Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: AlphaOne on January 24, 2009, 07:36:21 am
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Oki so here it goes. I've been thinking for a while and i've begun to wonder if either the terrans or the vasudans during or after the 14 year war or during the first shivan invasion or even after the formation of the GTVA might have built or tested some sort of dedicated hunter killer ship to take out enemy capships.
Looking at some of the designs that have been introduced they do tend to go that way at least the Vasudans with the Sobek as a counterpart for the shivan cruisers.
I was thinking about stating what i believe about the Iceni but il refrain until people post since i don't wanna influence in any way this particular ship .
However the Deimos does appear to have at one point made use of some design elements that might of been tested for a dedicated hunter-killer. I'm talking about its power plant or reactor sistem's as you wanna call it.
Also it has a very tough shell to crack however it appears that its focus was shifted towards aaaf defences and such.
The Deimos i believe would of made a superb hunter-killer should the design made use of more powerfull beams even vasudan ones and a bit more power towards the engines and a few less aaaf defences.
Edit1: Also are there any user made ships that fit this category ?
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Well, Hunter-Killer traditionally means that the recon and the actual force are separated, so I guess the best hunter-killer ship would be a small capship with a very small fighterbay and some firepower. That way you'd have your own fighter compliment (the hunter) and the capship itself (the killer). You wouldn't need too large a fighterbay since the fighters aren't there for defense, more for recon. I suppose a ship much like the Moloch but with more emphasis on firepower, would be ideal.
As far as canon goes, the Sobek is I think the only real dedicated hunter-killer ship out there. It was specifically designed, or so the TD says, to go out and hunt down Lilith cruisers, which the PVN and GTA had a big problem with during the Great War.
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Well i was just wondering If ships such as the Sobek and Iceni given the proper overhaul meaning a lot more powerfull sensors and jamming capabilaties could be considered hunter-killer.
Meaning they lay in wait patroll or whatever and rely only on theyr massive sensors to detect and hunt ships. such as the moder day subs.
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Honestly the best hunter-killer ship would just be a wing of Artemis bombers. The versatility of a good fighter/bomber wing can never be matched by a capship.
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Well you are assuming the bommbers would get a chance to hit the waship in question.
For example if we are talking about a Demon or Ravana they have fighter wings of their own.
Also what im talking about is a get in fast i mean like jump in from some place hidden fire your beams once or twice at the enemy capship blow it to pieces then jump out again.
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A few bombers wings with intersystem subspace drives (and maybe a support ship assigned to their wing too) would be the best hunter-killer taskforce. They'd be able to jump in, splash the communications/engines/weapons subsystems, and then finish off any cruiser, corvette or destroyer before they knew what hit them. A capital ship could never execute such an effective surgical strike, and would never be that mobile.
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Also what im talking about is a get in fast i mean like jump in from some place hidden fire your beams once or twice at the enemy capship blow it to pieces then jump out again.
The Colossus and the Sathanas. Or just the Sathanas, if the Colossus isn't specialized for that role.
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Those ships are way too big for such a role. They require quite a lot of supply's . Something small fast deadly stealth.
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I still think a bomber group is the best.
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I'd think that a hunter-killer warship would have a good capacity to work independent of a supporting fleet for a long time (i.e. a few months). It would have a really advanced sensor suite, perhaps with some good stealth/EW tech.
Rather than having a lot of guns all over, it'd have just a few powerful beam cannons on a close spot on the ship; probably a broadside so it wouldn't collide with debris when it jumped out. It wouldn't go for prolonged fights; it would have to be a jump in, unleash beam salvo or two, jump out. The armor wouldn't be to strong, but the engines would be really powerful; powerful enough to get a corvette sized ship to 40ms and jump drives recharged in 1-2min.
This way, you jump straight in next to a destroyer and her escort, you unleash two salvos of three Bgreens and jump out before too much return fire. The enemy wouldn't see you coming too much because of the stealth tech, and hopefully would be caught by surprise.
I figure past that, it would have a small bay for a squadron of fighters for recon, and possibly escort if situations become dire, but it would probably be ships like the Loki.
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Bomber group has no hope of being self-supporting. A destroyer or corvette might just manage it. As it stands, the best such ships in canon are the Sathanas and Ravana, both of which can deliever a fight-ending first punch and have a fighterbay to let them defend themselves against smaller threats.
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Those ships are way too big for such a role. They require quite a lot of supply's . Something small fast deadly stealth.
I agree with your idea with the Deimos, find a modeller (or whatever the term is) and redo the Deimos with four BGreens as forward beam cannons and nothing else, and if that doesn't do some heavy damage give it a fighterbay to cover its ass while its drives recharge and it gets the hell out
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4 BGReens on a Deimos? That's waaaay overkill you know.
A single Mjolnir beam would be just fine. Along with some 15 turrets for self defense.
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I suggest to balance everything with SEXPs.
Use fire-beam for a single volley and then cause a malfunction with sabotage-subsystem.
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I suggest to balance everything with SEXPs.
Use fire-beam for a single volley and then cause a malfunction with sabotage-subsystem.
Yeah, or make a new type of beam in the tables and give it an epically long recharge time
4 BGReens on a Deimos? That's waaaay overkill you know.
A single Mjolnir beam would be just fine. Along with some 15 turrets for self defense.
True
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Yeah, or make a new type of beam in the tables and give it an epically long recharge time
Using SEXPs prevents from creating a new entry in weapons.tbl :)
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I'de say an Aeolus, With two upgraded beam cannons, could be a right-nice Hunter-Killer. Even by itself, it is very good at fending off Fighter/Bomber attacks, and has the most Forward firepower of any Allied Cruiser.
It could probably get the jump on Cain's, and with a fighter escort, Rakshasa's & Moloch's. I'm iffy about Lilith's. That L-Red will rip it to shreds.
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4 BGReens on a Deimos? That's waaaay overkill you know.
A single Mjolnir beam would be just fine. Along with some 15 turrets for self defense.
A) We're not talking about an actual Diemos.
B) A single Mjolnir beam would be sufficient. For freighters. 15 turrets for self defense is more than the Orion has total. You wouldn't need that many on a hunter-killer warship. I'd think that 3-4 Bgreens on one side would suffice, and two AAAfs and three flak guns would be plenty. In war, you're not trying to create a balanced warship; you're trying to create the best possible warship. If an Aeolus can mount two Sgreens, I can't see a ship with 5 times the power capacity having 3/4 Bgreens being too far fetched.
C) A hunter-killer warship wouldn't be designed for prolonged engagements. If you go with my previous set up, all you should need is two, possibly three volleys for most larger ships, and then you'd jump out. It wouldn't have many flak shells nor enough armor to withstand long fights. Although they'd be designed to work alone, if need be, you could probably stick two or three together for larger targets/groups of targets.
D) A hunter-killer, as its name says, would be used to stalk and hunt down specific enemy warships, then kill them. Hunters usually don't go run through the forest screaming, shooting at everything that moves when hunting deer, because that method doesn't work. Use it as a normal corvette or cruiser and wouldn't be any different from a normal corvette or cruiser. In all honesty, I wouldn't be surprised if we could make a new hull-classification. It'd would probably be different enough from any similar-sized warship to merit it.
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One thing I hate is people saying "A ship with 500 BFGreens and 79001024093789327382974328943^(32388383999) AAAf beams would be great for such a role"
When it's inherently impossible anything like that could be constructed.
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One thing I hate is people saying "A ship with 500 BFGreens and 79001024093789327382974328943^(32388383999) AAAf beams would be great for such a role"
When it's inherently impossible anything like that could be constructed.
My bad, I forgot 3 or 4 = 500 and that 2 = 79001024093789327382974328943^(32388383999). Tell me, why exactly is 500 (read 3 or 4) impossible for an 800 to 1000 meter long warship? Do we have canonical size restrictions, canonical beam power usage, and canonical power plant output?
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My bad, I forgot 3 or 4 = 500 and that 2 = 79001024093789327382974328943^(32388383999). Tell me, why exactly is 500 (read 3 or 4) impossible for an 800 to 1000 meter long warship? Do we have canonical size restrictions, canonical beam power usage, and canonical power plant output?
It's a hyperbole.
I think it goes by common sense. If no Terran ships of a certain size have 4 BGreens, it stands to reason that the reason there isn't one is because it's not bloody possible.
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The only Terran ship with 4+ BGreens is the Colossus.
Not even the Orion has that much firepower. The Iceni does have three, so it is possible to mount three on a corvette sized ship and still retain a 35ms-1 top speed with multiple redundant engine systems to avoid getting disabled.
If the Iceni had its weapons rearranged so that all three of its primary weapons can be pointed at a single target, it'd work pretty well at this role already.
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The Bellerophon from Stratcomm's pack could do well in that role. It has an offensive shivan-style forward configuration with three beam cannons on the front.
And for a small carrier, also from Stratcomm's pack, the Sparta frigate would do swimmingly.
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My bad, I forgot 3 or 4 = 500 and that 2 = 79001024093789327382974328943^(32388383999). Tell me, why exactly is 500 (read 3 or 4) impossible for an 800 to 1000 meter long warship? Do we have canonical size restrictions, canonical beam power usage, and canonical power plant output?
It's a hyperbole.
I think it goes by common sense. If no Terran ships of a certain size have 4 BGreens, it stands to reason that the reason there isn't one is because it's not bloody possible.
Not true. It's possible for aircraft carriers to mount 14 inch guns that shoot nuclear shells, but none of them do. Why? Because they're effective without them. Are fighters incapable of using flak guns? By your logic yes, but in this case, you'd be a bit suspicious. The size and damage of flak shouldn't be too big you mount on a fighter, though you wouldn't be able to load too many shells. Is an Orion capable of mounting Morning Stars to fend away bombers? By your logic, it isn't. Think up a more logically sound argument other than "it doesn't balance, and it hasn't already been done".
It's not a common sense thing that this is impossible. If you want to have a balanced game, then it is. If you're actually going to use this concept to make a ship for the game, then by all means, disregard my idea. But if you're honestly trying to think up an extension to the GTVA fleet, with a relatively realistic military design strategy, then shouting "YOU CAN'T HAVE 3/4 BGREENS ON A CORVETTE BECAUSE IT WOULD WORK TOO WELL" has no place here.
A hunter-killer craft that I described is a highly specialized warship. As I said before, it wouldn't be used for normal combat. If they were, they'd be slaughtered by any wing of bombers that looked at it wrong.
A Deimos or Sobek is not a specialized craft. They're meant to be used against fighters, cruisers, other corvettes, and many other numbers of things. And they're effective at that. The things that they're not effective at is quickly dealing with them.
The hunter-killer that I described wouldn't be a cheap ship, as evident by the 4 Bgreens. There wouldn't be many of them, mainly because of the expense and that not too many are needed. More than likely, they'd be used by SOC. But it's effective at the one thing that not too many other crafts are: Quick, highly lethal, and relatively uncounterable attacks.
Why not use this tactic on all of our ships, then if it can decapitate a fleet so quickly? Because it's expensive and ineffective against certain tactics. For a populated area as large as the GTVA, you need a fleet of a certain size to be able to defend it and maintain order. With ships this expensive, you wouldn't be able to do that. But let's say for a moment that you magically do manage to get enough to do that, through some evil manipulation of FRED. The enemy counters that move with similar ship types of it's own, except with a higher dedication to electronic warfare and early detection and bomber ability. Now the enemy has a fleet of cruiser/corvette hybrids that have double your ship's sensor range, a squadron of interceptors, a squadron of bombers, and no guns, all for half the cost. Now it's them mounting the raids on your ships, because our hunter-killer fleet is incapable of defending itself from such amounts of fighters and bombers. Now let's say that your ships can effectively do everything really well, and you magically can afford everything to have a satisfactory fleet size. Hurrah for you! You have a highly effective space-borne navy. Give your R&D team a cookie.
But that doesn't happen because we're assuming the GTVA will be in a near economic-paralysis after the SGW. So they won't be able to afford any of these ships for a long time, because they need to rebuild their economy and regular fleet first. Eventually they would be able to afford it; I'd give it 10 or 15 years, seeing as how quickly they managed to do things after a 14 year-long war against each other and then against the Shivans.
EDIT: BTW: If we all defined rules beforehand that govern things like power output, weapon size, and logistics, would anyone be interested in creating a fleet for the GTVA for 30+ years after the SGW? I figure we make a thread to define the rules and once that's done, we make a thread to actually start. If people are interested, then I'll write a template to begin discussing the rules.
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TL;DR
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TL;DR
counter-argument, elaboration
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I'm guessing if such a hunter-killer warship was constructed, it's fighter compliment would probably consist of a wing of GTF Pegasus fighters for recon, and possibly one or two wings of GTF Perseus for defense against enemy bombers, since the warship's weaponry would be focused towards anti-cap beams as opposed to AAAf.
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There could still be effective AF beams. The super AF beams used by the Colossus can inflict significant damage to a warship in prolonged combat. I guess mounting such weapons for a two-roles task is not a bad idea.
Nearly three years ago I FREDded a mission in which an Iceni with super AF beams passed near a Sathanas. The Iceni fired its beams on the Sathanas(if there were no Shivan fighters in the immediate vicinity) and after a few shots it reduces the Sathanas' hull integrity from 100 to 99. It continued to fire, reducing it to 97-96. That was quite impressive, IMO.
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There could still be effective AF beams. The super AF beams used by the Colossus can inflict significant damage to a warship in prolonged combat. I guess mounting such weapons for a two-roles task is not a bad idea.
Nearly three years ago I FREDded a mission in which an Iceni with super AF beams passed near a Sathanas. The Iceni fired its beams on the Sathanas(if there were no Shivan fighters in the immediate vicinity) and after a few shots it reduces the Sathanas' hull integrity from 100 to 99. It continued to fire, reducing it to 97-96. That was quite impressive, IMO.
On a rare occasion, I saw an Orion broadsiding the Sath take out one of the forward beam turrets
Which was the player's objective in the mission.
And how long did the Iceni survive?
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My bad, I forgot 3 or 4 = 500 and that 2 = 79001024093789327382974328943^(32388383999). Tell me, why exactly is 500 (read 3 or 4) impossible for an 800 to 1000 meter long warship? Do we have canonical size restrictions, canonical beam power usage, and canonical power plant output?
It's a hyperbole.
I think it goes by common sense. If no Terran ships of a certain size have 4 BGreens, it stands to reason that the reason there isn't one is because it's not bloody possible.
Yes, because my tube of chapstick can shoot a BFRed exactly 87 times back-to-back before overheating, a 800 / 1,000m ship can EASILY hold 500 of them.
Not true. It's possible for aircraft carriers to mount 14 inch guns that shoot nuclear shells, but none of them do. Why? Because they're effective without them. Are fighters incapable of using flak guns? By your logic yes, but in this case, you'd be a bit suspicious. The size and damage of flak shouldn't be too big you mount on a fighter, though you wouldn't be able to load too many shells. Is an Orion capable of mounting Morning Stars to fend away bombers? By your logic, it isn't. Think up a more logically sound argument other than "it doesn't balance, and it hasn't already been done".
Uh...no. Carriers don't mount extremely large cannons because that would greatly reduce it's efficency as a CARRIER.
A hunter-killer craft that I described is a highly specialized warship. As I said before, it wouldn't be used for normal combat. If they were, they'd be slaughtered by any wing of bombers that looked at it wrong.
Hmm...let's look at the Sathanas and the Lucifer shall we and how easily they're taken down by bombers.
A Deimos or Sobek is not a specialized craft. They're meant to be used against fighters, cruisers, other corvettes, and many other numbers of things. And they're effective at that. The things that they're not effective at is quickly dealing with them.
I'd consider them support warships since they're super-large Cruisers that can more effictively take on other large ships.
EDIT: BTW: If we all defined rules beforehand that govern things like power output, weapon size, and logistics, would anyone be interested in creating a fleet for the GTVA for 30+ years after the SGW? I figure we make a thread to define the rules and once that's done, we make a thread to actually start. If people are interested, then I'll write a template to begin discussing the rules.
I'd vote for StratComm's fleet. :P
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My bad, I forgot 3 or 4 = 500 and that 2 = 79001024093789327382974328943^(32388383999). Tell me, why exactly is 500 (read 3 or 4) impossible for an 800 to 1000 meter long warship? Do we have canonical size restrictions, canonical beam power usage, and canonical power plant output?
It's a hyperbole.
I think it goes by common sense. If no Terran ships of a certain size have 4 BGreens, it stands to reason that the reason there isn't one is because it's not bloody possible.
Yes, because my tube of chapstick can shoot a BFRed exactly 87 times back-to-back before overheating, a 800 / 1,000m ship can EASILY hold 500 of them.
Are you trying to say how the Sathanas' arms were so thin that they could still mount BFReds, indicating the size of the beam components?
Not true. It's possible for aircraft carriers to mount 14 inch guns that shoot nuclear shells, but none of them do. Why? Because they're effective without them. Are fighters incapable of using flak guns? By your logic yes, but in this case, you'd be a bit suspicious. The size and damage of flak shouldn't be too big you mount on a fighter, though you wouldn't be able to load too many shells. Is an Orion capable of mounting Morning Stars to fend away bombers? By your logic, it isn't. Think up a more logically sound argument other than "it doesn't balance, and it hasn't already been done".
Uh...no. Carriers don't mount extremely large cannons because that would greatly reduce it's efficency as a CARRIER.
That kind of my point. :rolleyes:
A hunter-killer craft that I described is a highly specialized warship. As I said before, it wouldn't be used for normal combat. If they were, they'd be slaughtered by any wing of bombers that looked at it wrong.
Hmm...let's look at the Sathanas and the Lucifer shall we and how easily they're taken down by bombers.
I recall saying that my concepted ship had weak armor. If you think 800,000 hp is weak, then what you're implying is true. I thought more of that the 20,000 to 25,000 range was weak for a corvette sized craft, but if you want to make a super ship here, go ahead. I also recall saying that the total non-anticap beam armament would be 2 AAAf beams and 3 flak guns, compared to the myriad weapons on the Sathanas or Lucifer. Hmm...
A Deimos or Sobek is not a specialized craft. They're meant to be used against fighters, cruisers, other corvettes, and many other numbers of things. And they're effective at that. The things that they're not effective at is quickly dealing with them.
I'd consider them support warships since they're super-large Cruisers that can more effictively take on other large ships.
Regardless of what you think their specific role is, they're obviously much less specialized than the ship I described. The Deimos, for example, harbors 4 anti-cap beams, 4 AAAfs, and a buttload of other guns. A pretty well rounded ship overall.
EDIT: BTW: If we all defined rules beforehand that govern things like power output, weapon size, and logistics, would anyone be interested in creating a fleet for the GTVA for 30+ years after the SGW? I figure we make a thread to define the rules and once that's done, we make a thread to actually start. If people are interested, then I'll write a template to begin discussing the rules.
I'd vote for StratComm's fleet. :P
So I take it that you do not wish to participate?
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My bad, I forgot 3 or 4 = 500 and that 2 = 79001024093789327382974328943^(32388383999). Tell me, why exactly is 500 (read 3 or 4) impossible for an 800 to 1000 meter long warship? Do we have canonical size restrictions, canonical beam power usage, and canonical power plant output?
It's a hyperbole.
I think it goes by common sense. If no Terran ships of a certain size have 4 BGreens, it stands to reason that the reason there isn't one is because it's not bloody possible.
Yes, because my tube of chapstick can shoot a BFRed exactly 87 times back-to-back before overheating, a 800 / 1,000m ship can EASILY hold 500 of them.
Are you trying to say how the Sathanas' arms were so thin that they could still mount BFReds, indicating the size of the beam components?
One would assume that most of the arm was the hull for the cannon. Maybe redundant since they also held an engine.
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Are you trying to say how the Sathanas' arms were so thin that they could still mount BFReds, indicating the size of the beam components?
One would assume that most of the arm was the hull for the cannon. Maybe redundant since they also held an engine.
You figure if that were the case, the damage area for the subsystem would be a lot bigger. Anyway, why are we comparing shivan beam tech to the size of GTVA beam tech? It's not like 1 BFRed = 1 Bgreen, or even if 1 BFRed = 1 BFgreen. In all likely hood, 1 BFRed could be the same size as an AAAf, given Shivan tech. Or it could be even larger than a LRBgreen.
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Are you trying to say how the Sathanas' arms were so thin that they could still mount BFReds, indicating the size of the beam components?
One would assume that most of the arm was the hull for the cannon. Maybe redundant since they also held an engine.
You figure if that were the case, the damage area for the subsystem would be a lot bigger. Anyway, why are we comparing shivan beam tech to the size of GTVA beam tech? It's not like 1 BFRed = 1 Bgreen, or even if 1 BFRed = 1 BFgreen. In all likely hood, 1 BFRed could be the same size as an AAAf, given Shivan tech. Or it could be even larger than a LRBgreen.
I'm guessing a lot of Sathanas' beam machinery was hidden deep in the hull, and the arms only contained the emitter of the weapon, similar to the muscles that operate the fingers on a human hand actually being in the arm.
I could be wrong.
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Not true. It's possible for aircraft carriers to mount 14 inch guns that shoot nuclear shells, but none of them do. Why? Because they're effective without them. Are fighters incapable of using flak guns? By your logic yes, but in this case, you'd be a bit suspicious. The size and damage of flak shouldn't be too big you mount on a fighter, though you wouldn't be able to load too many shells. Is an Orion capable of mounting Morning Stars to fend away bombers? By your logic, it isn't. Think up a more logically sound argument other than "it doesn't balance, and it hasn't already been done".
It's not a common sense thing that this is impossible. If you want to have a balanced game, then it is. If you're actually going to use this concept to make a ship for the game, then by all means, disregard my idea. But if you're honestly trying to think up an extension to the GTVA fleet, with a relatively realistic military design strategy, then shouting "YOU CAN'T HAVE 3/4 BGREENS ON A CORVETTE BECAUSE IT WOULD WORK TOO WELL" has no place here.
Not really the same.
Those guns use ammo, not massive amounts of power fed directly from the reactor.
Any warship in space will have 2 major things that will dominate it's design - power output and heat managment.
While you could make a hunter-killer warship that uses a load of missiles, or a compact ship with one larger beam, there are limits to just how much power it can produce and how easily it can get rid of the heat the weapon itself produces.
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I don't get it why ppl get so heated over this. I mean the Iceni IS IMO the closest thing we have to a hunter-killer warship. Sure it was no intended to be such a ship but it comes pretty close to it.
Building on that why do people believe it to be impossible to mount 3 or 4 BGreens on a 1 km long warship coupled with 2 perhaps 3 AAAF Beams and a similar number of flack guns ??
I mean we are talking her a bout a ship that would still be some years from completion 2 or 3 years max IMO. A ship that would make use of the most advanced electronic warfare tech available . Perhaps even a few that will be developed for it.
Also I'm pretty sure the vasudans can give a helping hand in providing very advanced and powerfull reactors for such a ship.
And considering the amount of investigation that has been done into subspace tech i can bet they will be more that capable of putting some sort of dual subspace jump drive on it . Meaning jump in fire jump out fast without having to wait for hours for the jumpdrives to recharge !
I mean we know ships can get up to 35 m/s so if you have a lighter ship with more powerfull engines it should also be able to give a top speed of about 40m/s easy. And with such light weapons configuration it should have plenty of power.
As for the overheat problem.....well i don't see a problem.
I mean i can understand such a problem if we were talking about prolonged battles but were talking about really fast paced battles here less then 2 minutes in lenght. At 1 km in leght having a small fighterbay 3 max 4 wings inside would be rather good and would not hinder such a ship.
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned hunter-killer submarines yet, as they're probably the closest approximation of what this discussion is about in the real-world navy.
I was looking at it like this: Modern SSN's were originally designed primarily to hunt down enemy SSBN's (nuke powered ballistic missile subs), as well as other shipping. WWII U-Boats were designed to hunt individually enemy shipping, then call it's buddies, and track the shipping until they arrived, at which point the entire wolf pack would execute quite strikes to cause maximum damage and GTFO before Destroyers or PT Boats showed up.
In both cases the subs are designed for a specialised role. They rely on stealth to sneak up on a target and depend on quick, decisive hit-and-fade style of strikes to be effective. Granted, modern subs have become more multi-role, but you get the idea.
Putting this in to FS I think would involve a ship, somewhere in between cruiser and corvette sized, with a significant amount of single-shot firepower. You could put large beams on a smaller ship -they just take longer to power up and cool down, making them impractical for prolonged engagements but ideal when they only need a single salvo. The ship would have to have an advanced EW suite, as well as very powerful and specilized engine for speed and minimal sensor emmissions. I'd put it's hitpoints somewhere around the Levi, but no more -probably much less (depending on size, of course). You wouldn't want it any bigger than a corvette, at that point cost would outweigh utility and I seriously doubt something the size of a corvette is easy to mask.
Anyways, those are just my thoughts.
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Not true. It's possible for aircraft carriers to mount 14 inch guns that shoot nuclear shells, but none of them do. Why? Because they're effective without them. Are fighters incapable of using flak guns? By your logic yes, but in this case, you'd be a bit suspicious. The size and damage of flak shouldn't be too big you mount on a fighter, though you wouldn't be able to load too many shells. Is an Orion capable of mounting Morning Stars to fend away bombers? By your logic, it isn't. Think up a more logically sound argument other than "it doesn't balance, and it hasn't already been done".
It's not a common sense thing that this is impossible. If you want to have a balanced game, then it is. If you're actually going to use this concept to make a ship for the game, then by all means, disregard my idea. But if you're honestly trying to think up an extension to the GTVA fleet, with a relatively realistic military design strategy, then shouting "YOU CAN'T HAVE 3/4 BGREENS ON A CORVETTE BECAUSE IT WOULD WORK TOO WELL" has no place here.
Not really the same.
Those guns use ammo, not massive amounts of power fed directly from the reactor.
Any warship in space will have 2 major things that will dominate it's design - power output and heat managment.
While you could make a hunter-killer warship that uses a load of missiles, or a compact ship with one larger beam, there are limits to just how much power it can produce and how easily it can get rid of the heat the weapon itself produces.
So it's a somewhat incomplete analogy, but idea gets its point across. Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it's impossible.
And actually, let's look at the Iceni. Obviously, it has plenty of power for its 3 BGreens and enough power to propel a 998m long ship to 35 m/s. And its heat capacity and radiation ability is sufficient for use as quick as the weapon system will allow.
If you shrink it by 100m, remove armor down to about 20,000, remove excess weapons, and remove its equipment to be a control center for the entire NTF fleet, it has lost a lot of mass. Enough mass that the engines don't need as much power to speed it up to 35 m/s. Where would that excess power capacity go? Another anti-cap beam. And lets say that its heat dissipation isn't sufficient to fire the 4 BGreen in quick succession. Then you fire the salvo once, and you wait longer to let it dissipate. Or if you have too, you fire the beams one at a time, and use them so one beam is always firing at its target.
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Or (and this would make the ship rather fragile) you could devote much of the ship's surface to radiator fins.
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Or (and this would make the ship rather fragile) you could devote much of the ship's surface to radiator fins.
Probably wouldn't be necessary. Radiator fins facilitate the constant and quick dissipation of heat. On a ship designed to fire at most two or three salvos before backing off, active internal cooling would probably be fine.
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If you keep the same general size as the Iceni, but remove a lot of the armor and command ship parts, you could conceivably leave the engines the same size, move the beam cannons to give them some minor overlapping fields of fire (like one on the front, and one on each side of the front), and keep the rest of the turrets. That way you could get a lot more speed. Imagine a corvette-ish ship that was really fast that could rip the stuffing out of same size or smaller ships quickly. The Iceni was even kind enough to provide a designation, a Frigate.
Introducing the GT/GVF whats-its-name
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Well the only thing such a ship would definitely require are stealth cloaking devices, lots of energy generators to satisfy the hi-powered one hit kill beams and fast engines to escape. Something along communications and navigation obviously but the said above defines a hunter killer class.
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I honestly do not understand why all this fuss about reducint the ships HP to about 20 k points ! Why would you have to reduce them that much .
I mean the Iceni proved you can make a ship with the HP of a destroyer class vessel and still have high speed and more then enough beam firepower.
Just do the same only more powerfull reactors (vasudan ones) meaning higher speeds withouth sacrificing armour .
Sure you could argue that you will need at some point to lighten the ship but that would mean reducing the armour by 10 or 20 k points not 70 k !
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I honestly do not understand why all this fuss about reducint the ships HP to about 20 k points ! Why would you have to reduce them that much .
I mean the Iceni proved you can make a ship with the HP of a destroyer class vessel and still have high speed and more then enough beam firepower.
Just do the same only more powerfull reactors (vasudan ones) meaning higher speeds withouth sacrificing armour .
Sure you could argue that you will need at some point to lighten the ship but that would mean reducing the armour by 10 or 20 k points not 70 k !
The other thing to consider though is that your enemy won't tolerate a hunting destroyer very long. If you throw a ship that big behind enemy lines I'd bet they would dedicate a good percentage of their battlegroup to hunting it. Something smaller and maybe a little less deadly would be easier to hide.
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SO a less then 1 km warship armed with the latest stealth tech and electronic warfare tech and 2 or 3 wigs of stealth craft would be that easy to find ???
Rightttttt.........! They were searching for a whole destroyer right in their back yard and it took a well coordinated offensive and trap to lure it out in order to have the collie destroy it .
Its not such an easy job to accomplish.
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SO a less then 1 km warship armed with the latest stealth tech and electronic warfare tech and 2 or 3 wigs of stealth craft would be that easy to find ???
Rightttttt.........! They were searching for a whole destroyer right in their back yard and it took a well coordinated offensive and trap to lure it out in order to have the collie destroy it .
Its not such an easy job to accomplish.
I still think it's a bad idea. Lets say you're right, and it could effectively completely hide and "stay off the radar"... wouldn't the cost vs. utility alone make it impractical as a hunter-killer?
I'd think a ship of that type would be far better suited to hit-and-fade strikes against fortified installations behind enemy lines -like on shipyards, for example- where it could actually stand in a somewhat prolonged engagement.
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Oh rly ?? and just how are you gonna manage to get such a ship behind the enmy lines. In order for it to be able to handle itself in a prelogued battle it would have to sacrifice firepower and speed and stealth.
I honestly believe you dont quite get the concept of stealth hunter-killer do you ??
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It is close to impossible to stealth something that size in Space, where the Ambient temperature is close to Absolute Zero and your ship is radiating out ****loads of heat.
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Well, you try find finding a 1km object in space, radiating heat or not, especially if there's an asteroid field anywhere nearby for it to hide in.
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It is close to impossible to stealth something that size in Space, where the Ambient temperature is close to Absolute Zero and your ship is radiating out ****loads of heat.
This is true, but the Freespace universe doesn't quite do that kind of stuff. Otherwise the GTVA always would've known exactly where the Iceni was, and it's clear that they didn't.
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Oh rly ?? and just how are you gonna manage to get such a ship behind the enmy lines.
How about all those nice new stealth technologies you were talking about? How about that post you made on how it's hard to find ships behind your lines? You're contradicting yourself to argue against my points. :wtf:
In order for it to be able to handle itself in a prelogued battle it would have to sacrifice firepower and speed and stealth.
Your words:
I honestly do not understand why all this fuss about reducint the ships HP to about 20 k points ! Why would you have to reduce them that much .
I mean the Iceni proved you can make a ship with the HP of a destroyer class vessel and still have high speed and more then enough beam firepower.
Just do the same only more powerfull reactors (vasudan ones) meaning higher speeds withouth sacrificing armour .
Sure you could argue that you will need at some point to lighten the ship but that would mean reducing the armour by 10 or 20 k points not 70 k
A ship with 80k would be able to handle itself. Right here you argued that the Iceni would be well suited to a hunter-killer role with a bit of modernization. I'm saying it would be better suited to conducting prolonged hit-and-fade engagements. We're talking about the exact same ship.
I honestly believe you dont quite get the concept of stealth hunter-killer do you ??
I stated in my previous post a ship like that [modern Icini] would not be as well suited as a hunter-killer. You sure I'm the one that doesn't understand the concept?
A hunter-killer is a ship designed to combine both the sensor/detection and killing into a single vessel. A FreeSpace destroyer-sized vessel is not well suited to that roll, at least how I see it. Like I said in my post on a previous page -the idea of hunter-killer makes more sense put into context of submarine warfare and wolfpack tactics. What do navies send when they want to hunt down enemy shipping? A frigate/submarine, or a battleship?
A ship the size of a FreeSpace Destroyer might be able to accomplish it.. but here we come back to the cost vs. utility aspect. No navy in their right mind is going to spend the money on an destroyer that can't fight in prolonged engagements. And if it can, look at what you have... a modernized (and more expensive) Orion/Hecate.
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If the ship's a big flying plastic thermos it could be hard to detect. But filling most of it with radar absorbant material, thermal insulation and passive sensors might kill it's ability to fight properly (less armor probably, smaller ability to dissipate reactor heat would limit it's energy use in weapons due to reactor overheating, etc).
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Wasn't the point of this excercise to see a ship capable of getting in, make loads of damage to a single target, probably destroying it, then get the frak out before anyone can retaliate?
@AlphaOne: What do you need so much armor for doing that? your rage for hitpoints seems pointless to me.
I don't know if it could be possible to also make it depend on TAG, the pegasus fly, TAG points of interest on enemy ship and the killer takes perfect aim (like tagging a huge beam weapon looking at you, subsystems, engines w/e). What do you think?
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I think a much more functional idea would be some sort of stealth-carrier and Artemis bombers. But hey, that's just me.
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Wasn't the point of this excercise to see a ship capable of getting in, make loads of damage to a single target, probably destroying it, then get the frak out before anyone can retaliate?
@AlphaOne: What do you need so much armor for doing that? your rage for hitpoints seems pointless to me.
I don't know if it could be possible to also make it depend on TAG, the pegasus fly, TAG points of interest on enemy ship and the killer takes perfect aim (like tagging a huge beam weapon looking at you, subsystems, engines w/e). What do you think?
I was thinking something similar. A fighter jumps in, tags the target giving the hunter exact co-ords of the enemy ship, it jumps in right behind it and shoots once or twice, then jumps out.
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It is close to impossible to stealth something that size in Space, where the Ambient temperature is close to Absolute Zero and your ship is radiating out ****loads of heat.
This is true, but the Freespace universe doesn't quite do that kind of stuff. Otherwise the GTVA always would've known exactly where the Iceni was, and it's clear that they didn't.
Is it? It's clear to me that the GTVA wanted to let Bosch escape.
If the ship's a big flying plastic thermos it could be hard to detect. But filling most of it with radar absorbant material, thermal insulation and passive sensors might kill it's ability to fight properly (less armor probably, smaller ability to dissipate reactor heat would limit it's energy use in weapons due to reactor overheating, etc).
It would also kill the crew and destroy the reactors due to overheating.
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For Freespace ships, they could be able to radiate all that heat away while in subspace for all we know. And even if it can't, you try finding a 1km hunk of metal in an entire star system, radiating heat or not. You would need some very sensitive passive scanners to detect its emissions, and you would need to be looking right at the ship. It would be like detecting a stealth bomber from halfway around the world.
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Oh rly ?? and just how are you gonna manage to get such a ship behind the enmy lines.
How about all those nice new stealth technologies you were talking about? How about that post you made on how it's hard to find ships behind your lines? You're contradicting yourself to argue against my points. :wtf:
In order for it to be able to handle itself in a prelogued battle it would have to sacrifice firepower and speed and stealth.
Your words:
I honestly do not understand why all this fuss about reducint the ships HP to about 20 k points ! Why would you have to reduce them that much .
I mean the Iceni proved you can make a ship with the HP of a destroyer class vessel and still have high speed and more then enough beam firepower.
Just do the same only more powerfull reactors (vasudan ones) meaning higher speeds withouth sacrificing armour .
Sure you could argue that you will need at some point to lighten the ship but that would mean reducing the armour by 10 or 20 k points not 70 k
A ship with 80k would be able to handle itself. Right here you argued that the Iceni would be well suited to a hunter-killer role with a bit of modernization. I'm saying it would be better suited to conducting prolonged hit-and-fade engagements. We're talking about the exact same ship.
I honestly believe you dont quite get the concept of stealth hunter-killer do you ??
I stated in my previous post a ship like that [modern Icini] would not be as well suited as a hunter-killer. You sure I'm the one that doesn't understand the concept?
A hunter-killer is a ship designed to combine both the sensor/detection and killing into a single vessel. A FreeSpace destroyer-sized vessel is not well suited to that roll, at least how I see it. Like I said in my post on a previous page -the idea of hunter-killer makes more sense put into context of submarine warfare and wolfpack tactics. What do navies send when they want to hunt down enemy shipping? A frigate/submarine, or a battleship?
A ship the size of a FreeSpace Destroyer might be able to accomplish it.. but here we come back to the cost vs. utility aspect. No navy in their right mind is going to spend the money on an destroyer that can't fight in prolonged engagements. And if it can, look at what you have... a modernized (and more expensive) Orion/Hecate.
So you are comparing a barely 1 km long warship to a 2.2+ km long destroyer several times the volume dimensions etc.
Rrrrright......!
Also the 70 k points are a trade off for better speed. I mean we see the Iceni at 90 k points just 10 k short o the Hecate and Orion HP managing 35 m/s !
So in order for it to have 40m/s at least 3/4 Bgreens and several aaaf weapons it has to give away something. so 20 k points seem like a logical conclusion.
20 k points means it wouldnt be able to take a hit from even a cruiser .
I mean i know it has to take out the target fast but that doesnt mean it wont take a few hits . sure there wont be too many hits but if its HP is too low then it will just be for nothing.
Also you do know that a ship's HP is made of more then just the armor. Its made of the armor around its engines weapons subsystems etc.
Also WE DO KNOW that in the game universe an in real life for that matter you CAN NOT track down a ship even a 2+km long warship that easy .
I mean you could hide sush a shop behind a large asteroid or a moon or on the ourskirts of the solar sistem .
Rest assured that such a ship woul pay or its price the second it manages to take out a Ravana and a Lilith cruiser.
I mean the GTVA lost i believe 3 or 4 warships to a single Ravana . By making a ship that costs just as much as all those 4 warships put toghether but can survive enough to take out 1 Ravana and a Lilith minimum you are in the win. sort of. Well not really but you get my point.
Such a ship can send out one or 2 wings on a scouting mission for targets . Then when the target is found go in fast fire the beams once or twice and get the hell out before reinforcement arrive.
some good com's and sensor jamming should also provide enough cover so as not to be able give away who did it !
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Just because we want to make it a hunter killer doesn't mean we have to let a cruiser beat the stuffing out of it. Besides, if it is a hunter killer, it hunts them down, not a little fighter wing. Then because it is a hunter killer, it has to have the HP to win. Two shots isn't going to cut it for a great deal of ships. (I propose a compromise, say 50~60k hp). Size means nothing except what kind of hit profile it has. A hunter killer could be a bigass juggernaut (the Sathanas is the perfect example of a gigantic hk) and still work. It can be 1k, or even 5 or 6k long, or as short as 200m.
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Just because we want to make it a hunter killer doesn't mean we have to let a cruiser beat the stuffing out of it. Besides, if it is a hunter killer, it hunts them down, not a little fighter wing. Then because it is a hunter killer, it has to have the HP to win. Two shots isn't going to cut it for a great deal of ships. (I propose a compromise, say 50~60k hp). Size means nothing except what kind of hit profile it has. A hunter killer could be a bigass juggernaut (the Sathanas is the perfect example of a gigantic hk) and still work. It can be 1k, or even 5 or 6k long, or as short as 200m.
Hmm. I think what we're getting at is our idea of the ship really depends on how we view a hunter-killer, or rather what it's target is more likely to be.
I suppose you are correct in that it could be practically any size of ship. However, there would be no need to make a destroyer-sized hunter/killer to take on convoys, and likewise if the main idea was to hunt down destroyers a smaller ship wouldn't do.
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I think a good concept would be to follow the style of the Whitestar Monitor, to have a ship about the size of a Cruiser, but to have the speed to pursue even the Iceni and the firepower to take down Corvettes without too much fighter cover, but with extra cover to attack Destroyers. Ideally because of the size it would consist nothing more than its killing weapon and some point-defense weapons.
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Yeah, but that limits its life expectancy to about 30 seconds as soon as a single fighter wing gets a run at it. It wouldn't be cost effective, especially not against good pilots.
Whoa, idea. What about just a slow, dedicated anticapship cruiser. Leviathan speeds, with a ton of armor, and a couple really big guns. Just throw point defense out the window except maybe a flak turret or two.
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Uh...didn't I just say that it would have fighter cover and its own point defense? Your idea's even worse because it only has one or two point defense turrets, I'd use more. With the speed of a Leviathan it wouldn't be able to HUNT ****, it would just be a killer and not a HUNTER-Killer.
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If the ship's a big flying plastic thermos it could be hard to detect. But filling most of it with radar absorbant material, thermal insulation and passive sensors might kill it's ability to fight properly (less armor probably, smaller ability to dissipate reactor heat would limit it's energy use in weapons due to reactor overheating, etc).
It would also kill the crew and destroy the reactors due to overheating.
Since we don't have a clue of what type of reactors they use in the FS era, the thermos would work if the reactor reaches a max temperature of say 30-40 degrees Celsius, while giving 1.21 jigawatts of power (let's assume that's enough to run a ship under normal conditions). Even a pretty thin heat shield around the reactor would be enough to keep the crew from running around in swimsuits, and the thickness of the external insulation could be calculated to keep 15-20 degrees in the internal (manned) space, while being frakkin' cold on the outer surface...
Beams involve shiploads of thermal energy, which could damage a conventional ship (like the Big C), so the thermos would boil in moments if it had any, so I agree with Kie99.
It might work if it had missiles, bombs, flak and Maxims as it's weapon systems, or with heat sinks that are unused in stealth mode and allow thermal energy out during combat (the ship is already detected, no need to stay cold anymore).
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Uh...didn't I just say that it would have fighter cover and its own point defense?
Yes, you did say that. Fortunately, that was your idea, not mine. I'm just having fun brainstorming about what a hypothetical ship could be. Please don't tell me what my idea will and will not have, because it's my idea.
With the speed of a Leviathan it wouldn't be able to HUNT ****
Even with the speed of a Leviathan, if it jumps in (it's not like this thing is going to be hunting something by plodding up to it from hundreds of klicks away) close enough, it's going to take a while for a ship even as fast as the Iceni to pull out of range.
Your idea's even worse because it only has one or two point defense turrets
1) see my first comment
2) I can see a ship working with a couple big guns, then an AAAf, two blobs, and two flaks, even if it is cruiser size and usually has 50% more guns. Perhaps I did err by saying "one or two" instead of "a couple"
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For Freespace ships, they could be able to radiate all that heat away while in subspace for all we know.
You have pulled this out of your arse. There is no evidence that heat is radiated away into Subspace, and it is made blatantly obvious in High Noon that there is no infinite heat sink.
And even if it can't, you try finding a 1km hunk of metal in an entire star system, radiating heat or not. You would need some very sensitive passive scanners to detect its emissions, and you would need to be looking right at the ship. It would be like detecting a stealth bomber from halfway around the world.
It is very possible if it is an important system, as there will certainly be many sensor arrays.
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For Freespace ships, they could be able to radiate all that heat away while in subspace for all we know.
You have pulled this out of your arse. There is no evidence that heat is radiated away into Subspace, and it is made blatantly obvious in High Noon that there is no infinite heat sink.
And even if it can't, you try finding a 1km hunk of metal in an entire star system, radiating heat or not. You would need some very sensitive passive scanners to detect its emissions, and you would need to be looking right at the ship. It would be like detecting a stealth bomber from halfway around the world.
It is very possible if it is an important system, as there will certainly be many sensor arrays.
1. We are all pulling things out of our arses here. However, it seems that subspace, while different from realspace in many ways, wouldn't exactly be different from realspace in that it is both empty and cold. You try going for a walk in subspace without a spacesuit and tell me how that works out for you.
2. Space is big. Hugely, mind-boggling big. You may think its a long way to the chemist's down the street, but that's just peanuts to space. Heat and light take time to travel. It takes light 8 minutes to reach the Earth from the sun, meaning we would have no idea the Sun just went supernova until 8 minutes afterwards. And heat is emitted in the infrared spectrum, meaning that it would take at least a minute to even detect a ship igniting thrusters, and then you would have to determine that it wasn't a friendly vessel igniting its thrusters which would take time, and then you would have to scramble fighters/cruisers to intercept, taking even more time. It would be detected, it would just be almost impossible to intercept due to the amount of time it would take. And space is three-dimensional, meaning the hunter-killer ship would be able to hide outside of the system's ecliptic. You try seeding an entire solar system, in all three dimensions, with scanner platforms and tell me how cost-effective it is, hmmm?
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Well yes, you would have an idea where the ship was a few minutes ago, and in FreeSpace, that doesn't cut it.
Within a few minutes, the ship could have jumped to an infinite number of other locations in system. Given that it keeps jumping around like that, you could know its there, but you wouldn't know where it is, nor where it is going. Well, unless you track it through subspace, but given that you have never actually seen what it is before, I don't know if that is possible.
The principle that there can be no stealth in space is because without subspace, craft can only travel in essentially a linear fashion, allowing you to pretty much calculate where the ship will end up.
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Yet several times in the freespace 2 campaign command calculated the "subspace vector" or whatever to get a probable location for the exit jump. They did this in the very first mission of the campaign.
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Yeah, much as I don't want to get involved in this debate, several time in canon FS2 we hear 'we are tracking the vessel through subspace. We have vectored its course to your immediate vicinity.'
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Well, the Belisarius went from a jump node blockade. If I was flying for the block ade, I could just fly up and TAG it/
If it's something you've never seen before, you just know that there's something lurking around, would it be so easy to simply track it?
If it was so simple, why the the GTC Vigilant get smoked by the Rakshasa? Arguably, they didn't even KNOW it was coming but still...
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Well, the Belisarius went from a jump node blockade. If I was flying for the block ade, I could just fly up and TAG it/
If it's something you've never seen before, you just know that there's something lurking around, would it be so easy to simply track it?
If it was so simple, why the the GTC Vigilant get smoked by the Rakshasa? Arguably, they didn't even KNOW it was coming but still...
The point is they were tracking the Belisarious, it would be safe to assume Command has a way of using some kind of long-range sensors combined with calculations about the jump path of the ship to deduce where it's going to end up. After all, the GTVA aren't exactly strangers to subspace.
They didn't know it was coming, exactly, and I doubt the Vigilant carried subspace tracking technology while it was patrolling a relatively quiet system.
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thread re-jack:
Back to hunter-killers.
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Well i cant figure out whi ppl want to complicate things such.
I mean what we were talking about was a ship that was fast i mean the fastest warship . It also has massive beam firepower so much so at to equal or even surpass (depending on th class) that of a destroyer. It would also have to be somewhat small have thick armour but no thick as to make it sluggish. And be able to operate behind enemy lines where it would take a position spring a trap or ambush enemy cap ship take them out fast so fast in fact that they would not be eble to mount any kind of defensive that would threaten it then get out fast.
Also such a ship doesnt have to be behind enemy lines to funtion. Such a ship would be at home even on the front lines. Stake out the targets or such then jump in fast fire one or 2 salvos of beams take out the enemy cap ship then high tale it out of there to a more safe location.
sure it would not be eble to do the job of a Deimos or a destroyer but then again it is not mean to do !
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Well i cant figure out whi ppl want to complicate things such.
I mean what we were talking about was a ship that was fast i mean the fastest warship . It also has massive beam firepower so much so at to equal or even surpass (depending on th class) that of a destroyer. It would also have to be somewhat small have thick armour but no thick as to make it sluggish. And be able to operate behind enemy lines where it would take a position spring a trap or ambush enemy cap ship take them out fast so fast in fact that they would not be eble to mount any kind of defensive that would threaten it then get out fast.
Also such a ship doesnt have to be behind enemy lines to funtion. Such a ship would be at home even on the front lines. Stake out the targets or such then jump in fast fire one or 2 salvos of beams take out the enemy cap ship then high tale it out of there to a more safe location.
sure it would not be eble to do the job of a Deimos or a destroyer but then again it is not mean to do !
Why exactly did you start this discussion? Just wondering, because you keep shooting down every single thing anyone else says if it's not perfectly in line with your idea of a hunter-killer.
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Well for starters because ppl tend to get confused. Also i did not shoot down all the ideas just parts of them. Also i kinda liked the idea of a monitor ship fast deadly small agile .
Others such as the Leviathan sped hunter killer just go out the window in a sec. unless you plan on making the most expensive transport escort warship in existence.
I mean the guidelines are there for ppl to play with but when you start stripping the ship of all armor making it on par with a fenris and remove all of its peed making it on par with the Levi thats just wrong.
such a ship is suposed to be fast deadly self sufficient and be able to in behind enemy lines and take out warships.
There are the general guidelines. It is not supposed to be a destroyer not a carrier nor a transport escort ship.
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Fast, deadly, small, agile is more a PT boat.
Monitors are slow deadly small armored.
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Fast, deadly, small, agile is more a PT boat.
Monitors are slow deadly small armored.
Again, tell that to the Minbari. :P
But the Whitestar as I mentioned in a previous post would be the best candidate for a Hunter-Killer, as powerful and fast as it is it is also relatively fragile, so something along those lines can do exactly what we're generally looking for, as long as it has protection.
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Fast, deadly, small, agile is more a PT boat.
Monitors are slow deadly small armored.
Again, tell that to the Minbari. :P
But the Whitestar as I mentioned in a previous post would be the best candidate for a Hunter-Killer, as powerful and fast as it is it is also relatively fragile, so something along those lines can do exactly what we're generally looking for, as long as it has protection.
Yeah well its a great idea but hos fragile is too fragile ?? I mean we see the Whitestars taking hits that would cripple most other ship of its size and even ships several times its size.
Also something along the lines of the Whitestar would mean they would have to operate in pack's of 3 or more ! So how big should they be how well armed how fast etc. Also there is the issue of the cost. I remember Delen i believe stating that those things werent cheap in fact they were quite expensive even for the Minbari.
Man im even more confused then before...
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Yeah well its a great idea but hos fragile is too fragile ?? I mean we see the Whitestars taking hits that would cripple most other ship of its size and even ships several times its size.
White Stars relied on speed and maneuverability to avoid being hit. Unfortunately that's kind of hard to do in FS, but even then they were more durable than any ship their size.
Also something along the lines of the Whitestar would mean they would have to operate in pack's of 3 or more ! So how big should they be how well armed how fast etc.
See my previous post about wolfpacks. That's a classic, real-world example of how hunter-killers would actually operate.
Also there is the issue of the cost. I remember Delen i believe stating that those things werent cheap in fact they were quite expensive even for the Minbari.
Yea, that's true. But hey, you pay for quality. Vorlon technology is expensive, and these things were better suited for fighting the Shadows than any other warship.
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Well the whitestar fleet was the most advanced fleet of ships aside from the Vorlons and the Shadows. But one they left the Minbari had the means baddest fleet in existence . Decades ahead of its competition. And since the only true competition could come from the humans.......!
even so the humans i remember developed some new class of dreadnoughts that as i remember were consider on par with the most powerfull warships the minbari had to offer. Not really equal but powerfull enough as to make a battle between 2 such ships a matter of skill.
Anyway what i was originally stating was the idea of a single ship. I mean sure it would be nice to have several ships together. But im actually talking about something a bit more powerfull. A single warship that would do the job of 3 or 4 whitestars so to speak in the Fs universe .
However the idea of a wolf pack is rather interesting but what would such a ship class be ? surely it has to be about the size or perhaps a bit bigger then a cruiser. But armed more like a corvette have massive speed and while its not supposed to have the armor of a corvette it should have reasonable amour so as not to be too easily taken out . I say this because in FS universe beams dont miss. Also if you recall the Whitestar ships had some sort of organic or something armor that allowed the ship to adjust to the enemy fire and reduce the damage it took from the said fire over time in the end negating it all together. that is assuming it actually managed to survive that long which almost never happened.
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That "Dreadnought" is the Warlock Advanced Destroyer.
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Yeah but the doctor ..err..... i forgot his name refers to it as a dreadnought in one of the Episode of B5 . It has some sort of Shadow based organic armour tech. some sort of vorlon/minbari inspired canons gravimetric dive or something like that . so it was fast as hell tough to crack much more so then perhaps even the whitestars perhaps and massive firepower to boot. Oh yeah and they cost an arm and a leg an another arm and a leg. Since i clearely remember then stating that " only a had full of them have yet to be built so it must be some one reall important for them to have one of these as escort" give or take a few words :P
So what's your take?
Whitestar type ships or Warlock type ships of perhaps Victory class .
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Oh if they're the Minbari armed ships with Gravimetric drives then it's the Victory Heavy Destroyer.
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The Warlock has the same gravitic (not gravimetric sorry for the miss use of the word in the first place) as the Victory class. Well not exactly the same but it does have a gravitic engine actualy 2 of them !
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But you also said Minbari style weapons, which the Victory is loaded with, compared to the Warlock having the same typical loadout as a Nova / Omega but with AEGIS beam cannons.
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Well depending on here you look the Omegas have gone through several refits ! In fact i've read somewhere on the web that calculated in tech data alone in close range an Omega class destroyer the latest refit variant is actually more powerfull then even the Sharlin wacruiser of the minbari. I dont know how true that may be but even so....! The biggest asset of the Warlock are its shadow based nano-organic armor sadwitched between the same sort of cristaline armor as the Victory class only inferior. Even so the shadow armour means its more then a match to well just about anithing out there !
An to get back on track while i was referring to the same sort of weapons as the Whitestar i was referring in the FS universe ! That would mean you would have to have a ship the size of cruiser with the armour o a Lilith yet the Speed of the Iceni yet armed with at least 1 BVas for more rapid fire or rather a variant of it . Perhaps along the lines of the MGreen ive seen around paired ones. sensors so advanced so as to pick up on any enemy vessels in a target area ! Also such a ship woul have to have a very advanced subspace drive as to allow it to jump whenever needed. or rather in rapid succession 2 jump one after the other.
Also it must have some decent AAAF capabilaties but not too many. Also can you imagien the costs of such a ship. Man you could probably build a frigate and some spare fighter wings for the price of just one of these monsters.
but then again it all depends on what you deem worth spending ! I you believe that having a few wings of such warships out there hunting for enemy warships keeping them at bay reducing the enemy fleet size a few times a day worth while then you would build them. that would spare you a lot of trouble later so as you will not have to commit large scale forces to combat the same threat that your precious mind bogling expensive ships eliminated with not too much effort.
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A REALLY good ships aways sacrifices something.
Most notably, time and $$$ to build, complexity to mantain.
on top of that in order to maximze one aspect you have to make sacfiices to another.
Yeah, I do think hunter-killer ships are possible, but would probably be more ...restrained..more limited (as opposed to uber-ship some seem to propose).
Wolf pack analogy is a great one. It fits.
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However the idea of a wolf pack is rather interesting but what would such a ship class be ? surely it has to be about the size or perhaps a bit bigger then a cruiser. But armed more like a corvette have massive speed and while its not supposed to have the armor of a corvette it should have reasonable amour so as not to be too easily taken out . I say this because in FS universe beams dont miss.
I think a wolfpack-like ship could be about the size of a cruiser. The Fenris is fast and lightly armoured, but it's also more than 40 years old. A completely modern version would probably be better. A ship the size of a corvette would be able to mount the needed equipment, but it would be expensive to build and maintain compared to it's utility. The money would be better spent building a normal corvette.
I think to define what kind of ship you would need to define the target. Hunter-Killer is a very specialised role, and the specs of the H/K would change depending on what it was designed to hunt. For example, if a ship was designed to attack logistical targets (which are usually slow or stationary) than it wouldn't need to be fast or that heavily armed, just strong enough to take a shot from any escorts that happen to be within range when it jumps in. On the other hand if it is designed to hunt cruisers it's requirements change yet again.
Perhaps a new type of configurable, modular warship? Expensive to design but can be reconfigured to different mission specs?
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A REALLY good ships aways sacrifices something.
on top of that in order to maximze one aspect you have to make sacfiices to another.
Is that necessarily true?
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A REALLY good ships aways sacrifices something.
If by good, you mean game-play balanced.
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A REALLY good ships aways sacrifices something.
If by good, you mean game-play balanced.
As in the Lilith:
-Reasonably good speed
-Primary beam 2 stages above what it should have
-Extraordinarily tough armour.
A really overpowered ship?
Send in a few fighters.
Now if it wasn't gameplay balanced, the Lilith might have a MRed (and being Shivan is equal to a GTVA B-class beam) and have 3 SAAA. :p
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IMO the Lilith was pretty awesome in both FS1 and FS2.
In fact, I think the Lilith is one of the only ships whose reputation was actually even more fearsome in FS2 than in FS1. In FS1 when I saw a Lilith I thought "Oh dear, this is going to take ages without bombs," while in FS2 it was like "KILL THAT F*CKING BEAM CANNON!!!"
More or less all of the ships that got transferred from FS1 to FS2 lost their aura of coolness (the Hercules being an extreme example).
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A REALLY good ships aways sacrifices something.
on top of that in order to maximze one aspect you have to make sacfiices to another.
Is that necessarily true?
Yes. You can't simply increase the speed of the ships without sacrificing something else.
You want bigger engines? Ups..mass just got increased too, tough luck. Not really working.
Want more efficient engines? Pay up bud, those things cost a fortune and are a b*** to mantain!
No better engines? Well, then get rid of some mass. Less guns or less armor, your choice.
In most cases, no amount of time and $$$ thrown will help you get a better ship without sacrificing something. Sometimes there are just no better components to be had. And as always, military has a budget too.
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I hate to admit it but the shivans got it almost perfect with the Lilith. I mean that ship could threaten even a destroyer .
I've seen ppl here talking about costs of a powerfull H/K warship. The name in itself implies that it is expensive. This ship is designed to take on enemy warship regardless of its class and win.
Of course depending on the actual size of such a ship and its capabilaties different tactic would have to be used.
For example if we are refering to something along the lines of a cruiser or slightly larger wolf pack tactics need to be employed. Grouping several of them toghether so as to be able to take on even a Sath if needed. Of course you would need to group up to 2 wings of such ships in order to make fast short work of a Sath but pretty much everithing else would not need more then 1 wing.
Now if we are talking about something along the size of a Iceni things change a bit as such a ship would be able to mount even more firepower then the said frigate class. And it would be even more advanced as it needs to be self sufficinet for fairly long periods of time and even house 2 or 3 wings of ships .
Such a ship would be very expensive if you include powerfull sensors electronic warfare tech and some stealth features to it. This coupled with the more advanced subspace drives would mean that such a ship would be as powerfull if not more powerfull , in various situations and conditions , then a full blown destroyer. Also it would cost just as much i suppose. However one must look at the bigger picture before throwing such an expensive ship to the garbage.
The GTVA has failed time and time again when it comes to head on full blown engagements with the shivans.
Why ? Its simple the Shivans have more ships and with more powerfull beams. even if they did not have more ships the more powerfull weapons means that by the time a ship manages to react to an incoming shivan warship it is already too late. So why not invest in a ship that can take the battle to the shivans and even win.
Granted it uses hit and run tactics but who cares as long as it gets the job done. even if you loose one such ship for every 3 enemy cap ship destroyed you would still be on top. Just look at how many warships the GTVA lost attempting to take out one shivan destroyer.
Sure you might say well then why not use bombers?
Because bombers can be taken out much fater then a warship and bombs can run out beam can not.
Also you were there to take out the enemy so it doesnt really count now does it :P
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it's not that the Shivans have more powerful beams, they are mounted in an offensive fashion on the ship. While GTVA ships rarely have beams mounted offensively, usually on the broadside, and broadside positioning can take some time, especially to get the majority of the broadside beams to bear.
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it's not that the Shivans have more powerful beams, they are mounted in an offensive fashion on the ship. While GTVA ships rarely have beams mounted offensively, usually on the broadside, and broadside positioning can take some time, especially to get the majority of the broadside beams to bear.
Well, also, their beams actually are a lot more powerful.
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it's not that the Shivans have more powerful beams, they are mounted in an offensive fashion on the ship. While GTVA ships rarely have beams mounted offensively, usually on the broadside, and broadside positioning can take some time, especially to get the majority of the broadside beams to bear.
Well, also, their beams actually are a lot more powerful.
While that is true tablewise, the GTVA can win an engagement with a Shivan Fleet if
A) Their beams were positioned in a manner which would allow them to mount a good offense and neutralise the majority of targets before warranting the need of a defense.
B) Fighters and Bombers were deployed to disarm/destroy the largest threats in the Shivan fleet before the GTVA Fleet was in position to engage.
C) Fighters were standing by to counter a similar Shivan attempt.
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Yep, but you could say the same for the Shivans.
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Yep, but you could say the same for the Shivans.
The Shivans have, and greatly exploit point A. And ultimately in terms of B and C, its really the capships who are going to decide the fate of the engagement.
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Or luck - beams hitting enemy cap-ship's beams and slashers mass killing fighters. :p
Seriously, the problem with Shivan ships is the fact that they have few extraordinarily powerful beams, which with some care can be taken out. However, with the GTVA, not only are the anti-fighter defences much better, but they have multiple weaker beams that overall are much harder to neutralize.
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Or luck - beams hitting enemy cap-ship's beams and slashers mass killing fighters. :p
Hmmmm, I always wondered what Slashers would do to a tight-knit bomber formation.
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Seriously, the problem with Shivan ships is the fact that they have few extraordinarily powerful beams, which with some care can be taken out.
You mean like using something even as weak as a Morning Star to destroy a Ravana's LReds? :P
Those things go down in two shots from just about anything under a Trebuchet.
Or luck - beams hitting enemy cap-ship's beams and slashers mass killing fighters. :p
Hmmmm, I always wondered what Slashers would do to a tight-knit bomber formation.
I've seen it happen before...it's hysterical. Even watching your own bomber wings go down, you'll laugh first, hysterically, then remember it was your allies then go, "DOH!"
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I hate to admit it but the shivans got it almost perfect with the Lilith. I mean that ship could threaten even a destroyer .
I've seen ppl here talking about costs of a powerfull H/K warship. The name in itself implies that it is expensive. This ship is designed to take on enemy warship regardless of its class and win.
In FS universe terms, a Hunter-Killer would be a smaller ship operating in groups, designed to cripple or destroy larger targets.
1 on 1 just doesn't work for a hunter-killer, since tehy aren't designed with staying power in mind. hit and run would be the tactic used, in that you are right.
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In FS universe terms, a Hunter-Killer would be a smaller ship operating in groups, designed to cripple or destroy larger targets.
1 on 1 just doesn't work for a hunter-killer, since they aren't designed with staying power in mind. hit and run would be the tactic used, in that you are right.
Yes. Agreed. If I could play around with parts from different ships, this is what I'd do:
I'd take the reactor/jump drive off a Deimos. Slap it into a chassis that's about Fenris/Levy-sized. Strip it of any armor except the really essential bits. Give it a single big, extremely long-range beam. And a few AAA's (NO blobs. At ALL. Totally useless IMHO).
Then, I'd group them (three or four of them) into a fighting unit and send them hunting.
They'd be very fast, because of the small mass and powerful reactor. They'd be dangerous (because of the three MGreen or BGreens).
They'd only have to jump in (SURPRISE! :D) with their beams already charged up and ready, cripple the enemy and then pound him, while staying out of his range.
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If you think blobs are useless, you don't play on Insane.
Even on lower difficulties they're good for intercepting bombs.
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Well if we are talking about putting more powerfull engines power core etc on a smaller frame i honestly believe that a much better choice would be the Sobek !
Just increase its engines power weapons strip some of the AAAF defences off . No need to strip too much armour.
That design has a much smaller profile and is a much harder target to hit the the Deimos !
Can you imagine 3 modified Bvas on it ?? Long range ones . That thing would kick arse.
Also we can have a look at the Aeolus class of cruisers. they have reasonable speed with more armour then the Leviathan an a LOT more firepower.
That design has a lot of room for improvement. I mean the Aeolus is a walking fortress. Armed to the teeth a terror for fighters and bombers.
Just strip some of its aaaf weapons half of them should do the trick an put on more powerfull engines the works 2 heavy long range rapid fire beam cannons on it !
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No, I don't play Insane. Because I'm not... :p
If the hunters are employed tactically as per my suggestions, there is no reason to intercept bombs. They come out, fire and are gone. The target doesn't have time to sortie bombers or fighters.
And if they do, those AAAs can shoot down bombers before they get too close, especially if you have three or so hunters, each of them covering the others' back.
And yes, the Aeolus is a good choice as well. But there was a reason they were discontinued: They were expensive. I suggest something cheaper and mass-produced.
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On reflection I think the best hunter-killer ship would be any small ship with a fighterbay capable of rapidly deploying bombers. Bombers are more versatile and harder to neutralize than beam cannons.
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lol...looks like nothing in fiction has a crew-operated hunter-killer...
I would highly doubt that, if it's deploying bombers, then it's not going to be a Hunter-Killer.
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I would highly doubt that, if it's deploying bombers, then it's not going to be a Hunter-Killer.
From Wikipedia:
Hunter-Killer is a military term traditionally used to describe an entity in which the roles of "sensor" and "shooter" are separated.
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On reflection I think the best hunter-killer ship would be any small ship with a fighterbay capable of rapidly deploying bombers. Bombers are more versatile and harder to neutralize than beam cannons.
Sounds more like an escort carrier.
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I would highly doubt that, if it's deploying bombers, then it's not going to be a Hunter-Killer.
From Wikipedia:
Hunter-Killer is a military term traditionally used to describe an entity in which the roles of "sensor" and "shooter" are separated.
Yeah, for sniper teams and flight teams, one person detects, the other attacks. A carrier is something a little different. :doubt:
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So in that case, you could have some uber-offensive ship paired up with an AWACS?
Or developing on the Wolfpack/Hunting pack idea (or whatever it's called, I'm familiar with the story about 'Zemke's Wolfpack' in WWII so excuse me if I'm wrong)
You could have these 3-4 Deimos sized ships (if not the Deimos themselves, just replaced their forward beams with BGreens), and have them paired with an AWACS and give them a fighterbay/escort and they could rely on the AWACS' crew to pinpoint targets and track them through subspace until the pack's jumpdrives were fully charged for the jump.
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I guess if you want to waste the time and double the escort numbers to have two completely different ships in the field with one being completely defenseless, sure. :P
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I guess if you want to waste the time and double the escort numbers to have two completely different ships in the field with one being completely defenseless, sure. :P
Well ideally, they could utilise the staggered box formation, in which the corvette's firepower would shield the AWACS. IMO it's a good trade-off for an almost guaranteed destruction of the target.
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Wow, can you image if the AWACS helped out with targeting data too? Maybe you could exchange a couple of the bigger beams for a REALLY long range one (long range being 15k plus). The AWACS could feed firing data to the HK, and the HK defends it. Hmm, maybe make the AWACS bigger and put some fighters on it
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I figure AWACS wouldn't really help with targeting, it would help the hunter-killer be able to follow its target at a range long enough to not be seen and attacked.
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Hmm... then a stealth fighter, maybe two or three that tag it for the HK to shoot it from Hella long away. The AWACS or HK won't need to be that much bigger for a single small wing.
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I think the AWACS acting as long-range target aquisition would be better over tagging ships, fighters are beyond fragile especially when you're using stealth fighters.
Hmm...wouldn't it be SWACS since it's in space and not air? ;)
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I think the AWACS acting as long-range target aquisition would be better over tagging ships, fighters are beyond fragile especially when you're using stealth fighters.
Hmm...wouldn't it be SWACS since it's in space and not air? ;)
It stands for Advanced Warning and Control System in Freespace.
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Oh does it? :nervous:
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Of course it does.
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Personally, I think AWACS is just too good an acronym to waste.