Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: ns33 on January 17, 2002, 08:29:00 pm
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I read from the FS Bible somewhere that the 3rd Cruiser Fleet blockaded the Ross 128 - Laramis jump node for some reason.
Anyone shed some light? What's actually composed in a cruiser fleet. Yes cruisers, but just cruisers?? Any numbers on fighters, bombers, escorts, weapons...
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Er... like a fleet but smaller?
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Since cruisers don't have fighter bays I doubt that there would be any fighters in this fleet. However, there could be fighters sent as assist from a destroyer nearby.
And, on the other side, in FS1 there was a cruiser being the flagship of a shivan battlegroup, and it had fighters for escort.
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Err... I presume the timeframe was FS1, right?
In that case the allied forces didn't have much by way of destroyers or whathaveyou, the fleet was composed almost entirely of cruisers.
*braces self for flood of corrections*
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I'm guessing that the allied forces in FS1 were launching fighters from destroyers stationed away from the main battles, as they couldn't exactly keep duking it out without heavy damage. That comes to mind from the mission to assault a HoL base, but all one finds is two Cains which the Galatea eats for lunch (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif).
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Probably only 5-6 cruisers (mix of heavy cruisers and faster ones), some support freighters (carry armaments), with fighter & bomber support from bases or destroyers. They probably deployed a large number of sentry guns, as well - they were actually useful in FS1.
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They are in FS2 as well... ever taken on 30 of them? If you don't have a Helios or something else wide-dispersal, you're screwed. Plus they're supposed to be cheap enough that this would be the way to make blockades...
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Nobody can tell me that sentries are useless. I modded the Alastor with a rapid fire Subach using the swarm tag (Alastor seems to be the only model that works with swarm turrets (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif) ).
That's a quiet annoing thing now, I tell you (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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just one model? isn't that a bit 'strange'....
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Well, for a long time, Fenris cruisers were the biggest thing in the fleet - and later, as destroyers were designed and commisioned, Fenris cruisers kept their popularity because they were a much lower-cost alternative. Because so many of these were built, they banded together to escort convoys and patrol systems, as well as providing radar support for installations with poor antenna coverage.
So I'd be guessing, as most of you already have, a cruiser fleet would be 2-4 Fenris classes (some would have Leviathans, but less, because Leviathans are slower-moving and more suited to defending fixed objects or similarly-slow destroyers), coupled with a couple of fighter wings from the battle group in the area. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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I would hate working on a cruiser back in FS1 with no beam turrets. Youd be sitting there barely hitting them and vice versa. You could be sitting there all night it seems.
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ns33, can you find this reference in the FS Bible for me? I want to take a look at it before I give you my opinion.
I've never heard of a "cruiser fleet" before...
I'm working on compiling an estimate of what ships and how many ships are in a Vasudan battle group and a Terran/Neo-terran fleet.
The only thing I've got so far is that a Terran fleet has 12 Charybdis AWACS ships and an Orion and a Hecate destroyer, while a Vasudan battle group has 4 Setekh AWACS ships and one Typhon and one Hatshepsut. I'm still working on the rest.
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Well the Collosus had firepower equal to a Terran Battlegroup
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"The Colossus wields more firepower than 5 orion destroyers combined."
So sayeth the Colossus cutscene. I need to watch that thing again for the specific numbers of turrets. I'll look at it in FRED also.
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The numbers in the cutscene are totally crap. The actual model doesn't have a single missile turret.
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Originally posted by Su-tehp:
"The Colossus wields more firepower than 5 orion destroyers combined."
So sayeth the Colossus cutscene. I need to watch that thing again for the specific numbers of turrets. I'll look at it in FRED also.
In a briefing or during the mission someone says the Colossus has the firepower of a whole Battlegroup.
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I remember when i watched that cutscene's end. There was 3 sobeks, 2 Deimos, 2 Fenris, 1 Aeolus, 1 Orion, and 1 Hatshepsut escorting the Colossus. I guess that would be s standard battlegroup.
In the tech database they say that the Colossus has more firepower than most GTVA battlegroups. (Yeah, Right) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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Originally posted by GrandAdmiralAbaht:
I remember when i watched that cutscene's end. There was 3 sobeks, 2 Deimos, 2 Fenris, 1 Aeolus, 1 Orion, and 1 Hatshepsut escorting the Colossus. I guess that would be s standard battlegroup.
That's probably just a mixed taskforce, rather than a standard battlegroup. In fact, the GTVA organizes the terran ships and the Vasudan ships into separate fleets, meaning that all Vasudan ships belong to a Vasudan battle group while all Terran ships belong to a Terran fleet. This is mentioned in the tech database (under the "GTVA" entry, if I remember correctly). So a Vasudan Sobek wouldn't "normally" be part of a Terran fleet and a Terran cruiser or corvette wouldn't "normally" be part of a Vasudan battle group.
I say "normally" because the above has a caveat. We all know from playing the main FS2 campaign that the GTD Aquitaine was flagship of the 3rd Terran Fleet, based in Capella. But almost immediately, we see the Aquitaine being transferred to Deneb to assist the GVD Psamtik. We also know that Deneb is the realm of the 13th Vasudan Battle Group because of the GVD Hatshepsut tech database entry saying that the Psamtik was the flagship of the 13th Battle Group. We also know from the same entry that the 13th was based in Deneb. The Aquitaine was transferred around quite a bit (between Capella, Deneb and the nebula, the Aquitaine managed to get around all over the place), but for all its traveling, it never lost its status as flagship of the 3rd Fleet.
So this means that while individual ships do get moved around from assignment to assignment (and from system to system), they remain officially assigned to their original fleet/battlegroup. And since the tech database said (as I mentioned above) that Terran ships and Vasudan ships were officailly assigned to separate fleets/battle groups, a grouping of "3 sobeks, 2 Deimos, 2 Fenris, 1 Aeolus, 1 Orion, and 1 Hatshepsut", which mixed Vasudan and Terran ships, would not be a standard battle group. Besides, a "battle group" containing only 9 capital ships seems far too small to me. Considering that the NTF Rebellion was going on for 18 months, a battlegroup with this few ships would be likely to be overwhelmed in short order, especially for a military genius like Admiral Bosch. (end of rant)
I've made a list of GTVA Terran fleets and Vasudan battlegroups at FRED Zone's Guidelines forum. The link is here:
http://pub11.ezboard.com/fjtofrm11.showMessage?topicID=23.topic ("http://pub11.ezboard.com/fjtofrm11.showMessage?topicID=23.topic")
You should find it an interesting read. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Also, for a VERY rough (and unofficial) estimate of what a Vasudan battle group might look like, take a look at CP5670's recently validated multiplayer mission titled "Sirius Blockade" on PXO. If memory serves me correctly, there were about 6 cruisers, 4 Sobeks, 1 Typhon and 1 Hatshepsut in that mission. However, there is nothing in that mission to suggest that is the complete complement of a Vasudan battle group. Hence my desire to keep researching this before I give a definitive answer as to what the "true" complement of a battle group or a fleet is.
More on this later.
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FRED Zone's ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fredzone/home.shtml") Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
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Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
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I would hate working on a cruiser back in FS1 with no beam turrets. Youd be sitting there barely hitting them and vice versa. You could be sitting there all night it seems.
Except in the TV war, there were no shield either. That helps prolong the surivibliy of a cruiser against fighter and wings.
Also if you did lose a cruiser, you only lose and small amount of lives. If you look at the debrief stages of the first FS1 mission, the stage that shows if the Orff is destroyed (has anyone acually lost it?) says something like 'dozens of lives have been lost'. I seemed to remember there being around 500 lives on a crusier in FS2.
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I managed to extrapolate a preliminary list of what might be in a typical Terran or NTF fleet and a Vasudan battlegroup.
This is hardly an exact list, but it's the best thing I could come up with. Judging by briefing and debriefing texts mentioning "major victories against the NTF" when only a destroyer and a couple of cruisers are revealed to have been destroyed, I figured that the number of warships in any given battlegroup couldn't be more than a few dozen. I also noticed in the GVA Setekh and GTA Charybdis tech database entries that a "wing of Setekhs is assigned to every vasudan battle group" while "a squadron of Charybdis ships are assigned to every Terran fleet."
I managed to figure out a while ago (from the Colossus cutscene in FS2) that a wing is equal to four ships and a squadron equals three wings (thus a squadron equals 12 ships). From this info, we have (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/v.gif)-quality proof that there are 4 Setekhs in every Vasudan battle group while a Terran fleet has 12 Chaybdis ships. Having only a dozen or less AWACS ships in a battle group seems to point to a similar number of warships: this basically means that there are only going to be dozens of warships in a battle group, rather than hundreds. The "major victories" debriefing comments likewise points to a relatively small number of warships.
I haven't been able to come up with exact numbers for a typical complement of a battle group, but it's reasonable to assume that since fighters, bombers and even AWACS cap ships are organized in wings and squadrons, it's reasonable to assume that the rest of the battle group capships would follow this method of organization. And so...
"Typical" Terran fleet organization:
(Note: I say "typical," because in wartime, ships get destroyed or created or re-assigned to different theatres of war as the situation warrants, etc., etc., so specific numbers in a battle group are usually in flux.)
One wing of 4 destroyers (Additional Notes: one of these destroyers will be designated as the flagship/command ship of the fleet. Also, Hecates are relatively new in the GTVA arsenal as they were only starting to be deployed in the year 2367, so there shouldn't be more than one Hecate in a given Terran fleet, if any Hecates are present in that fleet at all. If no Hecates are present, then the 4 destroyers will all be Orion-class.)
One squadron of 12 corvettes
Two squadrons of 24 cruisers (any mixture of Leviathan, Fenris and Aeolus classes is possible)
One squadron of 12 Charybdis-class AWACS ships
Unknown # of support ships (including Hippocrates-class medical ships, Zephryus-class gas miners assorted freighters, etc.). My guess is there are enough of these ships "as are needed."
4 or less GTI Arcadia installations per system where the fleet is based. Arcadias are REALLY big and expensive to build and the tech database said that each Terran system has "at least one Arcadia," so I figure there can't be more than a few of these in every system. The number of Arcadias will vary from system to system, as they are used by both civilian and military personnel. Regardless, however, one of these Arcadias will be referred to as the Fleet Headquarters (i.e. 3rd Fleet HQ in Capella).
Neo-Terran fleets will follow a similar set-up as above but will NOT have the squadron of Charybdis AWACS ships. When they first appear in the SOC mission, Commander Snipes refers to them as "the new AWACS ship." This implies that the NTF didn't have them as the Rebellion had already been going on for 18 months. Also, if the NTF had AWACS ships with the same jamming technology, they could have realized that an AWACS ship was jamming transmissions while the SOC was hijacking the Sunder transport. Since Snipes refers to it as "new," and the NTF Rebellion had already been going on for a while, it seems to imply that it was just created, which means the NTF would be unable to acquire such new technology, as the GTVA would do its utmost to prevent such a useful technology from falling into NTF hands. (Besides, we never saw any AWACS ships flying for the NTF.) So no AWACS squadron for the NTF fleets.
"Typical" Vasudan battle group organization:
One wing of 4 destroyers (Additional Notes: As with the Terran fleets, one of these destroyers will be designated as the flagship/command ship of the battle group. Also, even though Hatshepsuts are relatively new as they were only starting to be deployed around the year 2360, the Typhon database entry implies that Hatshepsuts are more numerous than Typhons as the Typhons have been more extensively replaced. Since the tech database also says that Typhons were alot less compatible with beam weaponry than Orions were, this makes sense. I figure in a typical destroyer wing, there would be 2 or 3 Hatshepsuts and either 2 or 1 corresponding Typhons.)
One squadron of 12 corvettes
Two squadrons of 24 cruisers (any mixture of Mentu and Aten classes is possible)
One wing of 4 Setekh-class AWACS ships
Unknown # of support ships, including Hippocrates-class medical ships (there aren't any Vasudan med ships), Anuket-class gas miners, assorted freighters, etc. My guess is there are enough of these ships "as are needed."
4 or less Vasudan installations per system where the battle group is based. (I prefer the Cairo MOD over the Karnak MOD, myself... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)) Like Arcadias, Vasudan installations are REALLY big and expensive to build, so I figure there can't be more than a few of these in every system. The number of Vasudan installations will vary from system to system, as they are used by both civilian and military personnel. Regardless, however, one of these installations will be referred to as the Battle Group Headquarters (i.e. 13th Battle Group HQ in Deneb).
I think I'll post this on FRED Zone, too.
Hope this helps. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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FRED Zone's ("http://fredzone.unitedgamerscoalition.com/") Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God
[This message has been edited by Su-tehp (edited 01-21-2002).]
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I just did a search through the reference bible and there is no mention of a "3rd Cruiser Fleet." ns33 must have read it in some other place, because it doesn't exist.
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hmm... I know it was some type of official reference source... damn. Cant remember where or when. It was a long time ago... a LOOONG time ago. The thought just randomly poped in my head.
By the way, speaking of cruisers, I also read somewhere that in the entire GTVA fleet, there are less than 24 Aeolus cruisers. Can anyone confirm this?
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Yeah, this is in the ship.tbl file for the Aeolus cruiser entry. Only about two dozen Aeolus cruisers were constructed at the RNI shipyard orbiting Laramis II before construction stopped in 2365.
Too bad, it's my favorite cruiser, certainly more so than either the Leviathan or Fenris cruisers. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/squeeze.gif)
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ummm, correct me if im wrong, but didnt the Colussus have the firepower of 12 orions? and are you sure a Terran Fleet is limited to only 2 destroyers?
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well, i have a question about the NTF and technology....if a GTVA destroyer, like say the GTD Roanoke, were to defect to the NTF, wouldnt it take all the tech it had with it? Or would they simply throw all those valuable Helios bombs, stealth fighters, advanced fighters, and otherwise useful stuff out the airlocks just to make the GTVA happy? just a thought :P to those out there who insist that the NTF never got Helios bombs or Erinyes or Ares
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Pegasus, Erinyes and Ares fighters were not in service when the rebellion began. Listen to your command briefings and you will see that you are one of the first people to fly them.
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Originally posted by Starwing:
Pegasus, Erinyes and Ares fighters were not in service when the rebellion began. Listen to your command briefings and you will see that you are one of the first people to fly them.
Perseus wasn't in service when the rebellion began also. You fly it for its first combat mission in the Enif station battle in Epsilon Pegasi.
The NTF MIGHT have had Helios bombs, but not nearly as many as the GTVA had, I think. This is open to debate.
Lt Narol, the Colossus had the firepower of 5 Orions, not twelve (at least according to the Colossus cutscene).
Also, I've extrapolated that a Terran fleet has four destroyers, not two, but this is hardly gospel. (see above)
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FRED Zone's ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fredzone/home.shtml") Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God
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Originally posted by Su-tehp:
especially for a military genius like Admiral Bosch.
Robert E. Lee kind of thing going on?
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Originally posted by Su-tehp:
Perseus wasn't in service when the rebellion began also. You fly it for its first combat mission in the Enif station battle in Epsilon Pegasi.
So, you're saying that maybe they were using Valkyries as their interceptor class at the beginning of the rebellion?
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Originally posted by Alikchi:
So, you're saying that maybe they were using Valkyries as their interceptor class at the beginning of the rebellion?
Either that, or they did away with an interceptor class fighter altogether when the GTVA mothballed the Valkyrie after the First Great War until the Perseus came along.
Just play the original FS2 mission sm1-08 titled "The Sixth Wonder." The mission briefing says straight up that this mission is the first combat deployment of the Perseus. The command briefing also says that the Valkyrie was retired previously (but doesn't specifically say when).
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Su, just curious, where did you find out that Terran fleets had four destroyers? (I can't remember reading anything like this but all the subtle indications seem to point towards two destroyers) If the Terran fleets are really that much larger than Vasudan ones, it would probably also make sense to also have more Vasudan battle groups in service than Terran ones, maybe even two per system in some cases...
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Originally posted by CP5670:
Su, just curious, where did you find out that Terran fleets had four destroyers? (I can't remember reading anything like this but all the subtle indications seem to point towards two destroyers) If the Terran fleets are really that much larger than Vasudan ones, it would probably also make sense to also have more Vasudan battle groups in service than Terran ones, maybe even two per system in some cases...
I don't remember seeing any definitive proof that fleets and battle groups had only two destroyers; I think that was something I extrapolated. And Terran fleets aren't larger than vasudan battlegroups. Aside from the difference in AWACS ships (terran fleet having 12, Vasudan battlegroup having only 4, NTF fleet having none), Terran, Neo-terran and Vasudan battlegroups are all roughly the same size.
I changed my mind and RE-extrapolated the fleet organization that since the GTVA and NTF organize everything (fighters, AWACS and presumably cruisers also) in wings and squadrons, then it would make sense to organize destroyers in the same way. Since having a whole squadron of 12 destroyers in every fleet sounded too excessive to me, I decided to go with a wing of 4 destroyers instead. Under this organization, what would you call 2 destroyers? A "half-wing?" Four destroyers seemed to make more sense than two the more I thought about this.
We won't need to re-do and re-issue "Sirius blockade" as a result of this, so don't worry, CP! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif) It's not like the Vasudans would throw the ENTIRE 11th Battle Group into Sirius and leave Alpha Centauri completely undefended! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/lol.gif)
[This message has been edited by Su-tehp (edited 01-28-2002).]