Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: TrashMan on April 14, 2006, 05:56:24 pm
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I always thought that number seemed quite excessive when compared to the destroyers, which are maybe ten times as large, carry fighters and generally serve as command hubs (while the corvettes are warships more than anything else), but still have only 10000.
Well, if you look at modern warships there's actually a tendency for gun turrets to use more crew than the equivalent are for fighters on a carrier.
No, that's flat out wrong...the other way around.
FS2 numbers are somewhat screwy in that regard. There's little logical sense between the crew numbers of various warships. Of course, the question has to be asked how accurate those numbers are - is it a typo or a mistake in the debrief section? Or did they just typed in a random number? Or did they actually have a those numbers planned?
Personally, I take those numbers with a grain of salt.
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I always thought that number seemed quite excessive when compared to the destroyers, which are maybe ten times as large, carry fighters and generally serve as command hubs (while the corvettes are warships more than anything else), but still have only 10000.
Well, if you look at modern warships there's actually a tendency for gun turrets to use more crew than the equivalent are for fighters on a carrier.
No, that's flat out wrong...the other way around.
FS2 numbers are somewhat screwy in that regard. There's little logical sense between the crew numbers of various warships. Of course, the question has to be asked how accurate those numbers are - is it a typo or a mistake in the debrief section? Or did they just typed in a random number? Or did they actually have a those numbers planned?
Personally, I take those numbers with a grain of salt.
The Iowa class warships' main turrets took a minimum of 77 people to man. We've been over this before, I believe. And you can't wiggle your way out of it in an FS context by questioning the numbers as making 'little logical sense' just because they don't mesh with what you desire.
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Trashman, you certainly have a knack for finding these threads. I don't know whether you still believe that I had the last one locked down (I didn't) but you're vastly outnumbered here. Please drop it.
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The old rules don't nessesarily apply, I figure in that day and age they could have Colossus sized warships controled by one person, on some planet, controling three others, and mabye a squadron of fighters with no one controling them
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I find it hard to actually imagine 6000 Vasudans squeezing into the hull of a Sobek. I mean, look how many fighters could fit inside one. 15?
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The old rules don't nessesarily apply, I figure in that day and age they could have Colossus sized warships controled by one person, on some planet, controling three others, and mabye a squadron of fighters with no one controling them
But they don't. C'est la vie.
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I find it hard to actually imagine 6000 Vasudans squeezing into the hull of a Sobek. I mean, look how many fighters could fit inside one. 15?
Worth noting that the Sobek is comfotably larger than any warship built to date.
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Nimitz class carrier:
Length- 333M
Crew Compliment- 5,680
Sobek class corvette
Length- 608M
Crew Compliment- 6,000
Considering the Vasudans origenate from a desert, they probobly consume fewer calories and water, and water can be recycled, I actually wonder why these ships are so empty, each and every one of them, then again, Orions have a bar, so I guess an olympic swimming pool isn't a big leap. I suppose computers run most of the ships, but you have to wonder, what do the people do? You could have a few in combat engineering, a couple hundred in the flight deck, 5 cleaning toilets, and a couple hundred keeping the ship going (from a computer).
And a correction, the Fenris is 1.4X the length of a Ticonderoga.
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The 10000 crew count for destroyers (at least Terran ones) is backed up by several references throughout the game. It's the 6000 number that seems strange to me in comparison, just going by the enormous differences in volume.
One of my missions needs the right number of crewmen on the Sobek for the story angle. I'm not sure whether to use the canon number and make it seem somewhat unbelievable, as most players aren't even going to know about it and will only be aware of the 10000 for destroyers, or just shrug it off as a game inconsistency (they do exist in FS2) and use something much lower, maybe 1000.
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I'd say that 6,000 makes plenty of sense, if not higher. Destroyers are so empty I'd say 20,000+ would be an appropriate number.
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That's probably true, but if we assume that the destroyers have 10000, then 6000 seems far too high for corvettes IMO, especially the rather thin Sobek.
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Um... this is probably a stupid question, but... why not just change the destroyer numbers and not the Corvette numbers? TBMs make your life easier.
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I guess the 10000 destroyer number is much more well established. There are at least five places I can think of where 10000 is mentioned, some of which are in story-critical command briefings. The 6000 only appears in a single failure debriefing stage that nobody is likely to ever see unless they open up the mission file. If you have to decide which one is "stricter" canon, the 10000 seems to be the obvious choice.
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That's probably true, but if we assume that the destroyers have 10000, then 6000 seems far too high for corvettes IMO, especially the rather thin Sobek.
But why? I mean, one thing that springs to mind is that corvettes operate closer to the enemy than destroyer/carriers, so you'd probably have a crew under greater and constant stress and hence might need more shifts.
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The volume difference is enough to counterbalance that though. The Orion looks like it has at least 20 times the volume of the Sobek. If the crew spaces on the Sobek are over half as large, then it raises the issue of how they can pack everything else into it (or alternatively, what all the extra space is used for on the Orion).
Actually, the Colossus is a better example. We know about how big the crew spaces are and their volume is easily more than five times that of the Sobek, and that's assuming all the space in the Sobek is used for the crew areas.
I think it's possible to explain this thing, but it still remains both counterintuitive and obscure and is going to look weird to most people who play that mission, who won't be aware that the 6000 is official.
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The volume difference is enough to counterbalance that though. The Orion looks like it has at least 20 times the volume of the Sobek. If the crew spaces on the Sobek are over half as large, then it raises the issue of how they can pack everything else into it (or alternatively, what all the extra space is used for on the Orion).
Actually, the Colossus is a better example. We know about how big the crew spaces are and their volume is easily more than five times that of the Sobek, and that's assuming all the space in the Sobek is used for the crew areas.
I think it's possible to explain this thing, but it still remains both counterintuitive and obscure and is going to look weird to most people who play that mission, who won't be aware that the 6000 is official.
Well, for one thing the Sobek (and ignoring for the moment possibile inter-species differences) could simply have a shorter deployment time. I think the FSRefBible puts the Orion at having 2-3 year tours of duty, and if that's significantly longer than the 'small' capships, then you could expect a great deal more internal volume put down for use as both R&R locations and supplies storage.
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The Orion in FS2 is retrofitted for beam weaponry - probably less effecient than the Vasudan-designed Sobek, designed to be a beam-using corvette from the start. Perhaps the Orions need larger energy/weapons space to operate...
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Not to forget that Orions need space to maintain and store all those fighters and bombers. Not to mention a huuge amounts of ordanance and spare parts for them.
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Not to forget that Orions need space to maintain and store all those fighters and bombers. Not to mention a huuge amounts of ordanance and spare parts for them.
Except we don't know how much space those fighters/bombers etc take vis-a-vis the requirements for energy weapons; a fighter as of itself has very little requirements in terms of energy demands upon the carrying ship, whereas a mounted beam weapon has issues of supplying that energy, generating it, isolating those 2, and also dissipating the heat generated both from firing and running what are presumably very high-voltage energy supplies.
(NB: forgive me if voltage isn't the right term for it)
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High-power
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Nah, power isn't really a quantifier as of itself, it's too abstract. There are loads of different kinds of 'power' after all.
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In this case power = energy per second.
Has anyone actually voted recently? Maybe I should have made the poll 3 days long instead of one week.
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Not really, power actually has a very specific definition and we just constantly misuse it. Power is actually the correct term.
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Not really, power actually has a very specific definition and we just constantly misuse it. Power is actually the correct term.
Really? I always thought it seemed a bit too simple (P=W/T; W=work, T=Time - IIRC). i mean, voltage to me seemed a bit more precise in terms of predicting stuff like heat expenditure or whatnot, but ne'ermind.
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Well, yes power=work/time, and is equivalent to voltage*current. In the context of an energy production or distribution system power always refers to the latter. I can have a powersource that produces a huge voltage but drives very little current, or which offers near-unlimited current but very little voltage differential, neither of which are very useful where high power loads (voltage and current) are required.
EDIT: You're right to a point though, because ideal power sources are almost always modeled as voltage sources with an unlimited current backing. It's the fact that a voltage source says nothing in and of itself of what the supply's capabilities are that makes it inappropriate as a descriptor.
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Not to forget that Orions need space to maintain and store all those fighters and bombers. Not to mention a huuge amounts of ordanance and spare parts for them.
Also, you need 2-4 (possibly more) matanence people aboard for each fighter to refule, repaire, switch around weapons, ETC
The Orion in FS2 is retrofitted for beam weaponry - probably less effecient than the Vasudan-designed Sobek, designed to be a beam-using corvette from the start. Perhaps the Orions need larger energy/weapons space to operate...
Don't forget that the Orion only has 16 or so turrets, so it's not like it requires alot of people for manning and repairs. And 16 turrets won't take as much power as the Sobeks turrets.
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Fighters are going to need a lot of equipment, theere are going to be ammo magasines, big trucks to haul around the missiles (and i mean big) crews quarters for each of the people that work with the fighters, somthing to fuel the fighters, their maintenece vehicles, etc. Power for the docking mechanisms, ship mainenence mechanisms, repair facilities.
To ready and launch a fighter you need a crew of, at the most conservative esitmates, i'd say 20.
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...
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Fighters are going to need a lot of equipment, theere are going to be ammo magasines, big trucks to haul around the missiles (and i mean big) crews quarters for each of the people that work with the fighters, somthing to fuel the fighters, their maintenece vehicles, etc. Power for the docking mechanisms, ship mainenence mechanisms, repair facilities.
To ready and launch a fighter you need a crew of, at the most conservative esitmates, i'd say 20.
Unless some of it is automated (which, granted, can apply to turrets too). Crew numbers, though, strike me as debatable, because you don't know how many fighters are in the 'ready' state or stored, or how easy it is to repair the fighters. Plus we don't know that fighters need fuel; all indications are that they have internal reactors. Also definately don't need ammo magazines beyond missiles (which you didn't say, but it's an important note), and we don't know if destroyers have any manufacturing capacity for warheads.
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thesizzler - what I was driving at was that perhaps the Orion's turrets need physically larger power sources and controlling equipment that interfaces with the older ship design - Orions weren't originally designed with beam weapons envisioned, correct? Sobeks were, I imagine.
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thesizzler - what I was driving at was that perhaps the Orion's turrets need physically larger power sources and controlling equipment that interfaces with the older ship design - Orions weren't originally designed with beam weapons envisioned, correct? Sobeks were, I imagine.
Um, that's not actually that clear. The Sobek tech description says that they were designed "in the dark days after the destruction of Vasuda Prime", which would entail a rather rapid - but not impossible - development of beam technology. I'd support that they were designed for beam cannons - it seems a Vasudan trend - but it's not definitive.
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I believe that the Sobek was designed with flak more in mind. It seems to be a ship more capable of dealing with fighters, particularly Shivans (which the Vasudans had a rightful fear of) or pirates (which would have been more prevalent in the Reconstruction era). Beam technology might have been a later addition to the Sobek.
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So why does the Sobek have such horrible flak coverage?
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Work on fighters in FS has to be automated to a great extent. They're the size of a house for crying out loud, their weaponry is huge too; somebody estimated the Ursa's guns at 8-inch. You don't need people for manhandling the weapons or the ship around, because that's just not viable. It has to be done via machinery or automation.
I would guess that all told, for a 12-fighter squadron you'd have a total support staff of approximately 100. Of these about 85-90 would be directly concerned with maintaining the fighters, the rest being quartermaster types, perhaps a flight surgeon too. Individually each fighter might have four or five techs assigned specifically to that craft. (Originally I figured one or two; then I reminded myself they're taking care of something the size of a house.) They would handle day-to-day preventive maintance and minor repair work. The remainder would be specialists in a particular field; sensors, explosive ordinance handling, reactor repair, and so on. These would be "shared" personnel, who work on whatever is in need of their particular talent. Some of them may not be organic to the squadron itself, but rather adminstratively "belong" to the group or the destroyer, and work for multiple squadrons.
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Uhh... the Ursas guns are more like 30-inch.
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Where's that picture of a human in the Ursa's gun, anyway?
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I think we should have one mega-HLP-poll where everyone can vote for their favourite canon ship in each class (Fighter, Bomber, Support Craft, Transport, Freighter, Cargo Container, Cruiser, Corvette, Installation, Destroyer, Super-Destroyer/Juggernaut).
The Iceni should go under destroyer, as it IS primarily used as a command/control centre after all, and has destroyer-class weaponry.
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*SNIP*
No...the crew number falls down over time. With new tech most of it is automated.
By StratComm
Trashman, you certainly have a knack for finding these threads. I don't know whether you still believe that I had the last one locked down (I didn't) but you're vastly outnumbered here. Please drop it.
Drop what? Outnumbered by whom? About what? Eh?
Nimitz class carrier:
Length- 333M
Crew Compliment- 5,680
Sobek class corvette
Length- 608M
Crew Compliment- 6,000
Nimitz - a carrier with over 80 aircraft (3184 crew + 2800 FLIGHT CREW)
Go figure...
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Bismark "class" battleship:
Length - 251m
Crew compliment - 2,092
Gee, maybe those all those turrets in the Sobek need to be controlled by crew!! Nah... I'm just dreaming...
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No...the crew number falls down over time. With new tech most of it is automated.
That can be applied equally to any type of vessel.
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Where's that picture of a human in the Ursa's gun, anyway?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v66/FireCrack/scale.png)
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Bismark "class" battleship:
Length - 251m
Crew compliment - 2,092
Gee, maybe those all those turrets in the Sobek need to be controlled by crew!! Nah... I'm just dreaming...
sure they do...But check the numbers again..
The Nimitz, with all of it's aricraft has 5984 crew. Of that nuber 2800 are FLIGHT CREW, while the rest falls down to ship mantainance and guns (even carriers have some gunz and missile launchers)
Now take somethnig bigger than the Bismarck - the Iowa for example - with a total number of over 100 barrels pointing somewhere and needing mantainance
Here are the stats:
Qty Weapon
9 16-inch/50 caliber Guns (Mark 7) (406mm)
20 5-inch/38 caliber DP Guns (Mark 12) (127mm)
80 40mm/56 Anti-Aircraft
49 20mm/70 Anti-Aircraft
The highest crew number ever was 2600, but during the gulf war and after the modernization it had 1500 crew.
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And how old is fighter technology compared to say... beam weaponry?
Speaking of which, now that you refer maintenance, what is going to need more, a 333x76.8x41 m^3 vessel or... er... what is the volume of a sobek again?
Also note the need for space ships to have greater power outputs (I'd imagine it would take much more crew than a water vessel), the engines, etc...
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Um... Do I really have to remember that the Sobek is an ALIEN space ship! They could have a friggin' coffee machine that needs two flatheads to operate it. Or maybe Vasudans like crowds. We cannot know. Bottom line is that we know that the crew can physically fit inside the hull. That is the only useful comparison modern day naval vessels can supply us. The rest just has to wait until we get someone onboard a Sobek with a notebook a lots of pencils.
Just argue about the terran vessels. Since we all should have reasonably good idea about their internal structure, design philosopies, machinery and purpose.
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Where's that picture of a human in the Ursa's gun, anyway?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v66/FireCrack/scale.png)
wee!
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And how old is fighter technology compared to say... beam weaponry?
Speaking of which, now that you refer maintenance, what is going to need more, a 333x76.8x41 m^3 vessel or... er... what is the volume of a sobek again?
Also note the need for space ships to have greater power outputs (I'd imagine it would take much more crew than a water vessel), the engines, etc...
Age?
Carries were there during WW2. Their crew numbers INCREASED. Crew numbers on battleship decreased over time.
Granted, most of the smaller guns were removed during the refit or replaced with other weapons, but so did hte gun numbers on carriers.
older carriers had far more guns and approximately the same number of planes. Crew numbers increased.
Old BBs had more guns before. Crew number decreased.
Seeing a pattern here?
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I don't know where you are getting your numbers, because from what I can see the air crew actually decreased over time.
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/usa/usa-convcarrier.html
The increase in overall crew was made not by aircraft related work, but by the carrier itself's need aparently.
See patern here? The watercraft itself needs more crew to do whatever they do, not the aircrafts.
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Eh? Chekc your own numbers:
Midway
As built:
4120 total
Refitted:
2500 crew
2200 air group
Coral Sea
As built:
4120 total
Refitted:
2820 crew
1860 air group
Not much of a difference according to these numbers.
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Eh? Chekc your own numbers:
Midway
As built:
4120 total
Refitted:
2500 crew
2200 air group
Coral Sea
As built:
4120 total
Refitted:
2820 crew
1860 air group
Not much of a difference according to these numbers.
Er... Are your numbers for the Coral Sea correct?
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/usa/carriers/midway/coralsea.html :confused:
And both are Midway class...
I didn't really understand your post.
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Generally during a ship's service crew numbers will rise; this is a function of the nature of design. A ship is built, and then over the course of its career will have various things added to it (the Midway wasn't built, for example, with storage for nuclear weapons, a SINS, or nearly as many radars and other sensor gear as it ended its career with), causing the number of crew to rise. The next class, however, will have fewer crew then its predecessor did at construction, due to more automation and the fact that various obselete or dated items have been removed.
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Eh? Chekc your own numbers:
Midway
As built:
4120 total
Refitted:
2500 crew
2200 air group
Coral Sea
As built:
4120 total
Refitted:
2820 crew
1860 air group
Not much of a difference according to these numbers.
+300 crew, -300 flight crew for a newer ship isn't a big difference? Did I get transported to antimath land?
Er... Are your numbers for the Coral Sea correct?
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/usa/carriers/midway/coralsea.html :confused:
And both are Midway class...
I didn't really understand your post.
Don't bother, this is a religious argument for him. Don't let things like "facts" and "logic" think you've won the battle, because he will come right back at you with more easily countered assertions. I'd link threads where we've had this debate before, but I really can't be bothered with search out.
Could an admin please pre-emptively fork and lock the crew figures mess? We all know where it's going.
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Sorry, really didn't mean to start all this. Will locking the thread kill the poll?
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Yes, locking the thread closes everything. That's why I asked for only the pointless "how many crew..." parts to be forked off (split into a seperate thread) and that thread locked. It's not terribly common practice but it can be done.
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Yes, locking the thread closes everything. That's why I asked for only the pointless "how many crew..." parts to be forked off (split into a seperate thread) and that thread locked. It's not terribly common practice but it can be done.
Can't we just split it off and let it run its course? Honestly, that Battleship thread we had a while back was as entertaining as our ritual Religion threads. :)
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Yes, locking the thread closes everything. That's why I asked for only the pointless "how many crew..." parts to be forked off (split into a seperate thread) and that thread locked. It's not terribly common practice but it can be done.
Show me where to split, and I shall. :)
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I think we should just shoot the one who brought up the crew issue and ritualisticly burn his carcass. Maybe that would calm things down? ;)
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Yes, locking the thread closes everything. That's why I asked for only the pointless "how many crew..." parts to be forked off (split into a seperate thread) and that thread locked. It's not terribly common practice but it can be done.
Can't we just split it off and let it run its course? Honestly, that Battleship thread we had a while back was as entertaining as our ritual Religion threads. :)
Too soon, too soon. You need a good break for certain topics before we can haul out the carcass of the last thread and give it a good flogging.
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+300 crew, -300 flight crew for a newer ship isn't a big difference? Did I get transported to antimath land?
Excuse me, but those numbers are for two different ships that had different upgrades. Note that the Midway and Coral Sea, despite being the same class, weren't completely indentical either, as changes were made during construction.
Don't bother, this is a religious argument for him. Don't let things like "facts" and "logic" think you've won the battle, because he will come right back at you with more easily countered assertions. I'd link threads where we've had this debate before, but I really can't be bothered with search out.
Could an admin please pre-emptively fork and lock the crew figures mess? We all know where it's going.
LOL...I see you're back to you old "insult the other one and paint him as a fanatical nut" method.
Real cute... I was hoping you might actually grow up and discuss this in a rational and civil way.
Guess I overestimated you...
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I believe the phrase we're (i.e. everyone else in the friggin' forum) looking for here on Stratcomm's statement is "QFT."
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See, this is why I wanted this topic locked as well as forked. Can't come to any form of good.
Excuse me, but those numbers are for two different ships that had different upgrades. Note that the Midway and Coral Sea, despite being the same class, weren't completely indentical either, as changes were made during construction.
Then qualify what those differences are and what the hell you're trying to prove by posting them. I see two crew numbers, a list of total crew before and a breakdown after, which shows that the newer of the two ships has fewer flight crew and more ship crew than the older. If there's a difference in fitting, that should have been clarified when you posted the numbers in the first place. Even saying it was due to upfitting would have said something about what it was supposed to mean, even though it still wouldn't prove any point.
LOL...I see you're back to you old "insult the other one and paint him as a fanatical nut" method.
Real cute... I was hoping you might actually grow up and discuss this in a rational and civil way.
Guess I overestimated you...
Do you really want me to post the contents of your last PM to me, Trashman? Really? You really can't go flying off the handle in accusations since you've got just as much of a history with that in this debate as anyone. Ergo I wanted this thread locked before we came to this; rational and civil are two words that have never described this debate. Ever.
[EDIT for clarification]Since this thread does appear to still be open, I'll humor you and actually raise the points of concern.[/EDIT]
First, plase bear in mind that we're still talking about crew figures from Freespace ships. Not the US navy, not during WWII, not ten years ago, and not today. Secondly, we're dealing with a large number of unknowns. How big are reactors? Weapons? Power distribution systems? The habitable compartments? Storage areas? The hangers? Do we have canonical proof that any one of those things corresponds even remotely to any form of wet navy analogy? Do we know how many people it takes to man a plasma launcher? A high-powered laser battery? A cluster missile launcher where the missile is the size of my car? A photon beam emission system? Do we have any clue? How about the fact (seemingly ignored... over and over) that we're talking about something that operates in the vacuum of space, not in an atmosphere where any crew duty can be performed in the outside air? What does that change about the complexities of maintenence for a ship with an operational cycle spanning years? Quoting things from Star Trek would be about as relevant (my disdain for trying to associate anything canonically Trek with anything not part of Trek should be noted, by the way) as trying to say "this ship was X in WWII, so ships in Freespace must be Y". There is plenty of inferences that can be made off of the things we do know about the Freespace ships, but they all support larger crews for weapon, energy, and engine staffing than flight crew. That's not to say that the flight crew is tiny, but it certainly has nothing to do with how big the crew for the actual ship is. If you want to have an argument about historical vessels, go to a naval warfare forum and bug people there. Here we're debating Freespace.
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LOL...I see you're back to you old "insult the other one and paint him as a fanatical nut" method.
Real cute... I was hoping you might actually grow up and discuss this in a rational and civil way.
Guess I overestimated you...
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,37939.0.html
Should be all the evidence anyone needs to decide on who is a fanatical nut.