Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Marcov on June 11, 2010, 10:31:57 pm
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If the Vasudans are capable of manufacturing a bomber force of that size, considering the GTVA had different types bombers, why didn't they use them to neutralize the Sathanas fleet?
Given that, in Bearbaiting, only several bomber wings were required to disable the Sathanas' main guns. With that, shouldn't several thousand/ten thousand GTVA bombers be able to disable the Sath fleet instead of wasting an Orion on blockading a node?
Any ideas?
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Obvious answer: Logistics. Even if you have that many bombers, concentrating them in one place isn't easy. Keeping them supplied with spare parts and ammunition is neither easy nor cheap. Also, Bombers constructed != Bombers in service.
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Well maybe subtract about 500 for bombers lost, subtract 500 for reserve aircraft per squadron, and double the remaining number for number of pilots. The latter part is what's significant as well as logistics. Where are all those pilots going to sleep if you pile them into one system? You have to drag their respective destroyers from their Battlegroups to the area of ops.
And that means you more or less decapitate each Vasudan Fleet, since the destroyers form more or less the C3 for their fleet. It's simply unsustainable. However, this gives you a great advantage as you can rotate the squadrons fairly easily, so you don't have tired and battle weary pilots on the front line for over 30 days. You may have been able to supplement perhaps 3 squadrons at most to the 13th BG, but you definetely can't concentrate all those bombers in one place.
And then there's also the issue of escorting those bombers, and the Shivans aren't stupid. If they see that many bombers heading at them, they're going to call for help or perhaps run tail until they meet their friends. Then you're going to be in one helluva fight, think, fleet on fleet battle possibly. It's a delicate balancing act.
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Assuming a single Sathanas carried even half as many fighters on board as the Colossus, and assuming there were 80 Juggernauts, the Juggernaut fleet would have carried 9600 fighters.
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C-3-1!!!
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That wouldn't work, actually, if he was talking about the entire Sath fleet. :P
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6000 bombers != 24000 Helios.
Since it's very unlikely that the GTVA would pack anywhere near that kind of ordinance, you'd basically have a majority of the bombers packing junk like Cyclops. That wouldn't be very good.
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6000 bombers != 24000 Helios.
Since it's very unlikely that the GTVA would pack anywhere near that kind of ordinance, you'd basically have a majority of the bombers packing junk like Cyclops. That wouldn't be very good.
Or no fuel.
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There was a unspecified number of other shivan craft fighting around with the GTVA..and the GTVA force wasn't all concetrated in one system.
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There was a unspecified number of other shivan craft fighting around with the GTVA..and the GTVA force wasn't all concetrated in one system.
Actually, the Shivans only came from one direction. Canonically, all (conventional) combat with the Shivans took place in either the Nebula, Gamma Drax, Capella, or at the systems adjoining Capella (Epsilon Pegasi and Vega), where node blockades were set up.
The GTVA was, however, fighting with the NTF at the same time on multiple fronts.
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Well 6 000 is really a VERY small number on a galactic scale.
There were over 10 000 P-38's, nearly 8 000 de Havilland Mosquitos, 2452 A-26 Invaders, around 6k Beaufighters built (not counting others), and Allied soldiers on the Western front still didn't have instant and constant air support. And that's on a very small fraction of a single planet, Freespace takes place in whole planetary systems (sometimes many at once).
In other words- I'd assume that there may have been even a few hundred thousand GTVA fighters and bombers flying around, but the space they occupied was so huge, that seeing over a dozen at once was pretty rare.
To me the big question is how did they carry them when destroyers had hangars for 100-150 ships?
It would take a few dozen of them to give the Bakhas a mobile place to land, and there were many more ships of various types which need a hangar to operate.
Did the GTVA have hundreds (thousands?) of GTD's, GVD's and installations, or were there carriers in the fleet capable of taking many hundred ships or planetary bases that somehow didn't make it to canon?
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Planetary bases would be my guess. I'm reasonably sure there would have to be a more diverse range of carriers than just destroyers, but still, 6000 of a single class - even assuming it's a very common one - means 10s of thousands, probably well over a hundred thousand fighters total, across all classes. Way too many to accomodate on any realistic number of carriers.
That said, IIRC, the tech entry said that 6000 had been manufactured. It's not inconceiveable that a reasonable chunk of them had been lost fighting the NTF or whoever.
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I wouldn't be surprised even if half of that number was lost in action or damaged beyond repair considering how fierce and deadly the engagments in Freespace. Unfortunately, the only real conflict was the NTF Campaign since the description was made before the second Shivan Incursion which was far shorter than the Great War.
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Did the GTVA have hundreds (thousands?) of GTD's, GVD's and installations, or were there carriers in the fleet capable of taking many hundred ships or planetary bases that somehow didn't make it to canon?
Dozens of destroyers is already doubtful, it's probably closer to a single dozen.
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I'd doubt that. I'd say at least one destroyer a fleet, for C3 on the move, two or three per fleet sounds more likely to me. The whole nature of the Shivans makes it imperative every fleet in the GTVA is equipped to deal with an incursion. Although I'd say during the SSI the fleets in contact were bolstered a fair bit by the supporting GTVA Fleets doing **** all.
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Did the GTVA have hundreds (thousands?) of GTD's, GVD's and installations, or were there carriers in the fleet capable of taking many hundred ships or planetary bases that somehow didn't make it to canon?
Dozens of destroyers is already doubtful, it's probably closer to a single dozen.
Well, I wouldn't be surprized if there were at least 12 Terran fleets and 13 Vasudan battlegroups (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Fleets_of_FreeSpace), with 2-3 destroyers each.
That gives us 50-75 destroyers, so a single dozen would be a really small number with this in mind.
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That's a rather large number. My personalllll estimate would be between 10-25 for each species.
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50 destroyers is just ridiculously huge. If they could build as many destroyers during the reconstruction, they would have been able to build a dozen Colossuses too. Seriously, I keep thinking a dozen, two at most. And if I can understand that there is at least one destroyer per fleet/battlegroup, I don't see the GTVA having 25 fleets/battlegroups with 3 destroyers in each. That's just retarded.
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50 destroyers is just ridiculously huge. If they could build as many destroyers during the reconstruction, they would have been able to build a dozen Colossuses too. Seriously, I keep thinking a dozen, two at most. And if I can understand that there is at least one destroyer per fleet/battlegroup, I don't see the GTVA having 25 fleets/battlegroups with 3 destroyers in each. That's just retarded.
So 2 dozen Hecates and Hatshepsuts. Add another 2 dozen older ships, and we'll get close to each fleet having 2 D's. Pretty plausible too.
However there are 10 named Terran and 8 named Vasudan destroyers in FS 2 according to the wiki (not counting the NTF), and I doubt that they'd be the vast majority, since the game takes place with roughly 3 fleets and covers a few systems.
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Does anyone think it's reasonable to say that the GTVA manufactured any Orions during Reconstruction?
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Does anyone think it's reasonable to say that the GTVA manufactured any Orions during Reconstruction?
Yes, I do. Just because you had to retrofit some design doesn't means you can't order more units to be produced (although, of course, you want those units to be already modified).
I don't think the Hecate was ready for production in time to satisfy the immediate need of destroyers Terrans had after the Great War.
Besides, all those Orions had to come from somewhere.
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That's a rather large number. My personalllll estimate would be between 10-25 for each species.
It's a rather large number if you look at it and imagine it all in a single system. Remember they're divided up between each Fleet, and there's no way to have them all in a single system. The nature of the GTVA's position makes it imperative that all fleets are able to sustain a Shivan Assault for enough time for a QRF to intervene, followed by a counter-attack bolstered by vessels from adjacent fleets.
Does anyone think it's reasonable to say that the GTVA manufactured any Orions during Reconstruction?
It's a great way to stimulate the economy. :D
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I don't think the Hecate was ready for production in time to satisfy the immediate need of destroyers Terrans had after the Great War.
What "immediate need" ? They have just repelled a Shivan invasion, and we can assume that Operation Templar had followed quickly. The alliance was more concerned with the reconstruction effort during the early years of the post-GW era than rebuilding their fleet.
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Well no-one knew if the Shivans would come back. They must have had some kind of contingency plan in the case of their return.
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Well no-one knew if the Shivans would come back. They must have had some kind of contingency plan in the case of their return.
With the ran-down fleet they've had after the Great War and the GTI Rebellion, I'd say that the only contingency plan they've had was about a nice funeral for both species, really.
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Anyway I think a fleet with a couple of corvettes, attendant cruisers and an installation as a fighter base is pretty plausible in remote, low-populated systems. It's more than enough to repel a Shivan heavy recon unit (think Rakshasa + Maras that destroyed the GTC Vigilant at the Capella-GD node) and hold the fort until reinforcements from other systems arrive. A corvette with enough fighter-bomber support is even enough to take down a Ravana (source retail campaign), so there is no need to have a destroyer per fleet in the less important systems.
Hell, Gamma Draconis was at the doorstep of the heavy-populated and most important Capella system, and they didn't even bothered to set up early warning systems to detect an potential Shivan incursion, so they didn't seem to worry that much about them.
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Anyway I think a fleet with a couple of corvettes, attendant cruisers and an installation as a fighter base is pretty plausible in remote, low-populated systems. It's more than enough to repel a Shivan heavy recon unit (think Rakshasa + Maras that destroyed the GTC Vigilant at the Capella-GD node) and hold the fort until reinforcements from other systems arrive. A corvette with enough fighter-bomber support is even enough to take down a Ravana (source retail campaign), so there is no need to have a destroyer per fleet in the less important systems.
Hell, Gamma Draconis was at the doorstep of the heavy-populated and most important Capella system, and they didn't even bothered to set up early warning systems to detect an potential Shivan incursion, so they didn't seem to worry that much about them.
That's because A) no one lives in Gamma Draconis. B) it was a deadend as far as subspace nodes go. There was no strategic reason for the GTVA to have anything there. Until the Knosso portal activated, there was no way out or in except through the Capella node.
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it was a deadend as far as subspace nodes go. There was no strategic reason for the GTVA to have anything there. Until the Knosso portal activated, there was no way out or in except through the Capella node.
That's what the GTA and the PVN thought about most of the systems in which the Shivans appeared during the GW. We still don't know how the Shivan reached GTA/PVN controlled systems, which proves that we are not able to detect all jump nodes. Like said above, this very aspect of the Shivan threat make necessary the surveillance of all remote systems under GTVA control. The fact there was not even a automated early warning system at the GD side of the GD-Capella jump node to warn the GTC Vigilant shows how little the GTVA cared about that.
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it was a deadend as far as subspace nodes go. There was no strategic reason for the GTVA to have anything there. Until the Knosso portal activated, there was no way out or in except through the Capella node.
That's what the GTA and the PVN thought about most of the systems in which the Shivans appeared during the GW. We still don't know how the Shivan reached GTA/PVN controlled systems, which proves that we are not able to detect all jump nodes. Like said above, this very aspect of the Shivan threat make necessary the surveillance of all remote systems under GTVA control. The fact there was not even a automated early warning system at the GD side of the GD-Capella jump node to warn the GTC Vigilant shows how little the GTVA cared about that.
while that is true it is speculated in both games that the shivans were using nodes which we couldn't
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Anyway I think a fleet with a couple of corvettes, attendant cruisers and an installation as a fighter base is pretty plausible in remote, low-populated systems.
I wouldn't consider those forces with installation/planetary based fighters GTVA fleets/battlegroups, but rather local system/planet defense forces.
The whole idea behind a propper fleet/b-group is that it could move around, so it needs a mobile base for fighters- ie. a destroyer or carrier type vessel.
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Shivan Attack
To the officers and crew of the GTD Aquitaine, this is Admiral Petrarch. At 0115 hours, we received a transmission from 3rd Fleet Headquarters. A Shivan cruiser and three fighter wings ambushed and destroyed the GTC Vigilant as it patrolled the Gamma Draconis jump node in the Capella system.
The GTVA does have patrols in the remote outerlying systems although the NTF Trinity still managed to sneak in. That's why the Shivans never got passed Gamma Draconis in the initital stages of the Shivan Incursion. Plus, I think it'll be fair to say that due to the NTF Campaign, most patrols were probably running off of skeleton crews or were below their normal strength.
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Were the 6000 bakhas made with Vasuda Prime still existed? If so then it would be unrealistic to think the remaining worlds left over after the first war would be able to supply resources, man-power and credits to produce that many ships.
It would also be telling if they made the hulls but never installed computer-systems or drives on them.
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Were the 6000 bakhas made with Vasuda Prime still existed? If so then it would be unrealistic to think the remaining worlds left over after the first war would be able to supply resources, man-power and credits to produce that many ships.
It would also be telling if they made the hulls but never installed computer-systems or drives on them.
the bakha is a post great war design so definatly after vasuda got glassed
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The Orbital Vasudan Shipyards apparently were still intact, or at least had been rebuilt by 2367.
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I don't think the Hecate was ready for production in time to satisfy the immediate need of destroyers Terrans had after the Great War.
What "immediate need" ? They have just repelled a Shivan invasion, and we can assume that Operation Templar had followed quickly. The alliance was more concerned with the reconstruction effort during the early years of the post-GW era than rebuilding their fleet.
there was also the threat of pirates raiding shipping as many of the systems of the gtva fractured after the great war. ironically, the single most event that ahould have united everyone, terran and vasudan caused them to fracture
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Upon re-reading the intel entries I seem to have reached some very weird realizations about the whole Reconstruction period...
Operation Templar could not have "quickly followed" the Great War. In fact, judging from the FreeSpace 2 intelligence entries, the very earliest it could have taken place is 2358 - More than 23 years after the Great War:
Under BETAC, the Vasudans and the Terrans maintain separate fleets under a single command structure. A warship is designated GT or GV, indicating whether it is Galactic Terran or Galactic Vasudan.
Given how the Vasudan ships in Operation Templar were designated GVD for Galactic Vasudan, it could only have taken place after the signing of BETAC, which occurred in 2358:
In 2358, delegates signed into existence the Beta Aquilae Convention (BETAC), named after the system where the constitution was drafted and ratified.
I can't believe that the HoL would have lasted 23 years in a conventional war, so it was probably something a bit more like a terrorist group with no real military strength.
Furthermore, the GTVA as we know it (ie. the GTVA as an actual government) only existed following 2358, just 9 years prior to the FreeSpace main campaign. While it had existed since 2345, the GTVA existed as nothing more than a treaty organization for trade between the Terran regional blocs and the Vasudan Imperium. During the time between 2335 and 2358, the Terran community existed as several "semi-autonomous" regional blocs. Exactly how autonomous these regional blocs is ambiguous, but personally I don't think they were hostile towards one another, simply isolationist. Whether or not the GTA existed at this point is also unknown.
So from what we can see the Vasudans probably fared better than the Terrans during Reconstruction, aside from the ever-prominent HoL threat.
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Upon re-reading the intel entries I seem to have reached some very weird realizations about the whole Reconstruction period...
Operation Templar could not have "quickly followed" the Great War. In fact, judging from the FreeSpace 2 intelligence entries, the very earliest it could have taken place is 2358 - More than 23 years after the Great War:
Under BETAC, the Vasudans and the Terrans maintain separate fleets under a single command structure. A warship is designated GT or GV, indicating whether it is Galactic Terran or Galactic Vasudan.
Given how the Vasudan ships in Operation Templar were designated GVD for Galactic Vasudan, it could only have taken place after the signing of BETAC, which occurred in 2358:
In 2358, delegates signed into existence the Beta Aquilae Convention (BETAC), named after the system where the constitution was drafted and ratified.
I can't believe that the HoL would have lasted 23 years in a conventional war, so it was probably something a bit more like a terrorist group with no real military strength.
Furthermore, the GTVA as we know it (ie. the GTVA as an actual government) only existed following 2358, just 9 years prior to the FreeSpace main campaign. While it had existed since 2345, the GTVA existed as nothing more than a treaty organization for trade between the Terran regional blocs and the Vasudan Imperium. During the time between 2335 and 2358, the Terran community existed as several "semi-autonomous" regional blocs. Exactly how autonomous these regional blocs is ambiguous, but personally I don't think they were hostile towards one another, simply isolationist. Whether or not the GTA existed at this point is also unknown.
So from what we can see the Vasudans probably fared better than the Terrans during Reconstruction, aside from the ever-prominent HoL threat.
nice work there snail, the only angle of criticism I can think of is with the vasudan ship designations, the entry only states that it is the convention used within the GTVA but doesn't limit the GV designation to the GTVA so it could have been the adoption of a/the designation used in the period between the dissolution of the vasudan parliament by Khonsu II and the formalisation of the GTVA
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That's a good point. Between the formation of the GTVA proper and the dissolution of the Parliament in 2339 I was thinking the Vasudan ships could be named VIxx for Vasudan Imperial ship (the name of the government itself would be the Vasudan Imperium or Vasudan Empire) but that doesn't really make much sense.
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How about "IV" for Imperial Vasudan, much like PV stands for "Parliamentary Vasudan"?
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How about "IV" for Imperial Vasudan, much like PV stands for "Parliamentary Vasudan"?
Hmm yeah that would work much better.
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There's nothing preventing the GT and GV designation from being instituted in 2345, so Templar could have taken place then. In fact I think it says somewhere that Templar was the first joint fleet action undertaken by the newly formed GTVA.
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There's nothing preventing the GT and GV designation from being instituted in 2345, so Templar could have taken place then. In fact I think it says somewhere that Templar was the first joint fleet action undertaken by the newly formed GTVA.
It's stated that this designation exists "under BETAC." BETAC was drafted in 2358. It sort of implies that this convention only started after BETAC.
But given the ambiguity of the intel database it could easily go either way...
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There's nothing preventing the GT and GV designation from being instituted in 2345, so Templar could have taken place then. In fact I think it says somewhere that Templar was the first joint fleet action undertaken by the newly formed GTVA.
It's stated that this designation exists "under BETAC." BETAC was drafted in 2358. It sort of implies that this convention only started after BETAC.
But given the ambiguity of the intel database it could easily go either way...
my point is there is nothing said or written to prevent GV being used pre BETAC. BETAC only states that within the GTVA GV will be used to designate Vasudan element.
tbh if Goober5000 is right then this is a mute point as the reference places the operation post BETAC
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I think it's more useful to step out-of-universe and treat it as an oversight by whoever at :v: was FREDding those missions. It's highly unlikely that the Hammer of Light would remain relevant so long after the Great War.
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i was always under the impression templar was pretty much immediately after the destruction of the lucifer. certainly no more than a year later. from what i remeber, one of the briefings mentioned the mop-up of remaining shivans like it was still taking place.
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But remember also that IIRC Templar took place after ST. Well, not 100% sure about that one, but I think there are some HoL to fight in ST.
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there was still a significant shivan presence in ST, so that doesn't really push templar back any. is it even definitely established that ST happens AFTER the lucifer? at least the start of it anyway.
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Mentioned in a Command Brief (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Silent_Threat_Campaign_Briefings) just before the first mission. The HoL is also mentioned in the same Command Brief.
EDIT: The HoL also seize the Giordano(Secret Recovery), and there's a semi-humorous failure debrief for Field of Destruction suggesting that the HoL are naming a cruiser after you.
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i was always under the impression templar was pretty much immediately after the destruction of the lucifer. certainly no more than a year later. from what i remeber, one of the briefings mentioned the mop-up of remaining shivans like it was still taking place.
That's an impossibility. The Templar campaign specifically mentions the existence of the GTVA more than once, so it couldn't have taken place before 2345 (there could even be an argument that it couldn't take place before 2358).
there was still a significant shivan presence in ST, so that doesn't really push templar back any. is it even definitely established that ST happens AFTER the lucifer? at least the start of it anyway.
Yes, it is explicitly stated that ST happens after the Lucifer's destruction. Several times.
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Considering that the Operation Templar felt more like a counter-terrorism operation than an actual military operation, I would be fine with the HoL existing solely as an extremist/terrorist organization.
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i think this sums up nicely, it is as writen for the HoL techroom intel
Following the destruction of the SD Lucifer, the ideology and activities of the HoL shifted. While some followers committed ritual suicide, the military branch of the movement continued their armed opposition to the Vasudan government and its alliance with the Terrans. Though they continued to espouse HoL's religious dogma, their activities turned more toward acts of terrorism and guerrilla warfare. This branch of the HoL was later crushed in Operation Templar, following the HoL's kidnapping of the Vasudan admiralty. Other HoL leaders vanished into obscurity, returning to the study of arcane texts. A number of these religious leaders were apprehended and imprisoned for their role in the insurgency, though a few are still hiding.
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There's nothing preventing the GT and GV designation from being instituted in 2345, so Templar could have taken place then. In fact I think it says somewhere that Templar was the first joint fleet action undertaken by the newly formed GTVA.
It's stated that this designation exists "under BETAC." BETAC was drafted in 2358. It sort of implies that this convention only started after BETAC.
But given the ambiguity of the intel database it could easily go either way...
Alternatively GVD could have been a convention (with a small 'c') only enshrined in law when BETAC was agreed.
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It's stated that this designation exists "under BETAC." BETAC was drafted in 2358. It sort of implies that this convention only started after BETAC.
Not necessarily. You could say, "Under the United States Constitution, X is true" and that doesn't prevent X from also being true under the Articles of Confederation.
tbh if Goober5000 is right then this is a mute point as the reference places the operation post BETAC
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. 2345 is clearly earlier than 2358. ;)
Alternatively GVD could have been a convention (with a small 'c') only enshrined in law when BETAC was agreed.
Another good point I hadn't considered. :nod:
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It's highly unlikely that the Hammer of Light would remain relevant so long after the Great War.
Back up. They had their hands on the only major Vasudan shipyards (Altair) that we know of. As much as we remember them as terrorists, by at least Mid-FS1 they were not a terrorist group anymore; they were a major armed rebellion capable of engaging the GTA and PVN in a conventional military campaign.
Templar is their last gasp, but unseating them would have required major military commitment and possibly a years-long campaign like what the GTVA was looking at to grind down the NTF in FS2.
This would also helpfully explain why the GTVA is so acutely aware they have to beat the NTF soon after 18 months or they'll have to give up; they already went through this song and dance once before with the Hammer of Light and people remember that it was long, costly, and ultimately badly detrimental to their main task of being prepared for another go at Shivan-induced apocalypse.
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50 destroyers is just ridiculously huge.
Absolutely not. I'll never understand where that minimalism which some scifi fans tend to have, comes from. There are 13 Vasudan Battle Groups. Considered that there's an equal number of Terran Fleets, that's 26 Fleets/BGs overall. If each of them has only two destroyers, we already have 52 alltogether.
That's an impossibility. The Templar campaign specifically mentions the existence of the GTVA more than once, so it couldn't have taken place before 2345 (there could even be an argument that it couldn't take place before 2358).
Couldn't it be that GTVA was used as some sort of inofficial designation? I remember the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance being mentioned in one of FS1's last debriefs. I think it was the mission in which you destroy the Anvil.
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I'll never understand where that minimalism which some scifi fans tend to have, comes from.
Probably from realism. Retarded number of destroyer is retarded. For me, destroyers are not ships that you can build wherever you want in a few months. They would take at least 4 years to complete, and there are probably not more than 3-4 shipyards under GTVA control able to build these behemoths. Destroyers are also very expensive. My opinion is that there where probably less than half a dozen desties in each faction during the GW, and definitely not more than a dozen (in each faction, so think a dozen for NTF, a dozen for Vasudans and a dozen for Terrans) during FS2. If the GTVA was able to build 50 destroyers, firstly they would have committed a lot more at Capella, and secondly they would have had the resources to build 3 or 4 more Colossi too.
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I'll never understand where that minimalism which some scifi fans tend to have, comes from.
Probably from realism. Retarded number of destroyer is retarded. For me, destroyers are not ships that you can build wherever you want in a few months. They would take at least 4 years to complete, and there are probably not more than 3-4 shipyards under GTVA control able to build these behemoths. Destroyers are also very expensive. My opinion is that there where probably less than half a dozen desties in each faction during the GW, and definitely not more than a dozen (in each faction, so think a dozen for NTF, a dozen for Vasudans and a dozen for Terrans) during FS2. If the GTVA was able to build 50 destroyers, firstly they would have committed a lot more at Capella, and secondly they would have had the resources to build 3 or 4 more Colossi too.
With 4 shipyards, and each making a ship in 4 years, you get 1 D per year. There were 30 years of reconstruction, so that gives 30 new destroyers.
The Big 'C' was probably such a slow project because the conventional warships took up a large part of the budget, leaving too little cash to get the big 'C' done quick (and the GTB Boa also gives a hint the GTVA was working on a limited budget).
Also take note that there are 18 named GTVA destroyers, plus 10 more in the NTF) in FS 2, which would mean that about a 1/2 of all destroyers were in or near the action in the rather small part of the GTVA the player visited, if the estimate of +/-50 is correct.
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I'll never understand where that minimalism which some scifi fans tend to have, comes from.
Probably from realism. Retarded number of destroyer is retarded. For me, destroyers are not ships that you can build wherever you want in a few months. They would take at least 4 years to complete, and there are probably not more than 3-4 shipyards under GTVA control able to build these behemoths. Destroyers are also very expensive. My opinion is that there where probably less than half a dozen desties in each faction during the GW, and definitely not more than a dozen (in each faction, so think a dozen for NTF, a dozen for Vasudans and a dozen for Terrans) during FS2. If the GTVA was able to build 50 destroyers, firstly they would have committed a lot more at Capella, and secondly they would have had the resources to build 3 or 4 more Colossi too.
With 4 shipyards, and each making a ship in 4 years, you get 1 D per year. There were 30 years of reconstruction, so that gives 30 new destroyers.
The Big 'C' was probably such a slow project because the conventional warships took up a large part of the budget, leaving too little cash to get the big 'C' done quick (and the GTB Boa also gives a hint the GTVA was working on a limited budget).
Also take note that there are 18 named GTVA destroyers, plus 10 more in the NTF) in FS 2, which would mean that about a 1/2 of all destroyers were in or near the action in the rather small part of the GTVA the player visited, if the estimate of +/-50 is correct.
you also have the fact that just because the alliance has new destroyers dosnt mean they instantly retire the old ones, just look at the number of orions encountered and its canon that around the time of the second encounter that T-V war era destroyers are still around (bastion which was the players base ship at the end of the first game was only just being retired for the start of FS2).
as for construction times all the infrastructure was in place to build the big destroyers it just needed retooling for the new ships, the colly was probably bigger than the capability of any shipyard at the time of its inception so you need to build the construction facility's before you can start on the ship
to be honest the biggest problem with large destroyer fleets is maintenance 3000 meters of ship + combat craft + 10000 crew is going to be expensive even to the gtva and will work out like an aircraft carrier so i think to say 2-3 destroyers per fleet would be about right. You can see why there needs to be more than a handful when you consider the importance of destroyers in providing mission flexibility to the fleet and the number of missions a destroyer can be apart of simultaneously through its fighter complement, lets face it 8 fighters can easily cripple/destroy a cruiser making them at least as valuable in combat (though cruisers can stay in the field for days on end where as a fighter needs to land so the pilot can eat/sleep/go pee)
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Absolutely not. I'll never understand where that minimalism which some scifi fans tend to have, comes from. There are 13 Vasudan Battle Groups. Considered that there's an equal number of Terran Fleets, that's 26 Fleets/BGs overall. If each of them has only two destroyers, we already have 52 alltogether.
I wholeheartly agree
Just look at the huge number of ships the UK had during WWII. That was just 1 country (!)
Then look at how large a number of ships the US started producing when it entered the war.
(http://i49.tinypic.com/3129xdw.gif)
Now imagine several PLANETS being able to provide resources, manpower and industry.
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Have you taken scale into account, a nimitz aircraft carrier is about the size of a fenris so yes you have planets involved but you also have ships longer than the range of most non strategic weapons today
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We're more than 400 years after WWII in FS2. The GTVA must have had far more advanced factories and efficient construction logistics than the US.
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The cost of an Orion is mentioned as "far exceeding the cost of feeding its crew for three years". While this is by no means an accurate base for measurements, the fact that that number is high enough to serve as a comparison is significant. Also note that, at ~7 times the length, an Orion only carries twice the crew complement of a Nimitz, hinting at an enormous amount of automation employed.
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The cost of an Orion is mentioned as "far exceeding the cost of feeding its crew for three years". While this is by no means an accurate base for measurements, the fact that that number is high enough to serve as a comparison is significant. Also note that, at ~7 times the length, an Orion only carries twice the crew complement of a Nimitz, hinting at an enormous amount of automation employed.
Actually, it says paying, according to the wiki, so assuming an average salary of, say, $50000 and a crew of 10000, an Orion costs somewhere between 1.5 and 2 billion dollars, which is bugger all for something two kms long (Wiki says a Nimitz costs around 3 times as much).
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Guys: That's just a tech description, written by a grand total of one V employee. It sounded cool and apparently they couldn't be bothered to double-check if those numbers are realistic, assuming that someone 11 years later would pose the question.
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But since it's also the only figure we have, it's undisputably canon.
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Yeah. The tech descriptions - hell, the entire universe - is chocka block full of bad canon. You can ignore it if you choose, but it'll always be fact.
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'Cost' becomes kinda irrelevant when you have a horde of really angry shivan nuking your planets :p
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'Cost' is not really a matter of money here, rather a matter of materials and infrastructure - both things the GTA and PVN didn't have anymore after the 14 years war, after been f*cked up by the Shivans, after the destruction of Vasuda prime, the loss of Sol, the GTI rebellion and the HoL guerillas. It is explicitly stated in the Reconstruction entry that the Terran economy is ruined, and the same is to be expected to a lesser degree about the Vasudan one. They had probably millions if not billions of refugees to build new homes for, so they probably weren't able to build a single ship larger than a freighter during the 4-5 years following the end of the GW.
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I remember the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance being mentioned in one of FS1's last debriefs. I think it was the mission in which you destroy the Anvil.
What? Where? :wtf:
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The CB before the Hammer and the Anvil mentions that the Hammer of Light opposes any "Terran-Vasudan alliance", but that's about it.
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We have to assume that most combat spacecraft are based on outposts and, who knows, on planetary bases. Combat fighters stationed on destroyers may be only the tip of the iceberg.
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We have to assume that most combat spacecraft are based on outposts and, who knows, on planetary bases. Combat fighters stationed on destroyers may be only the tip of the iceberg.
omg mobius you're back :P
Just so that you know, the topic has moved on a bit from the subject title.
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I think it's yet another Game Vs. Universe debate. In the former we would expect a couple of bomber wings to disarm a Juggernaut while in the second we would see dozens and dozens of spacecraft being vanquished to neutralize a flak turret...
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I think it's yet another Game Vs. Universe debate. In the former we would expect a couple of bomber wings to disarm a Juggernaut while in the second we would see dozens and dozens of spacecraft being vanquished to neutralize a flak turret...
I don't think so. I think we should take the Game to be an accurate representation of in-universe events unless there are minor inconsistencies.
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It's a matter of opinions, really. I've always considered games bad representations of the universes they were based on, with Star Wars games being the most famous examples. Obviously, you can't pretend lethal lasers and missiles to be that devastating in a game... or the game itself would become unplayable.
This might inspire a Death Mode... :)
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Mobius, there's a difference between a fictional universe that exists primarily in non-game media (like SW), and a universe that is completely defined in a game or series of games.
In the latter case, since there is no other source of canon available, we have to stick with what we have. No matter what you may want to believe, but both gameplay and the in-game tech descriptions ARE canon.
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No doubt they're canon, but they feel completely different from the cutscenes they have. Weapons, speeds and many other parameters seem different in the cutscenes. Yet again, it's a matter of opinions. :)
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Doubtful. We know, for example, that the cutscenes were contracted to a company outside of the game-making publishing group, much less not developed inhouse at :v:. It is therefore far more likely that the cutscenes inaccurately represent the reality of the world the games live in then that the games do.
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the cutscene weaponry makes more sense to me though. turrets shoot things that look like they should be coming out of the turret.
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@MatthTheGeek
The FS1 tech entry of the Typhon states the ship to be deployed two years prior to the start of the main campaign. That would be 2333. In FS1 there appear four Typhons:
PVD Pinnacle
PVD Hope
HLD Anvil
HLD Prophecy
+ two destroyers that are said to be destroyed by the GTA.
That makes at least six being put into service within two years. If the PVN can deploy six destroyers within two years, it is absolutely no exaggeration that Terrans and Vasudans have four to five dozen of them thirty years later.
What? Where? :wtf:
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Briefing_texts_%28FS1%29#Debriefing_26
Oops, okay it's just "terran-vasudan alliance" without "galactic"...
We have to assume that most combat spacecraft are based on outposts and, who knows, on planetary bases. Combat fighters stationed on destroyers may be only the tip of the iceberg.
They must be. It's nothing but ridiculous to think that 3 km long dreaghnoughts a capable of bringing fighters and bombers into battle. Even if each fleet/BG has three destroyers, it could bring only some 300 to 400 fighters/bombers into battle. With such a tiny number of combat craft you could never launch a serious offensive against an enemy star system in which probably thousands of fighters are stationed on ground bases and installations.
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Doubtful. We know, for example, that the cutscenes were contracted to a company outside of the game-making publishing group, much less not developed inhouse at :v:. It is therefore far more likely that the cutscenes inaccurately represent the reality of the world the games live in then that the games do.
It may be a batter of computer limitations, which didn't enable :v: to show up the battles they wanted to show. MGS1's (PSX) Metal Gear Rex was far inferior to MGS2's (PS2) Metal Gear Ray even if the technological gap between the two war machines (in the MG continuity, of course) wasn't that big. Hideo Kojima claimed the PSX wasn't powerful enough to support the Metal Gear Rex he wanted for MGS1, so he had to wait for PS2 to develop a war machine which could match (to some degree) his original artwork.
I recall at least 4 games which show the very same differences we see in FreeSpace between ingame sequences and cutscenes.
the cutscene weaponry makes more sense to me though. turrets shoot things that look like they should be coming out of the turret.
That's a super example. For ages, videogames. One of the oldest games which finally introduced decent turrets was Colony Wars: Red Sun for PSX. Red Sun's predecessors featured ineffective blob turrets because programmers didn't know how to make use of PSX's true capabilities.
This has been discussed in the past and, as usual, it's mostly a matter of opinions with both sides having sufficient proof to sound convincing. I would love to ask :v: programmers if FreeSpace's low speeds and ineffective blob turrets were meant to be replacements of something else.
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And since this has devolved into another installment of "Mobius has differing opinions about canon", I'm closing this.