Evacuate the "important" people and sod the rest? :PMen and officers first!
I often agonize over how possible it is for a GTVA destroyer to launch an alpha strike or what exactly would constitute a full deck strike for them. On one level, with 150 spacecraft, simply keeping 20 of them in action constantly is a major challenge. In WW2, until late 1944 a fleet carrier not engaged in a major action rarely had more than twenty aircraft in the air at any one time, and CAP/ASW patrol duties rotated between ships. Yet they proved capable of throwing a tremendous number of aircraft out at one time if called for; a single US carrier could throw a strike of 60 to 75 aircraft and still have fighters left for ship defense; a Japanese carrier could respond with 50 to 60. A Nimitz is capable of embarking about 105 aircraft in theory, but their air groups are smaller than that, 60 to 75. They rarely have more than 15 aloft at any one time, but at a "surge" operational tempo a Nimitz can keep 45 or 50 (at least) of its aircraft aloft at any one time, for up to two weeks.I've always thought it had something to do with the logistics of launching more than a few fighters at once. These things are a lot more advanced than F-15s and such, they have infinitely recharging afterburners, multi-kiloton pea shooters, lasers, etc. Although a destroyer may be able to carry 150+ spacecraft at once, it might be incapable of actually deploying all of them at the same time.
GTVA destroyers, for whatever reason, do not seem able to do this kind of thing in the games. They can launch at up to three at a time at minimum, and we know of no functional time limit between launches to explain why they don't launch more fightercraft. Either everything they have is deployed, combat launches are extremely dangerous (let's face it, having an Ursa with a load of bombs detonate in the hanger from enemy fire is going to **** you up), or the computers FS was designed for weren't meant to handle such things and they make it terribly difficult for a single person to contribute. Or some combination of the three.
Well, Admiral Wolf on that particular occasion stayed behind.Evacuate the "important" people and sod the rest? :PMen and officers first!
I've always thought it had something to do with the logistics of launching more than a few fighters at once. These things are a lot more advanced than F-15s and such, they have infinitely recharging afterburners, multi-kiloton pea shooters, lasers, etc. Although a destroyer may be able to carry 150+ spacecraft at once, it might be incapable of actually deploying all of them at the same time.
Hm yeah, I've always been disappointed that "scramble the fighters" really just means "launch 4-12 fighters and then promptly die or, if you're lucky, be rescued by a 21st century gamer who hasn't bothered to challenge themselves with the higher difficulty levels".
With only space for 80, maybe he didn't had a choice :pWell, Admiral Wolf on that particular occasion stayed behind.Evacuate the "important" people and sod the rest? :PMen and officers first!
As for the comparisons to WWII carriers to the craft of Freespace, look at the sheer size difference between a Hercules MK1 and a Grumman Wildcat. Seriously guys. They must eat fuel, be a ***** to maintain, be unweildy to get out of the hanger, be awkward to rearm, and a whole host of other limitations.Why do you assume that? It's how many years in the future? Why would they design and make horrible nightmares for the maintance crews like that? Besides, look how easy it is to rearm a craft in freespace. You just dock with a support ship and stuff is loaded in within the minute.
Well, keep in mind that the fuel powering the Hecate is nuclear fusion. I'm sure the Orion has a similar power supply as well.Isn't the Hecate one of those new designs that have vasudan designed generators? (or am I mixing something up with blue planet here?)
No, Escape Pods cannot be assigned to wings. They are some of the only craft that can't do so, along with sentry guns and jump nodes.
Well, here's something for the next SCP build to fix.Hmm. And it'd be impossible to keep all of them alive, you just need to keep as many as you can... And variables can track how many have died...
I can already imagine a 6-10 escape pod wings (a dozen waves) fleeing a ship. Keeping it alive until all wings leave would be an interesting task.
...FS1 port or whatever it was i downloaded...
I played the FS1 port or whatever it was i downloaded and i seemed to be getting a medal after every mission which seemed just ridiculous.
That sounds just like the mission with the Krios' escape pods in the original Silent Threat, except that only had one wave. And it was nigh impossible.I think it's fine to have mid-campaign medal grants. It did take some effort and skill to get to that point of the campaign, and that's basically what medals are for, right?
You would, as Snail said, want to keep track of how many die, rather than just fail the player as soon as one dies. Although as far as bonus objectives, it seems like the pilot medals screen is directly analogous to XBox-style "Achievements". Some of them are kind of dumb, particularly in FS2, like Epsilon Pegasi Liberation and Nebula Campaign Victory. I mean, getting a medal for beating the game like in FS1 was enough, IMO, and individual missions not so much. Nonetheless, that would make for an awesome bonus objective and grant-medal sexp.