Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: SaltyWaffles on July 16, 2012, 10:52:07 pm
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Preface:
Again, if you'd like me to stop posting these at all, please don't hesitate to say so. I greatly respect and admire the incredible work done by the BP team, and I have faith in their direction and continued work. This is just a bunch of ideas, questions, and thoughts about (potentially) various aspects of the BP 'vese, including gameplay.
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Now, this batch will be a lot more concise than last time, and it won't include everything I've got up to this point, just a selection of some of my (hopefully) more relevant and thought-out ideas/questions.
1) UEF SSM's:
I feel like this is the UEF's best shot at fending off the GTVA while preserving as many of its remaining ships as possible and not putting a significant strain on the remaining production/logistical capability.
It's right up the UEF's alley. They've got massive stockpiles of powerful anti-matter torpedoes, and those torpedoes (in their various forms) are practically ubiquitous in the UEF's forces. In this case, they need to merely modify existing torpedoes (or just keep the warheads and replace the engine/booster section) with a one-time-use intrasystem jump drive. The harder task would probably be developing a TAG-C equivalent missile, but it wouldn't have to be as good--so long as it's adequate, it's effective overall.
This way, heavy anti-ship firepower can be readily brought to bear without deploying capital ships straight into battle. Like with existing SSM's, it's not at all as good as having the actual capital ship in the fight, but it's a significant threat under many circumstances, and can provide the heavy blows against ships that have already been softened up by fighters.
As for justifying it from a lore perspective:
A) Defection of several advanced GTVA ships at the very beginning of the war, including one of the GTL's--meaning several working examples of TAG-C's (or at least TAG-B's) and Eos/SSM torpedoes, as well as a number of people who are at least somewhat knowledgeable about them.
B) They should have the expertise and experience to develop SSM's within an 18-month time frame. Their network of intrasystem jump gates is a testament to their experience and skill in unconventional application of intrasystem jumping capability.
C) It is logistically and financially efficient.
D) It is strategically valuable as both a weapon and a deterrent, even at the beginning of the war.
E) The UEF has extensive experience with making many different variants of anti-matter bombs and torpedoes, if the Warhammer cluster bombs, the long-range Narayana torpedoes, spammable heavy antimater Solaris torpedoes, and standard Karuna Apocalypse torpedoes are any indication.
F) Building up a supply of them could be done in a somewhat subtle, decentralized process.
G) It is very helpful in preserving existing ships and heavy bombers.
2) The Raynor:
It's something of a glass cannon designed as a front-line battleship, and as a result it doesn't really work efficiently or effectively in the roles it is used in.
It's got a mere 140,000 hull points, which is 40K less than a Solaris and only 5K more than a Titan. However, its armament, shape, and turret configuration is clearly designed for slugging it out on the front lines against multiple ships at once (from different directions). Its forward firing power is much less than that of the Titan's, and its heavy direct-beam cannons are configured in such a way that they can't all be brought to bear on the same target from any angle (IIRC), and yet they only cover a relatively narrow field of fire anyway. It has quite a few blue slash beams, I know, but against ships that aren't directly in front or in front and somewhat above the Raynor, those are the only beams that can be brought to bear.
Its one HBlue is rather underwhelming for its implied drawbacks over the BBlue.
Its fighterbay is relatively small for a destroyer.
It is pretty vulnerable from a large area to the rear of the ship. And its somewhat small numbers of launched torpedoes can be intercepted relatively easily.
The only way it would defeat a Titan in a duel is if it started behind the Titan in ideal firing position.
It's like a scaled-down Colossus in terms of armament and layout (relatively speaking), but it lacks the durability to act in the same role.
I think it needs a small change in its turret layout and armament--the HBlue could remain the same, but perhaps it should have four BBlue's mounted around each of the sides of the sloped "triangle", with a few MBlue's mounted at the sides and rear area of the ship (or maybe on the underside of its "fins", which would give them a great field of fire).
Additionally--though perhaps it would be imbalanced to go all the way on both of these areas--it should be made more durable; if it is designed and deployed as a frontline-combatant that can slug it out with multiple ships at once, then it should have a lot more durability than a significantly smaller fleet carrier (that boasts much heavier forward firepower). I mean, the FS1 Orion destroyers had 2/3rds of the Raynor's durability, and those destroyers (and their designs) were over fifty years old and lacked any Shivan tech to reverse-engineer or Vasudan experts to collaborate with. It's very underwhelming; had the Atreus not been able to quickly jump away in "Darkest Hour", I doubt it would have lasted very long at all.
3) Where is the Hyperion class?
It's odd; we see all of the most modern GTVA ships at various points in WiH...except for the Hyperion. The only terran cruisers seen or mentioned are the quite-outdated Leviathan and Aeolus classes, even though the Hyperion was designed to replace all of them (and fill each of their roles well). Given the range of their two (direct fire!) SBlue's, good point defenses, and excellent subspace maneuverability, it would be a great asset to use against Sanctus's and Karunas (only when supported, obviously).
...and they're really cool ships. And I'm very tired of of the Fenris and Leviathan classes...
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Once more, I don't mean to presume or give any impression of self-importance here; my hope is that I can help (or amuse positively) in some way whilst putting these random thoughts/ideas to rest (or feedback/criticism, as the case might be).
Thank you :)
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3) Where is the Hyperion class?
It's odd; we see all of the most modern GTVA ships at various points in WiH...except for the Hyperion. The only terran cruisers seen or mentioned are the quite-outdated Leviathan and Aeolus classes, even though the Hyperion was designed to replace all of them (and fill each of their roles well). Given the range of their two (direct fire!) SBlue's, good point defenses, and excellent subspace maneuverability, it would be a great asset to use against Sanctus's and Karunas (only when supported, obviously).
...and they're really cool ships. And I'm very tired of of the Fenris and Leviathan classes...
Well, they are no Aeolus when it comes to anti-fighter duty. Also, going by this (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blue_Planet_Terran_ship_database) page here, there were 6 different Hyperions during missions.
You have to understand tho, most of the fights have mixed in corvettes and bigger stuff and/or are mixed fleet engagements. Cruisers are just big fat juicy targets, considering how slow they are.
As for the general Raynor comments, well, its not supposed to act alone. Its supposed to act with a proper battlegroup supporting it and, correct me if i'm wrong, as i'm talking from memory here, Raynor's are supposed to be more of a "Command Destroyer" ala the Hecate than "Anything smaller is irrelavant before my firepower Destroyer" ala Solaris/whatever.
Also, sorry for ignoring the rest of the post, but i just dont have anything worthwhile to comment there.
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Well, they are no Aeolus when it comes to anti-fighter duty. Also, going by this (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blue_Planet_Terran_ship_database) page here, there were 6 different Hyperions during missions.
You have to understand tho, most of the fights have mixed in corvettes and bigger stuff and/or are mixed fleet engagements. Cruisers are just big fat juicy targets, considering how slow they are.
Thanks for the info; I haven't seen that before. As for the Hyperions, well...two of them are waaaay off in the distance during one of the missions (with a whole lot of activity going on in the immediate vicinity, I never noticed them at all), two of them only briefly appear in the opening cutscene (I never recognized them despite seeing that cutscene a dozen times...), and the last two...I'm shocked that I don't remember the two Hyperions in that mission...I remember a Bellerophon and Chimera, and maybe one cruiser, but according to that page there isn't a Bellerophon (or a second corvette) in the mission. Perhaps I was always sidetracked by going straight for the corvette and then trying to survive the swarm of enemy fighters (who all gunned for me alone at first, as I was the first to arrive in the area, and I was attacking their escort ships). But still...huh. Weird. Bad memory on my part, I guess.
As for the general Raynor comments, well, its not supposed to act alone. Its supposed to act with a proper battlegroup supporting it and, correct me if i'm wrong, as i'm talking from memory here, Raynor's are supposed to be more of a "Command Destroyer" ala the Hecate than "Anything smaller is irrelavant before my firepower Destroyer" ala Solaris/whatever.
Also, sorry for ignoring the rest of the post, but i just dont have anything worthwhile to comment there.
My point about the Raynor is that it doesn't really fit any role particularly well. Even when spearheading an assault, it's underwhelming and not very durable. So long as you don't attack it from the direct front, it doesn't really project all that much firepower (especially from the rear), its craft complement is relatively small, and its heavy beam cannons are really poorly placed--only one of them can act as true forward firepower, and the other two cover a relatively narrow field of fire that's close enough to be effectively redundant but far enough to not be capable of joint-target firing with the HBlue.
I thought the Raynor was supposed to be something of a battleship and frontline brawler, but it feels more like an oversized pocket destroyer--it's a solid ship, but extremely underwhelming and underperforming for a 3 kilometer-long frontline destroyer. The Titan is a fleet carrier that's somehow nearly as durable, much more deadly against capital ships in most scenarios, and 5 m/s faster. In other words, it's a fleet carrier that's a better battleship than the actual battleship.
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Well, they are no Aeolus when it comes to anti-fighter duty. Also, going by this (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blue_Planet_Terran_ship_database) page here, there were 6 different Hyperions during missions.
You have to understand tho, most of the fights have mixed in corvettes and bigger stuff and/or are mixed fleet engagements. Cruisers are just big fat juicy targets, considering how slow they are.
Thanks for the info; I haven't seen that before. As for the Hyperions, well...two of them are waaaay off in the distance during one of the missions (with a whole lot of activity going on in the immediate vicinity, I never noticed them at all), two of them only briefly appear in the opening cutscene (I never recognized them despite seeing that cutscene a dozen times...), and the last two...I'm shocked that I don't remember the two Hyperions in that mission...I remember a Bellerophon and Chimera, and maybe one cruiser, but according to that page there isn't a Bellerophon (or a second corvette) in the mission. Perhaps I was always sidetracked by going straight for the corvette and then trying to survive the swarm of enemy fighters (who all gunned for me alone at first, as I was the first to arrive in the area, and I was attacking their escort ships). But still...huh. Weird. Bad memory on my part, I guess.
Heh. It happens to everyone :D
As for the general Raynor comments, well, its not supposed to act alone. Its supposed to act with a proper battlegroup supporting it and, correct me if i'm wrong, as i'm talking from memory here, Raynor's are supposed to be more of a "Command Destroyer" ala the Hecate than "Anything smaller is irrelavant before my firepower Destroyer" ala Solaris/whatever.
Also, sorry for ignoring the rest of the post, but i just dont have anything worthwhile to comment there.
My point about the Raynor is that it doesn't really fit any role particularly well. Even when spearheading an assault, it's underwhelming and not very durable. So long as you don't attack it from the direct front, it doesn't really project all that much firepower (especially from the rear), its craft complement is relatively small, and its heavy beam cannons are really poorly placed--only one of them can act as true forward firepower, and the other two cover a relatively narrow field of fire that's close enough to be effectively redundant but far enough to not be capable of joint-target firing with the HBlue.
I thought the Raynor was supposed to be something of a battleship and frontline brawler, but it feels more like an oversized pocket destroyer--it's a solid ship, but extremely underwhelming and underperforming for a 3 kilometer-long frontline destroyer. The Titan is a fleet carrier that's somehow nearly as durable, much more deadly against capital ships in most scenarios, and 5 m/s faster. In other words, it's a fleet carrier that's a better battleship than the actual battleship.
Well, consider the fact that the whole Terran Exigence Initiative was a move to better prepare for future potential shivan incursions, they moved the whole upper tier ships category into "glass cannon" status, mimicing the Shivan tactics of "drown the **** out of anything standing in front of us with beams, surviveability be damned".
Also, i really need to re-read the raynor's tech description before i go on further. But, sleepytime now, debating later.
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1) UEF SSM's:
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In this case, they need to merely modify existing torpedoes (or just keep the warheads and replace the engine/booster section) with a one-time-use intrasystem jump drive.
You make it sound easy. Obviously we're talking about decades of subspace research before the GTVA managed to do that. Not only there's very little chances the UEF will ever get their hands on this technology before the end of the war, but there's even less chances they'll manage to build and deploy enough of those to make even a marginally significant difference in the outcome of what's left of the war.
2) The Raynor:
It's something of a glass cannon designed as a front-line battleship, and as a result it doesn't really work efficiently or effectively in the roles it is used in.
Game stats are irrelevant. If you don't take into account adaptive armor and ECM, you're missing a huge chunk of the capabilities of a warship.
3) Where is the Hyperion class?
The Hyperion is, in effect, not as good as the Aeolus for its intended role of anti-fighter escort. They also don't have many of those, especially since the Aeolus production lines reopened. Plus what's been said above.
Preface:
Again, if you'd like me to stop posting these at all, please don't hesitate to say so. I greatly respect and admire the incredible work done by the BP team, and I have faith in their direction and continued work. This is just a bunch of ideas, questions, and thoughts about (potentially) various aspects of the BP 'vese, including gameplay.
It's less about it being bothering than about you making many unjustifiable assumptions and not reading enough lore.
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1) UEF SSM's:
To be honest, you're greatly underselling the technical difficulties of this sort of thing. Between the raw difficulty of making a missile that's designed to be passed targeting data before launch able to do its own detection and attack (in reality, it's easier to make a new missile), to the SSM issue of having to have a spotter pass mid-course guidance corrections reliably and securely in a combat situation (which in reality wasn't really solved until the mid-'90s), and there's nothing in the game that indicates anyone in Sol has done this sort of thing in at least the last sixty or seventy years so it's not like there's a system they can just adapt.
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a Raynor can rotate to provide a constant barrage of beams on a single target that may have some tactical use.
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I'd love to see that in a mission.... a Raynor constantly corckscrewing to fire all it's beams in succesion :lol:
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I remember hearing from someone in the BP team (was it Darius ?) when I was working on balancing HWBP that the Raynor, with its HBlue, was originally supposed to have more forward firepower than the Titan. In any case, the in-universe capabilities of a warship, like most things, don't really depend from its ingame stats, but mostly from the mod maker's mission design.
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TBH, I kind of thought the same thing as Salty with regard to the Raynor. It's not so much that I feel the Raynor is a bad destroyer in and of itself but rather how it stands in comparision to the Titan- in virtually all mission profiles, it feels as if the Titan can do more than the Raynor. I'll list a couple that I can think of:
-Shock jumps: The Titan obviously has a lot more forward firepower, and being able to take out a corvette or even destroyer before it can shoot back and do at least a little bit of damage is one of the biggest advantages of the strategy. Which isn't to say that the Raynor is not effective in shock jumps, it's just that the Titan can probably do more in most such situations.
-Carrier- Titan wins hands down.
-Long range artillery- The Raynor probably has a slight advantage here, due to range, but even then the Titan's much greater forward firepower means that once it's in range it will have much more of an effect.
-Close in fighting- The Raynor probably wins here, due to being able to spam its ridiculous number of anti-capship beams in all directions and provide a lot of firepower. Again, though, that absolutely ridiculous Titan foreward firepower means it can devestate pretty much anything really quickly and rip through virtually enemy. And as Salty said, the Titan doesn't even has very much less durability than the Raynor. Another aspect is point defense, which I'm kind of hazy on and would have to look up stats for to decide which is better.
-SSM launcher- Apparently, only the Raynor can do this at the moment, though I don't see any reason why Supernova's couldn't be configured as SSMs too. (Other than the absolute hell of reading "artillery inbound!" and seeing a volley of Supernova's flying in towards your friendly capships...)
Actually, going off the above point by point list, the Raynor and Titan should be fairly balanced, suited for different mission profiles. I think that it's just the Raynor looks less useful in comparision to the Titan simply because the missions in-game favour the Titan's absolute firepower: think all those Demons, Ravanas, etc. getting 1-volley killed by the Temeraire and Chimera in AoA not to mention Delenda Est :nono:. On the other hand, the Raynor just never really gets to show off its advantages in a way the player appreciates: SSM strikes are, while terrifying, not really something one says "omg a Raynor is pwning me!" to, as one asscociates them with... Auroras of all things, actually. Sustained, close in fighting is seen exactly once in BP, as far as I can recall, in the Battle of Artemis Station. And that was hardly a fair fight for that Karuna :D.
In esscence, its not that I think the Raynor is a bad destroyer; to the contrary, it fills some very important niches that the GTVA benefits enormously from. Its just that the Titan is much more impressive, and also fits the GTVA's new Shivan emulating Shock Jump doctorine better, and also helps the other part of the Shivan Threat Exigency Initiative (is that what it was called? :p) with being able to lug a crap load of fighters to lug at enemy bombers and stuff. The Raynor, while important, just doesn't get called into action very often in what it's good at, as, from what we've seen at least, the modern GTVA just doesn't do too much artillery bombardment or close in fighting with destroyers.
There's also the fact that the tech-room makes the Raynor sound cooler than the Titan. And it looks a lot cooler too. :D
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There's also the fact that the tech-room makes the Raynor sound cooler than the Titan. And it looks a lot cooler too. :D
If by "cooler" you mean "more likely to snap in half at the connecting struts in a stiff breeze". :p
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-SSM launcher- Apparently, only the Raynor can do this at the moment, though I don't see any reason why Supernova's couldn't be configured as SSMs too. (Other than the absolute hell of reading "artillery inbound!" and seeing a volley of Supernova's flying in towards your friendly capships...)
Nope. Missile launchers are configurable to launch a variety of munitions, as said in the Eos tech room entry.
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here is what i think the gtva strategists were thinking with the raynor. the raynor would be expected to engage multiple shivan capships that are unexpectedly attacking from multiple angles hence the distribution of its armaments, but its not supposed to win the engament its supposed to get in the thick of it can keep the shivans occupied. then at opportune moments titans, corvettes, and bombers can jump in give a juggernaut a full frontal blast from a bad angle and get out. simply put its the reynors job to tank it while every one else does DPS
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Also, from the tech description, the Raynor is said to be "a package that can be mass-produced". It's probably much(ish) cheaper than a Titan.
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That's something that should be considered, yes. Also re: Raynors and fleet ops: Considering the omgwtfbbq frontal beam power of the next gen corvettes and cruisers (Bellerophon and Phoenix if I'm right), the Raynor complements them very well.
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If by "cooler" you mean "more likely to snap in half at the connecting struts in a stiff breeze". :p
Don't worry, those connecting struts aren't staying (You know, when I finally get out of this creativity drought and get to it :)).
The biggest issue I have with the Raynor are those silly out of place SBlues on each side. Would make so much more sense if they were TerSlashBlues. The SBlue has no place on a destroyer.
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Don't worry, those connecting struts aren't staying
/me nukes Aesaar from orbit
If you turn the Raynor into something that isn't a Raynor, you're going to sorely regret it, let me tell you.
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Don't worry, those connecting struts aren't staying
/me nukes Aesaar from orbit
If you turn the Raynor into something that isn't a Raynor, you're going to sorely regret it, let me tell you.
Not only is he going to do that, he's going to force you to download his model and use it in place of the one you like.
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He'd have to kill me for that !
Wait, I already have no life.
Never mind me.
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Oh no, please don't get rid of the struts! They actually add to the Raynor's mass production package role.
Think about it, a Raynor gets damaged and needs a major engine section overhaul, yet it's needed in the front ASAP, simply detach the damaged engine section and leave it for repairs and attach a replacement, this pretty much applies to all three sections of the Ray's hull.
The Raynor's real problem (in my opinion) lies on the tiled textures and the way the struts are modeled, I'm sure with some re-stylisation (is that a word :P) they could look really well and actually add a better look to the ship.
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You know what ? Go ahead, get rid of the struts. This is going to be an excellent way to motivate myself to actually learn to model so I can fix the horror you're going to come up with. I've thought of several cool ideas about how to deal with that area of the ship.
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You know what ? Go ahead, get rid of the struts. This is going to be an excellent way to motivate myself to actually learn to model so I can fix the horror you're going to come up with. I've thought of several cool ideas about how to deal with that area of the ship.
I've wanted to do this for a long time.
Haters gonna hate.
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Hey, I love the appearance of the Raynor. I'm not going to make massive changes that will turn it into something else. However, I don't see those big gaps as a hugely important part of the design. If I can replace them with a good looking alternative that gets rid of the gaps, I will. If I can't, then I'll settle for beefing the struts up a bit.
If you've got ideas for that, please, share them. I'm open to suggestions. Doesn't necessarily mean I'll use them, but it's always good to get fresh perspectives.
And great, I've hijacked this thread. Any thoughts on the Raynor's appearance should go in the model update thread. Someone respond to my complaints about the SBlues or something.
Back on topic: the Raynor's torpedoes are much more impressive if you look at the 8-tube launcher and decide the Eos should Swarm 4. It doesn't throw out torps like a Solaris, but it's still 24 per volley.
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Will do suggestions this evening when I'm on my comp and actually have pics to base myself on.
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It better still look like a Vulture bike, or the name would no longer make sense :P
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You make it sound easy. Obviously we're talking about decades of subspace research before the GTVA managed to do that. Not only there's very little chances the UEF will ever get their hands on this technology before the end of the war, but there's even less chances they'll manage to build and deploy enough of those to make even a marginally significant difference in the outcome of what's left of the war.
Decades of research? According to whom? If by "research", you mean "doing stuff with subspace", then so has the UEF. And the UEF built a freaking intrasystem subspace gate network that any ship--even ones without subspace drives--can easily use. Even warheads and cargo can be sent through.
The UEF has its own AWACS and advanced science vessel ships, so that's mostly covered.
UEF has more advanced torpedo weapons (aside from SSM's) and a metric f***ton of them. They're also diverse and somewhat modular/variable.
The UEF got its hands on SSM's, TAG missiles, Auroras, and more of the GTVA's stuff at the beginning of the war, from the defecting GTL ship.
Small-scale subspace drives (on that level) have already been "mastered", if the Uhlan is any indication.
Strategically and logistically, it is a highly effective/efficient tool for both defensive and offensive operations. It also makes for a great deterrent.
Game stats are irrelevant. If you don't take into account adaptive armor and ECM, you're missing a huge chunk of the capabilities of a warship.
My bad on the special abilities part; forgot about it. Still, I can't remember a time when any of those abilities were actually used--and why wouldn't a Titan have adaptive armor?
The Hyperion is, in effect, not as good as the Aeolus for its intended role of anti-fighter escort. They also don't have many of those, especially since the Aeolus production lines reopened. Plus what's been said above.
Right, but it just seems odd--the Aeolus is a great cruiser, but the Hyperion is better in an anti-ship/installation role, and its Sblue's do significant damage to UEF ships from a good range---combine that with great subspace maneuverability and the effectiveness of its PDT's against torpedoes, and you've got an effective asset. Two Hyperions and a Deimos performing a shock-jump attack on a Karuna would be brutal, especially if backed up by some strike craft. It's cruiser-level shock-jump capability and torpedo intercept. You're right on the Aeolus, though; it's a nightmare to attack with strike craft.
It's less about it being bothering than about you making many unjustifiable assumptions and not reading enough lore.
Unless I'm missing something, I've read all the lore (several times in most cases). As for unjustifiable assumptions...I'm well aware of and perfectly fine with the possibility of me being wrong (in either speculation or certain events/lines in-game); this is what I think is the case, and if I'm wrong/proven wrong, I will be glad to have been corrected and gain a better understanding in the process.
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The problem with SSM strikes is that it's already decided SSMs are GTVA exclusive in order to not make the UEF & GTVA gameplay mirrors.
A way to work around that would be some sort of missile cruiser getting thrown in by a gate, then said ship unloads it's payload and then jumps out. This is not done simply because the UEF have super bombers (for lack of a better term) that can pretty much do this (without a gate) but are not seen on RC1.
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Game stats are irrelevant. If you don't take into account adaptive armor and ECM, you're missing a huge chunk of the capabilities of a warship.
My bad on the special abilities part; forgot about it. Still, I can't remember a time when any of those abilities were actually used--and why wouldn't a Titan have adaptive armor?
Let me drop a hint : they're used in about every single mission in WiH.
Also, I never said the Titan wouldn't have one. However, there's nothing saying they would have the same kind, level or effectiveness of armor or ECM. There's also nothing saying that one Raynor will have the same armor or ECM capabilities than another, same for Titans or any ship class in the UEF and GTVA. It's all up to the mission designer.
The Hyperion is, in effect, not as good as the Aeolus for its intended role of anti-fighter escort. They also don't have many of those, especially since the Aeolus production lines reopened. Plus what's been said above.
Right, but it just seems odd--the Aeolus is a great cruiser, but the Hyperion is better in an anti-ship/installation role, and its Sblue's do significant damage to UEF ships from a good range---combine that with great subspace maneuverability and the effectiveness of its PDT's against torpedoes, and you've got an effective asset. Two Hyperions and a Deimos performing a shock-jump attack on a Karuna would be brutal, especially if backed up by some strike craft. It's cruiser-level shock-jump capability and torpedo intercept. You're right on the Aeolus, though; it's a nightmare to attack with strike craft.
You overestimate the SBlue by a huge margin. It still has less than a third of the sustained damage of a TerSlash and four times the recharge delay, and the TerSlash is the weaker of the "serious" beams. It is a buffed up SGreen, which is like saying the PromR is a buffed up ML-16. One is better than the others, but both s*ck hairy balls.
Just to make sure I'm getting my point across : a pair of Prometheus S does 154.2 DPS. A SBlue does 110 DPS. So, a Hercules with a quad bank of PromS does more damage than the two SBlues of the Hyperion, minus the huge flag.
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SaltyWaffles: What makes you think UEF torpedoes are more advanced than GTVA ones? Yes, the Eos is slower, but it's also subspace-capable, which I imagine cuts into fuel and engine space, and either stronger (than the Karuna version) or smaller (than the Solaris and Narayana versions). The Supernova is also significantly more powerful than any Apocalypse (approaching Helios/Sledgehammer damage), and might be subspace-capable as well. Seems to me GTVA torps are the more advanced ones.
UEF launchers, on the other hand, are quicker at loading and firing, though I maintain that the multiple tubes of the GTVA launcher should make their torps fire in bursts.
There's also no guarantee that the Solace was carrying any TAG-Cs. For all we know, they've only recently entered service, which might explain why so few Tev fighters are capable of carrying them. The Nyx and the Aurora are the only ones that can, IIRC.
The UEF might not have the understanding of subspace required to build an SSM. Sure, they built intrasystem gates, but the GTVA's been building one giant intersystem gate for the past 18 years (something not even the Shivans seem to know how to do). I expect the research required for that hugely boosted their knowledge of subspace physics. Not to mention the data they gathered from the Knossos. I think it's fairly well established that the GTVA has a greater understanding of subspace than the UEF does.
The SBlue is twice as strong as the SGreen, which isn't saying much. The TerPulse has four times the sustained DPS (455), but less than half the range. A TerPulse turret has two of them. Hell, even the Maxim outdamages the SBlue (173.42). The 6km range is pretty much the only thing that recommends it.
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The UEF got its hands on SSM's, TAG missiles, Auroras, and more of the GTVA's stuff at the beginning of the war, from the defecting GTL ship.
Not necessarily.
Considering how the mission of the 14th battlegroup was supposed to work out, I wouldn't be surprised if the packed more usefull stuff in those GTLs than subspace missiles (for example ammunition for planetary bombardment, if only to make the threat appear credible if the ships are scanned).
Besides we only really know for sure that SSMs are used 18 month into the war, so it is even possible that the SSM project was still in development (and thus not even in the GTLs databases), when the 14th BG was launched through the gate.
For all we know the GTVA might have used SSM strikes only for one week before WiH began.
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To be fair, I don't recall seeing very many of any kind of GTVA cruisers in mission. If they did show up they were instagibbed by the Karunas that you always seem to fly with so I didn't even notice them. They are in system but they are probably off doing convoy escorts far away from the front line fleet engagements that Laporte seems to find herself in.
The real problem with the Hyperion is that it tries to be a jack-of-all-trades. Cruisers just aren't big enough (power output, ammo storage, armor, etc.) to pull that off. An effective cruiser is one that is designed around one role and absolutely excels at it but is near useless against other targets. The Aeolus is hell on (ion engines?) for any strike craft unlucky enough to get within range but if a real ship shows up it is toast unless it runs due to Cruisers low armor. The Hyperion cuts out some anti strike craft weapons and replaces them with ineffective anti-capship weapons reducing its anti fighter threat and not really improving its ability to fight capships. At best its a convoy raider/escort that should work with a fighter escort (which the Aeolus would be better at) and at worst it is the capship equivalent of cannon fodder (a condition that plagues all cruisers).
Actually, now that I think about it, cruisers in general just aren't big or well armored enough to fight heavy capships on their own. Any ship large enough to chase off a cruiser is probably too big for cruiser mounted guns to deal with. Even if you made a cruiser that was just a single big gun with engines (think Homeworld ion cannon frigate) it would still lack the armor to fight corvettes and its point defenses would be garbage. By the time you rectified its deficiencies, to make a ship that is survivable, you would end up with a corvette like the Chimera.
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Corvettes like the Deimos are explicitely stated to have taken the tactical space previously occupied by cruisers during the 14-years war and the Great War. The tactical niche now reserved to cruisers is becoming increasingly small, relegated to convoy escort, patrol duties and anti-fighter battlegroup support.
Their niche is being gradually consumed by corvettes on the top side and gunboats such as the Cretheus and the Custos on the bottom side, the first being more powerful, durable and effective at what they do, and the second being cheaper, easier to deploy, more agile and more expendable.
Even if you made a cruiser that was just a single big gun with engines (think Homeworld ion cannon frigate) it would still lack the armor to fight corvettes and its point defenses would be garbage.
The Lilith says hi. Although her point defenses are garbage, she's terrifingly effective at what she does. Then again, Shivans play in a whole different league when it comes to beam cannons.
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The UEF might not have the understanding of subspace required to build an SSM.
On the top of what Aessar said, the knowledge on subspace required to make a SSM would be on the level of Shivans or higher. Although the UEF have the significant resources to produce the missiles and subspace drives they don't have the significant knowledge to develop minaturized subspace drives to stick in their missiles.
As for the Raynor. Agreeing with what others have stated before me, its a Command Destroyer and is not ment for front line solo duties. Its like a Nimitz Supercarrier in the US Navy, without a fleet the Carrier is useless and illsuited for front line duties.
As for the Hyperion, it has been used numerious times throughout War in Heaven. Although the Hyperion is more of an assault cruiser then escort cruiser. Meaning that it can't phase out any Second Shivan Incursion era cruisers.
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Where does it say the UEF don't have the knowledge for making subspace missiles?
By simple logic they do, just attach a fighter subspace drive to an Apocalypse and there you have it.
Now the fact they don't use SSMs may lie on them simply not being cost effective for the Feds (and the Elder's semi anti-war policy.)
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I think that pretty well describes it. They have fighters that can jump through subspace. They have warheads. Weld one onto the other and you have a missile of some effectiveness. Its obviously theoretically possible and they can probably do better than that.
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Well, so using a TAG missile to pinpoint the thing you hit and then a thruster the size of those of the Ursa delivers not just one, but a dozen torpedos through subspace^^
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On the top of what Aessar said, the knowledge on subspace required to make a SSM would be on the level of Shivans or higher. Although the UEF have the significant resources to produce the missiles and subspace drives they don't have the significant knowledge to develop minaturized subspace drives to stick in their missiles.
lolno. You're just plain wrong there.
To elaborate: The knowledge necessary to produce viable SSMs (viable meaning at a high but not too high cost, with sufficient tactical flexibility) is far below that which the Shivans possess. This will become clear in the second part of WiH.
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Calling it now, missle Sathanas Juggernaut refit, weapons are missile launchers and AAAs, the claws get replaced by giant missile silos capable of launching hundreds of warheads at a time.
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PART TWO HAS SHEEVANS OMG :eek:
More seriously though thats kinda good to know because SSM's seem like rather simple things to me.
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PART TWO HAS SHEEVANS OMG :eek:
The E says many things.
Some of them are even true.
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except he didn't even say there would be shivans in pt. 2.
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Where does it say the UEF don't have the knowledge for making subspace missiles?
By simple logic they do, just attach a fighter subspace drive to an Apocalypse and there you have it.
Maybe it's not that simple. Maybe UEF torpedoes don't have reactors/batteries/whathaveyou capable of powering a subspace drive. Maybe the UEF can't miniaturise their drives enough to fit on a torpedo. Maybe it's the destoyer's subspace drive that creates the tunnel the torps travel through, and the torps don't mount a drive at all, and UEF drives can't replicate it.
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According to The E is doesn't seem to be as complex as you describe.
My personal theory is that the missile has an escape pod like (one use) Subspace drive, the whole idea of the SSMs seems to be giving the battle groups (of which I think there is one per star system?)
the ability to have some of the firepower of a destroyer in two or more places at a time (depending on AWACS deployed.)
Remember the Atreus was reported near Luna during the blitz, yet it launched SSMs strikes at Rheza and possibly more locations on earth orbit.
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Let me drop a hint : they're used in about every single mission in WiH.
Also, I never said the Titan wouldn't have one. However, there's nothing saying they would have the same kind, level or effectiveness of armor or ECM. There's also nothing saying that one Raynor will have the same armor or ECM capabilities than another, same for Titans or any ship class in the UEF and GTVA. It's all up to the mission designer.
Erm...there's probably some kind of misunderstanding here. I was referring to the Raynor, not ships in general. The Raynor has a mere 140K hitpoints, and a Great War-era Orion had 100K. While I know BP does work in armor types, that probably doesn't help much against other capital ships. In Darkest Hour, those two Narayanas steadily knock down the Atreus's hull for the short time Steele has his little monologue. If he hadn't been able to jump away ridiculously fast, the Atreus probably wouldn't have lasted long against the Narayanas alone. And this is without the use of any torpedoes, too.
The Atreus and Orestes don't seem to display increased durability in any of the missions they're present in. And that vision/mission where the Orestes, a Bellerophon, and at least one other ship faced off against the Lucifer? Shivan bombs still tore the ship apart, and the Lucifer utterly demolished the Orestes despite having the advantage in both numbers and firepower. I know a big part of that was the result of FREDding, but if FREDding is supposed to demonstrate the Raynor's positive bonus attributes, why is it instead shown underperforming by a big margin?
You overestimate the SBlue by a huge margin. It still has less than a third of the sustained damage of a TerSlash and four times the recharge delay, and the TerSlash is the weaker of the "serious" beams. It is a buffed up SGreen, which is like saying the PromR is a buffed up ML-16. One is better than the others, but both s*ck hairy balls.
Just to make sure I'm getting my point across : a pair of Prometheus S does 154.2 DPS. A SBlue does 110 DPS. So, a Hercules with a quad bank of PromS does more damage than the two SBlues of the Hyperion, minus the huge flag.
I'm talking about the SBlue's usefulness for supported shock jumps and fire support. The Sblue, IIRC, has pretty good range, a bit better damage than the SGreen, and the Hyperion mounts two of them in a forward configuration.
But also importantly, the SBlue has vastly better burst damage--it delivers 4400 damage in less than 3 seconds, at a range of up to 6375 meters. Combine that with great subspace maneuverability, strategic expandability, and shock jumping, and you get a potent combination. Two Hyperions doing a shock-jump from 6 km out deals 17,600 damage right away. That's around a fifth of a Karuna's health. Throw in a Chimera, and that Karuna is going to be barely holding on to life, within a few seconds of three ships jumping within 6.3 kilometers. If you replace that Chimera with a Bellerophon, and that's a near-instant-kill on a Karuna. Without an AWACS ship or immediate, heavy support, any other Karuna in the area probably won't survive for long. The only way to avoid that is having Paveway or Archer-equipped craft ready to disarm main beam cannons in under a minute. The biggest difficulty in doing that is having your craft close enough to the targets to take them out in time.
The SBlue is not powerful, really, but it's highly practical; a normal-sized cruiser packing that kind of firepower, with that kind of range, in addition to good AA and anti-torpedo defenses (bonus points for being in range to use the Pulse turrets on the target capship) is extremely useful. When every Sanctus corvette/heavy cruiser is a significant asset to the enemy--one that is very difficult to replace--and every Karuna kill is a major and permanent blow to the UEF, the Hyperion is a strategic golden boy.
Take the Custos cruiser, for instance--if it isn't outfitted for ECM (or supported by it), a single Hyperion could nearly kill a Custos in a few seconds, from over 6km away. And since deploying a cruiser is not nearly as risky (being more expendable, having much smaller crews, and the quickest times for jumping away, relatively speaking), that gives the GTVA a lot of strategic flexibility.
And that "huge" flag is pretty important when it comes to shock jumps and heavy armor, unless I'm confusing the huge and supercap flags.
According to The E is doesn't seem to be as complex as you describe.
My personal theory is that the missile has an escape pod like (one use) Subspace drive, the whole idea of the SSMs seems to be giving the battle groups (of which I think there is one per star system?)
the ability to have some of the firepower of a destroyer in two or more places at a time (depending on AWACS deployed.)
Remember the Atreus was reported near Luna during the blitz, yet it launched SSMs strikes at Rheza and possibly more locations on earth orbit.
I wouldn't say SSM's give destroyer-level firepower by themselves--especially against good point defenses (like the Ranvir). It does give decent captial ship-level firepower without said ships being in the field of engagement, though, which is exactly what the UEF could really use right about now. If they're able to modify the already modular (or at least flexibly variant) Apocalypse or smaller-scale torpedoes to have decent SSM capability, it's probably the most efficient and safe expenditure of resources/production that the UEF could do at this point in the war.
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Erm...there's probably some kind of misunderstanding here. I was referring to the Raynor, not ships in general. The Raynor has a mere 140K hitpoints, and a Great War-era Orion had 100K. While I know BP does work in armor types, that probably doesn't help much against other capital ships. In Darkest Hour, those two Narayanas steadily knock down the Atreus's hull for the short time Steele has his little monologue. If he hadn't been able to jump away ridiculously fast, the Atreus probably wouldn't have lasted long against the Narayanas alone. And this is without the use of any torpedoes, too.
The Atreus and Orestes don't seem to display increased durability in any of the missions they're present in. And that vision/mission where the Orestes, a Bellerophon, and at least one other ship faced off against the Lucifer? Shivan bombs still tore the ship apart, and the Lucifer utterly demolished the Orestes despite having the advantage in both numbers and firepower. I know a big part of that was the result of FREDding, but if FREDding is supposed to demonstrate the Raynor's positive bonus attributes, why is it instead shown underperforming by a big margin?
What you still don't seem to get is that armor classes are just a device to make sure a ship behaves the way the mission maker wants it to behave. Sometimes, consistency across missions is sacrificed for the sake of storytelling, gameplay and/or dramatic effect.
In short : don't read too much into what you see in missions. It doesn't necessarily reflect the in-universe reality of things.
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In short : don't read too much into what you see in missions. It doesn't necessarily reflect the in-universe reality of things.
I'd actually reverse that and say that what you see in the tables doesn't reflect the in-universe reality of things.
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What you see in the tables is indeed even less representative to the in-universe reality of things. Which doesn't contract my point at all.
Were the Meridian engines magically invulnerable in Post Meridian from an in-universe point of view ? Of course not. Sexps, just like tables, are just a device for the mission maker to convey the story.
EDIT : I think I'll make myself clearer. For example, in Delenda Est, the Carthage has Heavy Armor 20 (IIRC), which means it takes only 20% damage. What you need to remember here from an in universe point of view, isn't that the Carthage only took 20% damage, but that it had experimental active armor that could withstand an incredible amount of damage. And remain that vague. In order to let the mission maker put Heavy Armor 40 or Heavy Armor 5 at another point if he wishes so, without breaking in-universe consistency.
Numbers are irrelevant. What's important is the feeling conveyed to the player. In the Atreus vs Narayanas scene, what's important is to show that Narayanas are extremely powerful artillery ships that can force the Atreus, already weakened by several engagements across the system, to gtfo. The amount of damage actually dealt isn't relevant from an in-universe point of view.
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Indeed.
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I'm talking about the SBlue's usefulness for supported shock jumps and fire support. The Sblue, IIRC, has pretty good range, a bit better damage than the SGreen, and the Hyperion mounts two of them in a forward configuration.
But also importantly, the SBlue has vastly better burst damage--it delivers 4400 damage in less than 3 seconds, at a range of up to 6375 meters. Combine that with great subspace maneuverability, strategic expandability, and shock jumping, and you get a potent combination. Two Hyperions doing a shock-jump from 6 km out deals 17,600 damage right away. That's around a fifth of a Karuna's health. Throw in a Chimera, and that Karuna is going to be barely holding on to life, within a few seconds of three ships jumping within 6.3 kilometers. If you replace that Chimera with a Bellerophon, and that's a near-instant-kill on a Karuna. Without an AWACS ship or immediate, heavy support, any other Karuna in the area probably won't survive for long. The only way to avoid that is having Paveway or Archer-equipped craft ready to disarm main beam cannons in under a minute. The biggest difficulty in doing that is having your craft close enough to the targets to take them out in time.
The SBlue is not powerful, really, but it's highly practical; a normal-sized cruiser packing that kind of firepower, with that kind of range, in addition to good AA and anti-torpedo defenses (bonus points for being in range to use the Pulse turrets on the target capship) is extremely useful. When every Sanctus corvette/heavy cruiser is a significant asset to the enemy--one that is very difficult to replace--and every Karuna kill is a major and permanent blow to the UEF, the Hyperion is a strategic golden boy.
Take the Custos cruiser, for instance--if it isn't outfitted for ECM (or supported by it), a single Hyperion could nearly kill a Custos in a few seconds, from over 6km away. And since deploying a cruiser is not nearly as risky (being more expendable, having much smaller crews, and the quickest times for jumping away, relatively speaking), that gives the GTVA a lot of strategic flexibility.
And that "huge" flag is pretty important when it comes to shock jumps and heavy armor, unless I'm confusing the huge and supercap flags.
In a straight up fight, a Sanctus will kill a Hyperion with little difficulty, even if they start at the SBlue's max range. And if you remove the "bomb" flag from Warhammer#Custos, even a Cretheus will kill a Custos (otherwise it chases the Warhammers and forgets to shoot at anything else). And yes, the SBlue does a lot of damage in the first few seconds, but after 10 seconds, a TerPulse will have done more damage, and the SBlue never catches up. For the Maxim, it takes 25 seconds for it to do more damage. Like I said, the 6km is pretty much the only thing that recommends it. Apart from that, the TerPulse is a vastly superior weapon.
But like Matt said, the numbers don't mean too much. For all we know, in a given battle, an SBlue shot might blow up a Sanctus' fire control and make it easy pickings.
The Hyperion isn't a bad cruiser per se. It just doesn't have the Aeolus' anti-fighter capabilities, and its increased anti-capital capabilities still aren't good enough to warrant the the trade. I'd say the Aeolus is generally a better ship.
According to The E is doesn't seem to be as complex as you describe.
My personal theory is that the missile has an escape pod like (one use) Subspace drive, the whole idea of the SSMs seems to be giving the battle groups (of which I think there is one per star system?)
the ability to have some of the firepower of a destroyer in two or more places at a time (depending on AWACS deployed.)
Remember the Atreus was reported near Luna during the blitz, yet it launched SSMs strikes at Rheza and possibly more locations on earth orbit.
All The E said was that it's less complex than what the Shivans can do. So are GTVA beam cannons, but that doesn't mean the UEF has the ability to build them.
All we know is that for one reason or another, the UEF doesn't have SSMs. And since they'd be extremely useful to the war effort, it's safe to assume that there's something in building or using them that the UEF can't do.
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except he didn't even say there would be shivans in pt. 2.
The knowledge necessary to produce viable SSMs (viable meaning at a high but not too high cost, with sufficient tactical flexibility) is far below that which the Shivans possess. This will become clear in the second part of WiH.
Anyways I think the UEF could build SSMs, they would just be liable to being horrifically expensive if they were made into proper torpedoes. As it is theres no doubt that you can jump about in subspace and theres no doubt that you can make antimatter explosions. Its not inconceivable to put the two together. It may become some horrific abortion of a machine but it will be there.
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The main problem here might be miniaturization. UEF could fill an Uhlan with antimatter and launch it at GTVA, but doing the same thing with a torpedo for a reasonable price may be a lot more difficult. Another problem is targeting and control, since UEF never developed anything resembling TAG (though they most likely did capture some). There are workarounds (for exapmle, remotely flying the aforementioned Uhlan from a nearby AWACS), but they have their own problems. Not to mention UEF has less resources than GTVA, so they might not be able to afford SSM developement and usage.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the biggest Apocalypse torpedoes as big as an Ursa? If so, miniaturazation isn't a problem at all.
But the costs are. Remember that in the UEF comparetively few ships are carrying subspace drives. I don't know how common they are among military ships, but judging from one of the backstory pieces (GTVA interview with civilian freighter crew) it seems it's extremely uncommon for civies to carry subspace drives.
If few ships carry those drives, it's reasonable to assume that only few drives are build. If we further assume that subspace drives need specialized factories to build them, maybe the current UEF's subspace drive production capabilities are fully used up with equiping the military ships that are produced.
If they have to leave one strikecraft without jump-drive for each SSM they build, it would be a pretty bad tradeoff, that would severely compromise their militaries flexibility and response time.
The GTVA on the other hand, being spread over several starsystems, puts subspace drives on practically every ship they have, including civilians, which means they have to have a high production capability for them. If those subspace drive factories are re-purposed for producing SSM drives it might leave the civies unhappy, but will produce SSMs at a fast pace.
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Also, from the tech description, the Raynor is said to be "a package that can be mass-produced". It's probably much(ish) cheaper than a Titan.
Impossible. And I'm not just throwing out assumptions; the Titan is shorter, smaller (or at most the same total size), has fewer beam cannons and turrets in general, less armor plating, and over 40% of its interior is fighter bays--mostly empty space. While the cargo you have to store in it might be significant cost-wise, the important part is that it's just a platform for those craft, and you can accommodate old or brand-new craft and munitions in the same carrier. The Raynor has an advanced electronics suite, too.
That sentence in the tech description, in my understanding of it, means that the Raynor is (at least supposed to be) an all-in-one powerful destroyer (or just a good battlecruiser with decent line-engagement capability) that isn't too large/expensive/complex to mass produce. You seem to be implying that the Titan can't be mass produced, while the Raynor can--which is a rather odd notion. Massive carrier capability and fighter bays? Already done plenty of that with the Hecate. BBlue's? Got those on Bellerophons and Raynors. A couple TerSlashBlue's? Also on Raynor and Diomedes. Two kilometer length? Raynor is over three, and a Hecate and Orion aren't that much smaller than a Titan. No super-advanced electronics or jump capability, either. Also, the Raynor is the flagship in any battlegroup that has one (and since the only two BG's we know of that have the advanced ships have both a Titan and Raynor--and both have a Raynor as the flagship), it's at least safe to say that the Titan is mass-producible, and at most as expensive as a Raynor.
here is what i think the gtva strategists were thinking with the raynor. the raynor would be expected to engage multiple shivan capships that are unexpectedly attacking from multiple angles hence the distribution of its armaments, but its not supposed to win the engament its supposed to get in the thick of it can keep the shivans occupied. then at opportune moments titans, corvettes, and bombers can jump in give a juggernaut a full frontal blast from a bad angle and get out. simply put its the reynors job to tank it while every one else does DPS
If there's a Sathanas in that engagement scenario, the Raynor is probably going to die in seconds. And if a Ravana shock-jumps the Raynor...well, it's going to take serious damage right away, and if it can't take out the Ravana's forward beams ASAP, it's not going to last too long.
Either way, though, the combat role you're outlining would be better fit by a smaller, more durable ship. If it's meant to tank and slug it out in multiple directions at once, it needs to be: A) Durable, and B) have a flexible armament. The Raynor is not durable (feels and performs like a battlecruiser, tbh), and its armament isn't all that flexible, relatively speaking--its heavy beams are all forward aligned (but not capable of focusing on the same target from more than a few angles), and its rear firepower is....minimal.
This suits a hunter-killer/battlecruiser role well--it can jump into an engagement and take down several cruisers/corvettes in short order, and then jump out shortly afterwards--but it really, really sucks at tanking. If a Raynor is surprise-attacked by several Shivan ships at once, it's in "GTFO ASAP" mode, not "I got this guiz, get here when you're ready". A Raynor should be on the hunt for smaller prey or backing up a powerful force with good fire support (and the range of its HBlue). It should not be intentionally tanking anything unless A) Little tanking is needed in the first place, or B) There's no better option available.
EDIT: Oh and about perception of the Raynor and how its biggest problem is how it's been used in missions--maybe this is the key. The Raynor has been Worf-Effect'd in all but one of its appearances. In one case, this was done blatantly and deliberately (Bei's vision of the engagement between the Oresties group and the Lucifer without the assistance of the Vishnans). And the one appearance where its potential power/badassery/threat-factor isn't subverted is...the final mission of AoA, where a single unsupported Karuna charges the entire 14th BG at close range, directly into the firing arcs of every heavy beam in the BG.
Let's sum it up:
1) Bei's vision mission: Orestes barely damages the Lucifer, despite having a Bellerophon and Chimera (along with a Hyperion) backing it up, and the Orestes quickly gets its ass handed to it. It dies so fast that they barely have any time to even abandon ship. FRED-wise, the Orestes' standard armament was nerfed, it remained stationary (despite one of its features being its speed) and made no use of its other beam cannons (even when just slight maneuvering during the HBlue's BBlue's cooldown), and its fighter complement weren't even given the chance to take out the Lucifer's beam cannons (A few Trebs do the job well enough, so of course, the Lucifer's beam cannons are guardianed. The Orestes goes down so fast it's jarring--it was the first time I played through it, and it still is the seventh time. In fact, on my first playthrough, I restarted as soon as the Orestes started blowing up, sure of the fact that I must have done something very wrong, as there's no way this Raynor-class destroyer (especially with backup from a Bellerophon and Chimera, plus two Hyperions) could be so thoroughly ineffectual against the Lucifer, and there's no way a Raynor is supposed to go down that quickly and easily. After I realized it was a FailureIsTheOnlyOption mission (a hunch that I developed at the end of the second attempt), I was still shocked, as I couldn't figure out how that battle could have been so ludicrously one-sided--even in the context of being a nightmare, Sam believed it to be prophetic in both a metaphorical and literal sense, and made no acknowledgement about the nonsensical events/outcome of the battle (not even a "huh, why weren't any of the other ships firing on the Lucifer? And why was the Orestes--supposedly captained by a skilled admiral--doing a grand total of nothing during the battle other than firing one forward beam cannon at the target?"). Oh, and let's not forget the definitely real story points about how the Orestes, backed up by a Bellerophon, Chimera, two Hyperions, and an Anemoi, immediately and repeatedly ran away from the Lucifer as soon as it showed up, never even trying to utilize its advantages tactically or strategically (naw, shock-jumping the Lucifer from anywhere that isn't the front would never work! Not like we have superior numbers or firepower! Or extensive experience with and knowledge of the Lucifer, the system, and Shivan tactics! And those Shivans have definitely faced our new generation of ships/tech/tactics/weapons before, so we obviously lack any opportunity to utilize such a hypothetical advantage!).
2) Bearbaiting:
It's on the run from a Sathanas. Your mission is a desperate one--hope the Sathanas jumps in far enough to be outside of its beam cannons' range, and for a modest strike force to take out its beam cannons (all of them) before they get into range. Even after you accomplish this, the Orestes only fires its HBlue and acts as if they were still desperate and outmatched. This is when the entire rest of the 14th BG shows up to seemingly save the Orestes from a one-sided engagement. So...yay? The modest strikecraft attack did all of the work, and when said work was done and the Orestes could engage with impunity, it still isn't doing much (and acts as if it's still in a desperate, underdog situation).
3) The second to last mission of AoA--the Orestes is but one of many ships (not even the only capital ship) of the 14th BG. Despite only facing some bombers and the occasional cruiser (which you are required to deal with effectively), it takes heavy damage on its way to the node.
4) The final mission of AoA, where it isn't the only one fighting the Karuna, we expect the Karuna to get quickly obliterated, and the Titan and shock-jump corvettes are also able to fire right away. We'd be surprised if the Orestes took any significant damage from the engagement, or if the Karuna lasted longer than a matter of seconds under the collective beam fire of the 14th BG.
5) WiH intro:
It might seem more badass and threatening if it wasn't an entire battlegroup of the GTVA's new/advanced ships against a single poorly positioned Karuna. All we see it do is fire one or two of its slash beams at the already near-dead Karuna. Not particularly impressive, especially when one of the Chimeras wouldn't have even needed to maneuver to fire just one of its beam cannons to achieve a more spectacular (and faster) result. Then it (off-screen) defeats a undersupported ramming maneuver by...a singel Karuna and a quartet of Sanctus cruisers. From the front. From long range. With the entire battlegroup facing the direction and ready to fire. It'd be pretty difficult to not win that engagement easily.
6) Darkest Hour:
It shows up to defeat a badly damage installation with a depleted defense force. It finishes off a small/minor installation in its entrance, but this isn't an impressive feat--that small installation was barely hanging on as it was, and we were already prepared (if not expecting) it to be destroyed, possibly by just another wing of bombers. As you and the Indus make a desperate/suicidal charge against the stationary Atreus...two Narayanas show up. Steele seems unconcerned...not because his ship and skill outmatch the UEF frigates, but because...he can immediately jump away back to home base. And even then, in the short time he's casually talking about how he and Calder would have their glorious duel one day, but not today, the Atreus is getting steadily bludgeoned by brief gauss gun/railgun fire from two Narayans, without even shooting back. Rather than establish the Atreus as a powerful threat, it does the opposite for me--I'm surprised at how weak and ineffectual this ship is. In the brief time Steele says he'd fight Calder another day, his ship is steadily taking damage from less than half of the Narayanas' firepower. I'm surprised, confused, and worried--because it seems like this ship is taking heavy damage in the brief time before it just jumps right back home without firing a shot. I'm concerned for the ship's safety, and surprised at how fragile it is.
For being the most powerful ship in the GTVA, achieving total surprise in an attack on a heavily damaged, lightly defended station from a good position, it accomplishes...finishing off a small/minor installation we were prepared to and expecting to lose anyway (to a much smaller force), stands still, and then gets rapidly routed by a couple frigates, taking serious damage in the short time before it could jump away again (nice usage of your advanced subspace maneuverability, Steele!). It's very underwhelming. It attacks a large, heavily damaged, lightly defended installation, with total surprise and great positioning. I expected some real damage to be done, for Rheza station or the Indus to be obliterated, or for a Solaris to show up immediately to save the day (not without taking some damage of its own, of course). Instead, it had a grand opportunity, major feats easy for the taking...and it does nothing, gets laughably driven off by a couple frigates when they do finally show up, and uses its sprint drive to...run right back home. Yeah. Not very threatening. Honestly, the Meridian was far more threatening to me, and still is--because it really does some damage (story-wise and in-mission), impresses rather than disappoints/underwhelms, and ultimately escapes--without the use of advanced sprint drives. And even then, the Indus and Churchill are still under threat.
In the end, while Steele is established as a credible and major threat, the Raynor class (and its specific incarnations) are only shown to be ineffectual (often jarringly so), fragile, always running away from a threat, and underperforming even when it has a golden opportunity served to it on a silver platter (thanks to the efforts of...everyone else. Yeah.). Emotionally, the Carthage is far more threatening to me, even when it's trapped and cornered.
Why the UEF is even bothering to focus on the Atreus is beyond me, unless it's entirely about killing Steele. Or maybe they just think that the Atreus is far easier to kill (certainly seems like it)? 'Cuz the Imperieuse does ten times the damage (even before DE), is a far greater threat in most cases, and it has an excellent carrier capability in addition to its fearsome ship-killing and shock-jumping capabilities. To me, a Titan seems vastly more effectual and threatening than a Raynor, if not in reality, then in every combat appearance it gets.
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I expect your remix of AoA will be the most glorious thing ever.
Impossible.
Such incredible sureness. I wonder, are you part of the BP dev team? Or are you actually working in the GTVA's accounting department?
You seem to be implying that the Titan can't be mass produced, while the Raynor can--which is a rather odd notion.
He is doing no such thing. The Titan, canonically, is a more expensive vessel (due to armament and fighter support facilities). Not Collossus-style expensive, but definitely more complex and thus costly than the comparatively simple Raynor class.
No super-advanced electronics or jump capability, either.
You're completely sure of this? Yes? Good.
Regarding all your comments about AoA: Those are technical limitations of the FSO version AoA was built on. All the armor trickery we are able to do now wasn't available; and before you ask about rebalancing and rewriting the missions to take it into account, it's a task far too tedious to do.
Your point 5:
You only saw the very very last minutes of the Battle of Artemis Station. The Nelson sacrifices herself not to inflict damage, but to give that battlegroup a target to concentrate on that isn't a civvie freighter.
6: 2 Narayanas, and a Karuna. Also note that the two Naras start pumping out missiles immediately, they just never hit the Atreus. Steele gambled on his ability to jump to Earth orbit, destroy the station, and be away again by the time a response could be mounted; the two Naras were in position and firing on him before he could get into range of the station, and even if he were to follow through with the attack, he'd still run the risk of being disabled himself. He chose to postpone the killing blow instead of risking it.
For being the most powerful ship in the GTVA,
It is? Huh. News to me.
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For being the most powerful ship in the GTVA,
It is? Huh. News to me.
Well it does seem rather odd that you guys have Steele on such a relatively ****ty ship.
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Well it does seem rather odd that you guys have Steele on such a relatively ****ty ship.
Power does not directly equate to usefulness as a command ship. Raynors could well have been designed with better command spaces or a better flag bridge than Titans or Hecates.
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Well it does seem rather odd that you guys have Steele on such a relatively ****ty ship.
Petrarch commanded a Hecate. Your argument is invalid.
Also what NGTM-1R said. Atreus is Steele's ship, and has been since it was first laid down.
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(http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/2200/hecateyourargumentisinv.jpg)
:nervous:
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Destroyers in FS verse are generally committed directly into battle cautiously by all but the shivans (exceptions aside) with the heavy lifting done by the fighter/bomber wings and the Destroyer's battle group. The fact that the Theatre commander is not on the most physically impressive ship is irrelevant, look at naval formations since WWII, you will notice that the centre is generally a Carrier with little or no direct combat capability, instead relying on it's air wing to inflict harm on the enemy.
Ultimately what makes the GTVA in Sol so damn effective is not its fire-power as such but the fact that Steele is a ****ing terrifying opponent, capable of getting results with whatever he has to hand.
strip him of his beam advantage? fine he will drop his bombers 10-20 seconds from your capships and have them drop a twin fire of torps from point blank range before warping out, strip him of that, I dont know but I am sure he would think of something, he is that kind of commander, failure is not a concept he is familiar with and his brain wont let him contemplate it, the job needs getting done and if he has to go EVA and Chuck Norris the enemy to do it he bloody well will do
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Regardless of the Raynor's combat capabilities, I do hope it gets to strut it's stuff more in R2 since I really love it from an aesthetics point of view.
As waffles said before, in game all of it's 'victories' against enemy ships were in situations where any Terran destroyer except maybe the Hecate could have delivered a performance that was at least on par with what the Raynor accomplished. I understand that the Raynor's abilities are supposed to go beyond straight firepower and armor, but we've yet to see them actually demonstrated in any mission (with the exception of the sprint drive), and until that happens those two categories are the things that spring to mind when thinking about it's performance.
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Well it does seem rather odd that you guys have Steele on such a relatively ****ty ship.
Power does not directly equate to usefulness as a command ship. Raynors could well have been designed with better command spaces or a better flag bridge than Titans or Hecates.
Even though Titans are fleet carriers with exceptional direct-engagement capability? Sure, it's totally possible, but a bit odd--like, say, WW2-Pacific admirals using a battleship as their flagship instead of the fleet carrier nearby. It was done, of course--mainly on the Japanese side--but carriers established themselves as the vastly dominant capital ship early in the conflict (Pacific Theater conflict, post-1941), and treated as the literal or figurative flagships for their battlegroups/fleets.
As for the Titan being more expensive than the Raynor--what.
No, really. What.
I specifically mentioned that the costs of building a Titan DOES NOT include whatever craft and munitions you put inside it. This is because, unlike a Raynor's numerous beam cannons, a carrier's craft complement can be changed at (technically) any time, and can simultaneously feature the oldest and newest stuff in the fleet. The costs of the complement are separate (though still needing to be kept in mind) because the real costs of that complement stand on their own. Those fighters and bombers are their own costs; the Titan is just a platform for them.
And in terms of other potential expenses:
1) Shorter, and possibly smaller overall compared to the Raynor.
2) Less armor.
3) Fewer beam cannons, no HBlue, and fewer pulse turrets as well.
4) Is not specified to have, unlike the Raynor's tech description, and advanced electronics suite (relatively speaking).
5) Hangar space/flight deck/logistics, while much larger than a Raynor's, is something that the GTVA has had many decades to work with, improve, and build on continually larger scales. From the Orion, to the Hecate, and even the Colossus, carrier capability has been the Terran specialty. And again, I fail to see how a dozen state-of-the-art beam cannons (including the brand-new HBlue, which requires its own dedicated meson reactors and metric tons of coolant slurry), another dozen (ish) pulse turrets, AFB's, heavier armor, seemingly more advanced electronics, and greater length/size are less expensive than the Raynor's hangar bay. Especially since, if that were the case, why bother with such a heavy focus on increased carrier capacity, and just throw a ton of heavy beams into the design instead? Maybe shore up the AA defenses, and you'd have a potentially more cost-efficient design. Unless I'm missing something here, it's a little confusing.
6) Oh, and as an addendum to 5--all of those extra heavy beams (including the HBlue) means many more high-grade reactor and coolant systems. I can't imagine high-grade meson reactors being that inexpensive...
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The problem with the Titan is the fact that it's the "Hecate 2" of the GTVA, from all we have seen through FS2, the Hecates are simply not good warships (especially when put against the Orion)
The whole idea (I think) for the Raynor\Titan combo, is to split what would have been made into a super-destroyer before the stoor failure of the Colossus, you should see both ships as one (the Raynor as the firepower and the Titan as the carrier/strategic component.)
I am certain the the GTVA's pride and bravado would have made sure they took more risks making larger ships, while trying to reduce to costs of a Colossus (whatever class it's supposed to be)
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Well it does seem rather odd that you guys have Steele on such a relatively ****ty ship.
Power does not directly equate to usefulness as a command ship. Raynors could well have been designed with better command spaces or a better flag bridge than Titans or Hecates.
Even though Titans are fleet carriers with exceptional direct-engagement capability? Sure, it's totally possible, but a bit odd--like, say, WW2-Pacific admirals using a battleship as their flagship instead of the fleet carrier nearby. It was done, of course--mainly on the Japanese side--but carriers established themselves as the vastly dominant capital ship early in the conflict (Pacific Theater conflict, post-1941), and treated as the literal or figurative flagships for their battlegroups/fleets.
As for the Titan being more expensive than the Raynor--what.
No, really. What.
I specifically mentioned that the costs of building a Titan DOES NOT include whatever craft and munitions you put inside it. This is because, unlike a Raynor's numerous beam cannons, a carrier's craft complement can be changed at (technically) any time, and can simultaneously feature the oldest and newest stuff in the fleet. The costs of the complement are separate (though still needing to be kept in mind) because the real costs of that complement stand on their own. Those fighters and bombers are their own costs; the Titan is just a platform for them.
And in terms of other potential expenses:
1) Shorter, and possibly smaller overall compared to the Raynor.
2) Less armor.
3) Fewer beam cannons, no HBlue, and fewer pulse turrets as well.
4) Is not specified to have, unlike the Raynor's tech description, and advanced electronics suite (relatively speaking).
5) Hangar space/flight deck/logistics, while much larger than a Raynor's, is something that the GTVA has had many decades to work with, improve, and build on continually larger scales. From the Orion, to the Hecate, and even the Colossus, carrier capability has been the Terran specialty. And again, I fail to see how a dozen state-of-the-art beam cannons (including the brand-new HBlue, which requires its own dedicated meson reactors and metric tons of coolant slurry), another dozen (ish) pulse turrets, AFB's, heavier armor, seemingly more advanced electronics, and greater length/size are less expensive than the Raynor's hangar bay. Especially since, if that were the case, why bother with such a heavy focus on increased carrier capacity, and just throw a ton of heavy beams into the design instead? Maybe shore up the AA defenses, and you'd have a potentially more cost-efficient design. Unless I'm missing something here, it's a little confusing.
6) Oh, and as an addendum to 5--all of those extra heavy beams (including the HBlue) means many more high-grade reactor and coolant systems. I can't imagine high-grade meson reactors being that inexpensive...
I'm glad you're more qualified than the developers of the mod to tell us about how the mod works. Imagine how much better the mod would be if they actually knew what they were doing.
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I'm glad you're more qualified than the developers of the mod to tell us about how the mod works. Imagine how much better the mod would be if they actually knew what they were doing.
I don't think I'm more qualified. I don't think they don't know what they're doing--not at all. The dev team is ****ing amazing, and their work is incredible. And while I can and do really appreciate all of their work, am I wrong in thinking that it isn't perfect, and that perhaps by discussing these *potential* flaws/problems, future content can be even better?
I could be wrong about a given topic, sure. I definitely have been in the past, and I probably will be in the future. My intention--and sentiment--is to either improve future content if I happen to be right, or to learn and clear up my confusion/misunderstandings if I'm wrong. To be clear, though, I'm generally not going to leave things at "No, X." If I don't understand why it's X and not Y, and where my reasoning/impressions/etc. went wrong, I'm still left confused. And I wouldn't be asking or talking about it in the first place if I didn't care so much and appreciate BP as much as I do. Sorry if I have or am giving the wrong impressions--I probably use stronger/more absolute language than I than I should, but I am very willing to correct my mistaken understandings/impressions if proven wrong in a way I can understand at all. Hopefully I have made good on that, in your eyes. If not, I apologize, and I'll continue to work on it.
The problem with the Titan is the fact that it's the "Hecate 2" of the GTVA, from all we have seen through FS2, the Hecates are simply not good warships (especially when put against the Orion)
The whole idea (I think) for the Raynor\Titan combo, is to split what would have been made into a super-destroyer before the stoor failure of the Colossus, you should see both ships as one (the Raynor as the firepower and the Titan as the carrier/strategic component.)
I am certain the the GTVA's pride and bravado would have made sure they took more risks making larger ships, while trying to reduce to costs of a Colossus (whatever class it's supposed to be)
Except that the Titan isn't really that similar to the Hecate. And the Raynor isn't a super-destroyer. It's more of a battlecruiser, I think. The Hecate is definitely analogous to the RL archetype of nuclear supercarrier. But the Titan...it's different.
It's a full-fledged fleet carrier, but it also features durability that can at least compare to the Raynor (and very much surpasses the Orion). It has pretty good speed, and its forward armament is brutal. In a sense, the Titan is like a cross between a battlecruiser and fleet carrier, or maybe a hunter-killer submarine that doubles as a fleet carrier? Okay, that analogy just fell apart; let me put it this way...
The Hecate is not a bad ship; sure, it has some major flaws, but it also has some major strengths that are often overlooked. Part of the reason for that is that the player rarely sees or hears of it in FS2--the Hecate's massive craft complement and excellent carrier capability, along with its substantial AA defenses. The Hecate sucks in direct combat in most circumstances, yes, but that's not too much of a flaw when you consider its role and strength as a fleet carrier--far from deploying a few wings to an operation at a time, a Hecate is a mobile base for many fighter squadrons of varying types/roles, and can technically replenish its main armament, defense, offensive ability, and strategic impact as soon as more allied wings link up with the ship. Considering the strengths of and potential necessity of asymmetrical warfare against the Shivans, that's pretty considerable. If there's any major failing of the Hecate, it's that it is designed to be a dedicated carrier, but for some reason makes room/cost/complexity for four heavy, very fragile beam cannons that could only take on something stronger than a Cain from the front. If you're going to put heavy beams on something, put it on a ship that's not designed for/specialized for being a fleet carrier away from the front lines.
The Titan, on the other hand, is rather different. Its weapons and their configuration are something of a far more efficient approach, and the ship seems to be designed from the ground up to effectively utilize both large carrier capability and heavy-beam fire support. A Titan can shock-jump a ship and deal 99,000 damage in a few seconds, sure, but it also fares well in general--so long as it is either the one attacking, or is itself not being shock-jumped from a flank (if it weren't a shock-jump from the flank, the Titan may very well have time to just turn to face you and then one- or two-shot you).
The Raynor is not a super-destroyer. It is, perhaps, subtly implied to be in certain places, but it's actually something else. To put it one way, the Titan is akin to a Sathanas, while the Raynor is akin to the Colossus--not in terms of overall power/strength, but in terms of role, strengths, and weaknesses. The Colossus fares well when it is facing opponents smaller than it, and can take on multiple destroyers at once, and win by a significant margin. It's not particularly vulnerable from any angle, and it lacks glaring design flaws. However, where the Titan is designed to take advantage of opportunities to shock-jump or launch a concentrated thrust without fear of flanking attacks, the Raynor is designed to dominate engagements with multiple smaller enemies. It has more guns (and bigger guns) spread out over a wide area/coverage, while the Titan takes 90% of its firepower and dedicates it to attacking stuff from one general direction--the front. A Raynor should avoid engagements with ships of its size/power, but seek engagements with one or several ships of lesser size/power. A Titan should avoid engagements with a bunch of smaller foes (except under the right circumstances, like DE, or when shock-jumping without fear of major flanking attacks before you can flee), but seek opportunities to shock-jump or attack an opponent's weak (or just not-strong) spot blitzkrieg-style.
There's just one problem...
The Raynor is disturbingly fragile for the ultimate line-combatant, direct-engagement destroyer. Armor SEXP's aside, a Raynor has a mere 5K more hitpoints than a Titan, and only 40K more hitpoints than an Orion...from FS1. As for Armor SEXP's, well...IIRC, the table standards have them with the same kind of armor, leaving changes up to the mission designer in FRED. While I may be of a different opinion/mindset regarding that style than some (or all) of the BP devs, it makes for an inconsistent impression/experience with a given ship (or ship class). After all, when it is sometimes surprisingly durable and sometimes shockingly fragile--yes, relative to the given situation, of course--it's confusing and jarring. It breaks immersion, to me, and can result in all the wrong impressions. I don't think I'm the only one who came away from AoA and Darkest Hour thinking that the Raynor was extremely underwhelming. Steele doesn't come off as a brilliant and bold strategist when I play Darkest Hour, he comes across as confusingly inept when he has a golden opportunity and total surprise on his side, but does absolutely nothing to take advantage of it and runs away at the first sign of trouble (not without taking major damage while casually giving his monologue, though...). From the Dev Commentary, I know that the team was trying to avoid the Worf Effect here, while still introducing/establishing Steele and the Atreus as devious, powerful threats. And while it succeeds in some respects, to me--the Atreus performs the shocking with his jump from Luna to Rheza Station, and then the impossible when jumping right back out again to Jupiter--it utterly fails in others, leaving me with a contradictory and confusing impression.
The two Narayanas showing up to drive off Steele--okay, sure, I could see how two Narayanas in good position, with some backup from a heavily damaged (but still combat-capable) Karuna would be enough to warrant a jump-away if possible, but that was never really the problem. Before those two Narayanas showed up, he just stood still and did nothing to finish off Rheza Station or the Indus--both of which would have been easy. It would have been one thing for him to clearly try for it, but it seems like he just doesn't even care. He sits there, lets the heavily damaged Indus slowly come to him, and doesn't immediately try to get in firing position with his HBlue to finish off Rheza Station (he could easily just use the other beams to finish off the Indus without slowing down or changing course). And even though he does the impossible by jumping right back home, it isn't until well after the situation is clear to him, after his decision is already made, after his monologue, steadily taking significant damage from just half (if that) of his opponents' firepower at a shockingly fast rate, that he actually gives the order to jump out (and the Atreus does so). I expected the Big Damn Heroes to drive off Steele, yes, but it was a surprisingly one-sided engagement that occurred--rather than the two forces standing off and having their dialogue/exchange, ending with Steele casually doing the impossible and jumping right back out, Steele is immediately hammered while he doesn't even hit back at all, jumps away after taking significant damage--during which Steele is giving an almost aloof monologue, seemingly unaware or uncaring of the steady, significant damage his ship is taking. The Big Bad comes across as not very threatening or effectual; he accomplishes very little even when it would be easy to accomplish a lot, and rather than being barely driven off by a potential engagement that wouldn't be as much in his favor as he would like (and casually jumping right back out), he gets hammered, driven off without any kind of damage being dealt to the UEF ships/Rheza, and performs his impossible jump to escape from a surprisingly-fast approaching defeat/death, rather than to perform the impossible jump while casually choosing to fight that battle another day (while still seeming like he could win it, or make it very close).
Rather than the mere appearance of the Atreus in a mission giving me a sense of "Oh Crap", I feel "how do we kill this guy/ship before it just runs away again?" Even if the UEF forces present just aren't a match for the Atreus, it feels like a matter of just calling in some support, not "send in the cavalry or we're all doomed".
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I interpreted that mission completely differently. Far be it from ineffectual, Steel jumps into withering fire from some of the most powerful guns in the UEF, calmly delivers a monologue and an ultimatum, and then declares that the player's meager force isn't worth dealing with and engages his sprint drive in flippant disregard for the supposed inability of a jump drive to recharge that fast. He may have initially been there to deliver a material blow, but when there were more ships than he expected, he shifted stance and struck a morale blow instead.
"I can do the impossible and escape from under your very noses without breaking a sweat. You are all toys compared to me."
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I interpreted that mission completely differently. Far be it from ineffectual, Steel jumps into withering fire from some of the most powerful guns in the UEF, calmly delivers a monologue and an ultimatum, and then declares that the player's meager force isn't worth dealing with and engages his sprint drive in flippant disregard for the supposed inability of a jump drive to recharge that fast. He may have initially been there to deliver a material blow, but when there were more ships than he expected, he shifted stance and struck a morale blow instead.
"I can do the impossible and escape from under your very noses without breaking a sweat. You are all toys compared to me."
Oh, I'm sure that many people interpreted it that way, emotionally and/or intellectually. It's totally valid. I'm trying to explain why I never got that impression--the one the devs were intending the player to have--and hopefully find some way of avoiding that situation in the future, either with myself or other players. I'm not trying to say it's bad, I'm trying to say that, for me and some other people, this didn't quite work as well as you were intending, and maybe we can figure out why, so that it can be avoided in the future. And, really, the dev team can actually implement/figure out whatever possible solution there is far better than I could; I'm just hoping to bring the "problem" to their attention, and provide enough feedback to make figuring out what went wrong, why, and how to fix/prevent it, easier.
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Salty, you keep making the same mistake over and over again. You keep interpreting table entries and mission events (in the sexp sense) as canon information when they are not intended to be. Armor tbl values do not exist in-universe. Hitpoints do not exist in-universe. The only thing that counts as canon in BP are what happens in a mission from a story standpoint, as well as briefings and tech entries. And regarding tech entries, one should consider them to be the kind if blurb you would find on a Wikipedia stub page, they never tell the whole story.
In the end, though, we are making q game here. Were this a novel series, we would be spending much more time on making everything as consistent as possible. As it is though, we are far more concerned with making an enjoyable game first, and just as a tv show might occasionally bend its own rules in order to tell a specific story, so will we when it comes to making a mission fun.
The reason why your nitpicks are getting such terse replies is that to us, they are just nitpicks. We simply aren't interested in building a campaign to the SaltyWaffles level of internal consistency, because it would take more time and effort spent on verifying everything, time that in our opinion is better spent on things like game balance and enjoyment.
The other thing is that as far as I can tell, most of your points were just lists of things that annoyed you, with very little suggestions how to address these things in terms of changes made to the missions.
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It better still look like a Vulture bike, or the name would no longer make sense :P
I've just noticed that :nervous:
@ Salty, You're ovbiously a big fan, and i'm sure the Team appreciate your devotion.
Don't feel shunned, just reign the enthusiasm in a tiny little bit. I see where you're coming from with the Raynor - Supercarrier analogy. Buuuuut, the Titan is a Megacarrier and they are the Orion/Hecate 2.0....
I spent a long time on the Orestes, and i WUV Raynors.
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Even though Titans are fleet carriers with exceptional direct-engagement capability? Sure, it's totally possible, but a bit odd--like, say, WW2-Pacific admirals using a battleship as their flagship instead of the fleet carrier nearby. It was done, of course--mainly on the Japanese side--but carriers established themselves as the vastly dominant capital ship early in the conflict (Pacific Theater conflict, post-1941), and treated as the literal or figurative flagships for their battlegroups/fleets.
Actually if you look into it, a lot of time the commanding admiral on both sides chose to command a surface force from a heavy cruiser rather than a battleship; Halsey commanded from aboard New Jersey and Spruance usually led the fleet from a heavy cruiser. The flag bridge of the carrier was dedicated to the carrier group commander, not the admiral in charge. You have been lured into believing that modern practice is going to hold true, and there will be only the carrier group. This clearly isn't the case. We after all have the Raynor/Titan duos and Hecates, and we've seen plenty of corvette/cruiser groups running around.
Additionally, usefulness as a command ship is mainly dependent on a small number of factors. The first is the amount of communications equipment at hand; the second is that the command spaces be designed to accommodate the staff of an admiral without being cramped; as staffs are somewhat personalized to the needs of the admiral their size and extent can be difficult to predict. You may also wish to provide separate communications links for the admiral and staff beyond those that pass through the rest of the ship, which is more people and more space. All told, commanding a large force in action could easily require space for a hundred and fifty people, most of them engaged in communications and interpretation of incoming data about friendly and enemy forces. A distant last is that the command spaces be tenable in action (something World War 2 ships tended to fail at, with the shock of main battery fire carrying away radios or even light fixtures on the flag bridge).
It really has nothing to do with combat capability at all. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Blue_Ridge_%28LCC-19%29)
And as we've noted, the Titan does many things, very well. It has made sacrifices for that. We saw some of them in AoA, like the need to bring the logistics ship with it on a relatively short hop while the Raynor could go without. It's quite possible they just couldn't find space for another 150 people and all their paraphernalia on a Titan.
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We saw some of them in AoA, like the need to bring the logistics ship with it on a relatively short hop while the Raynor could go without.
Wrong. The Orestes had its own logistics ships. There were two Anemois in the 14th battlegroup, and they ended up separated along with their respective destroyer fleet during the events of AoA.
It's quite possible they just couldn't find space for another 150 people and all their paraphernalia on a Titan.
On a ship with a crew of ten thousands ? Sounds a little far-fetched.
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Wrong. The Orestes had its own logistics ships. There were two Anemois in the 14th battlegroup, and they ended up separated along with their respective destroyer fleet during the events of AoA.
Whoops. Still, the point stands that they actually took it and actually needed it for major repairs, which is something of a departure from previous instances where we've seen GTVA destroyers undertake major repairs without external assistance.
On a ship with a crew of ten thousands ? Sounds a little far-fetched.
And the Eos batteries and the aerospace wing and all its supplies and the beams and the self-defense weapons and the engines and the armor and the supplies for the crew and the supplies for the ship and the fuel for the ship and the fuel for the fightercraft and the support ships and the pilots and the ground crew and the stuff they'll need to eat/drink/sleep and the...
You get the idea. Space for a hundred and fifty people, all the comms gear, all the quarters, all the supplies, is a non-trivial matter when designing a warship. Especially as when it comes to the ship itself, an admiral and their staff and everything they consume is purely dead weight and does nothing to enhance the performance of the ship. (This exact issue has lead to a lot of navies skimping on it down the years, and though it's had some serious consequences, there's no reason to believe they'll stop anytime in the future.) There are good reasons to outfit the minimum number of ships possible with admiral's command spaces. As The E noted, the Atreus has been Steele's ship from the keel up. It's possible its interior layout in this regard is divergent from other Raynors, let alone the Titans.
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SaltyWaffles: The Raynor isn't as bad as you're making out. Sure, the Titan's more dangerous directly forward, but the Raynor has three times the broadside firepower, making it a much, much better ship at close range, and a lot harder to disarm. It's also got a lot more torpedo launchers, which are the same model as the Titan's, so they're perfectly capable of firing Supernovas.
What you're doing is like comparing the direct engagement capabilities of a Diomedes and a Bellerophon and saying the Bellerophon is better because it can focus its firepower better and has longer range. Neither is better, they're just suited to different tasks.
Question for the team: what was the reason for giving the Raynor a pair of SBlues? Another pair of TerSlashBlues makes so much more sense from a design perspective.
Also, I never noticed it looked like a Vulture bike. The atrocious name suddenly makes sense. I thought it just looked like a dagger.
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The Raynor has 3 unused beam slots near the back of the "Dagger" section.
Seriously, that thing has enough guns to qualify as a mini-Colossus (design wise.)
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SaltyWaffles: The Raynor isn't as bad as you're making out. Sure, the Titan's more dangerous directly forward, but the Raynor has three times the broadside firepower, making it a much, much better ship at close range, and a lot harder to disarm. It's also got a lot more torpedo launchers, which are the same model as the Titan's, so they're perfectly capable of firing Supernovas.
The Raynor isn't so much a bad design as it is just always put into situations where it is either ill-suited or surprisingly underperforming. It seems to lack the durability to make it a heavy brawler, like the Colossus, but it has the firepower (and distribution of such), speed, and versatility to make it a great battlecruiser--hunt what you can kill and run from what can kill you--but it's never given a chance to actually fill that role. It's kind of like a modified Serker Team--less shock-jump and forward firepower, but greater versatility, durability, and simultaneous-multiple-engagement capability.
If the Raynor's adaptive armor ever actually comes into play, that impression might change, sure. But given how we've only seen the opposite of notable durability in all of its appearances, and how it never gets a chance to actually do much of anything (not counting a few of its bomber wings on Bearbaiting :P), it all feels like informed--but not demonstrated--attributes.
Question for the team: what was the reason for giving the Raynor a pair of SBlues? Another pair of TerSlashBlues makes so much more sense from a design perspective.
Yeah, I wondered the same thing. I was very surprised when I found that out myself--the TerSlashBlue's seem much more fitting of the overall design, role, and aesthetic. Especially when you add in the 40 second cooldown for SBlue's, as well as the UEF's ECM/beam-jamming, it just seems like an unexpectedly odd/bad armament design decision, without some kind of clear justification for it. That, or I just love how awesome a bunch of TerSlashBlue's look like when spamming a broadside.
The Raynor has 3 unused beam slots near the back of the "Dagger" section.
Seriously, that thing has enough guns to qualify as a mini-Colossus (design wise.)
Wait, really? I never noticed that...are you sure they aren't just docking points, or AAAf's?
As for the number of turrets--yeah, for the most part. It doesn't quite have the Colossus' area coverage (the underside is relatively sparse in terms of beams, and only the HBlue can fire forward), but it feels similar, sans the Colossus' impressive durability.
Although, I do find it odd that it has so many Terran Turret 2's. Sure, they're pretty good at warhead interception (when said warheads are coming from the right angles), but as they're pretty much limited to just that, it seems like having them replaced with STerPulse's (or downsized versions of them--I've actually made one, and it's pretty fun/interesting), or flak guns, and somehow giving the AAAf's AI a "target bombs first" priority.
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We have no idea how well a Raynor performs in a brawl. We see it once in WiH making a precision strike, and had it not been for the Jovian Narayanas, it would have mopped the floor with the Indus and Rheza Station's fighter group. In AoA, it (with its half of the 15th) throws back the Lucifer repeatedly, and could have destroyed the Sathanas alone once those BFReds were gone.
It's very possible that the armor was specially tailored to be effective against beams, and it might be less effective against UEF torpedoes and railguns. Something like a superconductor web that spreads a beam's energy over the whole hull, while railgun rounds and torpedoes just punch right through. The Raynor was built to fight Shivans, after all.
Although, I do find it odd that it has so many Terran Turret 2's. Sure, they're pretty good at warhead interception (when said warheads are coming from the right angles), but as they're pretty much limited to just that, it seems like having them replaced with STerPulse's (or downsized versions of them--I've actually made one, and it's pretty fun/interesting), or flak guns, and somehow giving the AAAf's AI a "target bombs first" priority.
I get the impression that the TT2 is meant to be a stopgap measure until Morgan Technologies gets the Pulse Cannon spread issue resolved. Right now, that spread makes the STerPulse useless at torpedo interception.
Although once the war ends, I expect the GTVA will adapt the UEF's Khatvanga for the job, given how effective it is. Hell, they probably captured more than a few with Jupiter, so they might be working on that already.
The Raynor has 3 unused beam slots near the back of the "Dagger" section.
Seriously, that thing has enough guns to qualify as a mini-Colossus (design wise.)
I'm pretty sure those are AAAfs.
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Hm... i am sorry, but i have to agree that the Raynor does make a rather poor impression. The HBlue in particular is something i dont understand. As it seems it is a prototype cannon, yet they mounted it on their next destroyer generation and started mass producing them.
And from what i have seen from the stats of that thing, it would have made much more sense to use BBlues and shorten their refire cycle with the added energy from the HBlues reactor. Or maybee use the energy to keep the BBlue permanent firing.
I just try to imagine what a permanent firing beam with the power of a BBlue could do if u place a few of those around a jump node.
Also, while i have to agree that the Collie is butt ugly and didn't perform that well against the shivans, you also have to consider 2 things:
1st.: The GTVA could only prepare for that they knew and this is still the case. And from what they knew the Colossus was the perfect answer to all their problems regarding the shivans.
2nd: FS2 Command are the greatest idiots i have ever seen, especially if it comes down to how they used the Collie in FS2. That first Shatanas could have been brought down way easier and with way less loses, if they just had the Colossus jump in behind it.
3rd: I realy think that the GTVA did mess up their next destroyer generation if the Titan and Raynor are what came out of it.
Why? Because they are too fragile.
The entire Battlegroupe in AoA was allready dead, they just didnt know it, before the Vishans saved their asses. And before the Sathanas showed up, they where not relay facing something out of the ordinary when fighting Shivans.
And i realy missed the shivan fighter swarms in that Sathanas Fight. The outcome would have been quiet different.
What the alliance needs is something that can stand up against hordes of shivan capitals. I mean, the new ships are just about a match for Capella Era Shivan Ships (if u leave the Sathanas out of it). Imagine how a post capella era shivan destroyer would look like.
If u let a Ravana shock jump one of the new destoyers (shock jump: Jump in in Beam range, not like forced entry) they are still screwed. In best case they can get out heavily damaged.
While i still think BP is a great campaign, i also think that ships wise the devs need to pull a lot of tricks to make it work the way they want.
Given the choices to build a fleet of new destroyers or one Colossus (better said its succesor) with the same techlevel, i would choose the Colossus. Because unless it runs into a Juggernaut, it can clean house with everything below that. And if u mount a sprint drive on it, i am pretty sure that i can survive even with a Juggernaut in the area, either by avoiding it or by simply choosing the engagement in such a manar that the Juggernaut would lose it (i.e. simply jump in behind, cripple it and win).
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1st.: The GTVA could only prepare for that they knew and this is still the case. And from what they knew the Colossus was the perfect answer to all their problems regarding the shivans.
Except for the part where, even if it hadn't been destroyed, the Collossus would have been unable to fight 80 Saths.
2nd: FS2 Command are the greatest idiots i have ever seen, especially if it comes down to how they used the Collie in FS2. That first Shatanas could have been brought down way easier and with way less loses, if they just had the Colossus jump in behind it.
Assumes facts not in evidence. To wit: That such a maneuver was possible from an intelligence Standpoint.
Also note that Command tried to keep the Colly alive, only for the Colly CO to throw away his ship.
The entire Battlegroupe in AoA was allready dead, they just didnt know it
In-mission dialogue makes it pretty damn clear that they knew that the chances of survival were slim.
And before the Sathanas showed up, they where not relay facing something out of the ordinary when fighting Shivans.
Actually, yes, they were. They were facing the fact that there was no support coming from other parts of the GTVA, they had one ship taken over and its crew incapacitated by forces unknown, the Battlegroup had been split up (sure, in hindsight, it was a bad idea, but it isn't like anyone knew that beforehand). So yeah. Ordinary circumstances these ain't.
And i realy missed the shivan fighter swarms in that Sathanas Fight. The outcome would have been quiet different.
As we've seen in FS2, Saths are rarely accompanied by sizeable fighter swarms.
What the alliance needs is something that can stand up against hordes of shivan capitals.
Like every military in the history of ever, the GTVA can only really prepare for what they have seen previously. In this case, it was shown in FS2 that putting all your hopes and dreams into one big megaship is a bad idea. So the strategists went back to the drawing board and crafted a reorganization plan for the GTVA armed forces that transformed the fleet into a more flexible tool, both in strategic and tactical terms.
In other words, the GTVA knows that it cannot fight the Shivans on even terms, so they aren't planning to do that. Isolate, contain, rebuild is the order of the day when it comes to dealing with new incursions.
If u let a Ravana shock jump one of the new destoyers (shock jump: Jump in in Beam range, not like forced entry) they are still screwed. In best case they can get out heavily damaged.
Shipbuilding technology has not advanced far enough to mass-produce ships able to withstand Ravana shock jumps. Sure, the GTVA could build another Colossus. But given that it takes the Shivans only two Sathanas', or a few Ravanas to kill one, it is not a cost-effective move.
Because unless it runs into a Juggernaut
Which it will, eventually. You cannot build a fleet and hope that your adversary will decide to fight you with only a selection of the tools at his disposal. You have to plan for the worst case, and that case is 80 Saths dropping by for a Barbecue.
And if u mount a sprint drive on it, i am pretty sure that i can survive even with a Juggernaut in the area, either by avoiding it or by simply choosing the engagement in such a manar that the Juggernaut would lose it (i.e. simply jump in behind, cripple it and win).
Lolno. A sprint drive is a great tool, sure. But it can not magically overcome the technological and logistical advantages the Shivans possess. Sure, you can drop behind a Sath and get a few shots in. But what stops Sath #2 to do the same to you? What about Sath #3? Or new, hitherto unseen ships? What if the Shivans come up with a new Beam cannon with jump drives like the Lilith?
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James Razor: I don't know, the ships in AoA were doing quite well. The Orestes and half its battlegroup drove off the Lucifer repeatedly before the Vishnans showed up, they just couldn't leave because they were cornered against the planet. In a non parallel universe, they wouldn't have been alone, and another group could have pursued and destroyed the Lucifer. Honestly, considering the circumstances, I'd say the 14th performed admirably.
On the HBlue, we haven't seen enough of it to form any meaningful opinions about it. Yes, the table info shows it isn't that good, but we've been told repeatedly that table info doesn't mean that much. There are plenty of things tables can't show.
If u let a Ravana shock jump one of the new destoyers (shock jump: Jump in in Beam range, not like forced entry) they are still screwed. In best case they can get out heavily damaged.
Let's ignore what I just said for a moment. Having tried this, I can say you are very wrong. If the Titan and Ravana are facing each other, all it takes is one shot from the BBlues followed by a few shots from one of its TerSlashBlues or its TerPulse batteries. Seriously, the 3 BBlues will reduce it to 1% health on the first volley. On the flipside, the Ravana is lucky if it can get the Titan down to 60%. Capella-era Shivan destroyers, as they are in the tables, just can't compete with TEI destroyers.
The Raynor takes a little more time, but it still wins with just a little maneuvering to bring its broadside guns to bear after the HBlue shot. However, it does a lot better than the Titan if the Ravana comes from a direction other than the front.
But again, tables don't mean much.
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If u pull the 80 Sath Card, even with 160 Raynors and Titans i would still bet on the Saths tbh.
And if Sath 2 Shows up on my MK II Collie, well, thats why i have that sprint drive. And enough EHP to survive the initial volley of its 4 BFReds and GTFO. Tell me what happens if a Raynor or Titan get caught by a Sath? Why didnt Sath Nr. 2 just jump on the Orestes and its battlegroupe (i know they where proably busy with the Vishnans at that point, still, in FS2 if the Shivans even would have used 2 Saths at one time at any moment in the campaign the GTVA would have been screwed).
Remember that the Sathanas 1 had just destroyed an entire fleet that tryed to stop it. That might be the reason why it was allready low on fighters, not to mention Bearbaiting where there also had been a number of fighters present. Not to mention that a good portion of the fighters you did see after the Ravana got destroyed could have been from it and that Demon that followed it.
So yes, it made sense that it didnt have much fighters left when it engaged the Collie. But in AoA at that point i simply made little sense. Sry, that i just how i feel about it.
And tbh.: I dont have much clue about tables either. I get most of my impressions from what i see ingame.
Also, i still do not think they stood against extraordinary odds when u simply keep in mind that even in GTVA space it can happen pretty quickly during a full scale invasion that a battlegroupe get isolated and has to duke it out in its own. As GTVA planer u simply have to assume that u are outnumbered all the time.
And there is a reason why i wanted to keep the Sathanas out of this. If u pull the 80 Sath card i do not see any chance for the GTVA to win this (win in that case = survive), not with 160 Raynors/ Titan, not with 80 Collies. Actually, not even with 200 collies.
A ship with Colossus like dimensions and WiH GTVA Tech on it and someone like Steele commanding it, well... thats something that i would at least bet that they have a fighting chance.
Also, until now i did not see any arguments that convince me that i am wrong and the Raynor is not too weak compared to shivan ships.
And to the Titan, the scenario i imagined was that the ship is allready engaged in combat and than the Ravana jumps on it in a way that it has all the advantages on its side. And that is definatly not jumping in in front of a Titan.
Edit: On the other side, while it might look like, i do not want to see a Colossus (or a MK II) in BP. What i want though is to see the Raynor get a serious buff in most regards, so that it actually can duke it out with a Lucifer and win even IF cornerd to a planet. In short: Buff its HP, buff its armament and make it closer to its original incarnation and seriously, remove those SBlues and put something worthy there.
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If u pull the 80 Sath Card, even with 160 Raynors and Titans i would still bet on the Saths tbh.
I am not "pulling a card". I am informing you of the environment GTVA planners have to take into account.
And if Sath 2 Shows up on my MK II Collie, well, thats why i have that sprint drive. And enough EHP to survive the initial volley of its 4 BFReds and GTFO.
And then you get jumped by other shivan ships. If there's one thing certain about the Shivans, it's that they have ressources to spare. A sprint drive can get you out of a tight spot, but only if it is ready for use; when both it and the primary drive are in their recharge cycle, you're ****ed when you get jumped.
In addition, as WiH shows, jumps are not untraceable. Especially not when AWACS ships are around (and guess what capabilities a Sath has in addition to being humongous?).
Also, i still do not think they stood against extraordinary odds when u simply keep in mind that even in GTVA space it can happen pretty quickly during a full scale invasion that a battlegroupe get isolated and has to duke it out in its own. As GTVA planer u simply have to assume that u are outnumbered all the time.
It's "you". And you are straight wrong. In GTVA space, the next Battlegroup is one, maybe two node transitions away, a process that takes an hour or so, at most. Even though GTVA BGs are built to operate for extended periods without support, they are not designed to be able to stand up to a full-scale invasion for long.
And there is a reason why i wanted to keep the Sathanas out of this. If u pull the 80 Sath card i do not see any chance for the GTVA to win this (win in that case = survive), not with 160 Raynors/ Titan, not with 80 Collies. Actually, not even with 200 collies.
Translation: I want to be right, no matter what the in-game canon says. You cannot take the Sathanas fleet out of the equation, that is not how strategic planning works.
In short: Buff its HP, buff its armament and make it closer to its original incarnation and seriously, remove those SBlues and put something worthy there.
We will do what we have to do. We are not, at this time, taking suggestions from the public in this regard.
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Hrmpf, ok, i will just let that stand as it is and use the Star Trek approach: Dont try to think about it, just enjoy the show.
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Woot?
You can think about it, but in the end the BP guys have the last word, not to mention that by the time of BP the Shivans would've replenished the lost Saths.
My best bet would be to defang the Sath and then pound it to death...
That's a point which keeps me thinking...the GTVA is in dire need for a cheap system, able to deliver a mean punch and get away quickly...the Raynor could be the system... or would it be possible to use a remote controlled triton with a meson bomb as fire ship?
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That's a point which keeps me thinking...the GTVA is in dire need for a cheap system, able to deliver a mean punch and get away quickly...the Raynor could be the system... or would it be possible to use a remote controlled triton with a meson bomb as fire ship?
This actually sounds like a decent idea.
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That's a point which keeps me thinking...the GTVA is in dire need for a cheap system, able to deliver a mean punch and get away quickly...the Raynor could be the system... or would it be possible to use a remote controlled triton with a meson bomb as fire ship?
This actually sounds like a decent idea.
that's the role of bombers with fighter escorts. in system they have greater subspace agility than any warships and are able to quickly deliver a significant blow, often dealing damage faster than anything short 1500m capship.
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Jads TACO delivery system.......
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That's a point which keeps me thinking...the GTVA is in dire need for a cheap system, able to deliver a mean punch and get away quickly...the Raynor could be the system... or would it be possible to use a remote controlled triton with a meson bomb as fire ship?
This actually sounds like a decent idea.
that's the role of bombers with fighter escorts. in system they have greater subspace agility than any warships and are able to quickly deliver a significant blow, often dealing damage faster than anything short 1500m capship.
Depending on the yield factor of a meson bomb...killing a Sath with bombers and even capships takes too much time.
Who knows, maybe a meson bomb jumped dead between the fangs of a Sath...could cripple it.
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Massive meson bomb SSM doesn't afraid of anything!!
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Massive meson bomb SSM doesn't afraid of anything!!
thing is an SSM strike has to be launched from somewhere
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Massive meson bomb SSM doesn't afraid of anything!!
thing is an SSM strike has to be launched from somewhere
True, and the Triton carrying the bomb would have to be somewhere in the area, which if a Sath is in the system is likely an active war zone with constant Shivan activity. Considering how much I assume a meson bomb would cost (a lot), and the fragility of the Titan carrying it, I don't think this would be a viable tactics to use more than once.
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The area is a rather big solar system, where a logistic ship is most likely hiding to.
So a single Triton wouldn't be the problem, granted, Shivans seem to find convoys pretty fast.
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Massive meson bomb SSM doesn't afraid of anything!!
thing is an SSM strike has to be launched from somewhere
True, and the Triton carrying the bomb would have to be somewhere in the area, which if a Sath is in the system is likely an active war zone with constant Shivan activity. Considering how much I assume a meson bomb would cost (a lot), and the fragility of the Titan carrying it, I don't think this would be a viable tactics to use more than once.
The problem when they blew up the Knossos wasn't how much a meson bombs cost. The problem was that it was brand new, untested technology they just finished a few days ago tops.
But consider how many meson bombs where stuffed into the Bastion and it's sister ship and how much (or rather little) time it took to produce all of those bombs I really don't think the GTVA would mind losing a few meson bombs in failed attacks by now.
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Also considering they dumped one through a gate in The Blade Itself. It was two frigates but they did it anways.
Though admittedly one was basically a super frigate effectively piloted by alpha one.
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The target was more the Arcadia than the frigates.
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i didn't see if the "Raynor" discussion was over, but I did notice something about it. When you look at the next generation of Terran capships, most of em have HEAVY forward firepower (Titan, Bellerophon, Chimera, Hyperion, and even the Raynor slightly). The only flaw is with these ships is they have squat for side armaments (anti-capships wise). The only 2 ships really built for it are the Raynor and the Diomedes (Titan does have 1 BBlue and Blueslash, but it's still built for forward fire). The Raynor has 2 BBlue and 2 Blueslash on each side and Diomedes has 2 blueslash on each side. The Raynor seems to be built more to deal damage IF the battlelines cross.
I dunno. this mighta already been said. sorry if it was. just wanted to make sure this was said because from a battle standpoint, they raynor is gonna save it's corvettes and even possibly the Titan should it get ugly or the enemy make their own shock jump from the side.
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The Raynor has 2 BBlue and 2 Blueslash on each side
Nope. Go re-read the loadouts.
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Wiki page for the Raynor
Blue Planet
Turret Type - Amount
HBlue - 1
BBlue - 1
MBlue - 4
TerSlashBlue - 2
SBlue - 2
Eos - 6 (x2)
TerPulse - 7
AAAf - 7
Terran Turret 2 - 11
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To sum up, the Raynor has a HBlue and a BBlue in front, and 2 MBlues, 1 TerSlashBlue and 1Sblue on each broadside.
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I also don't remember the Titan having any BBlues other than the frontal ones...
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Titan has 3 frontal BBlues and one TerSlashBlue on each side.
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To sum up, the Raynor has a HBlue and a BBlue in front, and 2 MBlues, 1 TerSlashBlue and 1Sblue on each broadside.
I've heard some say the SBlue is a bad beam and it would be better if it were replaced with an extra blue slashing beam. Your thoughts?
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My thought is, good luck opening away the whole Raynor's hull to change a random beam mount with something else that the reactor probably won't be able to sustain on top of the rest.
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Have we actually seen the SBlues in action? If not, Darius is free to change them.
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I've heard some say the SBlue is a bad beam and it would be better if it were replaced with an extra blue slashing beam. Your thoughts?
Yes. From a design perspective rather than a balance one (which the team must take into account), TerSlashBlues instead of SBlues makes more sense on the Raynor.
Do note that during both TBI and Aristeia, the team has replaced TerSlashBlues with SBlues on the Diomedes. It is possible a similar thing was done here. Basically, the Bull Frost might have a weaker but longer range and more accurate firing mode which behaves similarly to the Thorn Lance.
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I will say, not looking at any tables or anything, that my play impression was underwhelming so far for the Raynor and OMGWTFBBQ for the Titan. It's a pretty ship, but it seems to lose life a lot faster than I expect for the design. Maybe there is a mission somewhere in the next BP that can showcase it's toughness, like drive it through a Karuna or something relatively unscathed? That would be cool.
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ok, my bad. but the point still stands that the Raynor's job seems to be to mop up whatever manages to get by the battlegroup's forward firepower and keep it's escorts alive.
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At this point we're all waiting for the inevitable Release 2 mission that shows off Steele's tactical genius as a battle commander and not just a system-scale strategist, starring his flagship the Atreus as the centerpiece of the battle.
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In addition to Steele, I think more than a few people also want to see a Raynor itself do well against the UEF. I've seen a few posts saying the Raynor isn't all that better than a Titan.
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I did say the Atreus would be the centerpiece of it, and we all know that's a Raynor. I was hoping we'd get something that establishes Steele as an even better badass while showing that the Raynor kicks ass and takes names as well as any other TEI capital ship.
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I think we're both on the same page here. :)
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To sum up, the Raynor has a HBlue and a BBlue in front, and 2 MBlues, 1 TerSlashBlue and 1Sblue on each broadside.
Well, actually, its BBlue seems to have a terrible field of fire. It can't be fired with the HBlue at the same target at most angles, and it also can't effectively fire at the same target as some of the MBlue's at most angles. Unless there's some unseen bugs/subtle problems with FRED testing I've done, the ship is notable for its HBlue, but compared to a Titan's 3 BBlue's it's rather moot. If you want something good at non-shock-jump engagements and non-forward firepower, it's much more efficient to have some Diomedes and Deimos corvettes.
SBlue's, too? Really? For a top-of-the-line destroyer explicitly designed for line-combat and all-around-firepower roles, why does it have a slow-firing, relatively low-damage beam if it isn't mounted in batteries of at least 3?
Look, balance is significant, I know, but if it's too good against UEF ships, buff UEF ships. Otherwise it's jarring as hell when a state of the art destroyer mounts relatively underwhelming cruiser-grade weapons where you'd expect far, far more firepower to be.
Don't make a huge glass cannon that packs a good but not particularly impressive punch over a wide area--that kind of armament is what you'd want for the ships that can effectively take a beating and slug it out. In ships with poor or unimpressive durability, specialize for asymmetrical warfare and hit-and-run tactics. This is why the Bellerophon is a far more efficient battlecruiser than a Raynor; the Raynor needs greater durability more than anything, otherwise its just plain inefficient or ineffective in its role.
And I'd really rather not play Aristeia and walk away with the impression that the GTVA's next-gen warships are about as impressive as the Mentu. If Sanctus cruisers aren't supposed to get instantly shredded on that mission, don't make Sanctus's super-fragile.
My thought is, good luck opening away the whole Raynor's hull to change a random beam mount with something else that the reactor probably won't be able to sustain on top of the rest.
...huh? It shouldn't be an SBlue in the first place. An SBlue's main improvement over the SGreen is effective range. If you can mount two SGreens on an FS2-era Aeolus, surely you could manage to mount something more than an SBlue on the entire rear half of the 3-kilometer-long state-of-the-art destroyer?
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Wait, so your problem is that the Raynor mounts an SBlue at all? Even though it has three higher power beams in the same broadside, and two of the highest power beams period in the front? It already has eight higher power beams on the ship, why does an SBlue matter after all that?
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Salty: Make your own ****ing mod already. Seriously. Your feedback had long since crossed the line from "somewhat reasonable" to "I am right and I will not even pretend to listen to anyone". It is time for you to either accept that this is our vision of what BP is and should be, make your own mod to fix all of your perceived shortcomings, or continue to ramble on about points noone but you seems to really care about.
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I kinda agree on the SBlue point.
Also, I can understand your frustration, E. Though being wrong isn't a democracy.
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This is a modding community. Salty, you have your own ideas. They aren't necessarily bad ideas, but they are choices that you would make, backed by the reasons you have explained, which are not the choices the BP team has made. It is not because you think your ideas are better that the BP team has any obligation whatsoever to implement your changes.
If you want your vision to become reality, it's time to pick up modding. If you need any help for that, I will be more than happy to point you in the right direction.
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The reason the Raynor didn't appear much in R1 and hasn't had the chance to be a real badass yet is because the Atreus' appearances represent Steele as a character in the story so far. He's not up front slugging it out with omfg hax beams. He's using his resources carefully, positioning elements from behind the scenes, focusing on inflection points and gaps in the UEF's surface. He's fighting the Atreus as the literal king of the board, limited in its actions but immense in its ability to shape enemy strategy.
When he brings the full might of the Atreus to bear you'll get to see more of the Raynor's capabilities. Discussion on the BP forums tends to look at these ships in a very narrow, HP-and-beams centric vision of what makes a potent warship. Consider strategic and tactical agility, electronics, the ship's sensor, the affordances of an excellent power grid, the countermeasures Steele has been marshalling for use against a Solaris-class opponent. The Raynor's power is immense in much the same way a modern guided missile destroyer's power is immense compared to a WW2 battleship: the guns are physically smaller, or not guns at all, but the ability to place that firepower where it is needed, when it is needed, and to acquire the information to determine how best to use those weapons, to position friendly elements to prepare or follow up upon the strike, is enormous.
How do the Shivans kill GTVA ships in FreeSpace 2? Is it always through a force-against-force set piece? No. The Shivans get most of their decisive kills by abruptly changing the battlespace, deploying new forces, exploiting blind spots in GTVA information. It's the unexpected and the unknown, incredible violence of action from unexpected directions, that works for the Shivans. And the Raynor was built with these lessons in mind.
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As waffles said before, in game all of it's 'victories' against enemy ships were in situations where any Terran destroyer except maybe the Hecate could have delivered a performance that was at least on par with what the Raynor accomplished. I understand that the Raynor's abilities are supposed to go beyond straight firepower and armor, but we've yet to see them actually demonstrated in any mission (with the exception of the sprint drive), and until that happens those two categories are the things that spring to mind when thinking about it's performance.
A lot of the Raynor's power lies in the meta-rules we laid down, things that are never written into tables but are taken into account when designing missions, setting AI levels, timing jumps, telling the story. This is unfortunate for fans who comb through the tables, but believe me, having put the Atreus in action at full capacity - with its heatsinks and power grid and crew and electronics in mind - it's an incredible, almost absurd platform.
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No doubt as Steele's flagship the Atreus will have Balls of Steele AI when we finally see it in action. Anything less just wouldn't be proper.
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A lot of the Raynor's power lies in the meta-rules we laid down, things that are never written into tables but are taken into account when designing missions, setting AI levels, timing jumps, telling the story. This is unfortunate for fans who comb through the tables, but believe me, having put the Atreus in action at full capacity - with its heatsinks and power grid and crew and electronics in mind - it's an incredible, almost absurd platform.
No words to express how much I look forward to seeing this.
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Wait, so your problem is that the Raynor mounts an SBlue at all? Even though it has three higher power beams in the same broadside, and two of the highest power beams period in the front? It already has eight higher power beams on the ship, why does an SBlue matter after all that?
my only problem with the SBlue is the long refire rate. I've never understood why a smaller beam weapon has a longer cool down than a bigger beam cannon. but that is just me. perhaps there are advantages to the SBlue of TerSlashBlue
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If I got it straight, a Sblue requires less space, but cannot handle the huge amount of power input, so it needs longer to cool down before getting fired again.
Guess the emitter is smaller than that of the Terslashblue too.
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I thought the SBlue has better range. At the speed cap ships move, an extra 2km is a lot of time to shoot, escape, or whatever.
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If I got it straight, a Sblue requires less space, but cannot handle the huge amount of power input, so it needs longer to cool down before getting fired again.
Guess the emitter is smaller than that of the Terslashblue too.
They're actually almost the same size, if one looks at the Hyperion and the old Sparta Diomedes. Right now, I'm working off the assumption that the Raynor's SBlue is an alternate firing mode for the Bull Frost that trades rate of fire for accuracy. Fits in with the replacement of two of the Medea's TerSlashBlues with SBlues in Aristeia.
Although it could be interesting if, in R2, the Raynor's SBlues were to be replaced with a sort of pulse beam with worse damage, identical recharge, but split-second duration and bursts 5 or 6, like a giant MWO-style pulse laser.
I thought the SBlue has better range. At the speed cap ships move, an extra 2km is a lot of time to shoot, escape, or whatever.
The TerSlashBlue actually outranges the SBlue by 400m, according to wiki.
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The emitter size you see on the surface isn't everything, since those are actually not a super integral component of the beam system (the Alliance expects the emitters to be shot off a lot, so sandboxes them a little from the rest of the weapon for ease of replacement).
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As waffles said before, in game all of it's 'victories' against enemy ships were in situations where any Terran destroyer except maybe the Hecate could have delivered a performance that was at least on par with what the Raynor accomplished. I understand that the Raynor's abilities are supposed to go beyond straight firepower and armor, but we've yet to see them actually demonstrated in any mission (with the exception of the sprint drive), and until that happens those two categories are the things that spring to mind when thinking about it's performance.
A lot of the Raynor's power lies in the meta-rules we laid down, things that are never written into tables but are taken into account when designing missions, setting AI levels, timing jumps, telling the story. This is unfortunate for fans who comb through the tables, but believe me, having put the Atreus in action at full capacity - with its heatsinks and power grid and crew and electronics in mind - it's an incredible, almost absurd platform.
Well, why not have a bit of fiction covering an instance where the Atreus actually demonstrates that kind of capability? The only impressive feat the Atreus displays in WiH, IIRC, is a use of its sprint drive to make two modestly-precise jumps in quick succession. I don't remember even hearing about the Atreus pulling off any feats like the ones you're describing in that post. In the intro cutscene, an entire battlegroup is casually shredding the Comorant to pieces--I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did (which was already a matter of seconds) in that position. The fact that three Sanctus cruisers and a lone Karuna were destroyed by that entire battlegroup from ideal firing position with plenty of warning (and, come to think of it, a major range advantage too) doesn't exactly make the Atreus itself very impressive.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if the Atreus truly is the incredible ship you say it is, why am I only just hearing about the basic details about how it might be, in the form of a post on the forums? Maybe the Atreus was always this awesome in your mind/plan, and you have clear plans for how you're going to show it off in WiHP2, and that's fine, but from the perspective of just having AoA and WiHP1 to look at, the Raynor (and Atreus, by extension) has been very underwhelming in nearly all of its appearances and mentions.
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The reason the Raynor didn't appear much in R1 and hasn't had the chance to be a real badass yet is because the Atreus' appearances represent Steele as a character in the story so far. He's not up front slugging it out with omfg hax beams. He's using his resources carefully, positioning elements from behind the scenes, focusing on inflection points and gaps in the UEF's surface. He's fighting the Atreus as the literal king of the board, limited in its actions but immense in its ability to shape enemy strategy.
When he brings the full might of the Atreus to bear you'll get to see more of the Raynor's capabilities. Discussion on the BP forums tends to look at these ships in a very narrow, HP-and-beams centric vision of what makes a potent warship. Consider strategic and tactical agility, electronics, the ship's sensor, the affordances of an excellent power grid, the countermeasures Steele has been marshalling for use against a Solaris-class opponent. The Raynor's power is immense in much the same way a modern guided missile destroyer's power is immense compared to a WW2 battleship: the guns are physically smaller, or not guns at all, but the ability to place that firepower where it is needed, when it is needed, and to acquire the information to determine how best to use those weapons, to position friendly elements to prepare or follow up upon the strike, is enormous.
How do the Shivans kill GTVA ships in FreeSpace 2? Is it always through a force-against-force set piece? No. The Shivans get most of their decisive kills by abruptly changing the battlespace, deploying new forces, exploiting blind spots in GTVA information. It's the unexpected and the unknown, incredible violence of action from unexpected directions, that works for the Shivans. And the Raynor was built with these lessons in mind.
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I thought the SBlue has better range. At the speed cap ships move, an extra 2km is a lot of time to shoot, escape, or whatever.
Actually, the TerSlashBlue has ~400m greater range than the SBlue (which has a range of 6,375 m). It's also pretty accurate, so in practice its damage output is much closer to the basic stats than the TerSlash is.
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There is one more thing to consider about the Atreus.
It's the ship that has the commander in charge of the entire system and all his staff on board.
Usually such people are kept out of the actual fighting, unless the situation is something out of the ordinary.
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There is one more thing to consider about the Atreus.
It's the ship that has the commander in charge of the entire system and all his staff on board.
Usually such people are kept out of the actual fighting, unless the situation is something out of the ordinary.
or if it's steele in charge, in that case the Atreus will just as likely be in the thick of it
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And the Atreus took Jupiter by storm, the Feds could've selfdestruct for all thats worth it^^
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Surely the Orestes demonstrated how AWESOMESAUCE Raynors were...
Anyway, I'm just looking forward to seeing it when it's done. Of which I'm in no rush.. Anticipation is decadent after all.
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Surely the Orestes demonstrated how AWESOMESAUCE Raynors were...
Does a good part of that come from you sitting on the bridge with Admiral Bei? ;)
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Temeraire control, this is the Orestes, you are clear to jump out, good luck out there, *****es!
Sorry, I couldn't resist quoting that file.
Also, why is it called a Ray-nor, it should be a Ray-and, Steele takes no substitutes!
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Raynor is a terrible name. I'd change it, but the compatibility issues that would cause are unacceptable.
I'd have called it either Atreides or Erebus. You know, something in keeping with GTVA naming conventions.
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Haters gotta hate.
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Raynor is a terrible name. I'd change it, but the compatibility issues that would cause are unacceptable.
I'd have called it either Atreides or Erebus. You know, something in keeping with GTVA naming conventions.
What's next, a Shivan Juggernaut class called Harkonnen? ;) :p
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Raynor is a terrible name. I'd change it, but the compatibility issues that would cause are unacceptable.
I'd have called it either Atreides or Erebus. You know, something in keeping with GTVA naming conventions.
What's next, a Shivan Juggernaut class called Harkonnen? ;) :p
I don't know whether or not you missed the actual origin of the word Atreides so I don't know whether or not to be snippy!
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Yes, I know Atreides is an ancient Greek name and Frank Herbert just borrowed it, so please, no snippiness.
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Raynor is a terrible name. I'd change it, but the compatibility issues that would cause are unacceptable.
I'd have called it either Atreides or Erebus. You know, something in keeping with GTVA naming conventions.
It's called the Raynor because its supposed to look like a vulture bike from StarCraft (not 2), and Jim Raynor uses a vulture bike. And then nobody bothered changing it.
I mean it doesn't make it any better I guess but I can definitely see where it comes from, which is (imo, as a bit of a SC nerd), pretty awesome.
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honestly Droid, I had a funny feeling that was why it was called that.
plus, did you guys design the Raynor? from what I understood, it's gone through a lot of work in the last few years. it may have been named by someone else and they just kept it. I kind of like it honestly. It's different.
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honestly Droid, I had a funny feeling that was why it was called that.
plus, did you guys design the Raynor? from what I understood, it's gone through a lot of work in the last few years. it may have been named by someone else and they just kept it. I kind of like it honestly. It's different.
Like all the StratComm ships the Raynor predates Blue Planet pretty significantly.
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All of BP's ships were taken from premade packs as far as I know.
Their original work comes mostly from skyboxes I think.
Edit: And code off course!
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All of BP's ships were taken from premade packs as far as I know.
Their original work comes mostly from skyboxes I think.
Edit: And code off course!
And a lot of scripting, including a bunch of stuff that went into the 3.6.12 MVPs.
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Most of the actual model assets in BP aren't original. BP just made them famous.
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Raynor is a terrible name. I'd change it, but the compatibility issues that would cause are unacceptable.
I'd have called it either Atreides or Erebus. You know, something in keeping with GTVA naming conventions.
But is not Raynor the/a greek god of strength? Hence keeping entirely in line with GTVA naming conventions.
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I've never heard of that.
And a google search reveals nothing except the obvious Starcraft use. Same goes for Wikipedia.
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It seems to be old Norse, though, given ships types like Valkyrie, it still fits.
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from the point of view of someone who has never cared about name origin enough to look anything up and can associate only the most obvious greek god ones and the like, "raynor" simply sounds better than those other two mentioned. and i like that i don't have to think for a few seconds on how to pronounce it when i look at the name. or worse, just completely guess and then have a small part of my own personal FS world come crashing down when it finally gets voice-acted. (bei was always pronounced like "by" in my head. and that little voice in there still screams over the VA to drown it out.)
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I've only seen meanings for the name Raynor (from baby naming sites so take that as you will), but based on that it fits with the Freespace ship's role.
Meaning:
Scandinavian: Mighty Army
English: Strong Counselor
Norse: Brave One
I actually never had a problem with the Raynor, but that might have something to do with the fact that I grew up playing a lot of Starcraft.
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I haven't bought or played any commercial resource-intensive game since SimCity 4 but I find the name "Raynor" to be quite fitting. :P
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I still don't think it's a good name, but that's moot anyway. It isn't changing.
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In 300 years Starcraft and the characters in it may have the same literary status as ancient greek myths and deities. :p
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Frankly, if we're including South Korea in this I think Starcraft has already achieved that...
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After the quality of the story in Wings of Liberty, I don't think so there will be any cult following.
A Wedge Antilles-class carrier, though... :p
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After the quality of the story in Wings of Liberty, I don't think so there will be any cult following.
A Wedge Antilles-class carrier, though... :p
Star Craft has been a religion in South Korea since SC1
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South Korea, yeah, not worldwide. I'm waiting for the Star Trek Wars and the Star Wars Trek, but I don't think there will be anything similar from Korea. :P
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Raynor is an awesome name. And there are only so many names in Greek mythology.
Besides: RAYNOR. It looks cool, it sounds cool, and it evokes the awesome wrath of the Hero Marine/Vulture Bike.
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There are a lot of names in Greek mythology.
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Yeah, but how many of them sound cool?
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Pluto should be the new name, it's the Hades done right. :P
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The Hades has almost 4-8x the armor. It can *actually* tank.
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Yes but it fits with the whole : Hades was an asshole, Pluto was pretty cool god, looks over dead and doesn't afraid of anything idea the Greeks had (even though they are the same guy *cough*), that's why I suggested it as a joke.
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Hades was probably the most decent of all the Greek gods. Much, much less of a vindictive asshole.
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He raped, like, one goddess. Not even any mortals. The guy was the image of chastity compared to the rest of them.
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So...this thread lost its...meaning...can we stop and close it?^^
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The Hades has almost 4-8x the armor. It can *actually* tank.
This actually does make me wonder why the Raynor lacks anywhere near that kind of durability. The Hecate at least has the excuse of being primarily a carrier design, and the Colossus had durability fitting its size (and comparable to the Hades, proportionally). The Hatshepsut had decent durability for its size/shape/role (half-carrier, half-thin, long neck and 'nose'), and the Orion was an FS1-era ship. The Deimos has 4/5ths of the durability of a Hecate/Orion, despite being nowhere near as large.
I know, I know--table stats aren't really indicative of much in BP. But seeing the Atreus go from 100 to 92 durability in a few seconds under just gauss cannon fire from a couple Narayanas (which, if it weren't guardianed at 92, would be something like low 80's before the Atreus actually jumps out) doesn't exactly inspire perceptions of next-gen durability. I hope to see the Atreus in action when it's really into a fight; then we'll finally see the Raynor in its full glory.
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You keep getting hung up on insignificant things and extrapolating them to not-insignificant conclusions.
It's even more baffling when you actually admit that they're insignificant, and yet can't get over it.
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The Hades has almost 4-8x the armor. It can *actually* tank.
This actually does make me wonder why the Raynor lacks anywhere near that kind of durability. The Hecate at least has the excuse of being primarily a carrier design, and the Colossus had durability fitting its size (and comparable to the Hades, proportionally). The Hatshepsut had decent durability for its size/shape/role (half-carrier, half-thin, long neck and 'nose'), and the Orion was an FS1-era ship. The Deimos has 4/5ths of the durability of a Hecate/Orion, despite being nowhere near as large.
I know, I know--table stats aren't really indicative of much in BP. But seeing the Atreus go from 100 to 92 durability in a few seconds under just gauss cannon fire from a couple Narayanas (which, if it weren't guardianed at 92, would be something like low 80's before the Atreus actually jumps out) doesn't exactly inspire perceptions of next-gen durability. I hope to see the Atreus in action when it's really into a fight; then we'll finally see the Raynor in its full glory.
Open up that mission in FRED.
Go to the Atreu's SPECIAL HITS field
Check the hull points one and add a zero to the end.
Happy? :P
because you might as well do that because hitpointsmeanjack**** same with hull integrities unless it explodes.
its a %, which is in no way a complete representation of what damage is actually going on.
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The Hades has almost 4-8x the armor. It can *actually* tank.
This actually does make me wonder why the Raynor lacks anywhere near that kind of durability. The Hecate at least has the excuse of being primarily a carrier design, and the Colossus had durability fitting its size (and comparable to the Hades, proportionally). The Hatshepsut had decent durability for its size/shape/role (half-carrier, half-thin, long neck and 'nose'), and the Orion was an FS1-era ship. The Deimos has 4/5ths of the durability of a Hecate/Orion, despite being nowhere near as large.
I know, I know--table stats aren't really indicative of much in BP. But seeing the Atreus go from 100 to 92 durability in a few seconds under just gauss cannon fire from a couple Narayanas (which, if it weren't guardianed at 92, would be something like low 80's before the Atreus actually jumps out) doesn't exactly inspire perceptions of next-gen durability. I hope to see the Atreus in action when it's really into a fight; then we'll finally see the Raynor in its full glory.
I said it before, but I'll do it again: Maybe the Raynor's armor is less effective against the UEF's kinetic and missile weapons than it is against beams, the primary weapons of the enemy the ship was designed to fight.
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This actually does make me wonder why the Raynor lacks anywhere near that kind of durability.
does it
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One thing needs to be made very, very clear: ships are as tough as the plot needs them to be. Subsystems are guardianed, armor classes are used, and AI classes are modified. The Atreus needed to be run off by the two Narayana frigates in Darkest Hour, but if the plot ever needed the Atreus to act as a one-ship pain train, it would wreck everything in its path in that mission.
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I think that perspective is just as wrong as looking things up in the tables. There are rules.
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Lesson is: play the game and use what happens in the missions to make your opinion.
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There are fluff rules for how everything works. The game mechanics are bent and fudged to support the fluff rules. And some of you simply cannot understand this for some reason.
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Its more like the fluff rules are constantly described in vague terms therefore angering people and causing them to say random things until someone says they are right.
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My thought on the matter is that it is kind of nice to have the ship table data be baselined to something reasonable before fredding ship's actions in the mission. Yes, I could make the raynor kick everything's A** all day long with only 10,000 hp by setting armor values and smart guardian of systems in fred for every mission through an entire campaign, but It would be kind of nice to have believable stats in the tables that only require tweaks. In the case of the Raynors, it seems like they should have maybe 300,000-400,000 hp or so in the stat blocks, and then you can go in and fiddle from there. Sure that is basically the same thing as Heavy Armor 30 or so, and if you would rather do it that way, then just set the default to heavy armor 30 in the table. Otherwise the future fredder using the model has to go in and try to figure out why the ship described as a brawler keeps blowing up like a glass cannon, and script it to behave as intended every single time.
Unless of course the Raynor is intended to not be used in any other mods than the official blue planet campaigns. Then we really have no right to be looking at the tables or thinking about how it would act in other situations than the ones it has been scripted into, since its IP would be off the table for anybody else.
On a side note, I have no problem with the Atreus leaving after getting shot at by two Narayanas. I think it would be silly to hang around to see if the UEF deploys an Occulus and a Solaris or two, and maybe some Durgas to target your engines. Jumping in, taking a shot and something vunerable, and jumping right back out seems like a good strategy to take initiative from your enemies. I figure Steele would do that as much as possible.
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We can't do that because we want to avoid totally rebalancing AoA.
And of course the Raynor is open for anyone's use.
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Which is totally understandable. AoA was primarily vs Shivans, and frankly Shivans need low hp friendly destroyers to seem scary with their stock settings.