Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: Hellstryker on August 22, 2011, 06:55:42 am
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How would you play your cards if you were in the UEF's or GTVA's shoes. Spur of the moment conversation on Skype got me thinking...
[7:51:02 AM] Justin Hopkins: Honestly.
[7:51:03 AM] Cameron: They were also cryogenically frozen Great War Veterans.
[7:51:13 AM] Justin Hopkins: If I were in the UEF's shoes.
[7:51:15 AM] Justin Hopkins: Know what I would do?
[7:51:17 AM] Cameron: Which would mean that when you've aged, there's a younger parallel universe clone of yourself.
[7:51:20 AM] Cameron: What?
[7:51:32 AM] Justin Hopkins: I would let one of the 'defected' ships 'escape' to the GTVA.
[7:51:43 AM] Justin Hopkins: Say that the UEF had been holding them hostage or something.
[7:51:50 AM] Justin Hopkins: Sneak it into Delta Serpentis,
[7:51:58 AM] Justin Hopkins: And then destroy the Sol gate.
[7:52:22 AM] Justin Hopkins: It would be a temporary setback for the GTVA,
[7:52:35 AM] Justin Hopkins: But it would allow the UEF to go into overdrive and buy them time to dig in.
[7:52:36 AM] Cameron: But we have no idea how long it takes to stabilize a jump node.
[7:52:50 AM] Justin Hopkins: Study the beams of the Labouchere and start mounting them on UEF ships.
[7:52:53 AM] Cameron: If it were instantaneous, then destroying the gate would do nothing.
[7:53:03 AM] Justin Hopkins: Construct more frigates and Solarises.
[7:53:05 AM] Justin Hopkins: Etc.
[7:53:06 AM] Cameron: Best thing would be a Bastion style explosion.
[7:53:12 AM] Cameron: Instead of targeting the gate itself.
[7:53:16 AM] Justin Hopkins: That wouldn't do ****.
[7:53:20 AM] Justin Hopkins: The Lucifer did that.
[7:53:31 AM] Justin Hopkins: The gate is in place to *correct* that damage.
[7:53:41 AM] Justin Hopkins: You have to take out the gate itself.
[7:53:45 AM] Cameron: What if both are neccessary?
[7:53:56 AM] Justin Hopkins: Then you sacrafice two ships.
[7:54:08 AM] Cameron: But then the GTVA are ready for the second attack.
[7:54:17 AM] Justin Hopkins: After the rebuild the gate.
[7:54:22 AM] Justin Hopkins: Which took thirty years before.
[7:54:27 AM] Cameron: No, what I mean is.
[7:54:53 AM] Cameron: The GTVA would probably figure out that the hostage ships were UEF defectors all along and were the reason for the sabotage of the Sol gate.
[7:55:08 AM] Justin Hopkins: Is why you send both ships through at once.
[7:55:11 AM] Justin Hopkins: One right after the other.
[7:55:17 AM] Cameron: Ahhh.
[7:55:19 AM] Justin Hopkins: One blows up the gate. other detonates in subspace.
[7:55:24 AM] Justin Hopkins: Brilliant, right?
[7:55:37 AM] Cameron: The Sol Gate is probably nowhere near as resilient as the Knossos either.
[7:55:38 AM] Justin Hopkins: Then the UEF dig in and start prepping for when the GTVA returns.
[7:55:44 AM] Justin Hopkins: Probably not.
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Only problem is, the GTVA most likely has a blockade up at the Sol gate and it'd take a while for any of the defected ships to destroy said gate, so the GTVA could easily either destroy it before it causes too much damage or disarm and disable it in an effort to try and recapture the vessel.
Either way, the GTVA already knows which ships defected.
[7:53:03 AM] Justin Hopkins: Construct more frigates and Solarises.
[7:53:05 AM] Justin Hopkins: Etc.
It's not that simple.
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Not to mention that it would be more than suspicious for a ship that has defected to defect back again. To boot, after the original defection, the whole original Tev crew was probably fully replaced by Feds. All in all, I don't think the Tevs would fall for it. They would force the ship to disengage its engines, get borded, crew evacuated and ship commandeered back by real Tev crew even before it gets anywhere close the node. Result : you've just offered a free ship to the Tevs, free of charges. Congratulations.
For the "construct more frigates and Solarises" part, they do that already. As fast as they can, at least for the frigate part (A Solaris probably requires at minimum half a dozen years to complete, and more resources than the Feds can afford in the middle of a war). You just can't just double the size of your fleet in a 18 months window. Constructed ships aren't even enough to replace the sustained losses.
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How about this one have the meson destroyer detonate as it exits on the Delta Sep end of the node, the both the Lucifer and bastion were half way through their transitions in the cutscenes so a two stage explosion, the back half in the node and the front half in real space right in the gate, the back half seals the node and the front half destroys the gate + possibly helping seal the node. probably buy the UEF a few months if the gate is merely damaged and probably a couple of years if it is destroyed. Might be work having a backup destroyer on standby just in case though.
This is all of course a mute point if the UEF dont have meson technology, remember it took a combined effort from both sides of the GTVA to research the things in the first place and would have been an extravagance to make the Solaris class sound reasonable.
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Even if they had started laying down new hulls at the start of the conflict (Discounting the issue of the shipyards being all ready to start work on new warships right away, which they aren't), those ships would only now start to appear. Building a Sanctus, Karuna, Narayana, or Solaris takes a long time; this isn't WW2 where build times for new warships were on the order of a few months.
And what headdie said, obviously.
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I'd get defrosting the Solace's crew and get them down the Acid mines pronto. . . . . Were i Buntu oppressive.
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The UEF have comet crackers (really big nukes I guess) which could have payloads comparable to Meson Bombs.
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No, I guess those aren't comparable in yield.
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Being a UEF fanboy, i'd hop in the UEF chair too.
Like the idea of sending the defected ships through as a ploy; good one, might work, but would the GTVA fall for it? They would likely insist the vessels were taken over and the crews placed into custody so they'd be unable to do it. A suicide ship again might work, but FS has demonstrated an ability to detect warheads, so they'd need a lot of cover and luck.
The Feds are on the backfoot definately; if they try to fight the GTVA head on they will loose. The Tevs weakness however is their reliance on subspace; even Steele warps in and out quick. I would try to develop some kind of subspace jammer and get that deployed; would prevent the GTVA from subspace strikes, and the gate network could perhaps be modified to work through the jamming, so then its just a matter of keeping gates locked down. Alternatively some kind of code or frequency could be introduced that allowed UEF ships to still operate. Any non-subspace advance into a jammed area would be detected quick and risk trapping themselves and then getting grinded down, unless you brought tons of supplies and kept a supply line going with convoys. A single strike would take weeks, maybe months.
If a mobile version of the above could me made, then you could wait for a GTVA destroyer, jump in a jammer quick with 2 or 3 Naras and trigger the jammer. I doubt any destroyer could survive a strike like that for more than 20 secs. The only downside would be having to protect the jammer (which would probably have to be a Oculus) and that if any Tevs warped in at the edge of the jamming and came in on engines, you'd be trapped too unless you dropped the field to run.
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No, I guess those aren't comparable in yield.
They could still be capable of blowing up the node corridor, if you had enough of them (which is the main thing most people seem to want to do). Given that the Gefs could get ahold of one they can't be that rare.
Actually there are other non-Meson technologies capable of creating rather big explosions that the UEF also have access to. They could use those.
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the issue might not be purely yield but also the forms of energy eg 1 kiloton of tnt just goes boom, a kiloton rated nuke gives off ionising radiation. What types of energy does a meson give out, is there a type of subspace radiation to consider
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The UEF has two Anemoi under their controll. Those two might have enough parts (and blueprints) to build meson bombs. And if those ships are powered by meson reactors, they could even take them out and rebuild them into makeshift meson bombs.
But wether they can build meson bombs or some equivalent capable of closing the node isn't really the issue if the UEF can't overcome the blockade at the jumpnode first (or keep them busy long enough for the bombs to make the jump). Considering the GTVA had plenty of time to fortify the position and can call in reinforcements from within Sol and from Delta Serpentis it's rather unlikely that they are able to break that blockade.
Apart from that I doubt Byrne is willing to commit the bulk of first fleet to such a suicide attack and without those ships the already minimal chances of success fade away completely.
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Everyone always forgets that even if you seal the node, you still have something like five full GTVA battlegroups in the Sol system. More, if the Vasudans get there first. You can be damn sure they won't be happy if they're sealed in Sol.
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Without supplies, they won't last long. The UEF just have to hold their ground until the Tev ships fall apart. You can expect a fair amount of surrendering too if they realize they're stranded on Sol for good.
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What Matth said, the entire GTVA force in Sol is pretty much dependent on the great umbilical as it is.
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Anemois and captured stations are just supply storage and repair stations in term of logistics, they don't spawn supply out of the blue. At one point they'll run out.
Remember the end of AoA, when they said they were battle damaged and short on supplies ? That's was after only some days (how much was it, two weeks ?) without support, and with two Anemois. And a self-sufficient Sleeper ship.
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And a few major fleet engagements.
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If the Tevs stranded in Sol don't get into any engagement, they're not too much trouble for the UEF, right ?
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Biological warfare :D
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Depends on how many weeks/months worth of supplies are already stored at Neptune and Jupiter, then.
The UEF could very well shoot themselves in the foot by collapsing the subspace corridor; as it stands, if the UEF manages to give the GTVA a big enough black eye, it could erode popular and political support for the war effort enough to force the Security Council to pull out. If the corridor is destroyed, that's no longer a factor. The GTVA forces already present in system might be willing to accept much heavier losses to achieve victory than the civilian politicians currently in charge of the war would. The GTVA forces in Sol probably have the schematics necessary to rebuild the portal, and if they can conquer the system they would certainly have the resources to do so.
Hell, if the only other option is logistical decay followed by surrender, I can certainly see Steele deciding that committing everything a decisive fleet battle over Earth is the best of a number of very bad remaining options despite the massive costs that even a victory would entail.
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Just collapse the node while Steele is taking holidays on a sunny beach in Beta Aquilae.
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Crouching in the dirt in front of the zods to get them into the war...
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Just collapse the node while Steele is taking holidays on a sunny beach in Beta Aquilae.
WiH R2 opens with a "The Intervention" style mention in which LaPorte, flying a captured GTVA fighter, selects from a series of dialog options in an attempt to convince Steele that he needs a vacation.
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If the Tevs stranded in Sol don't get into any engagement, they're not too much trouble for the UEF, right ?
Major fleet engagements on a scale not seen in the entire war. Just one battlegroup fought a running engagement through more space with less supplies on two different fronts in four different systems against nearly a dozen destroyer sized vessels and Juggernaut, were victorious, and retained a great enough combat effectiveness to completely gut two Karunas and force off three more despite the wholesale defection of nearly 20% of their strength, and you're going try and run a parallel to that? I don't think so.
Three or four battlegroups in Sol, knowing that they've been cut off from resupply and backed into a corner, ESPECIALLY if they've got Steele with them would probably end the war quicker than if they had free supply lines. If every second brings you closer to defeat, snatch victory more quickly.
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To be fair, the 14th would have almost certainly been destroyed on three separate occasions* if it weren't for the intervention of the Vishnans , but by and large your point stands.
Also, don't forget that the UEF are only a few months away from a logistical collapse, themselves.
*Well, two, really. Seeing as I had neutralized both Ravanas as effective combatants and was getting to work on the Demon by the time the Vishnans even showed up to 'save' the Temeraire, I'm not sure why everyone was going all OH MY GOD WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE IT HAS BEEN AN HONOR LET US MAKE A VALIANT LAST STAND that particular time. :p
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Without supplies, they won't last long. The UEF just have to hold their ground until the Tev ships fall apart. You can expect a fair amount of surrendering too if they realize they're stranded on Sol for good.
Take away their options and they will at least make a first attempt to end the fight at stroke.
You want them to jump to high orbit and open up on major cities on Earth? 'cuz they will do it if you leave them no other choices.
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Right. And what then ? They've murdered millions, and their ships still fall apart. If they have any ships left after the UEF counterstrike. That's not exactly winning a war.
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Right. And what then ? They've murdered millions, and their ships still fall apart. If they have any ships left after the UEF counterstrike. That's not exactly winning a war.
So everybody loses scans as a win for someone to you?
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Nope. But it definitely doesn't sound like the GTVA wins. Which is why I think the GTVA wouldn't do it. Especially Steele, he's smarter than that. He wouldn't sacrifice his men and lifes of innocents for a war he'd have already lost. Real geniuses know when they have lost.
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Right. And what then ? They've murdered millions, and their ships still fall apart. If they have any ships left after the UEF counterstrike. That's not exactly winning a war.
So everybody loses scans as a win for someone to you?
I understand the preservation of Earth as a industrial hub is a goal of the GTVA? in that case the stranded GTVA forces double loose, firstly they die or are captured and then second when the GTVA re-establishes the node and re-enter to find Earth is rebuilding its main regions and find that it was the fault of their own forces those forces are then disgraced in the eyes of their own goverment and people.
Most likely outcome is that smaller ships and units will suffer heavily from defections/surrender from loss of moral, the larger crews will attempt to secure themselves or play hide and seek with the UEF hoping to hinder UEF attempts to rebuild their fleet until either contact with the GTVA is re-established or the UEF trap and destroy or force a surrender on the remaining taskforce, an outcome that will be force when their critical supplies run out.
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Right. And what then ? They've murdered millions, and their ships still fall apart. If they have any ships left after the UEF counterstrike. That's not exactly winning a war.
They don't need to actually do it; they just need to convince the UEF that they will do it in the absence of an immediate surrender. Perhaps start with one or two cities to prove that they're serious.
That said, I'm not sure the order would be followed if it were given. Killing civilians who are either working in positions related to the war effort or who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time is one thing, but massacring billions of innocents to get the Elders' attention likely goes beyond what most GTVA soldiers have the stomach for.
I don't think you'd be likely to see defections solely as a result of the GTVA forces in Sol being cut off, but add state terrorism (because that's what killing civilians solely to obtain political concessions is) as an official policy and you'd start to risk it.
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No one seems to have factored in the fact that this 'collapse the node plan' would be an all in strat by the UEF, and their fleet would likely be decimated, while many of the GTVA ships would still be in fighting form as they weren't just going gung ho for the node bleeding ships and lives.
As such, they could likely pursue decisive military victory WITHOUT having to nuke cities, and if anyone could push that win, Steele could. Earth builts its own gate now that the GTVA is in charge (if only with Steele as a proxy), GTVA victory.
The loss of life by this all in strat by the UEF would also likely be condemned by the Terran populace if all it did was hand Steele victory and kill a bunch of people, which would probably make it easier for Steele to take charge after victory
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Theres probably a way to get a single nuke through the node without getting almost the entire fleet killed.
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A single nuke would also likely lack the power to collapse the node.
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The node being usable is irrelevant, all you have to do is come out of subspace, destroy the gate, and ruin the GTVA's will to fight.
If a single Orion can generate that kind of morale effect I think its safe to assume the loss of the gate would be a lot worse.
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The node being usable is irrelevant, all you have to do is come out of subspace, destroy the gate, and ruin the GTVA's will to fight.
If a single Orion can generate that kind of morale effect I think its safe to assume the loss of the gate would be a lot worse.
I cant find it but it was mentioned earlier in the thread that it might not be that simple with the gate maintaining the node and you would probably have to take that out of commission as well to achieve a meaningful disruption to GTVA transit
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Meaningful disruption of transit isn't the goal there. Breaking the Tev morale is. Remember they spent 18 years and a good part of their resources building that gate.
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Except a node assault on fortification IN sol, and then transit to DS, and sustaining long enough to destroy the gate would be devastating to UEF morale to, because of the massive losses. What if losses are so bad, that the GTVA public is enraged at the loss of the gate, but know that they can go for the throat and win because of the devastation to the UEF. We're talking assaults of two major fleet locations, with the atreus and Steele's other assets around Jupiter to shove a few missiles up the UEF's ass for good measure, or wait for them on the other side of the DS node on their return journey.
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Not sure I understand this bit about massive losses. Sneaking an already defected ship through may be a bad idea, yes. But you could just pack a Karuna with comet crackers and crew it minimally with volunteers who claim they want to join the Tev side of things, get them through the node and have it go boom while it's coming out on the Delta Serp side as Headdie said.
They could even use a Tev PoW to do the talking. They have Al Fadil, right?
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In an attempt to avoid the nitpicking, the idea here is that a frontal assault isn't the only option.
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But you could just pack a Karuna with comet crackers and crew it minimally with volunteers who claim they want to join the Tev side of things, get them through the node and have it go boom while it's coming out on the Delta Serp side as Headdie said.
And how would you get it through the heavily blockaded and highly secure node, without a frontal assault of some kind ? The first thing the Tevs did even before First Neptune was blockading the node. You just can't sneak a Karuna through that.
Not to mention that ships can be tracked through subspace. You can be sure the Delta Serpentis forces will come and nuke the Karuna into the node long before it comes anywhere close the end of the corridor.
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I was thinking something more along the lines of running some specially designed inter-system nuclear missile through the node at 400 meters per second or so.
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It might severely damage a Tev cargo container. :P
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It might severely damage a Tev cargo container. :P
Have you been keeping up with the whole comet cracker thing?
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All these ideas clearly do not work. What we need is a Deus Ex Machina. That **** solves everything pronto.
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Oh my apologies. I didn't realize comet-crackers were actual nukes.
Specs are consistent with a comet-cracker nuclear device.
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All these ideas clearly do not work. What we need is a Deus Ex Machina. That **** solves everything pronto.
We just need to wait for Byrne to finish building the Icanus.
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More food for thought: if the UEF launches an attack outside of Sol, they lose any and all chance of keeping the "reluctant defenders" image. The GTVA will cry for war like the US did after Pearl Harbor.
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These thoughts of mine tie into the mysterious Byrne project. Another means of cutting off the GTVA from Sol, would be if the UEF developed a technology to redirect a jump node to another system, say redirecting the nearside of the Sol-DS node to Wolf 359 or something.
I also like the idea (previously mentioned by someone else in this thread) of a subspace drive jammer. It could perhaps be in the form of a torpedo that sends out some kind of energy discharge on impact that disables a ship's drive for a period of time or something that grapples onto the target ship's hull to prevent jumping (though something like that could be targeted and destroyed). A field jammer (like from an AWACS) would allow you to rapidly immobilize an entire fleet depending on the field's dimensions. With the UEF forces being numerically inferior to GTVA, perhaps some Rommel tactics would be in order, drawing off smaller numbers of cruisers and corvettes, then hitting them with the jamming (either weapon or field) and coming at them with heavy firepower, either super-bombers or cap-ships. That way you could whittle down a destroyer's escort until you can more safely make a similar strike against their holdings. If the technology uses a field system, then it could also benefit if it completely prevents jump vortexes from being created, preventing anyone from jumping either in or out of the battlefield. That would prevent a surprise attack like the in the final mission.
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More food for thought: if the UEF launches an attack outside of Sol, they lose any and all chance of keeping the "reluctant defenders" image. The GTVA will cry for war like the US did after Pearl Harbor.
If they attack anything other than the gate maybe, but I doubt that attacking only the gate and it's defenders would trigger such a reaction, since it would come down to "closing the door" and thus prevent losses on both sides if successfull.
You also seem to miss the real reason for the outrage after of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attacked without warning or declaring war first. The UEF and GTVA are at war for quite some time now.
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But you could just pack a Karuna with comet crackers and crew it minimally with volunteers who claim they want to join the Tev side of things, get them through the node and have it go boom while it's coming out on the Delta Serp side as Headdie said.
And how would you get it through the heavily blockaded and highly secure node, without a frontal assault of some kind ? The first thing the Tevs did even before First Neptune was blockading the node. You just can't sneak a Karuna through that.
Not to mention that ships can be tracked through subspace. You can be sure the Delta Serpentis forces will come and nuke the Karuna into the node long before it comes anywhere close the end of the corridor.
Please go back and re-read my post.
And yeah, I've been thinking about the Byrne project and the Fedayeen after replaying BP again recently. It obviously has something to do with the defected/captured ships. And how exactly do the Fedayeen plan to "buy time"?
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And yeah, I've been thinking about the Byrne project and the Fedayeen after replaying BP again recently. It obviously has something to do with the defected/captured ships. And how exactly do the Fedayeen plan to "buy time"?
Now that's an easy question to answer. The Fedayeen need to delay the Tev invasion of Earth long enough for whatever that project is to finish. Which means military operations to weaken and slow them down. We know the Fedayeen have a Narayana, which given the rarity and tactical value of that ship class, heavily implies that they have access to a significant proportion of war material and technology. Revealed screenshots and other materials heavily imply that they also have access to the Ansarii stealth fighter and the Spec-Ops version of the Custos gunboat.
My own conclusion is that the Fedayeen aren't equipped to wage a war on their own, that's what First, Second and Third Fleet are for, but they can strike quietly and hard where it hurts. Whether it'll be enough to buy the needed time is WiH2's job to tell us.
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Is it just me or is the DS-Sol gate euipped with beam cannons?
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4 AAA, 5 Flaks and 14 Terran Turrets here.
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More food for thought: if the UEF launches an attack outside of Sol, they lose any and all chance of keeping the "reluctant defenders" image. The GTVA will cry for war like the US did after Pearl Harbor.
If they attack anything other than the gate maybe, but I doubt that attacking only the gate and it's defenders would trigger such a reaction, since it would come down to "closing the door" and thus prevent losses on both sides if successfull.
You also seem to miss the real reason for the outrage after of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attacked without warning or declaring war first. The UEF and GTVA are at war for quite some time now.
I was using the example more as a measure of magnitude than analogy by cause.
Even if they just attack the Sol Gate, it could touch off the same reaction. Remember that the gate is the shining beacon of fully 19 and a half years of overcoming economic hardship and the constant threat of Shivan invasion.
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Yes, but it is also the cause and symbol of a war neither side really wanted and it would show that the UEF is not "unwilling and unable to survive in a hostile universe".
Sure they won't be happy about the gates destruction, but who are they going to blame? The ones who destroyed it to protect themselfs, or the ones who forced the gate's construction onto them while ignoring the deteriorating economic situation, lied to them about the reason for the war and than were unable to protect the gate against what they claimed to be pacifistic hippies?
"If they can't even protect the gate from a bunch of pacifists, how can they hope to protect us from next Shivan incursion?" would be an argument that surely would make the rounds pretty fast following the loss of the gate, no matter if the node survived or not.
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Al zods must fricking burn.
Surely that would be enough to unite both terran sides?
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Dekker, get a new hobby. It's getting stupid.
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UEF would burn the gate if they could. Colonists' reaction is irrelevant to this strategic point, since the destruction of the node would mute them on Sol's side.
I think it might be possible that the BP team could try to go this path. First, you need to prolongue the war and create enough war dynamics in order to get an opportunity. Second, you need a plan of attack. In my perspective, it will be a battle of wits between those who defend the node and those who attack it. Diversions, stealth mechanisms, surprises, etc. will be tools for both sides.
Now, if the node is destroyed, I think that the war either escalates atrociously, with general Steele feeling suddenly very alone in Sol and deciding to conquer Earth to prepare it for the next built node; or it will wither, with many tevs defecting to Earth. It can also be a combination of both and lots of insanity from tev admirals, commanders, etc. Either way, it's an incredible achievement for the UEF forces, and therefore they should be working to get this done.
It may however prove to be impossible. With that in mind, we can also see the return of shivans... and then all hell breaks loose.
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Maybe what happens on the GTVA side of the node after a collapse doesn't matter to the UEF (in the short run anyway - they rebuild the node once, they might very well do it again), but it certainly is of interrest to me.
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UEF would burn the gate if they could. Colonists' reaction is irrelevant to this strategic point, since the destruction of the node would mute them on Sol's side.
I think it might be possible that the BP team could try to go this path. First, you need to prolongue the war and create enough war dynamics in order to get an opportunity. Second, you need a plan of attack. In my perspective, it will be a battle of wits between those who defend the node and those who attack it. Diversions, stealth mechanisms, surprises, etc. will be tools for both sides.
Now, if the node is destroyed, I think that the war either escalates atrociously, with general Steele feeling suddenly very alone in Sol and deciding to conquer Earth to prepare it for the next built node; or it will wither, with many tevs defecting to Earth. It can also be a combination of both and lots of insanity from tev admirals, commanders, etc. Either way, it's an incredible achievement for the UEF forces, and therefore they should be working to get this done.
It may however prove to be impossible. With that in mind, we can also see the return of shivans... and then all hell breaks loose.
I place the destruction of the Sol gate and the isolation of Earth for a second time to be the LEAST likely path the BP team would follow, allthough I suppose it's possible. Issue with this whole plan being, it would render AoA completely moot.
The impression I'm getting is that the Vishnans have a showdown planned. Not one of flashing beams and exploding ships, but a psychological test for humanity... and those evil evil Zods. Judging by the dialogue sequence between the Dante and the 'OMGWTFVISHNANSHIP', this involves finding a way to truly create rather then to simply destroy. Cutting Sol off from the galaxy may constitute a 'win' for the UEF, but would in my opinion, almost certainly be a failure of the Vishnan test.
I've never been one to really like the ordained flavor of the Vishnans and Shivans roles in BP. Or rather maybe that's to strong, it's simply not the direction I would have taken personally. However, that doesn't mean I can discount it in context of the story, meaning the only thing the UEF can really do at this point is hope Byrnes (sp?) project helps to provide the 'enlightenment' required. Or its calling for help from Vishnans/Shivans. I can't remember where I first saw that idea pitched, but I thought it was plausible.
Also the Vasudans fit into this somewhere, since apparently Khonsu is so friggen awesome and is already 'closer to enlightenment' then some of the Eldars, which means the node can't be collapsed or else all the storytelling around the Vasudans both in mission and in lore would also be rendered ultimately pointless.
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You are right they won't negate AoA, but it doesn't mean that they won't make UEF try to porsue this strategy.
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Fair enough, but I doubt they would allow the UEF to succeed. And judging by how the UEF is already up **** creek without a paddle, I could only see this whole plan making it worse for them if they fail.
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I would laugh my ass off, if Khonsu simply said "Tevs...you screwed it up...I'm taking matters in my own hands..."
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I would laugh my ass off, if Khonsu simply said "Tevs...you screwed it up...I'm taking matters in my own hands..."
and then proceed to do what exactly
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Break the alliance?
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Tell the Tevs to gtfo and send Vasudan battlegroups into Sol, finishing of the Feds in a couple of weeks.
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With :headz: skills?
I don't see why the Zodfleet would be any more adept at finishing us them off than Tevfleet.
I have yet to see their capability though. My opinion may or may not change once i see R2.
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They're Zods. They can only be better than Tevs. The contrary wouldn't seem physically possible.
If you don't believe me, put a Sobek against a Hecate.
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Erm.... Aten and Mentu?
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The Aten was actually my most visually pleasing favourite from FS1 retail :nod:
Still stank of skinny though.
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The Mentu would be a pretty good cruiser if the AI were smart enough to roll to bring its weapons to bear instead of sitting at whatever orientation it happens to be at when attacked.
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Erm.... Aten and Mentu?
Because the Fenris and Leviathan are any better ?
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At least they're built to spec *coughmentufailcough*
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The Mentu would be a pretty good cruiser if the AI were smart enough to roll to bring its weapons to bear instead of sitting at whatever orientation it happens to be at when attacked.
Who needs AI when there's a SEXP for that? :p
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The Mentu would be a pretty good cruiser if the AI were smart enough to roll to bring its weapons to bear instead of sitting at whatever orientation it happens to be at when attacked.
And if it actually had any weapons to bear.
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*Imagines a Sanctus or Hyperion being attacked by a Mentu, lolbachs a'blazing.
Yeah, no. The Zods would definitely have better cruisers by then, right?
Right?!
EDIT: I know cruisers are basically being phased out, but it stands to reason they'd have some type of light combatant.
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The Mentu would be a pretty good cruiser if the AI were smart enough to roll to bring its weapons to bear instead of sitting at whatever orientation it happens to be at when attacked.
And if it actually had any weapons to bear.
It has three flaks and 3 AAAs. And its anti-warship beam armament isn't all that much less effective than what you'd find on a Terran cruiser.
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I say again, think Aeolus or Hyperion here, especially the Hyperion. Those SBlues aren't incredibly powerful, but they're enough to kill a cruiser quite quickly (Forced Entry)
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Comparing the Sanctus or Hyperion is inherently unfair against the Mentu, different generation of cruisers.
The Aeolus however, is a vastly superior cruiser
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*Imagines a Sanctus or Hyperion being attacked by a Mentu, lolbachs a'blazing.
Yeah, no. The Zods would definitely have better cruisers by then, right?
Right?!
EDIT: I know cruisers are basically being phased out, but it stands to reason they'd have some type of light combatant.
Wasn't there an Aten in the final cutscene of WiH p1? :wtf:
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I say again, think Aeolus or Hyperion here, especially the Hyperion. Those SBlues aren't incredibly powerful, but they're enough to kill a cruiser quite quickly (Forced Entry)
After so many playthroughs of FE, I have yet to see anything else than the Labouchère and the Téméraire kill a cruiser...
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*Imagines a Sanctus or Hyperion being attacked by a Mentu, lolbachs a'blazing.
Yeah, no. The Zods would definitely have better cruisers by then, right?
Right?!
EDIT: I know cruisers are basically being phased out, but it stands to reason they'd have some type of light combatant.
Wasn't there an Aten in the final cutscene of WiH p1? :wtf:
But who can tell what they are used for now. Maybe they use them as heavy freighters or APCs or AWACS or who knows what now. Or it could even be a new ships that only looks like an Aten (in-universe anyway. I'm pretty sure in FRED it is a normal Aten).
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IIRC the BP team said they were used as Pulse gunboats.
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I wonder why they wouldn't refit the Mentus rather than the Atens though... although I guess the Tevs did keep the Leviathons around as picket ships so the Atens may fill a similar role... in a flimsy fashion :)
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Cruisers have always been useless in the anti-cap role (at least for everyone that isn't Shivan). In a sense, the Zods deigned their cruisers correctly : no big, energy-hungry useless SGreens/SBlues.
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Cruisers have always been useless in the anti-cap role (at least for everyone that isn't Shivan). In a sense, the Zods deigned their cruisers correctly : no big, energy-hungry useless SGreens/SBlues.
Bad thing is the Mentu has fairly bad turret coverage and poorly placed turrets. It's only got three turrets on the bottom, for example.
The Aeolus is better at both anticapital and antifighter because of good turret placement and coverage.
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The Mentu would be a pretty good cruiser if the AI were smart enough to roll to bring its weapons to bear instead of sitting at whatever orientation it happens to be at when attacked.
And if it actually had any weapons to bear.
It has three flaks and 3 AAAs. And its anti-warship beam armament isn't all that much less effective than what you'd find on a Terran cruiser.
Implying the Mentu even has capital-grade beams when it actually doesn't.
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The Mentu would be a pretty good cruiser if the AI were smart enough to roll to bring its weapons to bear instead of sitting at whatever orientation it happens to be at when attacked.
And if it actually had any weapons to bear.
It has three flaks and 3 AAAs. And its anti-warship beam armament isn't all that much less effective than what you'd find on a Terran cruiser.
Implying the Mentu even has capital-grade beams when it actually doesn't.
That would be the joke.
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I wonder why they wouldn't refit the Mentus rather than the Atens though... although I guess the Tevs did keep the Leviathons around as picket ships so the Atens may fill a similar role... in a flimsy fashion :)
It's cheaper. The Aten by now is most likely an upgraded (including armor and engines and all that jazz) version of the old while being extremely cheap and mass produceable.
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It's a piss-poor joke then since if they did have even a single SVas they'd be outperforming the Fenris and Leviathan two-fold.
Not to mention the Fusion Mortar isn't terribly bad either, it'll destroy damaged targets if you allow the Cruiser to keep firing.
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Id open up a direct line to Khonsu and say "We are in contact with higher beings. Stop helping those warmongers." Should have a positive effect considering Vasudan mysticism.
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Id open up a direct line to Khonsu and say "We are in contact with higher beings. Stop helping those warmongers." Should have a positive effect considering Vasudan mysticism.
Assumes Vasudan Mysticism is the same as human Mysticism. Assumes Vasudans would listen.
Also, please do not bump old topics.
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Id open up a direct line to Khonsu and say "We are in contact with higher beings. Stop helping those warmongers." Should have a positive effect considering Vasudan mysticism.
And what if the higher beings are lying to the UEF? What if the GTVA has a better idea of what they really intend?
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Just edit a retail mission where a Mentu appears and swap it with the version which has a SVas...kicks ass ;)
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Here's my thread that discusses strategy ideas for the GTVA:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=79335.0
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Building a Sanctus, Karuna, Narayana, or Solaris takes a long time; this isn't WW2 where build times for new warships were on the order of a few months.
Out of curiosity, why is that (not counting the Solaris for obvious reasons)? Not 'a few months', but something along the lines of 6-12? In wartime, with warship construction being a (or one of) top priority, what about the dynamic enforces a significantly longer warship construction time with 24th century technology and abundant infrastructure (before Darkest Hour, of course)? Even with regards to the Sanctus, which is both an older, more common, and simpler design that was geared towards cost-efficiency and ease of construction in the first place?
For ships the size of the Narayana and up (roughly speaking), it's definitely understandable that the required time for constructing it and the scale of its construction would make it too vulnerable and static a target to be practical after a certain point in the war. But even for cruisers? Outside of the particulars of this war making most of the UEF's infrastructure unusually vulnerable, what part (or parts) of the process holds up the others?
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Building Cruisers only makes sense if those Cruisers would be more than target practice.
Also, if most of the shipyards that could build military vessels are occupied with either repairing ships or refitting them (Remember, the Narayana-class didn't start the war as an Artillery vessel; At least some of them had to be fitted with railguns first), then building new vessels may just not be possible or feasible.
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I'm pretty sure there's some new warship construction underway even to this point in the war.
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To go along with the initial purpose of the thread;
If I were in the UEF's shoes at the end of the latest War in Heaven installment, I would likely replace Byrne and fold third fleets assets into second fleet while making Calder subordinate to Netreba. The Martian and Jovian fleets had been doing an admirable job in my opinion however the Jovian fleet was well slaughtered by the end of the latest installment and the benefits of operating independently would likely be limited. Byrne's definition of a 'defensive posture' seemed to amount to effectively ignoring all calls for reinforcement outside of the orbit of the moon until the last second, which so far as I can tell led to a lot of avoidable territorial/space asset losses. At that point the policy would just be hold out until the secret project finally comes out of the oven.
If I were in the GTVA's shoes I would find a way to dump as many fleet assets into the Solar theater as possible to get the war over with already. Sure it would be 'risky' since they would probably run out of supplies eventually due to the Sol gates limited capacity (IIRC anyhow) however at that point they could simply directly attack everything at once and end the war fairly promptly. The UEF would simply be saturated with full scale attacks on all of their fleet assets since so many of their ships had already been destroyed. If the UEF managed to survive somehow then so much of their fleet would be annihilated that the depleted GTVA reinforcement ships could simply stroll out of the system at a leisurely pace while Steele's assets covered their withdrawal.
Thats what I'd do anyways. Obviously this could be completely infeasible since I don't have access to all of the relevant information regarding the capabilities of the Sol gate, the GTVA fleet, the UEF fleet, its project, or political opposition to sending several additional GTVA destroyer groups on a little outing.
edited for clarity