. Fighter/bomber power is the most important, so there are destroyers. Beams are the new main weapon for capship attack, so we have the corvettes. And the Colossus, because everyone loves a 5km or so long monster ship.
How about development time? costs? Personal preferences?
Ever taught of that?
how do you account for the difference between the Iceni and the Deimos. The Deimos is only slightly smaller than the Iceni and yet the Iceni is vastly superior to it. What made the difference between the two?
Different design? [V]'s wish? I don't have answers to everything, nor do I have to have them. Like we don't have vastly different ship of same classes today?
All I know is that half the stuff you're holding against a BB are speculations with no real confirmations.
But seeing as you are ignoring economics completely and refusing to even accept that they may have an importance then you should be comparing like with like and that mean uber money is no object destroyer vs your loadsamoney BB.
And seeing that neither you or I have any idea of how the economy in FS works, nor how much certain things cost, all you're throwing right now are speculations. For instance - for all we know I-S fighter drives can cost as much as a cruiser!
On the other hand you've taken the destroyer. Ripped out the hangar bays (which based on your own picture are mostly empty space!) and replaced them with heavy and bulky reactors and heat sinks. You've refused to accept that the BBs engines are more expensive or bigger than those on the destroyer. In fact as far as I can tell they are the same ones as the destroyer. Yet despite that fact you somehow believe that the BB should move at the same speed as the destroyer or faster?
Wrong - first my pic of the hangarbay is very nenerous towards needed space, as I explained above 8and which you seem to ignore).
Secondly, we havo no idea just how big reactros in FS are. We never seen one. So that as an argument is pointless.
Secondly, I never stated BB engines are small. Obviously the size and quality is a major issue.
Since when have the Shivans given a flying **** about fair battles? Are you trying to tell me that an invasion of Shivan space would be successful because the Shivans would try to make it a fair fight? Are you trying to tell me that when storming Shivan nodes the Sathanas Juggernauts would turn their arse to face the BBs so as to give them a sporting chance?
Have you been taking some drugs or something, becouse you're not making any sense. What has this gotta do with anything?
I'm pointing out that even smaller ships can destroy a Sath if proper tactics is used.
And I'm allso pointing out that pitting a BB against a Sath and calling it useless is a moot point, since any GTVA vesses in a head-on asault on a Sath is doomed.
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The problem is that, whilst Terran destroyers are not the biggest threat to Shivan capships, even with beams, the Shivan Capships are a threat to Terran fleets, commnd made the mistake of locking horns with the Shivans at first, and lost a good few ships before reverting back to more subtle tactics (The engagement with the Ravana was a good example of how out-classed Terran capships and weapons are against Shivan equivalents). The problem with Destroyers is they can't get out of the way, in a fighter it doesn't matter how powerful a gun is if it can't hit you, but when it's used on something 2km long, you don't have to worry much about speed or accuracy, only power.
Why fluff about with stolen alien tech when it's patently obvious that our skill as a race lay with making things you launch at enemies and goes boom when they hit. Nearly all the Terrans' finest weapons in FS have been 'Terran' in nature, be they bombs, missiles or Maxims etc, almost all our weapons made by Terran style thinking have been extremely effective against the Shivans, we fall down when we try to rely on what aliens are good at, the Subach, a less-effective version of Vasudan Tech, Beam Lasers, assumed to have been researched from the remains of the Lucifer etc, all fall down when compared to the 'real thing'. I say build the FS equivalent of MTB's, small enough to manouver, fast, capable of launching a barrage of missiles, possibly with, say 8 launchers and only one bomb in each, warp in, fire, warp out. It wouldn't make much of a game, but it would be the best tactical solution ;)
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Come on you guys were the ones that jumped me and almost ripped mi head of for sugesting somehting similar to this BB but a lot more powerfull it was almost the perfect warship. Now that I've cut off a piece of its arms and legs you state that its useless..???
If you bothered to read my reply I said that your ship was possible but not economically feasible. That the GTVA would probably be moving away from juggernauts. In fact that's pretty much what everyone said.
And btw. how is this BB more useless then the Hecate class destroyers wich aside from providing fighter/bommber support it is useless as a warship.
How is a gun useful except for the bullets it shoots? The Hecate's raison d'etre is to launch fighters and bombers.
It cant take in damage , it cant dish out damage in adequate fashion soo......what is its use?? I mean you could have 2 deimos and a dedicated small carrier do the same job. and they would be more versatile at least that is what i believe. They can cover a larger area at the same cost of a destroyer !
Have you not been reading the discussion. If you attempt to build a small carrier you end up with the Hecate. You can build one without the beam cannons but quite frankly why bother? At least with the cannons it has it can make some effort to defend itself against other capital ships.
Tell me please when your ships are totaly *****'d up because well lets see.....they engines were disabled and theyr fisghterbays and you have a strong enemy force headed for them and some of theyr beam cannons have been taken out can you wait till you gather a sizebla force to counter that threat??
I have no idea what you just said. :confused:
Also here is a stupid question: Why did the C burn out most of its reactors when it was nowhere near using all of its beamcannons??? I mean how much power do ypu need to power up those beamcannons?
The colossus burnt out it's beam cannons because it pushed them past their safety point in order to kill the Sathanas quickly. In normal usage the beam cannons probably work perfectly fine. It's worth noting that the beam cannons on the Colossus are actually LESS powerful than those you want to put on your ships.
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But the subachs are great though, especially at higher difficulty levels where the primary weapons really drain your energy reserves. I often find myself flying a myrmadon with 6 subachs and edged up engine and shield power for most missions. Subachs in banks of 6 or 8 let you take advantage of the damage output/power consumption ratio.
Anyway, I think the problem with battleships is that that design only does one thing well which would make it a liability for the GTVA since they would be wasting too much money for not enough effectiveness. Shivans would probably counter a battleship with a wing of raksashas and those speedy bombers of theirs and it would be toast.
Asuming that a battleship is built, I think the difference in hitpoints, firepower and size between a corvette and a destroyer gives good guidelines on a battleship's firepower. So a Vasudan battleship would probably be stronger than the comparable terran one, Hull strength would probably be about 50% higher, and it would probably have like 4 primary beams, 4 secondary slashers, and a number of turrets, missle launchers and flak making it maybe 20-50% more heavily armed than a destroyer but nowhere near the 72 gun, 12 beamed, 1000000 hit point colossus to stay resonable with FS2 around or just after the great war. Whatever its setup, it should win against but be significantly damaged in a 1 on 1 slug fest with a hatshepsut. I would recommend an even match between either of the shivan destroyers.
Also since it's getting brought into the fray, I just want to say that Hecates are really cool destroyers in my opinion. Sure all the other destroyers win in a 1 on 1 slugfest but the hecates have really good firing arcs all around and good anti fighter guns, and good fighter capacity. They do a great job of the multi role thing.
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The the problem is :v: hasn't updated the universe for 6 years. People are getting bored. People are creating new campaigns. Inventing new ships and even new governments. :v: sold their Universe already.
I take issue with that comment. The FS2 universe is :v:'s They made it. It belongs to them.
If you make your own campaign it's set in your own universe based on :v:'s. You can do whatever the **** you like in your own universe but if you want to claim that something can exist in the FS2 universe you have to stay true to :v:'s intents. If your claim was correct I could have Captain Kirk appear in a sequal to 2001 and claim that since Kubrick is dead that it's valid.
Huh, which side are you arguing for? It was you who claim that we can have fighters no matter what. I said no, because there's not enough space, we will have to strip the fighter bay to add reactors and new beams. Now you are telling me that "It's nowhere near as much as you may have claimed"? I am confused.
You're confused? I haven't got the faintest clue what you're on about! :)
I never argueed that sticking the entire BB in the line of fire. That's the problem of replying too many people using the same post, you get confused. I think BBs need to be supported by other ships so that there's minimum risk for themselves. Never leave your warships without fighter cover, that's the proven rule in this game.
But where does that fighter cover come from? A BB can't launch enough fighter cover to protect it from massed long range attacks so who the hell is protecting it? If you're assuming that a destroyer is going to cover the BB then it is reducing its own fighter cover making it more susceptible to attacks.
How would you feel that if instead of NTF destroyer jumped in to save their cruisers, all your careful plans were rendered useless by the NTF cruisers jumping out right before it exploded? It's not a claim, it's a suggestion. I am sure you know FS2 inside out, I love your FAQ. I don't care what :v: intended though, :v: is not making FS3 anymore. Delayed jumps make more sense, IMO.
My feelings have bugger all to do with this. Ships can jump in less than 30 minutes. There is canon proof of this. That is the way the universe works. You can't arbitarily change the rules of the universe just to suit yur own arguments. If you're not prepared to argue within the universe's bounds I can just as easily say that BBs are useless cause the space bunny eatsf them but leaves destroyers alone.
The bottom line is would it be interesting to have battleships in a new campaign? I think it would if it's designed carefully.
If you want them in your universe that is your choice. But don't claim that they are a sensible choice in the FS2 universe.
Allied Command assigns Aeolus-class ships primarily to guard slow-moving convoys against fighter and bomber wings, as these cruisers are severely out-gunned by most capital ships in service today. Their flak and AAA turrets serve as marvelous deterrents to smaller craft, however."
I don't see the cost mentioned anywhere..
Read between the lines. The Aeolus was cancelled. They say that it's good at its job. Why else did they cancel it?
Wrong - first my pic of the hangarbay is very nenerous towards needed space
No it isn't. Both Aldo and myself have commented on the rather large amount of open space in it. You've assumed that just because the small part of the Orion's bay that is visible is open that all of it must be. Not only is that one hell of an assumption it's also very bad design in military terms. A single fighter could fly into the Orion's bay and wipe out the ship's entire complement of fighters!
Secondly, we havo no idea just how big reactros in FS are. We never seen one. So that as an argument is pointless.
Lets suppose that they are small then. The size of a single fighter. Does that mean if the Hecate carried 149 instead of 150 fighter that it too can carry the number of weapons you're claiming a BB can? You're the one who assumed you needed to gut the inside of a destroyer in order to fit all the extra weapons in yet whenever anyone comments on the size of those weapons you claim that we have no information about their size.
So if we have no information about their size how can you possibly say that the Hecate can't lose say 10 fighters and carry enough weapons to equal your BB?
It's not a pointless argumnent. It's an argument you've already had in your head, decided on a winner and then refuse to have again.
Secondly, I never stated BB engines are small. Obviously the size and quality is a major issue.
So they're big then? That would eat into that space you gained by ripping out the fighter bay then wouldn't it? And seeing as how you're giving your BB several seperate engines that's going to eat into it a lot.
since any GTVA vesses in a head-on asault on a Sath is doomed.
Which is exactly the point I was making to ngtm1r till you decided to stick your oar in! :mad:
Have you been taking some drugs or something, becouse you're not making any sense. What has this gotta do with anything?
I'm pointing out that even smaller ships can destroy a Sath if proper tactics is used.
You've obviously not understood the point I was making and decided to jump in with both feet to defend your precious BBs with an argument that is completely irrelevent to what I was talking about.
Nothing can take on a sath and win. Ngtm1r was attempting to justify the existance of the BB class by claiming we could use them to invade Shivan space. I take it that you believe that idea to be as silly as I do.
I didn't say that the BB is useless cause it can't take on a Sath. Nothing can take on a sath unless as you did you stack the battle in the other ship's favour. That's fun as a textbook exercise but I very much doubt that the Shivans are going to let you do that repeatedly in order to invade Shivan space.
I said that invading Shivan space is nonsense so using the fact that BBs would do better at it is an absolutely useless justification for the existance of the BB class. Next time get the context of the discussion before you leap in.
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Read between the lines. The Aeolus was cancelled. They say that it's good at its job. Why else did they cancel it?
The problčem with readin between the lines is reading what isn't there. The cause for the cancellation is nowhere mentioned. Maby the constructor had a gripe with the GTVA or vice-versa. Maby [V] toguht is sounded good in the ship description.
The poibt is - NOBODY knows. Not me, not you.
So claiming it was bacouse of cost is as redicolous as me claming Command is acting stupid coause it's being paid by shivans to do so.
No it isn't. Both Aldo and myself have commented on the rather large amount of open space in it. You've assumed that just because the small part of the Orion's bay that is visible is open that all of it must be. Not only is that one hell of an assumption it's also very bad design in military terms. A single fighter could fly into the Orion's bay and wipe out the ship's entire complement of fighters!
Actually you're wonrg. I only ordered the fighters approximately how they would be ordered insude (on those shell-like platforms) - there are no machinery or platforms or elivators or pillars inside, as I was going just for an approximation of the volume used. If I were to add all that in (and I can if you isist) and still leave enough room for hte ship to move freely around, the size would increase.
Nor did I ever say that the hangarbay is just one big room - hell it might be several rooms devided by thick metal doors (and probably it is so), but then those thick walls increase the overall volume again, don' they?
Allso note that I used mostly perseus fighters in that pic, and that a destroyer complement in surely more varried than that.
I havn't even put a single Ursa in there.
Oh - about the reactors. Before you can even BEGIN to claim that a BB is impossible, you'd need to know the size, type, output and requirements of a rector. Now I never said tey are as small as a fighter nor as big as a cruiser. I simply don't know.
and now you're probably asking - ok, if the reactor type is allso important, whyy not put uber-reactors in all ships?
I don't know. Why don't they put the best engines, the best reacotrs, the best armor or the best weaons on ALL ships today? They simply don't. They put wha'ts needed to do they job and meet the specs. Not to mention that some component simply work well with some and not so good with others.
AS much as some things may seem illogical to you, it's simply how it's done today..And I have no reason to belive itwon't be done liek that in the future. Granted, it's a speculation - but then again, saying it's not like that is allso a speculation.
Simply the fact that there's so much in the FS universe that we don't know, leaves more than enough room for new thing or different approaches.
So they're big then? That would eat into that space you gained by ripping out the fighter bay then wouldn't it? And seeing as how you're giving your BB several seperate engines that's going to eat into it a lot.
Less engines than the Heacte anyway.. but probably better ones... And don't quote subsystem numbers, Im talking about those separated glowing parts - as behind each glow there must be a engine.
I said that invading Shivan space is nonsense so using the fact that BBs would do better at it is an absolutely useless justification for the existance of the BB class. Next time get the context of the discussion before you leap in.
Ivading Shivan space is a redicolus concept alltogether, alltough BB's would fair better in a slug-fest with shivan warships. Mind you, that we never seen shivan destroyers actually run away from close combat...
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Read between the lines. The Aeolus was cancelled. They say that it's good at its job. Why else did they cancel it?
The problčem with readin between the lines is reading what isn't there. The cause for the cancellation is nowhere mentioned. Maby the constructor had a gripe with the GTVA or vice-versa. Maby [V] toguht is sounded good in the ship description.
The poibt is - NOBODY knows. Not me, not you.
So claiming it was bacouse of cost is as redicolous as me claming Command is acting stupid coause it's being paid by shivans to do so.
That hardly invalidates his argument though. Cost is indeed a determining factor in any construction project, as no one has an infinite pool of resources to draw on. And the Aeolus was, for a ship that was combat ineffective in it's charter role (light anti-cap, like the Fenris and Leviathan in FS1), too expensive to continue producing.
That said, we actually do know why the Aeolus line was canceled. It is in the tech description, at that; it is severly undergunned compared to "modern capital ships", i.e. corvettes. Though the difference in crew leaves that somewhat open to interpretation, the fact of the matter is an Aeolus cannot stand up to anything larger than itself and have a prayer of survival, much less victory. That's almost explicitly stated.
No it isn't. Both Aldo and myself have commented on the rather large amount of open space in it. You've assumed that just because the small part of the Orion's bay that is visible is open that all of it must be. Not only is that one hell of an assumption it's also very bad design in military terms. A single fighter could fly into the Orion's bay and wipe out the ship's entire complement of fighters!
Actually you're wonrg. I only ordered the fighters approximately how they would be ordered insude (on those shell-like platforms) - there are no machinery or platforms or elivators or pillars inside, as I was going just for an approximation of the volume used. If I were to add all that in (and I can if you isist) and still leave enough room for hte ship to move freely around, the size would increase.
Nor did I ever say that the hangarbay is just one big room - hell it might be several rooms devided by thick metal doors (and probably it is so), but then those thick walls increase the overall volume again, don' they?
Allso note that I used mostly perseus fighters in that pic, and that a destroyer complement in surely more varried than that.
I havn't even put a single Ursa in there.
Well, you used Perseus fighters, which are longer but narrower than most other fighters, and Boanerges bombers. Seems reasonable enough, except that you're still choosing a false mix. There's no way a destroyer's bomber compliment consists of exclusively heavy bombers, so while the size of the bombers would increase in the case of Ursas, that is offset by the smaller size of the Artemis bombers that take at least as many places. I don't think destroyers have more than maybe 2 wings of Ursas in their hangers, ever. And there's no reason to claim that anything significant would change if you swapped out the Perseus fighters for something else either, because you're only talking about a couple of meters extra (which you already have in spacing alone).
And still, your "huge" hangerbay occupies only the small extrusion off the side of the Orion that you're mapping in to. Which means that the vast majority of the Orion is already dedicated to weapons, reactors, engines, and crew space. Remind me how this favors there being lots of extra room to expand in to for a battleship?
Oh - about the reactors. Before you can even BEGIN to claim that a BB is impossible, you'd need to know the size, type, output and requirements of a rector. Now I never said tey are as small as a fighter nor as big as a cruiser. I simply don't know.
and now you're probably asking - ok, if the reactor type is allso important, whyy not put uber-reactors in all ships?
I don't know. Why don't they put the best engines, the best reacotrs, the best armor or the best weaons on ALL ships today? They simply don't. They put wha'ts needed to do they job and meet the specs. Not to mention that some component simply work well with some and not so good with others.
AS much as some things may seem illogical to you, it's simply how it's done today..And I have no reason to belive itwon't be done liek that in the future. Granted, it's a speculation - but then again, saying it's not like that is allso a speculation.
Simply the fact that there's so much in the FS universe that we don't know, leaves more than enough room for new thing or different approaches.
But you can't canonically base a new class off of them unless you stick to established technology. I cannot stress this point enough.
And to assume that simply because there may be better equipment available means that the better equipment makes economical sense to mount on your new class when the current flag ships of the fleet, the destroyers, don't get the tech makes even less sense than to say it exists in the first place.
So they're big then? That would eat into that space you gained by ripping out the fighter bay then wouldn't it? And seeing as how you're giving your BB several seperate engines that's going to eat into it a lot.
Less engines than the Heacte anyway.. but probably better ones... And don't quote subsystem numbers, Im talking about those separated glowing parts - as behind each glow there must be a engine.
The number of exhaust ports on the Hecate is irrelivant. All an engine really needs is a reactor to power it, so the smaller engines on the front of the Hecate may just be taking advantage of extra power in that portion of the power grid. Or placed there to reduce stress on the questionably stable Hecate frame. There's absolutely nothing to go on why those auxilary engines are there. The point is that you're trying to argue in favor of five major engine subsystems, which is completely unprecidented in Freespace. Nevermind that it isn't necessarily fundamental to the battleship class, it's just what happens to be on your "pride and joy" POF, that you happened to make yourself, that you still consider to be the best thing since sliced bread. I'm not getting in to the merits and shortcomings of your archangel mod, but I'm going to ask that you seperate your arguments about the class from the way you happened to end up designing your ship. The two are not fundamentally the same.
I said that invading Shivan space is nonsense so using the fact that BBs would do better at it is an absolutely useless justification for the existance of the BB class. Next time get the context of the discussion before you leap in.
Ivading Shivan space is a redicolus concept alltogether, alltough BB's would fair better in a slug-fest with shivan warships. Mind you, that we never seen shivan destroyers actually run away from close combat...
But you're still ripping a fundamental aspect of Freespace combat out of your design that the shivan ships still have in their favor, which returns us to the fighters. A battleship against a shivan destroyer would be screwed, because it would be unable to defend itself from both the shivan destroyer's main beams and the bombers launched by said destroyer.
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The problčem with readin between the lines is reading what isn't there. The cause for the cancellation is nowhere mentioned. Maby the constructor had a gripe with the GTVA or vice-versa. Maby [V] toguht is sounded good in the ship description.
The poibt is - NOBODY knows. Not me, not you.
So claiming it was bacouse of cost is as redicolous as me claming Command is acting stupid coause it's being paid by shivans to do so.
So no one is allowed to infer anything except for you? The entire battleship concept you've given us is fundementally flawed right from the start by your logic. You've infered that you can hack out the fighterbays and put in reactors and guns and all kinds of things. Where is the evidence for that? Who's to say that all the parts you want to put in aren't the size of a matchbox and could be added without losing one iota of fighterbay space? Nobody knows about that either but you've infered it's true. I happen to agree it's true but if you're going to start pulling out the nobody knows argument then you've basically invalidated almost every single comment you've made on this thread.
Actually you're wonrg. I only ordered the fighters approximately how they would be ordered insude (on those shell-like platforms)
You've assumed that the entire fighter bay looks exactly like the tiny portion which you can see in the mainhall. What if those are the alert fighters and bombers? What if those are fighters under maintence? There are several reasons why you could have some but not all of your fighters up on racks like that. You haven't considered any of them.
Oh - about the reactors. Before you can even BEGIN to claim that a BB is impossible, you'd need to know the size, type, output and requirements of a rector. Now I never said tey are as small as a fighter nor as big as a cruiser. I simply don't know.
You've already made the assumption that reactors are big and bulky in the first place. If they weren't big why would you need to hack out the fighterbay? I could just as easily say that before you can even BEGIN to claim that a BB is possible, you'd need to know the size, type, output and requirements of a reactor.
Don't be upset with me saying that reactors are big. You made that claim first. I happened to agree with the inference so I didn't question it but seeing as how you're now all of a sudden insisting on only going on what is canon let's take a look at the initial assumption. Lets say reactors are small. In that case the BB is now completely impractical. If reactors are teeny-tiny you don't need to hack out the fighterbay. You can simply add reactors and turrets to a ship where ever you want cause there's nothing to them.
and now you're probably asking - ok, if the reactor type is allso important, whyy not put uber-reactors in all ships?
I don't know. Why don't they put the best engines, the best reacotrs, the best armor or the best weaons on ALL ships today?
Money. Filthy lucre.
But you completely refuse to acknowledge economics at all in this discussion as a limiting factor on your uber BB so why should I accept it as a limiting factor on any other ship class? Play fair now.
They simply don't. They put wha'ts needed to do they job and meet the specs. Not to mention that some component simply work well with some and not so good with others.
But you've only built your BB with the best, most expensive components. So when I'm building a destroyer to compete with it I'm going to use your rules too.
AS much as some things may seem illogical to you, it's simply how it's done today..And I have no reason to belive itwon't be done liek that in the future. Granted, it's a speculation - but then again, saying it's not like that is allso a speculation.
It's not illogical at all. In fact I've been arguing in favour of what you state the entire time. You're the one who has posted an argument saying Ship x has the best engine proportional to its size so my BB can also be proportional too. And Ship y has beam cannons that are the best proporional to its size so my ship has them too. You've made your BB out of the best features of every single ship class in the GTVA. You've written off the Colossus as a complete failure in every single component and refused to believe your BB could ever be anything but the best it could ever be.
This is exactly what I mean about you always stacking things in favour of the BB. It's unfair and I'm going to point it out every time I catch you doing it.
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Well In regards to the small detroyer thing I was refering to a much smaller ship then a Hecate posibly a little larger then a Deimos say 300 metters longer. I mean such a ship would carry what.. about 100 or more spacecrafts since it is specificly designed to be a carrier and other then PDF it would have no other way to defend itself against beamcannon fire! But then again it does not have to since the BB would do the beam fights.
And dont tell me that you will track the carrier down and attack it with some cruiser or something because as we have see things dont happen that way in the FS2 universe. There are a lot of things that should of been done another way but they dont get done that way!
You guis keep saiing that if a BB would apear then the enemy would this or that and the BB would be toast.
Come on if the GTVA HighCommand(a.k.a. The GTVA most Stupid and Incompetent People) was that smart it wouldnt of lost the seccond shivan war. They woud of gathered 30.000 fighters and bommbers posted all of its warships so that they face the ass of the sath, and blasted the hell out of that entire Sath fleet. but they dont do that do they!
And if you have somthing against mi previous argument lets not get started gain on the whole Ravana blowing to hell almost an entire fleet bi itself. where were the fighters and bommbers to swarm the blasted thing?? Oh yeah they did eventualy used that tactic because they couldn spare ani more ships against that thing.
Because at the level at wich the HighCommand think(which in mi opinino is very limited) they would of sent the entire GTVA fleet to tackle on the Ravana and ended up losing god knows ho many destroyers and so onand so on.
Those shivans must of laughed theyr ass off when they saw the stupiditi of those captains triing to take it out with beam fire and almost blinded by the nebula!
So no I will not take these simple "logical" facts into acount because they are that solid so as not to be dismantled.
This ship ideea would be the least stupid thing that the GTVA would do then tring to go head on with the shivans which from what we have seen seem to be a constant through out the whole game and with devastating consequences.
Sure you will say that they have learned theyr lesson but we all know that that is not the case.
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Um..not to intrude into your baffling incoherence, but you do realise that Shivans have - shock - fighters and bombers as well?
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So wait a second AlphaOne. Is your entire argument that Command are so stupid that they wouldn't realise that the battleship is a really dreadful idea and would build one anyway? :lol:
To be honest I do have to give you an award for that one. It's the first justification for the BB class that actually does fit with FS2 :D
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That said, we actually do know why the Aeolus line was canceled. It is in the tech description, at that; it is severly undergunned compared to "modern capital ships", i.e. corvettes. Though the difference in crew leaves that somewhat open to interpretation, the fact of the matter is an Aeolus cannot stand up to anything larger than itself and have a prayer of survival, much less victory. That's almost explicitly stated.
That's a whole other matter. That's a valid reason, as it was stated in the description. The cost however, was not.
I'm not claiming cost is irrelevant in ship construction - quite the contrary - but the fact reamins we don't know what certain things cost in FS2 universe, so it's next to impossible to put a price tag on ships.
Well, you used Perseus fighters, which are longer but narrower than most other fighters, and Boanerges bombers. Seems reasonable enough, except that you're still choosing a false mix. There's no way a destroyer's bomber compliment consists of exclusively heavy bombers, so while the size of the bombers would increase in the case of Ursas, that is offset by the smaller size of the Artemis bombers that take at least as many places. I don't think destroyers have more than maybe 2 wings of Ursas in their hangers, ever. And there's no reason to claim that anything significant would change if you swapped out the Perseus fighters for something else either, because you're only talking about a couple of meters extra (which you already have in spacing alone).
And still, your "huge" hangerbay occupies only the small extrusion off the side of the Orion that you're mapping in to. Which means that the vast majority of the Orion is already dedicated to weapons, reactors, engines, and crew space. Remind me how this favors there being lots of extra room to expand in to for a battleship?
24 bombers alltogether.
I'd reckon that there would be at least 12 spacecraft of each type (as 12 is hte squadron size). If I were a guessing man I would say a Orion would carry maby 1-2 squads of heavy bombers, 1-2 squads of light/medium ones, 3 squads of interceptors and 3 squads of heavy fighters.
That said, the pads which house fighters/bombers are made to fit all (as for different assigments you might take a completely different complement on board, and there's no telling were a specific spacecraft wouldbe docked), so the pads are bomber-sized. Not to mention the machinery to repair, refuel them and everything else. According to the mainhalls, FS2 hangarbays are very spacious, with lots of room between craft.
So I don't know about you, but for me that's a lot of used space..
One more thing - hasn't anyone noticed how the Orion is actually bettter suited to ferry spacecraft becouse of it's shape and volume? Wierdness.
But you can't canonically base a new class off of them unless you stick to established technology. I cannot stress this point enough.
And to assume that simply because there may be better equipment available means that the better equipment makes economical sense to mount on your new class when the current flag ships of the fleet, the destroyers, don't get the tech makes even less sense than to say it exists in the first place.
Wouldn't be the first time in history that happened. Ships get the tech that's needed to do the job according to specs.
And economicly, why do you think BB's would be more expensive than destroyers?
After all, fighters/bombers (and their mantainance and the paychecks of the flight crew) are included in a DD's price as they are an integral part of it. Hell, look at todays carriers - tehy are the most expensive warship afloat.
The number of exhaust ports on the Hecate is irrelivant. All an engine really needs is a reactor to power it, so the smaller engines on the front of the Hecate may just be taking advantage of extra power in that portion of the power grid. Or placed there to reduce stress on the questionably stable Hecate frame. There's absolutely nothing to go on why those auxilary engines are there. The point is that you're trying to argue in favor of five major engine subsystems, which is completely unprecidented in Freespace. Nevermind that it isn't necessarily fundamental to the battleship class, it's just what happens to be on your "pride and joy" POF, that you happened to make yourself, that you still consider to be the best thing since sliced bread. I'm not getting in to the merits and shortcomings of your archangel mod, but I'm going to ask that you seperate your arguments about the class from the way you happened to end up designing your ship. The two are not fundamentally the same.
:LOL: that's rich!
How can the number of exhaust be irrelevant? One exhaust port = one engine! That's glow must come from somewhere. Granted, the engines might not be big, but they are still tehre.
If you're only going to argue about the number of subsystems then fine - how many would you deem acceptable on a BB? One? three? Becosue it really doesn't matter. According to you I can put exhaust all over and litter it with engines, but as long as several of those are represented by one subsystem (no matter how far apart they are) they are one engine!
P.S. - when I said 5 engines, I ment 5 distinct glow clusters with visible exhausts. But they can all be one subsystem...however, I consider 3 a nicer number.
But you're still ripping a fundamental aspect of Freespace combat out of your design that the shivan ships still have in their favor, which returns us to the fighters. A battleship against a shivan destroyer would be screwed, because it would be unable to defend itself from both the shivan destroyer's main beams and the bombers launched by said destroyer.
I'm not forgetting anything. A BB would be able to defend itself long enough to wax the shivan destroyer and high-tail it out of there. Something a destroyer like Hecate can only dream about as it would have to run the second a Ravana pops up.
While a Hecate can keep enemy bombers at bay, at least for a while, it's powerless against Ravana's main cannons. It would be dead in two salvos, and given the speed of shivan beams, I doubt his fightercover could take them out in time.
the BB on the other hand is more than a match for a Ravana in a open slug-fest, but the bombers it brings with her are the problem. However, the BB's defenses should be strong enough to keep it alive for 30-40 seconds, which should be enough to destroy the Ravana and then escape.
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By Karajorma
So no one is allowed to infer anything except for you? The entire battleship concept you've given us is fundementally flawed right from the start by your logic. You've infered that you can hack out the fighterbays and put in reactors and guns and all kinds of things. Where is the evidence for that? Who's to say that all the parts you want to put in aren't the size of a matchbox and could be added without losing one iota of fighterbay space? Nobody knows about that either but you've infered it's true. I happen to agree it's true but if you're going to start pulling out the nobody knows argument then you've basically invalidated almost every single comment you've made on this thread.
Flawed logic. :D You have never been ina debate group, now have you?
You can't prove to me that it's impossible to hack out the fighterbay and put gunz and reactors. The opposite should allso hold true for me, but knowing that - how can you even claim that I'm "going against canon" and "making impossible thing" when you yourself now now admit that there's no evidence to support either view?
It's up to the side that wans't to forbid or disprove something (that would be you) to prove the other one is wrong, not vice-versa.
Money. Filthy lucre.
But you completely refuse to acknowledge economics at all in this discussion as a limiting factor on your uber BB so why should I accept it as a limiting factor on any other ship class? Play fair now.
You're the one not playing fair. A DD with the best tech would be several times as expensive as the best BB you could build.
As I said - fighters are included in a BB's price (and carirers ar the most expensive ships in the world mind you).
the onyl way to disprove that is to acknowledge that we have no idea how mush certain things cost in FS2 and if you do that all of your cost arguments go down the drain :D
Um..not to intrude into your baffling incoherence, but you do realise that Shivans have - shock - fighters and bombers as well?
Not of much use if hte GTVA did a smart thing and blockaded the node with more than just empty air.
Hell, position half your fleet arund the node and NOTHING will get trough (especially if you stand by the assumption that ships must exit the node one by one)
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I'm not forgetting anything. A BB would be able to defend itself long enough to wax the shivan destroyer and high-tail it out of there. Something a destroyer like Hecate can only dream about as it would have to run the second a Ravana pops up.
While a Hecate can keep enemy bombers at bay, at least for a while, it's powerless against Ravana's main cannons. It would be dead in two salvos, and given the speed of shivan beams, I doubt his fightercover could take them out in time.
the BB on the other hand is more than a match for a Ravana in a open slug-fest, but the bombers it brings with her are the problem. However, the BB's defenses should be strong enough to keep it alive for 30-40 seconds, which should be enough to destroy the Ravana and then escape.
And with this we can conclude that a BB like that is not possible in the FS2 universe! Quite ironic if you think about it.
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In the carrier+fighter vs battleship+turrets cost analogy you're making one crucial mistake. In a water navy, only the fighers need all the technology for flight such as aerodynamics, life support, fly-by-wire, pressureised cabins (in some cases) etc., while the big gun turrets on a ship just need a sturdy base, a way to elevate the barrels and turn the base, and a long tube (simplified, yes, but that's the general idea).
In space, however, things are different. Some of the things fighters need in an atmosphere are no longer needed (aerodynamics), while many of the things that were before exclusive to the fighters are now needed by the ships as well: Life support, internal pressure, electronic control systems, and more. So in space, fighters would be a lot cheaper compared to a gun turret than what we see in today's navy. And in maintenance, fighters actually have an advantage now that they did not have before, as they can be looked over from the outside while docked whereas you can't easily fix any external problems on a spaceship. So ship systems need to be built with far more redundancies than for a water navy, which naturally costs more.
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Bull****. You want to play debate rules, let's tango.
You're the one not playing fair. A DD with the best tech would be several times as expensive as the best BB you could build.
As I said - fighters are included in a BB's price (and carirers ar the most expensive ships in the world mind you).
the onyl way to disprove that is to acknowledge that we have no idea how mush certain things cost in FS2 and if you do that all of your cost arguments go down the drain
So does the very first line of your arguement. You have no clue that a high-tech DD would be more expensive then a high-tech BB. (and don't give me **** about how the BB isn't high tech - you've been making up techs left and right) Your second line is also contradictory to the rest of your arguement, as before you were stating that your BB didn't have any fighters and this is how it became so marvelously powerful.
I'm not forgetting anything. (1)A BB would be able to defend itself long enough to wax the shivan destroyer and high-tail it out of there. Something a destroyer like Hecate can only dream about as it would have to run the second a Ravana pops up.
While a Hecate can keep enemy bombers at bay, at least for a while, it's powerless against Ravana's main cannons. It would be dead in two salvos, and given the speed of shivan beams, I doubt his fightercover could take them out in time.
(2)the BB on the other hand is more than a match for a Ravana in a open slug-fest, but the bombers it brings with her are the problem. (3)However, the BB's defenses should be strong enough to keep it alive for 30-40 seconds, which should be enough to destroy the Ravana and then escape.
Numbered for conveniance:
1) Unprovable
2) Unprobable
3) Weak arguement. If I gave you a kevlar jacket that "should" stop my pistol's shells, would you wear it? Or jump a bridge in a car that "should" be fast enough?
How can the number of exhaust be irrelevant? One exhaust port = one engine! That's glow must come from somewhere. Granted, the engines might not be big, but they are still tehre.
Link 3 small reactors to one big exhaust. Which you admit is possible in your second sentence.
You have never been ina debate group, now have you?
You can't prove to me that it's impossible to hack out the fighterbay and put gunz and reactors. The opposite should allso hold true for me, but knowing that - how can you even claim that I'm "going against canon" and "making impossible thing" when you yourself now now admit that there's no evidence to support either view?
It's up to the side that wans't to forbid or disprove something (that would be you) to prove the other one is wrong, not vice-versa.
Actually, its up to you to prove that you are right. The negative has no need to prove that their arguement is even right, just that the affirmative arguement is more wrong. So far, you have been proven more wrong. (Mainly due to the fact that there's demonstrable proof against you, while your entire arguement is one big analytical.)
Don't try to pull the almighty "holier-then-thou" debate attitude when your own arguement is ****.
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You can't prove to me that it's impossible to hack out the fighterbay and put gunz and reactors. The opposite should allso hold true for me, but knowing that - how can you even claim that I'm "going against canon" and "making impossible thing" when you yourself now now admit that there's no evidence to support either view?
You can't disprove that giant pink wildebeest didn't blow up Capella. Does that mean I can also claim that giant pink wildebeest are feasible in the FS2 universe too? If you're only ever going to go on what was seen in the game you might as well give up right now. What you have to do is infer based on what was seen in the game. That doesn't mean making **** up but it does mean that you point to reasons based on the FS2 universe.
It's up to the side that wans't to forbid or disprove something (that would be you) to prove the other one is wrong, not vice-versa.
Actually no. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. And the claim that you can pack more weaponary into a ship 1/3 the size of the Colossus is an extrodinary claim. If you want to go with your argument that the side who wants to say something is impossible must disprove it you then have to prove that giant pink wildebeest didn't blow up Capella or accept it as possible within the FS2 universe.
You're the one not playing fair. A DD with the best tech would be several times as expensive as the best BB you could build.
I've never said that a BB is always more expensive than a destroyer. I've said that your BB is more expensive than a normal destroyer because you are using the highest quality versions of everything. That's always going to cost you more. If you're going to say that the GTVA has money to burn making new ship classes for you then I'm going to say it too. After all if you're acknowledging that the cost of both ships is verging on the ridiculous, surely you must also acknowledge that the GTVA wouldn't build destroyers or battleships with the best of everything on board but would instead build a more cost effective version of the ship?
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24 bombers alltogether.
I'd reckon that there would be at least 12 spacecraft of each type (as 12 is hte squadron size). If I were a guessing man I would say a Orion would carry maby 1-2 squads of heavy bombers, 1-2 squads of light/medium ones, 3 squads of interceptors and 3 squads of heavy fighters.
That said, the pads which house fighters/bombers are made to fit all (as for different assigments you might take a completely different complement on board, and there's no telling were a specific spacecraft wouldbe docked), so the pads are bomber-sized. Not to mention the machinery to repair, refuel them and everything else. According to the mainhalls, FS2 hangarbays are very spacious, with lots of room between craft.
So I don't know about you, but for me that's a lot of used space..
The mainhalls are not indicitive of the entire fighterbay. Period. The FS1 Galatea mainhall contained a grand total of 1 fighter, and the Bastion had them strewn all across the deck as ships literally minutes seperated from operational duty, whether before or after. Neither of those shows the prep, maintenence, or storage areas for fighters, so to assume that they must be that big is a stretch at best.
Furthermore to make all the shelves bomber sized is stupid. There's no way a destroyer would ever carry just bombers, so at most 1/3 of the racks would need to be big enough to accomodate them. The rest could easily be much more densly packed, as though they may carry different types of fighters it will be fighters that occupy that space just the same.
And if all of the racks are bomber-sized (totally unsupported by the Galatea and Aquitane mainhalls, by the way) then increasing the numbers of Ursas would do absolutely nothing to the occupied volume.
One more thing - hasn't anyone noticed how the Orion is actually bettter suited to ferry spacecraft because of it's shape and volume? Wierdness.
:wtf:
I've got no idea what that's supposed to mean, but if you're trying to deflect comments on the Orion being very little fighterbay and very much warship then you're barking up the wrong tree. It's your "proof" that shows that all too clearly the Orion does not compromise it's internal volume for its fighterbay in any way.
Wouldn't be the first time in history that happened. Ships get the tech that's needed to do the job according to specs.
The problem is you're making up the specs, making up the tech, and justifying each with the other while completely ignoring any sense of economics.That's logically undefensible. Do I really need to spell that out more explicitly? And to boot, you're assuming that command didn't spec Destroyers as being the most powerful ships that could be build on their frame, which is fairly canonically untrue as well.
And economicly, why do you think BB's would be more expensive than destroyers?
After all, fighters/bombers (and their mantainance and the paychecks of the flight crew) are included in a DD's price as they are an integral part of it. Hell, look at todays carriers - tehy are the most expensive warship afloat.
To try to drive home a point, todays carriers are not 2-km long space-faring behemoths bristeling with heavy energy weapons either. If you think a FS destroyer is cheap by any stretch of the imagination then you need to get your head examined. And I'm not even talking about the fighters, which as I've repeatedly said before the battleship concept does not save the GTVA from constructing or maintaining. Even if they aren't based on the ship, they will still be somewhere.
:LOL: that's rich!
How can the number of exhaust be irrelevant? One exhaust port = one engine! That's glow must come from somewhere. Granted, the engines might not be big, but they are still tehre.
If you're only going to argue about the number of subsystems then fine - how many would you deem acceptable on a BB? One? three? Becosue it really doesn't matter. According to you I can put exhaust all over and litter it with engines, but as long as several of those are represented by one subsystem (no matter how far apart they are) they are one engine!
P.S. - when I said 5 engines, I ment 5 distinct glow clusters with visible exhausts. But they can all be one subsystem...however, I consider 3 a nicer number.
Well then by your definition your Archangel has something like 20 engines, considerably more than the Hecate(8 or 10, depending on how you count). How is that any better?!? And by Freespace tech, yes, all those glows are tied to a single engine if there is only one engine subsystem. That's how Freespace works.
I'm not forgetting anything. A BB would be able to defend itself long enough to wax the shivan destroyer and high-tail it out of there. Something a destroyer like Hecate can only dream about as it would have to run the second a Ravana pops up.
While a Hecate can keep enemy bombers at bay, at least for a while, it's powerless against Ravana's main cannons. It would be dead in two salvos, and given the speed of shivan beams, I doubt his fightercover could take them out in time.
the BB on the other hand is more than a match for a Ravana in a open slug-fest, but the bombers it brings with her are the problem. However, the BB's defenses should be strong enough to keep it alive for 30-40 seconds, which should be enough to destroy the Ravana and then escape.
The GTVA has no tech capable of besting a Shivan destroyer 1:1. How in hell would the Battleship be able to do something that the GTVA doesn't have the tech for? Quite simply it can't. Even if it's twice as powerful as an Orion (which I laugh at) it would still take several salvos to be able to neutralize a Ravana, assuming everything impacts for maximal damage. That's close to 4 minutes of sustained fire from 4 LReds. Even the Colossus would take a beating in that timeframe. And, the Shivan Destroyer would surely be continually launching wave upon wave of bombers that are only going to damage the battleship that much faster with it's less-than-adequate fighter support.
I'm not pretending a Hecate could stand up to a Ravana any better, but it certainly wouldn't be any worse either. I'll remind you that the only ships that can destroy anything Corvette and above on the opening volley are the Ravana (in the Great Hunt) and the Sathanas. Typically, if not aided by a self-destruct SEXP, the Ravana couldn't even do it. Yet you seem to believe that your battleship could, even when equipped with inferior Terran technology.
Flawed logic. :D You have never been ina debate group, now have you?
You can't prove to me that it's impossible to hack out the fighterbay and put gunz and reactors. The opposite should allso hold true for me, but knowing that - how can you even claim that I'm "going against canon" and "making impossible thing" when you yourself now now admit that there's no evidence to support either view?
It's up to the side that wans't to forbid or disprove something (that would be you) to prove the other one is wrong, not vice-versa.
Your arrogance here is insulting Trashman. If you knew anything about debate you'd know that this is hardly always the case. If you're trying to argue for something new then the burden of proof falls squarely on your shoulders, not those saying it does not fit and especially not when your main arguments thus far have consisted of a) made up tech, b) your assertions, and c) wet navy analogies that do not even hold up in modern-day warfare. Honestly.
You're the one not playing fair. A DD with the best tech would be several times as expensive as the best BB you could build.
As I said - fighters are included in a BB's price (and carirers ar the most expensive ships in the world mind you).
the onyl way to disprove that is to acknowledge that we have no idea how mush certain things cost in FS2 and if you do that all of your cost arguments go down the drain :D
Not a wet navy. Not a wet navy. Not a wet navy. Need I go on? Freespace != WWII, Freespace != modern day.
And again, I cannot believe that you somehow think you are "winning" this argument. How can you possibly justify a statement that unilaterally states that a top-of-the-line destroyer would be somehow both less effective in combat and substantially more expensive than a battleship, when the only difference between the two are things that could potentially go the other way. We don't know how the cost of 100 fighters compares with the fusion reactors that power FS capital ships one way or the other, but the cost of the things that remain the same wildly escillates in the case of a battleship, especially one as elaborate as the one you've concoted.
Not of much use if hte GTVA did a smart thing and blockaded the node with more than just empty air.
Hell, position half your fleet arund the node and NOTHING will get trough (especially if you stand by the assumption that ships must exit the node one by one)
Sathanas.
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You can't disprove that giant pink wildebeest didn't blow up Capella. Does that mean I can also claim that giant pink wildebeest are feasible in the FS2 universe too? If you're only ever going to go on what was seen in the game you might as well give up right now. What you have to do is infer based on what was seen in the game. That doesn't mean making **** up but it does mean that you point to reasons based on the FS2 universe.
Well, I would never go into such extreems... Of course it can nnot be anything. It has to be at least remotely belivable and must have any firm and direct canon proof that it can't be done.
BB's are remotely belivable. Hell, we seen them in practicly every major space opera and Scfi-fi. The fact that you think they are impossible and useless is irrelevant, as for every person you find that thinks like you I'll find two that think like me..
Actually no. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. And the claim that you can pack more weaponary into a ship 1/3 the size of the Colossus is an extrodinary claim. If you want to go with your argument that the side who wants to say something is impossible must disprove something you then have to prove that giant pink wildebeest didn't blow up Capella or accept is as possible within the FS2 universe.
Emphasis on the extraordianary... there's nothing extraordinary about a BB..And I for one have never claimed it packs more weapon than a Collie..
I've never said that a BB is always more expensive than a destroyer. I've said that your BB is more expensive than a normal destroyer because you are using the highest quality versions of everything. That's always going to cost you more. If you're going to say that the GTVA has money to burn making new ship classes for you then I'm going to say it too. After all if you're acknowledging that the cost of both ships is verging on the ridiculous, surely you must also acknowledge that the GTVA wouldn't build destroyers or battleships with the best of everything on board but would instead build a more cost effective version of the ship?
And since oyu have 0 proof of your aleged higher cost that argument is worthless.
How the hell do you nkow that a BB by my specs (or someone elses) would cost more than a DD? You have no idea what tech the DD uses, exactly how much a specific tech cost or for that matter just how expensive it is to mantain a fighter.
and are we talking about long term or short term cost?
Since carriers require more money to operate on a permanent basis - more crew to pay, more supplies and training of fighter pilots is probably expensive too (and I guess theri pay is greater than that of a ordinary crewmember)
Your cost equation is starting to look might different now, does it? ;D
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Since carriers require more money to operate on a permanent basis - more crew to pay
We've seen numerous times from both cited Freespace 2 crew figures and comparisons of modern day naval vessel crews that particular statement is complete and utter bollocks. Sobek 6,000 & Hecate/Orion 10,000.
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On top of it being complete and utter bollocks it's exactly the kind of 0 proof argument he's castigating me for making! :rolleyes:
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Well, I would never go into such extreems... Of course it can nnot be anything. It has to be at least remotely belivable and must have any firm and direct canon proof that it can't be done.
BB's are remotely belivable. Hell, we seen them in practicly every major space opera and Scfi-fi. The fact that you think they are impossible and useless is irrelevant, as for every person you find that thinks like you I'll find two that think like me..
You're resorting to "more people support my point of view" (not true, look at this thread), "it's in every other sci-fi", (not true, it's not in Star Wars, Star Trek, Wing Commander, Battlestar Galactica, et al either... in fact, in coming up with a sci-fi environment that does contain battleships, I'm effectively drawing a blank. Battleship Yamoto, I guess, but that doesn't really count). I'll even go so far to say that they exist in Freespace, but that they are simply called "Destroyers" and you are just arguing over a name.
Emphasis on the extraordianary... there's nothing extraordinary about a BB..And I for one have never claimed it packs more weapon than a Collie..
Oh no you don't. You did, when you said it packed 13 heavy anti-capital weapons. The Colossus had 12. You may not have said "and the battleship will have more weapons than the Colossus!!!111oneoneone" but you sure as hell implied it.
And since oyu have 0 proof of your aleged higher cost that argument is worthless.
How the hell do you nkow that a BB by my specs (or someone elses) would cost more than a DD? You have no idea what tech the DD uses, exactly how much a specific tech cost or for that matter just how expensive it is to mantain a fighter.
and are we talking about long term or short term cost?
Since carriers require more money to operate on a permanent basis - more crew to pay, more supplies and training of fighter pilots is probably expensive too (and I guess theri pay is greater than that of a ordinary crewmember)
Your cost equation is starting to look might different now, does it? ;D
As stated before, Freespace seems to put crew and maintenence numbers exceptionally higher on weapons and general ship systems than it does on the fighterbays. See Sobek->Hatshepsut. The "cost equation" has always included that.
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Well, I would never go into such extreems... Of course it can nnot be anything. It has to be at least remotely belivable and must have any firm and direct canon proof that it can't be done.
But you claimed it was a rule of debating. Are the rules of debating mutable to whatever Trashman wishes them to be? Or is it simply that you don't have the faintest clue what the rules of debating are and you just invented them on the spot to try to claim a victory?
BB's are remotely belivable. Hell, we seen them in practicly every major space opera and Scfi-fi. The fact that you think they are impossible and useless is irrelevant, as for every person you find that thinks like you I'll find two that think like me..
Have you failed to notice that no one is saying that a BB isn't possible? We are saying that a BB is impractical. That is a completely different matter requiring a much smaller burden of proof. Furthermore you claim that you can find two people that think like you for every one who agrees with me. You're not finding them on this thread though are you? Seems like while the majority may believe that a BB is possible the vast majority don't seem to believe that your vision of a destroyer is possible/practical.
Lastly no one gives a flying **** what other sci-fi universes do. All that matters is whether they are practical in the FS2 universe.
Emphasis on the extraordianary... there's nothing extraordinary about a BB. .And I for one have never claimed it packs more weapon than a Collie
Are you now categorically stating that you never gave the ship more turrets than the Colossus has?
And since oyu have 0 proof of your aleged higher cost that argument is worthless.
But so is your argument that you can fit extra reactors in the space you'd gain from gutting the fighterbay. How much space does armour take up? Reactors? Heat sinks?
I've provided canon proof for every single one of my inferences. You've pointed at other sci-fi shows and said that just cause they have BBs so can you. I've tried to use reasoned arguments from within the FS2 universe. You've repeatedly used wet-navy comparisons that mean nothing.
How the hell do you nkow that a BB by my specs (or someone elses) would cost more than a DD? You have no idea what tech the DD uses, exactly how much a specific tech cost or for that matter just how expensive it is to mantain a fighter.
As has been repeatedly pointed out to you the cost of fighters is a lot less than you claimm because your BB is incapable of defending itself fully without relying on fighter cover from other ships. The cost of that fighter cover must also be taken into account as part of the construction and running expense of a BB. You can't pull those fighters out of thin air when you need extra fighters to cover your BB and return them back when you have to explain how much a BB costs.
and are we talking about long term or short term cost?
Both. I'd say the best argument is the cost over the entire lifespan of the BB though.
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I know this is heated, it's a strong opinion for everyone, but let's not try and let it slip into a row ;)
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Hey Karajorma do the math with me oki: 6000:3=2000 that is 2000 metters how the hell did you came up with this figure when this BB is suposed to be 3.5-4km long! :rolleyes: You know 1/3rd out of the C is about 2 km. Now asuming that mi logic is not flawed does that equal the 3.5-4km long BB??
This ship is almost 2/3rds the size of the C which had 1.000.000 hp and you are arguing against it having 250.000 hp?? :wtf: :rolleyes: Where is the logic behind all of those asumptions that this ship would need god knows how much armour and what kind and other **** like that! I mean the Hades had like what 400.000 or was it 600.000 i cant remember exactli ! So dont give me this whole arguement of its hp because it is flawed. To be on the safe side this thing could have a 500.000 hp and would still be more then reasonable for such a ship. Remember the big C is only 2-2.5 km longer and it has twice the hp.
Also since the big C has like 6Bgreens and 7slashers and an astounding array of other turrets like AAAf beams flack etc. then this ship the BB should have at least 4 Bgreens and 3 or 4 slashers or you could take away the slashers and replace them with 2 LRGreens! this would give the BB even more heavy firepower!
And would still be within the power requirements of such a large ship.
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Hey Karajorma do the math with me oki: 6000:3=2000 that is 2000 metters how the hell did you came up with this figure when this BB is suposed to be 3.5-4km long! :rolleyes: You know 1/3rd out of the C is about 2 km. Now asuming that mi logic is not flawed does that equal the 3.5-4km long BB??
This ship is almost 2/3rds the size of the C which had 1.000.000 hp and you are arguing against it having 250.000 hp?? :wtf: :rolleyes: Where is the logic behind all of those asumptions that this ship would need god knows how much armour and what kind and other **** like that! I mean the Hades had like what 400.000 or was it 600.000 i cant remember exactli ! So dont give me this whole arguement of its hp because it is flawed. To be on the safe side this thing could have a 500.000 hp and would still be more then reasonable for such a ship. Remember the big C is only 2-2.5 km longer and it has twice the hp.
Also since the big C has like 6Bgreens and 7slashers and an astounding array of other turrets like AAAf beams flack etc. then this ship the BB should have at least 4 Bgreens and 3 or 4 slashers or you could take away the slashers and replace them with 2 LRGreens! this would give the BB even more heavy firepower!
And would still be within the power requirements of such a large ship.
I'll try and understand this....
firstly, the Colossus was an incredibly expensive and complex ship, taking 20 years to develop and manufacture as well as god-knows-how-many natural resources. It also had at least 3 reactors and was reliant upon a fleet of gas miners. So it's not as if that power, etc, was without a big consequence. And, of course, the 1,000,000 hitpoints is as much a reflection of it's status as the 'supership' in the game as it is of it's relation to other mass-manufactured front-line ships; if we look at every other (combat) ship which can be fairly assumed to have relatively similar ages (Aeolus, Deimos, Hecate), we can see a hitpoint increase that is not in line with the ships actual size. Moreso, a simple comparison between the Hecate (100,000) and Colossus shows it does not increase in line with 'current' technology anyways.
(the Hades, similarly, was build with Shivan technology that is either already incorporated into fleet ships, or infeasible for use; again, it's an exceptional ship, and about as much use as justification as the Lucifers' hull strength; in fact, I believe it's described as having Shivan defensive technology, which IMO could refer to a sheath-shield system)
So the only example supporting your idea of a 250,000 hitpoint battleship is (in all likelihood) the most expensive project in the GTVAs' history, and one which would probably never be replicated. So if you do make a battleship, you're not going to have many because of that price; 2 or 3 perhaps. And those battleships aren't good value at that - the Colossus had a ****load of fighters and bombers as well as beam cannon, so it could still cover at least the operational/support range of a destroyer. But a BS doesn't; in order to actually cover a fleet, you need a destroyer. So now the BS is an 'add-on' ship to a fleet, not a head - it can't replace a destroyer, just support one. That again reduces how valuable it is, given the support role in particular is better suited to a distributed and mobile corvette group ala the Falklands taskforce.
Now, if you want to apply the rather disproportionately strong armour from the Colossus, Hades or - what the hell - Lucifer to a new BS class, then you can also apply it to the destroyer that could/would be developed at the same time, at which point you'd see the same non-linear relationship between the hitpoints of the two.
Now, the length of the BB was stated by Trashman way back, I believe, as approximating 2-3km. Anything larger than that, in any case, and we're looking at the similar cost issues as for building another Colossus; but again for a ship with a far reduced projection-of-power range to even a destroyer, and reliant upon said destroyer for much of its operations (anything requiring defense against an attack of over 20 bombers/fighters). TM was arguing against his spec resulting in such a large 3-4km vessel, I believe, because he realises that'd be a phenomenal waste of resources and time for a close-range ship. You see, no-one has argued it's impossible (except TMs Orion but with the weapons & armour of a Colossus, crew of a Fenris, and speed of a Deimos all in a slim destroyer sized frame concept), but that it'd be a horrible waste of time, money and resources that would have crippling flaws in a system-wide tactical basis and be incredibly vulnerable without destroyer-based fighter support.
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Also since the big C has like 6Bgreens and 7slashers and an astounding array of other turrets like AAAf beams flack etc. then this ship the BB should have at least 4 Bgreens and 3 or 4 slashers or you could take away the slashers and replace them with 2 LRGreens! this would give the BB even more heavy firepower!
It certainly could have that kind of firepower. And given about half the firepower, it would probably only take about half the time to build too... ie. 10 years. I trust you can see the problem with this scenario.
By the way, everyone (myself included, actually, I'm not innocent of it) needs to stop talking about length. Length is irrelevant for a spaceship, what matters is volume. In this area, an Orion is probably around 4-5x a Deimos (The Deimos is a pretty sleek design compared to the blocky Orion) and the Collossus about 4-5x an Orion in turn (Mainly due to it's massive vertical protrusion and considerable width compared to the Orion). Given the combat capabilities of these 3 ships, this fits rather well and is fairly linear, whereas using just length it makes a lot less sense.
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Hey Karajorma do the math with me oki: 6000:3=2000 that is 2000 metters how the hell did you came up with this figure when this BB is suposed to be 3.5-4km long! :rolleyes: You know 1/3rd out of the C is about 2 km. Now asuming that mi logic is not flawed does that equal the 3.5-4km long BB??
You aren't god of the universe. You may be the OP but that does not mean that all discussions are directed at you. I suggest you actually try remembering that next time.
Trashman has explictly stated that his BB design is 2km long. I was talking to him. That I actually quoted his post should have been a subtle clue. That I refered to him directly by saying you should have been another.
This ship is almost 2/3rds the size of the C which had 1.000.000 hp and you are arguing against it having 250.000 hp?? :wtf: :rolleyes:
:wtf: When have explictly argued against the number of hitpoints your BB can have? You've gone off on some rambling attack against my comments because you've failed to grasp that I was talking to someone else. I wouldn't mind but this isn't the first time you've done that on this thread. You've consistantly failed to grasp the fact that this thread is no longer just about your ridiculously overpowered ships despite the fact that I have said that to you already.
From now on assume that when I don't quote your posts I'm not talking to you.
Also since the big C has like 6Bgreens and 7slashers and an astounding array of other turrets like AAAf beams flack etc. then this ship the BB should have at least 4 Bgreens and 3 or 4 slashers or you could take away the slashers and replace them with 2 LRGreens! this would give the BB even more heavy firepower!
And would still be within the power requirements of such a large ship.
I've already explained several times that unlike Trashman's ships I believe yours are closer to what the GTVA could make. However there is a difference between what they could make and what they would make that appears to be completely lost on you.
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Also since the big C has like 6Bgreens and 7slashers and an astounding array of other turrets like AAAf beams flack etc. then this ship the BB should have at least 4 Bgreens and 3 or 4 slashers or you could take away the slashers and replace them with 2 LRGreens! this would give the BB even more heavy firepower!
It certainly could have that kind of firepower. And given about half the firepower, it would probably only take about half the time to build too... ie. 10 years. I trust you can see the problem with this scenario.
By the way, everyone (myself included, actually, I'm not innocent of it) needs to stop talking about length. Length is irrelevant for a spaceship, what matters is volume. In this area, an Orion is probably around 4-5x a Deimos (The Deimos is a pretty sleek design compared to the blocky Orion) and the Collossus about 4-5x an Orion in turn (Mainly due to it's massive vertical protrusion and considerable width compared to the Orion). Given the combat capabilities of these 3 ships, this fits rather well and is fairly linear, whereas using just length it makes a lot less sense.
That's a fair point, except it's an utter pain in the tits to work out the actual mass of a ship when the wiki only gives the length :D. We can't even use the bounding box sizes, either, because ships aren't...er.. boxes. So IMO without a readily available 'displacement' type figure we simply don't have a better method to convey relative sizes.
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Hey Karajorma you know that the second arguement and even the third were general arguements right?? They were in no way directed at you, you know that dont you?? :rolleyes:
Also I should be more carefull as to point out who i'm talking to. But please do not asume just because i started a a post with you in the begining, that the whole post is about or aginst you!
Also TMan give it a rest! You CAN'T have a ship that is 2 km long has the crew of a cruiser the speed of a corvette and the firepower of the C ! It is ridiculous. Even I realised that! Do not think that this means that I wont still suport the idea of a BB, hell in fact some of the post that say it wouldn't be done hev just made me more determined to prove that it should and it would!
Also as to answer the 10 year construction time:-No way in hell! This ship would take 3 or 4 years to complete! Wana know why??? Because the blasted C would take about 10 years! No more trials and errors no more designing and redesgning etc etc. The first ship alwais takes the longest and the more you build the shorter the time to theyr construction gets. This is by no means to say that you could build a C in the time it takes to build a destroyer hell no way...but you can reduce its costs and building time by almost 40% by the time you want to build the second ship of its class.
Also why should such a ship be so expensive (BB) I mean I know that it would be expensive but that doesnt mean it would be that expensive. Remember that much of the tech. already exists. also you have the experience from the C in terms of ship building and design features of a large warship (larger then a destroyer) ! Also keep in mind the amount of new tech that we see is beeing implemented in the new wepons for fighters new engines new armours new ship designs some of wich are quite awesome. So the tech already exists all you have to do is use it!
Take a look at the Erynyes(sp?) and the Hercules mk.II I mean those things are both heavy fighters but the first I fidn it to be more powerfull then the second and also faster if i'm not mistaken! While at the same time is more heavely armoured!
Mi point exactly would be that while I admit that some tech. probably would need to be invented most of it is available!
Also I dont think that a ship wich can stand toe-to-toe with a shivan destroyer would be ignored. Sure it cant launch masive bommber attack at the blasted thing but then again just replace its 25 interceptors with lets say Erinyes(sp?) and you have a verey deadly combination. both for taking down enemy warships and for defending against enemy bommber runs. Just sit back and let the trebs. do the work. Or you could have like 15 interceptors and 10 Ares. The combinations are limitles almost to what this ship would carry. Also I believe that 25 fighters can keep the enemy bommbers at bay long enough for the Ravana to turn into space dust at the hands of the BB then all they have to do is exit the area.
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A sidenote:
Most of the ships have been defined as having density of 1 and have mass defined in the pof file... With this we could get quite good estimates of the actual hull volume directly from the mass...
So according to these lines, volumes as defined in pofs from sparky_fs2.vp in cubic meters:
Aeolus = 27235
Levi/Fen = 35611
Deimos = 240687
Orion = 1646203
Hecate = 2302597
Colossus = 9539406
Perhaps these should be added to wiki...
EDIT: That is if the mass is just not the 'bounding box' mass...
EDIT2: Though i might be wrong too... Removed some stuff i noted to be wrong...
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Hey Karajorma you know that the second arguement and even the third were general arguements right?? They were in no way directed at you, you know that dont you?? :rolleyes:
Also I should be more carefull as to point out who i'm talking to. But please do not asume just because i started a a post with you in the begining, that the whole post is about or aginst you!
Technically, if you're having a go at the basis of someone elses arguement on the basis of something you just made up, it's only fair they reply.
Also TMan give it a rest! You CAN'T have a ship that is 2 km long has the crew of a cruiser the speed of a corvette and the firepower of the C ! It is ridiculous. Even I realised that! Do not think that this means that I wont still suport the idea of a BB, hell in fact some of the post that say it wouldn't be done hev just made me more determined to prove that it should and it would!
Also as to answer the 10 year construction time:-No way in hell! This ship would take 3 or 4 years to complete! Wana know why??? Because the blasted C would take about 10 years! No more trials and errors no more designing and redesgning etc etc. The first ship alwais takes the longest and the more you build the shorter the time to theyr construction gets. This is by no means to say that you could build a C in the time it takes to build a destroyer hell no way...but you can reduce its costs and building time by almost 40% by the time you want to build the second ship of its class.
Even if the picked-out-of-the air value of 40% construction time (almost certainly wrong - this is a ship the size of a city, with no indications the design isn't using existing technology to reduce development time), you wouldn't have a constant build-time decrease for every ship thereafter. Not to mention; for a new class, you;d probably need drydock facilities to build it. Even if you just slap together Ganymedes as for the big C (based on the cutscene), you only have a limited number of facilities; a reduced number given that your 3-4 km white elephant is using maybe 4/3 or more of the resources of a destroyer, and for an equally longer length of time. And this thing has bugger all range as a consquence of its short-range design, so you're sacrificing probably the coverage of the 2 destroyers(+) that could be built instead for a ship that has an effective force range of, what, 4-5km max? How is that an efficient use of resources?
Also why should such a ship be so expensive (BB) I mean I know that it would be expensive but that doesnt mean it would be that expensive. Remember that much of the tech. already exists. also you have the experience from the C in terms of ship building and design features of a large warship (larger then a destroyer) ! Also keep in mind the amount of new tech that we see is beeing implemented in the new wepons for fighters new engines new armours new ship designs some of wich are quite awesome. So the tech already exists all you have to do is use it!
Ah, classic big-better syndrome. Except, again, we have numerous examples from FS1 and 2 showing a linear progression of power is not feasible (at least not for any sort of mass-manufactured ship), so you're not going to realistically see the straight-line increase of armour and weaponry as you seem to expect.
If you make this from existing tech, fine, but you're creating a massively expensive yet short ranged vessel that is a magnet for enemy bombers. And one quite probably (as the Colossus is/was) reliant upon a logistical chain it is unable to protect, owing to a lack of escort fighters.
And new fighters as justification for hypothesised tech...well, fighters are somewhat smaller than a 4km ship, aren't they? Hence, cheaper and quicker to prototype for.
Take a look at the Erynyes(sp?) and the Hercules mk.II I mean those things are both heavy fighters but the first I fidn it to be more powerfull then the second and also faster if i'm not mistaken! While at the same time is more heavely armoured!
The Erinyes has half the missile capacity of the Herc mkII and has reduced shields (part of the tradeoff for heavier armour, a speed increase and double the primary banks); it's also a much newer fighter. Plus it sort of makes sense within the context of the game to give the player improved fighters as they progress......
Mi point exactly would be that while I admit that some tech. probably would need to be invented most of it is available!
Also I dont think that a ship wich can stand toe-to-toe with a shivan destroyer would be ignored. Sure it cant launch masive bommber attack at the blasted thing but then again just replace its 25 interceptors with lets say Erinyes(sp?) and you have a verey deadly combination. both for taking down enemy warships and for defending against enemy bommber runs. Just sit back and let the trebs. do the work. Or you could have like 15 interceptors and 10 Ares. The combinations are limitles almost to what this ship would carry. Also I believe that 25 fighters can keep the enemy bommbers at bay long enough for the Ravana to turn into space dust at the hands of the BB then all they have to do is exit the area.
All the enemy needs to do is to lauch 25 fighters (or so) combined with their bomber force, then, and directly engage all escort fighters and leave the bombers to do their work. From long range, before any sort of close range engagement brings the destroyer in range of the BS' main guns.
Simple force projection; use your reach to take the fight to the enemy, and only go in for the kill once you have local superiority.
In fact.... exactly the same way the Sathanas was attacked. Fancy that.
Of course, it's rather simple logic that anything twice the size will have the advantage over the smaller, weaker ship anyways; it's about as useful as me saying 'the Colossus could destroy a BS, so we should build a fleet of Colossuses instead as we already know exactly how'. In fact, I propose a super-duper-destroyer class, that is 12 km long and has twice the armament of the Colossus including Kayser armed turrets and double the speed (as it's twice as big - ooh, and twice as fast for the same reason). We already know how to build the Colossus, so all we need to do is take the blueprints and multiply everything by two, so it'll only take 10 years to build. Whilst that is a long time, we'll know how to build it from thereafter, so by the tenth one it'll only take 27 minutes to complete the ship.
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Hey Karajorma you know that the second arguement and even the third were general arguements right?? They were in no way directed at you, you know that dont you?? :rolleyes:
Also I should be more carefull as to point out who i'm talking to. But please do not asume just because i started a a post with you in the begining, that the whole post is about or aginst you!
1) Your first paragraph absolutely was directed at me. It was incorrect for the reasons I stated.
2) Your second paragraph refered to "you" without ever giving any indication that any other "you" apart from me could be involved.
3) You may have noticed that I largely responded only to the posts that appeared to be directed at me.
So I didn't assume that the whole post was directed at me. I assumed that the sentences that either had my name in it or refered me were directed at me. There is no way to infer that what you said in either of those two sentences was directed at anyone else so don't act as though I deliberately misinterpreted your comments.
Also as to answer the 10 year construction time:-No way in hell! This ship would take 3 or 4 years to complete! Wana know why??? Because the blasted C would take about 10 years! No more trials and errors no more designing and redesgning etc etc. The first ship alwais takes the longest and the more you build the shorter the time to theyr construction gets. This is by no means to say that you could build a C in the time it takes to build a destroyer hell no way...but you can reduce its costs and building time by almost 40% by the time you want to build the second ship of its class.
But you aren't building a ship in the Colossus class. You're building another ship completely different from the Colossus class. The assumption is like saying that cause BMW know how to make cars they could build a three wheeled van with no development time. This ship is going to need new engines cause you can't just stick the Colossus engines on to it. There may be other parts you can scavenge from the Colossus but it might not be as much as you think. The Colossus had a lot of space for these parts. Your ship will have less. That could easily impact on the reusability of your components.
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Also I dont think that a ship wich can stand toe-to-toe with a shivan destroyer would be ignored. Sure it cant launch masive bommber attack at the blasted thing but then again just replace its 25 interceptors with lets say Erinyes(sp?) and you have a verey deadly combination. both for taking down enemy warships and for defending against enemy bommber runs. Just sit back and let the trebs. do the work. Or you could have like 15 interceptors and 10 Ares. The combinations are limitles almost to what this ship would carry. Also I believe that 25 fighters can keep the enemy bommbers at bay long enough for the Ravana to turn into space dust at the hands of the BB then all they have to do is exit the area.
Already answered this and so did StratComm. I think quoting him would be best since he seems better with the... words... thingys... :nervous:
The GTVA has no tech capable of besting a Shivan destroyer 1:1.
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Actualy I did not say that you could eventualy decrese the time of contruction of such a ship indefinite. All I say that by the time you get around to build a new warship of the same class you could decreasse its build time. This build time would only decrease so much till you reach a time period beyend you can not decrease it without sacrificing quality or cost efectiveness.
Also I ahev yet to see a single shivan warship that has run away from a close ranhe engagement. Actualy it is the prefered method as we see in the game since GTVA warships have far more formidable defences in terms of AAAF defences then the shivans would ever have. So this is the reason (or at least this what i believe to be the rason) why most GTVA warships were destroyed by other warships(shivan ones) ! And this is why the GTVA has scored more hits on shivan warships by bommber runs then by firepower directly from the warships beamcannons.
Or at least that is what I remember! I could be wrong though!
This ship would at least try an be a warship with wich you could implement a similar tactic to the sivans "close and personal" that is! Which I believe to be a solid tactic even with the incease in bommber/fighter reliability by the GTVA!
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Much of the arguement for a BS seems to be based around that it can win an unfair fight stacked in it's favour, ergo it must be better than anything else.
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The mainhalls are not indicitive of the entire fighterbay. Period. The FS1 Galatea mainhall contained a grand total of 1 fighter, and the Bastion had them strewn all across the deck as ships literally minutes seperated from operational duty, whether before or after. Neither of those shows the prep, maintenence, or storage areas for fighters, so to assume that they must be that big is a stretch at best.
Furthermore to make all the shelves bomber sized is stupid. There's no way a destroyer would ever carry just bombers, so at most 1/3 of the racks would need to be big enough to accomodate them. The rest could easily be much more densly packed, as though they may carry different types of fighters it will be fighters that occupy that space just the same.
I never said that the fihgterbays are exactly as as portrayed them. AS Isaid before, we all operate on a huge number of
assumption and assumed/imagined stuff. Regardless of the layout of the bay it housese 150 spacecraft so it HAS to be big, as it needs more then jsut room to stuff them like sardines. It needs areas for repair, it needs room between the craft so they can be moved and acessed easily and it needs room for spare parts for the ship, rooms to store the guzn and missiles, etc...
Exact size of it is a matter of specualtion, but it IS big.
I've got no idea what that's supposed to mean, but if you're trying to deflect comments on the Orion being very little fighterbay and very much warship then you're barking up the wrong tree.
What I'm saying is a observation 8not really related to this discussion) that volume and shape wise, the orion would make a far better carrier. Look at the Hecates shape and volume and think about it.
The problem is you're making up the specs, making up the tech, and justifying each with the other while completely ignoring any sense of economics.That's logically undefensible. Do I really need to spell that out more explicitly? And to boot, you're assuming that command didn't spec Destroyers as being the most powerful ships that could be build on their frame, which is fairly canonically untrue as well.
I'm not ignoring economics. It's you who are counting every immaginalbe and unimaginable penny to hold against a BB while at the same time totaly ignorin costs of a destroyer and it's fighters..
To try to drive home a point, todays carriers are not 2-km long space-faring behemoths bristeling with heavy energy weapons either. If you think a FS destroyer is cheap by any stretch of the imagination then you need to get your head examined. And I'm not even talking about the fighters, which as I've repeatedly said before the battleship concept does not save the GTVA from constructing or maintaining. Even if they aren't based on the ship, they will still be somewhere.
No, quite the opposite. And you're wrong with the second part. If you have destroyers you'll need more fighters so that the destroyer will carry them. Without DD's youd have fihgters stationed on planets and installations. With DD's you get the same nuimber + those on the DD as well.
Well then by your definition your Archangel has something like 20 engines, considerably more than the Hecate(8 or 10, depending on how you count). How is that any better?!? And by Freespace tech, yes, all those glows are tied to a single engine if there is only one engine subsystem. That's how Freespace works.
Nope. The bigger the glow the bigger the engine behind it. If you'd examine tha archy you'd notice it has 3 (or 5, depending on what version you're looking at) engine clusters - 2 with 2 glows and 1 with 5. And each of those glows is smalelr than hte main engine on the Aquitane, thus the engine behing it is allso smaller. Overall, when packed together it caomes about hte same in volume...
and you should learn to make the difference between the engines (things that produce thrust) and the engine control (which controls and monitors engines), since engine subsystems are exaclty that....or at least I think they are. It makes no sense otherwise for some FS ships.. - IE you shoot at the fron of hte ship to disable the rear engine????
The GTVA has no tech capable of besting a Shivan destroyer 1:1. How in hell would the Battleship be able to do something that the GTVA doesn't have the tech for? Quite simply it can't. Even if it's twice as powerful as an Orion (which I laugh at) it would still take several salvos to be able to neutralize a Ravana, assuming everything impacts for maximal damage. That's close to 4 minutes of sustained fire from 4 LReds. Even the Colossus would take a beating in that timeframe. And, the Shivan Destroyer would surely be continually launching wave upon wave of bombers that are only going to damage the battleship that much faster with it's less-than-adequate fighter support.
Of course it has. An Orion can take out a Ravana (sometimes). If you have something with more armor and firepower, then you can do it even faster. It takes an Orion 3 salvos MAX to destroy a Ravana..so not nearly 4 minutes..
And if youre following canon, then destroyers launch fighters very slowly. I never seen them launch more then 4-8 fighters/bombers within a minute (unless they are destroyed)
Your arrogance here is insulting Trashman. If you knew anything about debate you'd know that this is hardly always the case. If you're trying to argue for something new then the burden of proof falls squarely on your shoulders, not those saying it does not fit and especially not when your main arguments thus far have consisted of a) made up tech, b) your assertions, and c) wet navy analogies that do not even hold up in modern-day warfare. Honestly.
I don't have to prove anything. I don't FEEL I need to prove anything either, as I don't see anything wrng with a BB concept. jsut like this discussion...gives me something to do.
In this scenario there can be no victor. No conclusive and final evidence can be made by either side becouse we simpšly lact enough info. tehre are too many unknowns in the FS universe. You can find 1000 people that will be against it and I can find 1000 that can be for it - it all boil down to preferences in the end.
And your claim of my main argument can be jsut as easily mirriod to you - putting words in my mouth, assertions and dismissal of things that do hold water.
Not a wet navy. Not a wet navy. Not a wet navy. Need I go on? Freespace != WWII, Freespace != modern day.
Some analogies and comparisons do stand, no matter how much you dislike it. Not all, not allways, but some do.
And again, I cannot believe that you somehow think you are "winning" this argument. How can you possibly justify a statement that unilaterally states that a top-of-the-line destroyer would be somehow both less effective in combat and substantially more expensive than a battleship, when the only difference between the two are things that could potentially go the other way. We don't know how the cost of 100 fighters compares with the fusion reactors that power FS capital ships one way or the other, but the cost of the things that remain the same wildly escillates in the case of a battleship, especially one as elaborate as the one you've concoted.
given that fighters posses their own reactors and theri own jump drives, and that there's 120 of them, I would say they cost more. mantainance and crew included. And it's nothing elaborate or uber in it - you guys have a tendency for overblowing thins.
Sathanas.
Would get beam-raped in it's behind by 20 destroyers the second it clears the node.
We've seen numerous times from both cited Freespace 2 crew figures and comparisons of modern day naval vessel crews that particular statement is complete and utter bollocks. Sobek 6,000 & Hecate/Orion 10,000.
Which are jsut reference numbers - nothing more, nothing less. Jsut coause A sobek has X poersonell doesn't mean that a ship it's size MUST have X too. Oh no, it doesn! The sky wil lfall down!
Honestly, sometimes you're holding to some canon tidbits like a drunk man holds a fence. Tidbits are just that - tidbits. they can't give you a clear overall picture. There's nothing in the FS universe preventing any ship I make ot have a differnt crew number...as long as it isn't grosly different.
b.t.w. - aside from aircraft cost, you allso have mantainance cost, weapons cost, supply cost, fuel cost, and you have to pay the flight crew and the pilots (and pilots prolly have a nice big paycheck). So the running cost will surely be higher.
Oh no you don't. You did, when you said it packed 13 heavy anti-capital weapons. The Colossus had 12. You may not have said "and the battleship will have more weapons than the Colossus!!!111oneoneone" but you sure as hell implied it.
Use your grey calls! Number of weapons is irrelevant - it's their power that's importnat. I did say 13 anti-cap weapons, but that doesn't mean they are BGreens of LRBGreens! Actually most of it's weaponry would be weaker that what you would expect, but their number and FOV more than makes up for that.
But so is your argument that you can fit extra reactors in the space you'd gain from gutting the fighterbay. How much space does armour take up? Reactors? Heat sinks?
I've provided canon proof for every single one of my inferences. You've pointed at other sci-fi shows and said that just cause they have BBs so can you. I've tried to use reasoned arguments from within the FS2 universe. You've repeatedly used wet-navy comparisons that mean nothing.
No you havn't. You havn't provided any canon proof of the size and power of reacotrs nor the size and power of weapons, nor anything similar. When will you understand that you can't for one simple reason:
When [V] made theri warships they really didn't think about logical design - the bulkheads, placings of internals devices, power requirements and weapons - those thing really weren't on the top of their mind - so we have ships who's construction really isn't logical, but we TRY to make it logical by deducing and assuming a whole lot of things based on a few numbers.
So you can't really look at me in they eyes and claim that BB's can't be in and citing things that you DEDUCED as 100% accurate.
Hell, Fs2 is a game. If you want canon I can cite a canon fact that we never seen a destroser launch more than 4 wings. According to that, a BB would rape it every day of hte week, since it will ever launch more than 4 wings!
Faulty logic? perhaps, but this whole thread is full of it anways...
As has been repeatedly pointed out to you the cost of fighters is a lot less than you claimm because your BB is incapable of defending itself fully without relying on fighter cover from other ships. The cost of that fighter cover must also be taken into account as part of the construction and running expense of a BB. You can't pull those fighters out of thin air when you need extra fighters to cover your BB and return them back when you have to explain how much a BB costs.
Count - the BB has 24 fighters MAX.. a Destroyer has 120-150. And like I said before you DON'T know how much a FS2 fighter costs. You ASSUME.
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Le'ts anyalyze this once again. FS2 is a game. Game universe, game rules.. logic is thrown out of the window.
So basicly the BB just has to be balanced withing the game universe. Given that the fighters are so totaly uber as you all claim, that menas that to balance this class it MUST have more armor and firepower..probabaly even mroe speed.
now someone said that he's not against a BB concept in FS, but again my "uber-battleship-of-doom" tm. And that it was said that even my "uber-BB" would be pawned by this and that and that is practicly uselsss.
So if my uber BB is useless and pawned by everything, just how much more useless would be a weaker and less uber BB that you claim not ot be against?
And lastly, before yozu start dismising a BB as useless, I want you to justify the cruiser class.
Waht the hell can a cruiser do that wing of heavy fighters(trebs, maxims, harpoons, prommies) can't do better?
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Which are jsut reference numbers - nothing more, nothing less. Jsut coause A sobek has X poersonell doesn't mean that a ship it's size MUST have X too. Oh no, it doesn! The sky wil lfall down!
Honestly, sometimes you're holding to some canon tidbits like a drunk man holds a fence. Tidbits are just that - tidbits. they can't give you a clear overall picture.
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So that's why you ignore the blatantly obvious and common sense facts from the game in order to invent your own made up rubbish? In other words, if we're shown X, then Y must automatically true because it's not shown?
I love how you second guess the people that made the game, decide they must have built ships 'illogically', and then decide you must be correct because you...er...sorry....why are you correct, again? Because you can make stuff up based on a war 60 years ago?
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About the siphs HP - have you ever toguh of hte reason WHY ships have specific HPs'..
Ok, what if hte Deimos has 80000 (or was it 70000) HP becouse it's heavily armored.. and normally, a ship with lighter armor of that size would have...let's say 50000 hp?
And that the destroyers have so little HP compared to a corvete becosue they aren't heavily armored?
Makes sense, doesn't it? ;7
Now, the prospect of a 250 000 HP BB looks more real, doesn't it?
You see, the point I'm trying to make is that we have numbers, but that you can explain/decypher them on differnt ways. That's why the number itself has only low referential value when deciding what is or is not in the realm of canon.
I've already explained several times that unlike Trashman's ships I believe yours are closer to what the GTVA could make. However there is a difference between what they could make and what they would make that appears to be completely lost on you.
And you of course, being close to al lthe members of hte GTVA council KNOW EXACTLY what tehy would or would not do... :rolleyes:
Also TMan give it a rest! You CAN'T have a ship that is 2 km long has the crew of a cruiser the speed of a corvette and the firepower of the C ! It is ridiculous. Even I realised that! Do not think that this means that I wont still suport the idea of a BB, hell in fact some of the post that say it wouldn't be done hev just made me more determined to prove that it should and it would!
Firepower of a C? Speed of a corvette? Crew of a cruiser? When the hell did I say that? :wtf:
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Errr excuse me but why is putting a BB to go head to head with a Ravana an unfair fight??? I ahve yet to see the logic of this arguement. And how the hell does a DD launch all of its fighter/bommber/interceptors complimnet in uder 1 minute?? I have yet to see it launch enithing more the a wing or 2 in this time. Sure you will say that the DD has fighter escort which is permanantely out there but then again that fighter cover consists of nothing more then one or 2 wigs of fighters or interceptors. To simply asume that a DD can swarm a BB the instant it exits subspace, with its fighters, is a lot of rubbish. That would mean that the DD would not only know wich class of warship is coming at it but from where and at what time. Hey this isnt a plane schedjuale that you can just chech and say..hey a BB would come to kick by but all over this sistem at 12:00:30 sec on the x day! Come on! These arguemnt are totaly subjective!
I expected much more from some of the people over here!
The fact is that since the big C failed in the end at its role (to be the uber ship that delivers the GTVA from the shivans) everyone keeps comapring every new big shi ideea to that one. Things are not that simple!
You can argue all you want that it would be an unfair fight to put a BB against a Ravana but then again so could I argue that the shivan beams are unfair and that actualy the GTVA had it not been for the shivan beams could of won the war! And hell i would go so far as to say that it SHOULD of won the war since it was an unfair fight from the begining!
Come on you guis I rememberd a comunity with a lot more imagination and a lot more opened to new ideas! What happened. Sure maibe just maibe this design is flawed but then again I don see anyone sugestin anithing else!
Oh and TM while i do agree with you on some of the arguements you have for a BB some of them are completely out there..if you get mi point! You can not invent over night everithing this ship needs.
Oh and to reply to a post wich said that I wouldnt be able to get much tech from existing designs I propose an exercise:
-The engines would have to be of new design I admit
-the armour tech would be taken from the Deimos which as far as I remember is the latest in terms of armour tech and protection
-the beams..welll........need I say more?
-the same goes for AAAF protection
-the fighters could be taken from everywhere depending on which tipe you want or you could design a new tipe just for the BB which would be more versatyle or you could just pack this thing with 24+ TerranMaras an be done with it!
-engine subsitems reactors and stuff like that could be modified or designed using the big C's sistems as a template!
- shipyards that could actualy build this thing..well we do have the C shipyards dont we??? also who says that you can not build a ship like this in a destroyers shipyards sure with some modifications but its far better then to buil new ones just for this thing.
So you see much of the tech already exists all you have to do is put it toghether!
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About the siphs HP - have you ever toguh of hte reason WHY ships have specific HPs'..
Ok, what if hte Deimos has 80000 (or was it 70000) HP becouse it's heavily armored.. and normally, a ship with lighter armor of that size would have...let's say 50000 hp?
And that the destroyers have so little HP compared to a corvete becosue they aren't heavily armored?
Makes sense, doesn't it? ;7
Now, the prospect of a 250 000 HP BB looks more real, doesn't it?
Let me summarise what you've specified.
2.5 x the hitpoints of a Orion
8 main turrets, positioned on the top and below, 4 beam cannons on the sides, and another undefined anti-cap weapon below....and the rest is pretty much point-defense weaponry. Extreemly strong subsystems and main weapons. Ability to concetrate at least 60% of it's anti-cap firepower at any point in space.
2 small fighterbays with a squad of interceptors each.
As many turrets as the colossus, including what would appear to be more powerful beam weapons ('extremely strong main weapons' - which can destroy a destroyer within a few seconds). Magic heat sinks able to take more heat than the Colossus main guns could vs the Sath, and yet which do not have any negative impact on the internal structure or environment of the ship. These heat sinks and also extra reactors are apparently all located 'where the fighterbay would be', which means you have a minor, teensy little problem of shifting heat hot enough to melt a starships' hull all the way down there.
20 fighters on a horizontally spanning dual-fighterbay. 2.5 times the armour with absolutely no consequences on the space requirements (we assume some form of magic ultra-dense armour, or even more magical placement of selective plating that somehow, no other designer has ever considered. Invented plasma turrets.
Additional reactors to power said weapons, somehow fitting in the assumed space savings for removing fighters, yet accounting for neither the need to shield/protect those reactors internally, introduce a new power grid, house the many crew for the new turrets (as evidenced by all vis-a-vis comparions of both modern naval vessels and stated freespace 2 crew figures), or handle the logistical issues of having those reactors (as seen with escorting supplies to the Colossus).
An ability to somehow only attack when a destroyer does not have any defensive forces around, at a pin-point distance, and yet somehow also manage to avoid any form of attack from roving patrols by jumping out. Capable of jumping in, destroying a capship, and jumping out before fighters can reach it. Immune from detection by enemy ambush forces, yet is able to track bombers back to their capships at will (who are remarkably willing to lead the enemy to them), if not track the capship itself (shame they never thought of that in attacking the Iceni/Repulse/every other FS enemy ship, eh?). Oh, and never, ever attacked in open space by forces taking advantage of its weaknesses in terms of lack of bomber defense (well, when it does it can just skip away merrily into subspace, as we see in every battle in FS2 when the outnumbered and damaged ship just jumps to safet....oh, wait).
Every major functional system housed deep within the core of the ship, yet absolutely no consequences to the destruction of the outer hull with reference to subsystems wiring up, for example, turrets. Able to sit and be pounded for ages at a blockade, by enemies who have positioned themselves just right in order to be hit by the BS' main guns (and in contradication to every blockade seen in FS2.... you'd think they wanted the battleship to win or something....waittamo!), and with a crew who really don't mind atall being sent in as a beam-sponge and have no objections to sleeping in the hallways or going without food when their quarters and mess hall is destroyed.
Absolutely no speed penalty whatsoever from all these added turrets and armour. Indeed, it actually goes faster!
Saving a large amount of space, of course, because the GTVA stores it's off-duty fighters in the most wasteful layout possible when they are not being prepped for deployment.
Using an amalgamation of technology from all the best ships; like Deimos reactor, Iceni armour, Orion/colossus weaponry, which no other ship uses or would be allowed to use (as a hypotetical competitor) because...er.......er.....help?
5 individual, autonomous engines (because you'd need 5 subsystems to justify that sort of scheme; hence autonomous), which have no impact on reactor or space requirements despite effectively duplicating the engines 'engineering subsytem' 5 times over.
Able to destroy a Ravana in 30-40 seconds without even coming under attack from the fighters/bombers of said ship, something which the best part of a GTVA battlegroup failed to achieve.
Several times cheaper than a destroyer of the same technological era, despite all that super-strong-but-light armour and loads of extra reactors. No reason why - apparently beam cannons come for free in cereal packets nowadays.
Able to increase range of weapons with absolutely no consequences. Just like when the Colossus overloaded it's beams and power grid trying to fire for too long.... ah.
And, on top of this, one of the primary justifications is the WW2 battleship, which has been rendered obsolete by all modern navies in favour of...shock, horror!....aicraft carriers and whose sole purpose in warfare is shore bombardment. Oh, and ignoring all those naval analogies about stuff like crew numbers for carriers, etc, where they contradict the magic battleship-o-doom.
Oh, and any contradictory Volition stated facts from the game are mere 'titbits', unless you can twist them to infer support for your little uber-ship, in which case they become the holy word of the god of ship design - as we see in the quoted bit at the top.
What else... oh, Volitions ship designs are all illogical and you could do it better. That was the 2nd last post, wasn't it?
Errr excuse me but why is putting a BB to go head to head with a Ravana an unfair fight??? I ahve yet to see the logic of this arguement.
i dunno. Perhaps it being twice the size and armament might have something to do with it.
And how the hell does a DD launch all of its fighter/bommber/interceptors complimnet in uder 1 minute?? I have yet to see it launch enithing more the a wing or 2 in this time. Sure you will say that the DD has fighter escort which is permanantely out there but then again that fighter cover consists of nothing more then one or 2 wigs of fighters or interceptors. To simply asume that a DD can swarm a BB the instant it exits subspace, with its fighters, is a lot of rubbish. That would mean that the DD would not only know wich class of warship is coming at it but from where and at what time. Hey this isnt a plane schedjuale that you can just chech and say..hey a BB would come to kick by but all over this sistem at 12:00:30 sec on the x day! Come on! These arguemnt are totaly subjective!
I expected much more from some of the people over here!
What? Pat.rol.Wi.ngs. Broken up for easy digestion.
The fact is that since the big C failed in the end at its role (to be the uber ship that delivers the GTVA from the shivans) everyone keeps comapring every new big shi ideea to that one. Things are not that simple!
You can argue all you want that it would be an unfair fight to put a BB against a Ravana but then again so could I argue that the shivan beams are unfair and that actualy the GTVA had it not been for the shivan beams could of won the war! And hell i would go so far as to say that it SHOULD of won the war since it was an unfair fight from the begining!
what the hell are you on about? The BB is bigger. Do you think putting a Colossus against the Ravana is any fairer andarguement of the relative merits of the destroyer and juggernaut?
Come on you guis I rememberd a comunity with a lot more imagination and a lot more opened to new ideas! What happened. Sure maibe just maibe this design is flawed but then again I don see anyone sugestin anithing else!
We're still busy pointing out how stupid this one is. Anyway, I did suggest something else. just double the Colossus' size and build a new one. After all, it's not like anyone is 'sugestin anithing else'.
Oh and TM while i do agree with you on some of the arguements you have for a BB some of them are completely out there..if you get mi point! You can not invent over night everithing this ship needs.
Oh and to reply to a post wich said that I wouldnt be able to get much tech from existing designs I propose an exercise:
-The engines would have to be of new design I admit
-the armour tech would be taken from the Deimos which as far as I remember is the latest in terms of armour tech and protection
-the beams..welll........need I say more?
-the same goes for AAAF protection
-the fighters could be taken from everywhere depending on which tipe you want or you could design a new tipe just for the BB which would be more versatyle or you could just pack this thing with 24+ TerranMaras an be done with it!
-engine subsitems reactors and stuff like that could be modified or designed using the big C's sistems as a template!
- shipyards that could actualy build this thing..well we do have the C shipyards dont we??? also who says that you can not build a ship like this in a destroyers shipyards sure with some modifications but its far better then to buil new ones just for this thing.
So you see much of the tech already exists all you have to do is put it toghether!
I wasn't aware Scrapyard Challenge built spacefaring destroyers.........
Give me a sec and I'll build a super-fighter with the nose of an F-15, the wings of a B-52, the cockpit of a Spitfire and the engines of an SR-71.
And don't get me started on the stupidity of '24 Terran maras'. What, are we carjacking Shivans now?
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:lol:
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What are you on about...?? Where did the big C's shypyard went too?? and since when is giving this thing 24 maras an absurd ideea ?? Surely the GTVA must have a lot more maras then just 2 or 3 wings I mean come on surely the GTVA has more of these things and if they dont I WILL BET they wil reverse enginier them and come up with an equivalent or something that is better. as far as I remember they they managed to improve the Mara!
We all know the GTVA is very skilled at reverse engeniering other tech!
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Which are jsut reference numbers - nothing more, nothing less. Jsut coause A sobek has X poersonell doesn't mean that a ship it's size MUST have X too. Oh no, it doesn! The sky wil lfall down!
It must have close to that number though must it not? If the Sobek requires 6000 personnel does it not seem silly if the Deimos runs using say 3000? What are the extra 3000 on the Sobek doing! Besides it was
a) You who brought up crew numbers
b) You who tried to justify that fact using wet navy figures even though you now claim that there is so much variance between ships that the crew numbers mean nothing.
No you havn't. You havn't provided any canon proof of the size and power of reacotrs nor the size and power of weapons, nor anything similar.
I've provided canon proof to back up my assertions. You do not. In many cases you contradict canon and in many cases yourself (see the crew number argument above for instance).
When will you understand that you can't for one simple reason:
When [V] made theri warships they really didn't think about logical design - the bulkheads, placings of internals devices, power requirements and weapons - those thing really weren't on the top of their mind - so we have ships who's construction really isn't logical, but we TRY to make it logical by deducing and assuming a whole lot of things based on a few numbers.
So you can't really look at me in they eyes and claim that BB's can't be in and citing things that you DEDUCED as 100% accurate.
If my deductions are incorrect then prove it. I've got an open mind and I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm wrong. In fact I've already admitted that AlphaOne has come up with one very good justification for the existance of the battleship class if not your version of it. I'm perfectly willing to believe that one might be built due to GTVA stupidity or it being some admirals pet project. I don't think it would last very long since it's a flawed concept but I'm perfectly happy to accept an argument that one could get built.
Besides it's not like I'm the only one deducing things. I've continually pointed that out to you. You've deduced that the BB is more powerful based on the assumption that if you strip out the fighterbay you can put more weapons in the space. That's an assumption based on very little (read no) canon evidence too so why the hell are you trying to say that you can claim something can happen based on your assumptions but I can't say it can not happen based on mine?
Hell, Fs2 is a game. If you want canon I can cite a canon fact that we never seen a destroser launch more than 4 wings. According to that, a BB would rape it every day of hte week, since it will ever launch more than 4 wings!
Faulty logic? perhaps, but this whole thread is full of it anways...
It's faulty because the game directly contradicts this in several places. Does the game directly contradict any of the evidence I'd pointed to in a similar fashion?
Count - the BB has 24 fighters MAX.. a Destroyer has 120-150. And like I said before you DON'T know how much a FS2 fighter costs. You ASSUME.
Faulty logic. Let me explain why. Lets take a best case senario. Lets say that a BB actually costs 1/3 what a destroyer costs. That you can build 3 BBs for the price of one destroyer. That's a ludicrously low figure but lets go with that for a bit and see where it takes us.
That gives the BB 72 fighters in total vs 150 bombers and fighters for the destroyer. The BBs lose again! Best case senario is that they find and wipe out the destroyer after it's launched all its fighters and sent them out to kill the BBs but the destroyer's fighters mop up their own fighters, park up and wipe out the BBs with maxims and trebs. That's a draw! And it relies on the BBs actually finding the destroyer (something they will find hard to do with so few ships for making reccies with).
In every single case you have stated that the BB doesn't act alone but you refuse to include the cost of the fighters that must come to its aid to defend it against situations like the one I just described. That's a false economy.
Le'ts anyalyze this once again. FS2 is a game. Game universe, game rules.. logic is thrown out of the window.
So basicly the BB just has to be balanced withing the game universe. Given that the fighters are so totaly uber as you all claim, that menas that to balance this class it MUST have more armor and firepower..probabaly even mroe speed.
No it doesn't. FS2 has always been about fighters and bombers killing much larger ships. It's actually you who want to change that dynamic with your BBs of death that can stand up to fighters and capships.
now someone said that he's not against a BB concept in FS, but again my "uber-battleship-of-doom" tm. And that it was said that even my "uber-BB" would be pawned by this and that and that is practicly uselsss.
So if my uber BB is useless and pawned by everything, just how much more useless would be a weaker and less uber BB that you claim not ot be against?
Not my argument so I don't particularly care what was said. I've said that AlphaOne's BB along with every other suggestion apart from yours is possible but impractical. Yours varies from impractical to impossible depending on how uber you're making it.
And lastly, before yozu start dismising a BB as useless, I want you to justify the cruiser class.
Waht the hell can a cruiser do that wing of heavy fighters(trebs, maxims, harpoons, prommies) can't do better?
The cruiser is basically useless for front line combat. That's why the GTVA stopped making them! That's why the Aeolus was cancelled in favour of the Deimos. The Deimos is small and cheap enough to be useful but isn't so small and cheap that it gets completely pwned by smaller craft.
When we see cruisers in combat they are generally being used for attacking poorly defended target with fighter back up. It's a case of since you have them you might as well use them but not building any more.
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What are you on about...?? Where did the big C's shypyard went too??
I don't know. Maybe the GTVA have to, y'know, built other ships? Although I'm sure building another overblown super-ship that will take years to complete and has bugger all fighter-projection capability is far more important than replenishing the decimated corvette and destroyer components of the fleet - why have ten Deimos when you can have a mini-Colossus?
Of course, god forbid that the Colossus shipyard might not actually be designed for building a smaller ship in its current configuration. In fact, why the hell would even they keep a perfectly good set of Ganymedes in that arrangement after the Colossus was built?
and since when is giving this thing 24 maras an absurd ideea ?? Surely the GTVA must have a lot more maras then just 2 or 3 wings I mean come on surely the GTVA has more of these things and if they dont I WILL BET they wil reverse enginier them and come up with an equivalent or something that is better. as far as I remember they they managed to improve the Mara!
We all know the GTVA is very skilled at reverse engeniering other tech!
Yes, because it's so easy to disable a Mara and there would never, ever be any risk of friendly fire. Nor have the Shivans ever destroyer their own ships to stop them falling into enemy hands.
Why, I bet they have thousands of them! And piles of Seraphim! Infact, maybe that's why the Shivans don't have any Shaitan left - the GTVA nicked them all! And let's not even consider the slight issue of.... can you guess?...... spare parts! Because, as we all know, just grab some combat debris, couple of dunts with the hammer, and it's a perfectly serviceable and not atall unreliable fusion reactor!
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My own argument against BB's is the simple question of resources. Until the Nebula was found, the GTVA were limited in materials, the C was a massive investment as far as resources were concerned, and after the War, they had lost yet another system to the Shivans.
I don't see them being politically ready to invest that kind of resource or manpower into the 'bigger is better' line of thinking for quite a while. If the C could not take down a single Sath without serious assistance, and the GTVA knows there are at least 80 of them, then why build ships that would suffer the same fate? If you want Shivan destroyers dead, stick to bombers ;)
That said, if the resources were available, I don't think the GTVA thinking would go in that direction anyway, too much to lose in one go, I think they would diversify. However, it's your campaign, make any damn ship you want for it, if it's a good campaign, no-one will complain, after all, look at Inferno :)
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Well to the end I see one MAJOR disadvantage of the BB and that is that it does not carry at least 100 spacecrafts!
Fine if you could fit that many spacecrafts in its hulls would take it all better? Posibly not because then again you could simply have a DD wich is far more cheaper and has a greater fighter capacity then the BB. Oki then i'l with this to but then agin what a destroyer doesnt have is sheer personal (beam) firepower to defend and attack when needed enemy warships.
The arguement regarding the whole fighter cover is flawed...can you guess why..??? yeah thats right its NOT MEANT TO BATTLE THE GTVA BUT THE SHIVANS. God why is it so hard for people to understand this?
Sure the GTVA could devise all sorts of tactics even lauch 150 fighters and bommbers from a destroyer in just a minute(dont ask me how I have yet to figure that out but hey some people think of it as proof against BB) but then again the GTVA would not do this! Want to know why?? sure thats it they are colpete idiots whose grasp of tactics are the same of a 4 year old child. Oh and lets not forget the BB was suposed to be constructed by the GTVA to be used against the SHIVANS but if you take a look at the arguement you might think that this thing is beeing contructed by the GTVA to be used against the GTVA or by the shivans using GTVA tech to be used gues what against the GTVA! :nervous:
Oh well what can I say i'm sure the shivans would apreciate the help! :doubt:
People please try and remember that we are dealing with the SHIVANS come on you guis i'm sure you remember the little bastards! No? Let me referesh:they have multiple legs they are red,have a bug like apearence, as are they ships oh oh oh..lets not forget they HAD an uber fleet of doom (sath fleet anyone???) with which they blew up a star...oh..i see how they could be forgotten they nothing more then a footnote in history.....! :wtf:
Oh wait those were the Ancients that became that at the hands of....come on all togheter now...T H E S H I V A N S! :eek2:
We all know that the shivans prefere the up close and personal aproach to a battle..so please try and find arguement why this BB would be eaten alive or would be uselelss against the shivans shall we ???
Remember the GTVA tacticians are a bunch of IDIOTS and most important the GTVA are Not repeat are Not the Shivans!
Thank you for participating in this lecture! Remember to eat you cereals and if you meet a bunch of red bugs on you way home they are not humans or vasudans they are SHIVANS so do yu best to step on them! Remeber any dead bug means one less hivan we have to worry about! :nod:
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Shivans have bombers too, not to mention their ships can actually stand up to such a battleship in a fight, so whether it's designed for killing Humans, Vasudans or Shivans is not all that relevant.
Actually on the topic of Shivans, I'd put 3 Lilith cruisers up against a realistic battleship (not Trashman's wondership) any day, and I'm quite sure they would win. Hell, even 2 might pull it off if they got positioning just right so they could minimize the number of beams that could target them. This goes to show why a battleship, especially against the Shivans, would be in trouble. On the other hand, those same Liliths could be dealt with quite comfortably by a relatively small bomber force from a destroyer, as their anti-fighter defenses are lacking.
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Why do I even bother! People please I beg you stop tryng to put human/vasudan thinking or tactics in the shivans! It just doesnt work! I ahve yet to see the shivans pitting 3 cruisers agains a ship. But then again the GTVA would do something like that! Oh well GTVA or shivans what doest it matter lets all just be ona happy famaly!
And how the hell are 3 cruisers suposed to beat a BB?? You get like what 3 large reds all together agains 6 or more BGreens. hell not to mention the fighters or heavy fighters that the BB has and wich cand be deployed to assist the BB by taking out the beam cannon. and then what do you have?? shivans splated all over the sistem!
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Have you ever seen what a Lilith does to a capital ship in front of it? It's nasty. An LRed is actually 50% more powerful than a BGreen with the same range. And they would not be up against 6+ BGreens, unless all of those are mounted on the same side of the battleship, making it completely helpless against anything attacking it from anywhere else. Finally, look at how strong a hull the Lilith has, it is nearly as strong as a corvette. In short, the Lilith is not just a cruiser, it is a monster too.
So, realistically, the 3 Liliths would be up against 2-3 BGreens and perhaps a slasher for good measure, which is far less firepower than they can dish out themselves. And I find it interesting that the moment I use a non-carrier as an example, fighters are going to win the day. How come this is never the case when carriers with far more fighters than a battleship could ever dream of are involved?
Regardless, you probably will need bombers when there are 3 of them, just a wing of fighters will get into trouble against even the Lilith when there are that many in close proximity. It's not so much the single AAA they carry, it's the cluster bombs... those can be a real pain when you're forced to get up close for cannon work as you would be without a bomber's missile capacity. Granted, one could use Maxims, but it seems to me the whole battleship concept rides on not accepting those as being realistic, fair, or whatever. And even then, it would be close due to the sheer durability of the things.
One last thing: No need to get upset over a discussion. I disagree with you, but that doesn't mean you can't do whatever you want with a battleship. Just do it, and enjoy it, and don't let disagreements like this get to you :) If you think it's right for what you have in mind, then it is right for what you have in mind.
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I intend to some day make a capship that makes good use of the maxim cannon >..>
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Why bother? Maxims wont fit in with other weapons in the game in any way.. Better just ditch the whole overpowered balance breaker from the game (from custom missions and mods, not from the main campaign) totally..
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Replace all the turrets on an Orion with Maxims and then get it attacked by waves of Mara and you'll see why... it looks fecking great! ;)
Oh, and I do mean it about being nice to each other, I don't want this to end up with the satire turning to flames and having to lock this.
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Why do I even bother! People please I beg you stop tryng to put human/vasudan thinking or tactics in the shivans! It just doesnt work! I ahve yet to see the shivans pitting 3 cruisers agains a ship. But then again the GTVA would do something like that! Oh well GTVA or shivans what doest it matter lets all just be ona happy famaly!
And how the hell are 3 cruisers suposed to beat a BB?? You get like what 3 large reds all together agains 6 or more BGreens. hell not to mention the fighters or heavy fighters that the BB has and wich cand be deployed to assist the BB by taking out the beam cannon. and then what do you have?? shivans splated all over the sistem!
How about, I dunno, putting sensible characteristics upon the Shivans? I don't think Volition intended them as a cipher for people justifying their most rabid inanity.
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Look its not that i dont find some if not most of the arguements in this post te be of great use to me and mi plans for the whole campaign its just that some of the arguements simply feel, look, and taste all to subjective to take into consideration!
As fot the Lilith cruiserthing..well you might be right but then again those monsters (yes I agree with them beeing called monsters they even look like something out of HELL :shaking: ) would have to be all facing the BB from a side and well thats not gooing to happen quite soon.
Also regarding the fighter thing all i did was make use of the BB small fighterbay. hey if its good enoygh to provide fighter/bommber protection for the BB then its good enough to help it take out multiple enmyes at once.
Simply put you have a ship that can do almost the same job as the big C but at only a fraction of the build/time cost!
What about placing 1 BFGreen in the front and the rest of the beam cannon to be placed one almost at the top of the ship but on the side one near the bottom and so on and so on ! This would ensure that the BB has a good forword beam and good beam coverage on top on the bottom and on the sides! Also did I mention that such warships would be build in a time scale equal to that of the big C?? I mean build 5 or 6 or 8 of them in a time span of 20 years! Support this with the new sleek powerfull much more advanced destroyer ideea I submited ( and i mean build them like 3 or 4 per year if you can) Doubt that you can actualy do this but you get the point. Aranged it so that you benefit from new corvettes and friggates also some small dedicated carryers the size of a corvette (in lenght) but with a carrier capacity of a DD and there you have it a massive fleet composed of new sleek fast very powerfull warships add to this the firepower from the conventional destroyers such as the HEcate and the hatshepsuit (sp?) and combine this with the BB and you have a fleet ready to take on the shivans! Granted they do not pop up agin with another 80+jug.fleet!
Also I ahve yet to see the input on the dreadnought class of warships:
at a max of 3 km they are basicly a much larger and more heavely armoured and armed version of the DD! Think of it as adding 50% more armour on the most heavely armoured DD the GTVA has (I believe that is the Hathepsuit)
some more powerfull weapons not too powerfull but lets say powerfull enough to do more damage the the Orion at close range! The fighter bay I believe should be at about 200 spacecrafts! since a normal destroyer carrier 150 of the with the added 500 metters in leght 50 more fighters seems like a reasonable figure! Right??? Corect me if im wrong!
You would say that its just a bigger destroyer with BB influence and you could probably right! But very likely to happen if you ask me!
I mean the GTVA needs a platform (other the the known DD) which is stable and can provide aditional command and suport for the fleets. Also such a platform would have to powerfull and tough to beat! Its of you will a combination of an orion with a Hecate! Loads of fighters(atributes of the HECATE along with command and support which the hecate does as long as it does not have to actualy figh for its life) coupled with the Orions armour and sheer firepower.
Please tell me what you think! Do not confuse this with the BB because they are 2 diferent things.
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As many turrets as the colossus, including what would appear to be more powerful beam weapons ('extremely strong main weapons' - which can destroy a destroyer within a few seconds). Magic heat sinks able to take more heat than the Colossus main guns could vs the Sath, and yet which do not have any negative impact on the internal structure or environment of the ship. These heat sinks and also extra reactors are apparently all located 'where the fighterbay would be', which means you have a minor, teensy little problem of shifting heat hot enough to melt a starships' hull all the way down there.
:LOL: nice fairy tale. How abotu you try something classica instead?
I said or specified none of those things...an overall of 14 anti-cap weapons... however I havn't specified how powerfull!
Basicly the 8 turrets I did mentioned would jsut be buigger blob turrets, with 1000-2000 damage per shot. Does that sound overpowered to you compared to a beam cannnon? no? Good....
Since there are no uber gunz of doom, there are neither magical heat sinks.. Just realyl good normal ones :D
20 fighters on a horizontally spanning dual-fighterbay. 2.5 times the armour with absolutely no consequences on the space requirements (we assume some form of magic ultra-dense armour, or even more magical placement of selective plating that somehow, no other designer has ever considered. Invented plasma turrets.
Well, the fighterbay can a be a modular external attachment or a small internal one, burried deep inside the ships armor. Whatever works better.
Better armor yes..however it does have spece consequences, just not as big as you would LIKE or WANT.
Additional reactors to power said weapons, somehow fitting in the assumed space savings for removing fighters, yet accounting for neither the need to shield/protect those reactors internally, introduce a new power grid, house the many crew for the new turrets (as evidenced by all vis-a-vis comparions of both modern naval vessels and stated freespace 2 crew figures), or handle the logistical issues of having those reactors (as seen with escorting supplies to the Colossus).
Everything is accounted for. I spent more time devising a BB concept than you breathing. I even have a deck layout and similar old sketches stashed away somewhere.
Now before you go criticizing every aspect of hte BB concept such as internal power grid and placement, I DEMAND you to provide me with the same for the allready present FS2 ship. You can't? Too bad.
Untill you KNOW (not assume) to know how the inside of the FS2 starship works your so called arguments are as much worth as a condome machine in Vatican.
An ability to somehow only attack when a destroyer does not have any defensive forces around, at a pin-point distance, and yet somehow also manage to avoid any form of attack from roving patrols by jumping out. Capable of jumping in, destroying a capship, and jumping out before fighters can reach it. Immune from detection by enemy ambush forces, yet is able to track bombers back to their capships at will (who are remarkably willing to lead the enemy to them), if not track the capship itself (shame they never thought of that in attacking the Iceni/Repulse/every other FS enemy ship, eh?). Oh, and never, ever attacked in open space by forces taking advantage of its weaknesses in terms of lack of bomber defense (well, when it does it can just skip away merrily into subspace, as we see in every battle in FS2 when the outnumbered and damaged ship just jumps to safet....oh, wait).
Hehehe.. .wrong again. I never mentioned ANY of that above, you are soooo fond of twisting my words you must realyl like me :o
I never said that it can micro-jump at uber precisions or that it can avoid patrols or stuff.. And especialyl that it can destroy a capship and jump out before the enemy fighters reach it. They will reach him allright (after all, it does take 60 seconds at least for the jump drives to re-charge) and do some damage, but by the time his drives re-charge, the enemy capship will be only a cloud of debris. Neither have I ever said it cannot be tracked or attacked or anything similar.
Oh - the fact that FS commanders are stupid is not my problem. Sicne we're dealing with theoretical aplication I can assume the commanders are smart (and I did so for DD's too)
[quote
Every major functional system housed deep within the core of the ship, yet absolutely no consequences to the destruction of the outer hull with reference to subsystems wiring up, for example, turrets. Able to sit and be pounded for ages at a blockade, by enemies who have positioned themselves just right in order to be hit by the BS' main guns (and in contradication to every blockade seen in FS2.... you'd think they wanted the battleship to win or something....waittamo!), and with a crew who really don't mind atall being sent in as a beam-sponge and have no objections to sleeping in the hallways or going without food when their quarters and mess hall is destroyed.
I don't know where you dig up this crap but you seem to be REALLY good at it. Ever though of running for congress?
Now..major systems are armored/shielded/whatever, but I never said there are no consequences to anything. And allso, one of hte thing I mentioned at the begining is hte BB's Field of Fire - it can shoot with the majority of it's anti-cap weapon anywhere in a 360° sphere. It doesn't have blind spot, only a SLIGHTLY weaker side.
Hmm...the crew of hte Aquitane must be really pissed off then, since i recal lti getting pounded really bad TWICE. Seems to me the crew quit the service after theri bunks have been blasted by a shivan bomb...
Absolutely no speed penalty whatsoever from all these added turrets and armour. Indeed, it actually goes faster!
Never did specify the speed as I recall..and there are clearly armored ships that do go fast.
5 individual, autonomous engines (because you'd need 5 subsystems to justify that sort of scheme; hence autonomous), which have no impact on reactor or space requirements despite effectively duplicating the engines 'engineering subsytem' 5 times over.
quick! Someone call [V]!!! According to Aldo, they messed up with the Hecate! The thing should have 7 engine subsystems!!!
b.t.w. - I said 3 or 5 engine clusters..not subsystems. However, if you equate the two then my above line is accurate.
Able to destroy a Ravana in 30-40 seconds without even coming under attack from the fighters/bombers of said ship, something which the best part of a GTVA battlegroup failed to achieve.
This is geeting borin..never said that, that is a priduct of your mind.
Several times cheaper than a destroyer of the same technological era, despite all that super-strong-but-light armour and loads of extra reactors. No reason why - apparently beam cannons come for free in cereal packets nowadays.
Never specified a cost, I just argued against your flawed reasoning that it MUST be uber expensive, while at hte same time you treated DD's like they awere on special discount.
Able to increase range of weapons with absolutely no consequences. Just like when the Colossus overloaded it's beams and power grid trying to fire for too long.... ah.
???? :confused: :wtf:
And, on top of this, one of the primary justifications is the WW2 battleship, which has been rendered obsolete by all modern navies in favour of...shock, horror!....aicraft carriers and whose sole purpose in warfare is shore bombardment. Oh, and ignoring all those naval analogies about stuff like crew numbers for carriers, etc, where they contradict the magic battleship-o-doom.
My my...weren't you the one who constantly claimed no Naval references whatsoever?
I never ignored no naval analogies tough as I know the navy inside out. However yo useme to forget that hte greatest weakness of a BB is effectivly removed in FS2.
Oh, and any contradictory Volition stated facts from the game are mere 'titbits', unless you can twist them to infer support for your little uber-ship, in which case they become the holy word of the god of ship design - as we see in the quoted bit at the top.
Tehre are solid fact and there are solitary numbers. numbers that do tell you something about the FS unverse but aren't at all specific. For instance the HP of an Orion. Does it have 100000 HP becosue it's heavily armored OR lightly armored? You can't answer that just looking at the number and I can safely assume that they aren't heavily armored.
If you assume something else - it 's your right to do so, but can't call that canon any more than I can my assumption. Which effectivly means that the armor of my BB doesn't break cannon since we don't know the sepcifics well enough to determine that in the first place.
What else... oh, Volitions ship designs are all illogical and you could do it better. That was the 2nd last post, wasn't it?
Frankly, yes. (Did I say that? HERESY!!! :eek2:) Not in the ships shape department, but they could have put more tough behind their internal systems and the like.
What? Pat.rol.Wi.ngs. Broken up for easy digestion.
And how many patrol wings would there be in the air at any given time? 2? 4? 6? All the 150 fighters?
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Can't be bothered doing a point-by-point rebuttal, but everything I said can be traced back from your prior posts in this thread.
Amazing, though, you cast judgement on internal systems when you can't even see them. Hell, you even had a go at Kara for speculating on their size and whatnot - and there you go not only speculating, but damning them!
Albiet, I was wrong on the Ravana one; you said 30-40 seconds to destroy it and escape! That, I believe, is better than a Colossus can manage. Not an uber-ship, indeed..........
I'm not forgetting anything. A BB would be able to defend itself long enough to wax the shivan destroyer and high-tail it out of there. Something a destroyer like Hecate can only dream about as it would have to run the second a Ravana pops up.
While a Hecate can keep enemy bombers at bay, at least for a while, it's powerless against Ravana's main cannons. It would be dead in two salvos, and given the speed of shivan beams, I doubt his fightercover could take them out in time.
the BB on the other hand is more than a match for a Ravana in a open slug-fest, but the bombers it brings with her are the problem. However, the BB's defenses should be strong enough to keep it alive for 30-40 seconds, which should be enough to destroy the Ravana and then escape.
NB: the greatest weakness of a battleship vis-a-vis a carrier - mobility and force projection - is magnified in FS2. And your blob turrets are ridiculously overpowered; 10 times as powerful as a Terran Huge Turret?! And that's at the low range. So you've increased the power use for those 8 turrets by a fairly vast amount; and yet reactors never enter your consideration. Not magic, indeed.
Oh, and a special reply
Everything is accounted for. I spent more time devising a BB concept than you breathing. I even have a deck layout and similar old sketches stashed away somewhere.
Now before you go criticizing every aspect of hte BB concept such as internal power grid and placement, I DEMAND you to provide me with the same for the allready present FS2 ship. You can't? Too bad.
Untill you KNOW (not assume) to know how the inside of the FS2 starship works your so called arguments are as much worth as a condome machine in Vatican.
Y'know, just because you spend a lot of time obsessing over an idea doesn't make it right. It just make you obsessive. Your entire attack upon assumption is built on a house of cards; your entire justification is not oly assuming the internal outlay of a 'volition design', but that you can magic up these vast gains in capability because you're better than they are. From what I can tell, you can barely acknowledge the fundamental uselessness of the naval equivalent because you like the concept - and that's been proven time and time again. IT's no wonder you're getting so hot and sweaty under the collar about this.
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It must have close to that number though must it not? If the Sobek requires 6000 personnel does it not seem silly if the Deimos runs using say 3000? What are the extra 3000 on the Sobek doing! Besides it was
a) You who brought up crew numbers
b) You who tried to justify that fact using wet navy figures even though you now claim that there is so much variance between ships that the crew numbers mean nothing.[q/uote]
Crew number allways mean something. Or does 2000 people more being on the payroll or dying sounds insignificant?
One more thing - different ship classes, different crews. I don't know what 6000 people are doing on the Sobek (nor how accurate that number is for that matter..never saw that debriefing) and I don't even care. Hell they might have have been having a poker night.
If I decide that my BB has 8000 crew it will be so. The crew number is something that has been known to varry drasticly from ship to ship and is alls oaffected by various factor. How much automation systems are there? How much of hte internal volume is actually devoted for living and working in? And similar jazz.
I've provided canon proof to back up my assertions. You do not. In many cases you contradict canon and in many cases yourself (see the crew number argument above for instance).
Nope. You provided a big fat 0 in terms of actual solidity of those so called proofs. Liek people in the courts would say - circumstancial evidence - interestin, but not enough for a conviction :D You need to do better.
If my deductions are incorrect then prove it. I've got an open mind and I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm wrong. In fact I've already admitted that AlphaOne has come up with one very good justification for the existance of the battleship class if not your version of it. I'm perfectly willing to believe that one might be built due to GTVA stupidity or it being some admirals pet project. I don't think it would last very long since it's a flawed concept but I'm perfectly happy to accept an argument that one could get built. f/quoteg
:wtf:My version is practicly indentical to his. All those uberness factors are your contribution, not mine. Dang it! I guess I'll just have to MAKE a FS2 version of it and put it up for download, so you judge for yourself jsut how much of the "impossible uberness" was only in your head.
Besides it's not like I'm the only one deducing things. I've continually pointed that out to you. You've deduced that the BB is more powerful based on the assumption that if you strip out the fighterbay you can put more weapons in the space. That's an assumption based on very little (read no) canon evidence too so why the hell are you trying to say that you can claim something can happen based on your assumptions but I can't say it can not happen based on mine?
Nothing new would ever be addid if it all boils donw to what can and cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Yes, many thing I myself suggest are ASSUMPTION. But I don't call them canon. I addmit that I assume some things
and that's exactly why you can't disprove the BB's existance. Becouse your'e doing the same thing!
Since I am trying to create a new class I have the privelige to go into some assumptions stemming from cannon data to allow it
to exist. On the other hand, you who want to prevent such a class should try to fight with only 100% cannon stuff.
Yes, that does mean I have a unfair advantage, but so does everyone who want to add new stuff..otherwise nothing would ever be added.
It's faulty because the game directly contradicts this in several places. Does the game directly contradict any of the evidence I'd pointed to in a similar fashion?
When does it contradict it?
Show me one mission where a destroyer launches more than 2 wings a minute.
Faulty logic. Let me explain why. Lets take a best case senario. Lets say that a BB actually costs 1/3 what a destroyer costs. That you can build 3 BBs for the price of one destroyer. That's a ludicrously low figure but lets go with that for a bit and see where it takes us.
That gives the BB 72 fighters in total vs 150 bombers and fighters for the destroyer. The BBs lose again! Best case senario is that they find and wipe out the destroyer after it's launched all its fighters and sent them out to kill the BBs but the destroyer's fighters mop up their own fighters, park up and wipe out the BBs with maxims and trebs. That's a draw! And it relies on the BBs actually finding the destroyer (something they will find hard to do with so few ships for making reccies with).
In every single case you have stated that the BB doesn't act alone but you refuse to include the cost of the fighters that must come to its aid to defend it against situations like the one I just described. That's a false economy.
BB's have thier own fighter complement. Fighters from the battlegroup can come to its' aid, but that's not a requirement.
And how does a DD win agains 3 BBs based on fighter numbers? That actually means that the mantainance of the DD for the fighters only is 6 times more costly than for a BB.the DD might have 150 fighters but he can't launch them all at once nor can he affor to be left without foightercover. Ships jumping can be tracked and that works both ways. So it's not realyl as straightforward a fight as you would like to belive. DD's have more fighters but BB's have batter AF defense and armor.
You're just assuming that the BB defense fighters will go off chaisin the DD fighter complement, instead of staiyng in the vicinity of the BB's and thier PDS systems. And as I said before - jumping out and running can be done by both parties and thus, the battle can end either way.
No it doesn't. FS2 has always been about fighters and bombers killing much larger ships. It's actually you who want to change that dynamic with your BBs of death that can stand up to fighters and capships.
and how does a Colossus come into that equation? or the Sath?
The cruiser is basically useless for front line combat. That's why the GTVA stopped making them! That's why the Aeolus was cancelled in favour of the Deimos. The Deimos is small and cheap enough to be useful but isn't so small and cheap that it gets completely pwned by smaller craft.
When we see cruisers in combat they are generally being used for attacking poorly defended target with fighter back up. It's a case of since you have them you might as well use them but not building any more.
So you admitt they are useless but are still in FS2. So exactly HOW does that make the BB impossible to place in the Fs uiverse then? Or any other useless or impractical class you can think of?
We can jsut assume the GTVA built a few of htem earlier and they now have them.
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At least kara is providing some logical, factual evidence to support his statements. all you've come up with is dismissing any criticism as 'assumption' whilst bolting your own assumptions on top of wilfull ignorance to build a monster.
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Shivans have bombers too, not to mention their ships can actually stand up to such a battleship in a fight, so whether it's designed for killing Humans, Vasudans or Shivans is not all that relevant.
Actually on the topic of Shivans, I'd put 3 Lilith cruisers up against a realistic battleship (not Trashman's wondership) any day, and I'm quite sure they would win. Hell, even 2 might pull it off if they got positioning just right so they could minimize the number of beams that could target them. This goes to show why a battleship, especially against the Shivans, would be in trouble. On the other hand, those same Liliths could be dealt with quite comfortably by a relatively small bomber force from a destroyer, as their anti-fighter defenses are lacking.
Ever tough that a ship is a tool jsut like anything else and that it's best to have a wide arrangement of different tools?
The DD isn't the alpha-and-omega or warships. Different ships for differnt purposes. There are situations in which the BB would be porrer choice than a DD or vice versa. Same can be said for any two calasses as a matter of fact. Point is, best to have a wide array of options available and a bunch of tools to deal with any problems that might arrise.
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OH - about that Lilith thing. A DD would fare a lot worse when ambushed by 3 Liliths. It would be dead in the first salvo before even launching bombers (or before it's escorts manage to disable the Liliths). A BB would at least dish out some damage, possibly taking a few of the bastards with him.
By Aldo_14
NB: the greatest weakness of a battleship vis-a-vis a carrier - mobility and force projection - is magnified in FS2. And your blob turrets are ridiculously overpowered; 10 times as powerful as a Terran Huge Turret?! And that's at the low range. So you've increased the power use for those 8 turrets by a fairly vast amount; and yet reactors never enter your consideration. Not magic, indeed
Nope. It's reduced. Subsapce equals unparaleled mobility - being able to cross the whole star system in several seconds is VERY mobile. and force projection is the carriers thing. BB's thing is more in the lines of commiting overkill on it's targets.
Terran Huge Turrrets are not anti-cap (they can target fighters.. they don't have the cap tag), so a anti-cap versio of them would be needed.
b.t.w. - do you nkow how much power a THT uses? Nope.? Though so.
If we go by damage/second (which rougle equates to spent power) ratio than a double barrled heavy turret (the capital veriosn with 1000 damage) would use approx half the power BGreen.
Y'know, just because you spend a lot of time obsessing over an idea doesn't make it right. It just make you obsessive. Your entire attack upon assumption is built on a house of cards; your entire justification is not oly assuming the internal outlay of a 'volition design', but that you can magic up these vast gains in capability because you're better than they are. From what I can tell, you can barely acknowledge the fundamental uselessness of the naval equivalent because you like the concept - and that's been proven time and time again. IT's no wonder you're getting so hot and sweaty under the collar about this.
Such harsh words.. tsk, tsk, tsk..
The word is not obsessed, it's contemplating. I do give a lot of tought to sci-fi and some toehr thing in general. As I do giva a lot of tough to HLP. Does that make every older forum member here obsessed?
Am using just as much assumptions as you are, except I don't hide them behind hte words "100% cannon.
Please, explain to me how the differnt interpretation ofhhte same number doesn't imply assumption. You assume that the armor increase I proposed is impossible in fS2 since you interpret the 10000 HP of a Orion as that of a hallready heavily armored ship. I on the otehr hand interpret that 100000 is the value an lightly armored ship of that size gets and that's my assumption. However, I have the right to make that assumption, but you don't have the right to proclaim me breaking cannon based on yours.
and I'n not hot unde the collar. I'm amused. I like this discussion and I could go on forever :D
Beats watching the dull program on the TV anyway.
At least kara is providing some logical, factual evidence to support his statements. all you've come up with is dismissing any criticism as 'assumption' whilst bolting your own assumptions on top of wilfull ignorance to build a monster.
Prove me wrong in my upper statement about armor and I'll concede to your point. But than again, I'm saying this only becouse I know you can't do it :D
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Nope. It's reduced. Subsapce equals unparaleled mobility - being able to cross the whole star system in several seconds is VERY mobile. and force projection is the carriers thing. BB's thing is more in the lines of commiting overkill on it's targets.
You know why they call it 'overkill', don't you? Because it's an excessiveand expensive waste of an unecessary amount firepower. i.e. inefficient and bad value-for-money. And it may cross entire star systems, but can it cover entire star systems? Nope; it can cover about 4km, the max range of it's beams. This relates the title, really; usefulness. Not a small investment, this battleship (even if it is possible with your specs, which I doubt). And it has a short effective range, relying upon allies for scouting/long range fighter cover. Not good value for money, that.
Terran Huge Turrrets are not anti-cap (they can target fighters.. they don't have the cap tag), so a anti-cap versio of them would be needed.
b.t.w. - do you nkow how much power a THT uses? Nope.? Though so.
If we go by damage/second (which rougle equates to spent power) ratio than a double barrled heavy turret (the capital veriosn with 1000 damage) would use approx half the power BGreen.
THTs use 0.3 energy per shot. Comparison to other turret types indicates the velocity/refire time also affects the energy usage. So you need to have heavy energy usage or sacrifice all your shot velocity/massively increase refire time.
Such harsh words.. tsk, tsk, tsk..
The word is not obsessed, it's contemplating. I do give a lot of tought to sci-fi and some toehr thing in general. As I do giva a lot of tough to HLP. Does that make every older forum member here obsessed?
Am using just as much assumptions as you are, except I don't hide them behind hte words "100% cannon.
Firstly, having +10k posts on a board for a 5 year old game does make one rather obsessed, and I admit that freely. However, did you spend all those years contemplating the pros and cons of the battleship, or contemplating how to justify one in Freespace? Because it seems to me the latter is more likely.
Please, explain to me how the differnt interpretation ofhhte same number doesn't imply assumption. You assume that the armor increase I proposed is impossible in fS2 since you interpret the 10000 HP of a Orion as that of a hallready heavily armored ship. I on the otehr hand interpret that 100000 is the value an lightly armored ship of that size gets and that's my assumption. However, I have the right to make that assumption, but you don't have the right to proclaim me breaking cannon based on yours.
Actually, I didn't say it was impossible but that it would require massive armour plating taking up space beyond that of an Orion or Hecates armour plating; i.e. if you wish to bump up the Orions armour you need to increase the density - i.e. size/thickness - of it and thus affect internal space. Also, we have canonical evidence (Fenris/Leviathan - not just figures but ref bible descriptions) that there is a definitive tradeoff in terms of speed and maneuverability in increasing armour quantities. Finally, if you are to apply this thicker armour to your battleship and lessen the impact through some hypothesised technology, then we can apply same armour to destroyers to protect them against..well, battleships. This is what kara was referring to about you cherry picking technology and combat situations but not considering what the enemy would do to counteract - like fitting more armour on their destroyers.
and I'n not hot unde the collar. I'm amused. I like this discussion and I could go on forever Big grin
Beats watching the dull program on the TV anyway.
Really? The number of mistypes in a post is usually a good indication of how....enthusiastic a person is about it. At least with native english speakers; I suppose I can't make the same judgement for non-natives.
Prove me wrong in my upper statement about armor and I'll concede to your point. But than again, I'm saying this only becouse I know you can't do it Big grin
No-one can prove anyone wrong in a hypothesis. But we can determine the most likely scenario based on various things like common sense and tactical logic.
Your scenario; the GTVA under-armours it's destroyers deliberately, and armour can be fitted to a battleship that vastly increases its hitpoints without a consequential lack of space or loss of speed. Despite being the head of a fleet, responsible for fighter cover of entire systems as well as participating in blockades, the primary frontline class, a substantial financial investment, and able to be engaged at point blank range by jumping-in ambushers (as you define it), the GTVA decides it's better not to put their best armour on it for reasons of (you'll have to fill in this bit). Moreso, in a universe that does have a battleship class able to attack with pin-point precision at will, with turrets 10-20 times more powerful than the (actually rather rare) Terran huge turret, the GTVA makes absolutely none of these absolutely cost-free changes of fitting heavier armour to their destroyers as a defensive measure. (nor uses a few of these purportedly low-energy super-THTs)
My scenario; the GTVA armours its frontline warships as heavily as is technically or economically feasible; this especially applies to destroyers that act as the heads of the fleet. Armour values progress in a non-linear fashion as they do not represent the armour strength as combined across every square foot or so, but rather the amount of (for lack of a better term) kinetic force needed to fatally compromise the ships' structural integrity (NB: this is really difficult to phrase/explain right, BTW). Whilst 2.5 times the armour is possible, it represents a tremendous financial and technical burden that makes it unfeasible for any sort of mobile ship.
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*throws some random facts in hope they may be picked up*
FS1 descriptions:
Orion - "The mother of all Terran ships. Measuring a frightening 2.1 kilometers in length, the cost to build one of these far outweighs the cost of paying its crew for 3 years."
Ursa - "These ships cost more to make than it takes to buy a small moon."
FS2 descriptions:
Bakha - "Over 6,000 Bakhas have been produced in the orbiting shipyards around Vasuda Prime."
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Nope. You provided a big fat 0 in terms of actual solidity of those so called proofs. Liek people in the courts would say - circumstancial evidence - interestin, but not enough for a conviction :D You need to do better.
You haven't even provided circumstancial evidence! You need to do better not me. If you believe what you have is possible within the FS2 universe you need to prove it. You continually claim I have no evidence and then invent stuff with no evidence. If you can't find evidence to support your claims in the game then it's probably because your claim lacks validity.
:wtf:My version is practicly indentical to his. All those uberness factors are your contribution, not mine. Dang it! I guess I'll just have to MAKE a FS2 version of it and put it up for download, so you judge for yourself jsut how much of the "impossible uberness" was only in your head.
No the uberness was yours.
2.5 x the hitpoints of a Orion
8 main turrets, positioned on the top and below, 4 beam cannons on the sides, and another undefined anti-cap weapon below....and the rest is pretty much point-defense weaponry. Extreemly strong subsystems and main weapons. Ability to concetrate at least 60% of it's anti-cap firepower at any point in space.
2 small fighterbays with a squad of interceptors each.
I would say around 12 AAAf, 20 flak, 10 missile lunchers and 10 terrna turrets off the top of my head.
On top of that you've then claimed that your ship has less than 10,000 crew members, and is faster than a destroyer's top speed of 15m/s.
Nothing new would ever be addid if it all boils donw to what can and cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Who's asking for beyond a shadow of a doubt? I'm asking for some proof that actually stands up. It doesn't have to be concrete it just has to be enough that people can say "hmmm. He could be right if you think about it this way" You've singularly failed to do this. And it's not like myself and Aldo are people who refuse to acknowledge other peoples points of view. You can check any other discussion in this forum for proof of that.
If you want to show that the BB is a viable class in the FS2 universe why don't you provide some evidence that isn't an assertion with no backup or outright flim-flam.
Yes, many thing I myself suggest are ASSUMPTION. But I don't call them canon.
Of course you don't. Canon contradicts them. Repeatedly.
Since I am trying to create a new class I have the privelige to go into some assumptions stemming from cannon data to allow it
to exist. On the other hand, you who want to prevent such a class should try to fight with only 100% cannon stuff.
Yes, that does mean I have a unfair advantage, but so does everyone who want to add new stuff..otherwise nothing would ever be added.
I'm sorry but that argument doesn't hold up. We're back to the giant pink wildebeests again. Prove using canon evidence that the Shivans didn't blow up Capella because a heard of wildebeest ships were coming.
When I made a similar argument previously you tried to claim that the ridiculouslessness of the argument meant that the rules of debating didn't hold there but you're wrong. They're not rules if they bend around you and your battleships.
When does it contradict it?
Show me one mission where a destroyer launches more than 2 wings a minute.
Where did 2 wings a minute come from? That wasn't your original argument now was it?
If you want canon I can cite a canon fact that we never seen a destroser launch more than 4 wings. According to that, a BB would rape it every day of hte week, since it will ever launch more than 4 wings!
Funny how you completely changed your argument when backed into a corner. :rolleyes:
And how does a DD win agains 3 BBs based on fighter numbers?
I've been describing exactly how since this thread began. Long range attacks with trebs and maxim cannons.
the DD might have 150 fighters but he can't launch them all at once nor can he affor to be left without foightercover.
Who says? This is a straight battle between 3 BBs and one destroyer. Hell the destroyer can retain 30 ships for fighter cover and still have enough 120 to the BBs 72. Even if you assume several squadrons of bombers the DD still has a fighter coverage advantage.
You're just assuming that the BB defense fighters will go off chaisin the DD fighter complement, instead of staiyng in the vicinity of the BB's and thier PDS systems.
No I wasn't. I was assuming that you'd say they would. IF they don't that's even better. From 3km away they can't do more than engage in a war of attrition with the DD's fighters using trebs and maxims. That's a battle the DD fightercraft are going to win. They have more fighters. At 4km both sides would launch volleys of trebs. 72 ships on both sides die. The remaining fighters denude the BBs and then the bombers kill them.
Even if the BBs do manage to track down the Destroyer and kill it then what? You have a draw. Neither side prevailed.
And this is all with the ridiculous supposition that the DD costs 3 times the amount of the BB.
and how does a Colossus come into that equation? or the Sath?
The sath was killed after having been denuded by bombers. The Colossus was killed after being disabled and prevented from launching fighters bu unknown Shivan forces.
So you admitt they are useless but are still in FS2. So exactly HOW does that make the BB impossible to place in the Fs uiverse then? Or any other useless or impractical class you can think of?
Thing is that they weren't always useless. And even now they do still have a role even if it wasn't the one that they were originally designed for (basically guard duty and convoy escort).
We can jsut assume the GTVA built a few of htem earlier and they now have them.
If you want to claim that the GTVA have a few old, largely toothless BBs knocking about I won't dispute it. They'd have to be from the great war because the asendency of the fighter pretty much began then but fine I have no objection to that. It's the BB as the potent engine of destruction I take exception to. No one in their right minds would build a BB in post-capella FS2. No one would put it on the frontlines unless they fancied losing it. Any old BB from that day and age would be sitting in mothballs as the useless relic it was.
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Trashman, I've tried reason. I've tried subtily pointing out when you're letting your emotions override logic without having to come out and say it. I've tried not posting for a while in the hopes that you let it rest. None have worked. So I'm going to be totally honest here.
First, FORMATTING!!! The new quote system isn't as forgiving as the old one was, so if you don't get it right please, please, please use the edit button to clear that up. You've stopped doubleposting, for the most part, which is good. Now take the 2 minutes it takes after you make a post to go back and format it correctly, as I can hardly make heads or tails of your point-by-point responses with the quote spacing that screwed up.
Now on to my actual point. You're acting like a 2 year old who's been told he can't have a candybar. Grow up. I've noticed in the last couple of pages especially you've resorted to "hugegrin" and ":D" or direct attacks against other people's intelligence instead of actually justifying yourself. That's no way to have a civilized argument. I don't claim to be a genius but I'm certainly not stupid, and the only person consistantly posting an incoherent an illogical argument in this thread is you. You've failed to back up any one of your assertions with evidence that's in any way relevant to Freespace, except for the fighterbay pic which IMHO only served to weaken your argument. And you've refused to even acknowledge the irrefutable evidense brought against you. If you really want people to give you the time of day, for god's sake act like their opinions are valid because like it or not, they are. And they just might make more sense than your own beliefs.
You can keep thinking whatever you want, and if you want to actually make a campaign that features your Battleship-o-Doom, no one is stopping you. Hell, I strongly encourage you to do so. I don't think it will work well, but I want you to prove me wrong. But if you aren't making that campaign (and even if you are and are discussing things outside the realm of that campaign), then you have absolutely no right to assert that your assumptions are any better than anyone elses, especially when you don't even provide good logical supported-by-canon evidence for them. Maybe your infatuation with the battleship concept (or dare I say it again, name) is blinding you to reason, but we are not going to respect you any more or think it's any better of an idea for your standing by it to the bitter end.
I don't like calling people out for crap like this, but enough was enough about 8 pages ago. I'm going to leave this one alone from this point on, as I've had about enough of arguing with a brick wall.
Now to change tangents a tiny bit...
Were I a moderator, I would deem that this thread has run its course as nothing good is going to come of further argument. We've been on repeat for the last couple of pages, so the only things changing at this point are our typing skills and our postcount. Of course I am not, so this will stay open. Everyone please try to make this debate civil (no matter how much the other side aggrivates you) so that it stays that way.
AlphaOne, I'm afraid that you are thinking everyone is slamming your idea, but you want to do a campaign and I hope this discussion does not discourage you from trying. Careful with balancing those BFGreens with the rest of the fleet, as no current Terran ship actually mounts them.
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I'm inclined to agree.
Fraid you'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
AlphaOne, just make the campaign and enjoy yourself, that's what it's all about, if you want my advice, if you are planning to make the BB's yourself, then go ahead and make some untextured models etc and post pics, let people see what you are getting at, and give people a taster of what you have planned, you don't need to justify the 'why' outside of the campaign itself.