Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: bfobar on September 05, 2012, 04:05:47 pm
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Hello.
I played through BP AoA and WiH, and loved them. Then I found the new HTL Diomedes model and got inspired to make some sort of mini campaign.
The premise is the following: When Capella blew up, the shipyards there were making a next generation corvette based on the lessons learned from the NTF rebellion and more recently the earlier nebula operations against the shivans (before the GTVA knew that there were so many Saths). Of the several hulls under construction, only one was completed to the point of being able to be moved from dry dock out of the system (in the middle of the Capella invasion of course).
During the 18 month or so completion of this corvette at another system of this shipyard, the terrans go into economic depression and resources are allocated away from the project to the Sol gate and the new Shivan threat initiatives. The ship (the first Diomedes and the namesake for the class) gets fitted out with spare capella era weapons and systems (green beams, aaaf, terran turrets, and flak), and is passed off to a combat evaluation unit for prototype testing of next generation capital ship systems.
The group will find themselves in conflict with terrans in civil unrest in the outer systems, vasudan interests, and probably a shivan task force trying to get out of or back into the nebula system (or something). During the mini campaign, the Diomedes will get upgraded with a prototype torpedo system, and maybe prototype SSM technology. (I have it working in test missions, and it is believably weak compared to what BP has available).
Basically, If I see this through, I want it to be a little 5-10 or so mission campaign that I can call Blue Planet: Origins or something, and have it explore the change in the GTVA tactics, equipment, and culture after capella that eventually leads to blue planet. I figure that the GTVA focus on creating the new raynor and titan classes, and the new artillery corvettes of blue planet combined with economic depression and the SOL jump gate would be a good reason on why there is only one Diomedes for 20 years, and then brand new sister ships could be rushed back into production using the lessons learned from the original and the new threats faced in WiH.
My biggest question is, can this mesh with the BP canon enough to be part of the BP universe? I would like it to not contradict anything. Also, if anybody else has any suggestions or comments or criticisms, I'm all ears.
I think that there is enough demand for more BP material that maybe other people could do similar Origins campaigns set either before WiH of AoA.
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Origins? Wouldn't a more suiting name be something like: Blue Planet: Test Arenas (or Testing Arenas)
Since you find yourself in hot-spots in your description, it sounds more fitting.
As long as you don't contradict the Lore, it could be considered a soft cannon, (Somthing like the new Star Wars layers basically) if it does not go against the story Darius and his cabals have written, it'd be a neat way to expand BPlanet.
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See the thing is I don't think there would just be one Diomedes for 20 years at all...just doesn't make sense, seeing as it's the next-gen Deimos, with fighter capacity.
It's a far more versatile ship than the Chimera/Bellerophon classes which are rather specialized and shouldn't really be mass produced.
The Green Beam -> Blue Beam thing irks me too, seeing as no ship in BP verse has ever had that happen. Presumably, blue beams need something different from green beams, which is why neither the Carthage nor any of the Deimos have ever been refitted with TerSlashBlues etc.
It might not contradict the lore, but it's a bit of a stretch of the imagination and would introduce more plotholes than anything. (Exaclty like the Star Wars EU, which is why many consider it to be an abomination of retcon, plotholes, and WE HAVE NO ****ING CLUE WHAT WE'RE DOING)
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Well, I guess it would be up to me to make it believable and not suck then.
I do appreciate your irks. I could make sure the campaign address them in some way that makes sense. The point of this thread is so that I could minimize any retcons or plot holes to maximize the fun and tell a back story or side story.
In your minds, when would the diomedes have came into production and in what volume? I've read the old tech description and the new one, and the new one makes it sound like the class is brand spanking new. My idea based on that was a prototype from capella was made, but the class wasn't cleared for large scale production until after the sol gate and new fleet ships we see were completed.
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I'm sure there's enough need for smaller carrier ships (especially after the loss of the Colossus, Psamtik, Delacroix) that a prototype carrier corvette would have been built and evaluated. It won't contradict canon to have a Diomedes hull built then: it probably won't be the nasty little strike package that it is in its current form.
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Yes, but if there's that need I can't see them not building any more for 20 years... I mean, why? If there's a pressing issue for sub-destroyer-szie strikecraft platforms and you have one built and undergoing evaluation, you wouldn't sit on your ass for 20 years with just the one prototype.
I have no problem with it existing, I have a problem with no more than one existing. Besides I don't see why there needs to only be one except for trying to invoke some notional "cool factor" of being a lone ship of its class.
I'd imagine there being a small series of proto-Diomedes which probably wouldn't have any standardized loadout as they were being refitted/improved continually and newer ones had advancements implemented gradually - it wouldn't become recognizable as a "Diomedes" until it's late iterations around the time when Sol Gate was to reopen. Of course to actually portray this you'd probably need a line of similar-but-different-looking models gradually evolving into the final product. I definitely would be leery if the original looked...the same as the large-scale production model (or was just a retexture/returret of it). This is kind of drawing from historical ship designs, which often had fairly significant differences between ships of the same class due to changing circumstances and advancements and I feel that is something that could be explored more instead of having every ship be carbon-copy of the next...
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I'll reword the statement. There'll be enough scope and political will for experimentation with smaller carrier designs, but there's plenty of reasons why they would have shelved the concept for 20 years: too small spacegroup size compared to tonnage reduction, unfavourable economic conditions, shift away from R&D into building established designs. Vasudan policy makers and shipbuilders would have had a say in new fleet designs.
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And let's not forget the two Hatsheputs that get blown up during the ending cinema in the background.
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And let's not forget the two Hatsheputs that get blown up during the ending cinema in the background.
The same cinematic that suggests the GTVA had blue beams all along? :P
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Way I see it, it may be possible that a prototype, proof-of-concept vessel may have been built during the Capella incident. However, due to budgetary constraints post-capella (relocating millions of refugees isn't cheap) and an underwhelming performance due to Capella-era beams not being efficient enough to make the prototype Diomedes a real improvement over the Deimos, the design was shelved until the TEI got around to designing the new Fleet.
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That is actually quite close on where I wanted to go with it. I also thought that the production wouldn't be limited to just one, but it would make sense to, as resources allowed for it, start adding others. As to the different but similar hull designs, I was thinking about using the non-HTL version as the prototype, but that HTL version is just so darn pretty that it's hard to say no to. Also, I was going to limit the scope of the campaign to just a few years after capella max, so limited production could have started 10-15 years before AoA that way. I would have no reason to say one way or another.
Also, the titans and raynors would take a while to be built (the collossus took what, 20 years?), and so their weapons systems should have been at least at the proof of concept level of development just a few years after capella in order to build a ship around them, I would think.
I was going to say that the design was intended to be very modular, allowing multiple weapons configurations to be swapped out with time or mission requirements, as part of the appeal of the diomedes design. The chimera is obviously and purposely built to be 3 big beam cannons with an engine on the back to move them around (and killer point defenses), as a contrast.
Anyway, If I don't hold to the HTL Diomedes tech description of "The GTVA's newest super high tech cruiser", then things make a lot more sense with the points everybody brings up. Basically then the diomedes could have a capella prototype, and then class production could start up some time later as resources at other shipyards become available. Thank you for discussing this with me. I don't want to try to write your canon or anything. I just want to fit with it.
The E: Amusingly, I am having problems after table hacking it to get the Diomedes to appear lackluster in test runs. That thing shreds. I gave it a small 4 fighter escort of perseus figthers and then tossed 4 cains, a moloch, and 12 nahema bombers with cyclops torpedos at it and it goes right through them all with only green beams and flak. The deimos and sobek beat it, but not by much. I'll probably have to downgrade the HPS or figure out armor tables to make it seem like it isn't a super ship.
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I think The E has the most plausible explanation.
I always assumed the Diomedes was a top on the line and very recent design, which is why there were none with the 14th and very few in Sol even 18 months later. There aren't many ships in any fleet that manage to pack so much firepower into a hull that big. The Bellerophon is really the only other one that comes close. None of that precludes its use in a Capella era campaign, though. Basically, the spaceframe could fit more than its reactor could support, but was too small to fit a destroyer-grade reactor. Not worth the expense, especially after Capella.
Fast forward to 18 years later though, and meson reactors and new weapons finally allow for all that internal space to be used. While they were at it, they redesigned all the internals and armor. The spaceframe is 18 years old, but everything inside (and some outside, like armor) is absolute cutting-edge.
I'd suggest at the very least a retexture to Deimos-style dark green plating. I can provide you with my .psd if you want to do that, and I have no problem with you altering the model itself if you so choose.
Stats-wise, it'd be a good idea to lower the hit points. This would be Capella era armor, so something closer to the Deimos' 80000 would be better. Slowing down its rotation time could also be a good idea, since the BP2 Dio turns almost twice as fast as the Deimos.
For weapons, it's obvious: TerSlashBlue to TerSlash, STerPulse to Heavy Flak (or Maxim if you feel like trying something different for a turret or two), and Terran Turret 2 to Terran Turret.
I'd have said Standard Flak to replace STerPulse, but I prefer to think Standard Flak is some new experimental rotary flak cannon that has some kinks to sort out (which is why only a few ships mount it). Standard Flak is hugely powerful without AI RoF limitations.
I don't know if SSMs are a good idea so soon after Capella. Don't know enough to comment further on that. For its new torpedo launcher, you could use a modified Cyclops with longer range but smaller yield.
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Idea: experimental design hosting the first blue beams. Replace all TerBlueSlash beams with two SBlues and two AAAf beams. Downgrade pulse and flak to normal blob and normal flak guns. You'd gain a little bit of anti-fighter armament with the AAAf beams, but you'd lose capship firepower by an order of magnitude.
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I don't know if SSMs are a good idea so soon after Capella. Don't know enough to comment further on that. For its new torpedo launcher, you could use a modified Cyclops with longer range but smaller yield.
SSMs are a very new technology in the BP timeline. There may have been experiments with static, system-defense SSMs, and maybe a few of these systems have been deployed around DeltaS, but ship-launched SSMs are something Steele is doing first.
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A Deimos-esque retexture would be cool. I think I can handle changing textures. I've discovered that I suck at 3D modeling so far though.
I went with green beams since it has 4 that can fire on the same target at the same time. With terslashes, it was shredding the deimos. I Dropped the hp down to 75000, and will probably check the heavy flak vs the normal flak to see how it acts vs some fighter and bomber wings.
For the launchers, I had set up piranhas in bank 1 and a custom bomb weapon in bank 2. The AI seems to do a pretty good job of firing piranhas until there are no more fighters, and then immediately switching over to the torpedos and lobbing them at the nearest capital ship. I set them up to be 2 second delay swarm 4 torpedos (since there are 4 firing points per launcher) that do like 350 damage each and reload every 20 seconds, 4000 meter range. The dps works out to be a little more than the flux cannon on the fenris. It uses a piranha model for the missile with a custom tail and looks pretty darn neat. In reality, only 1 torpedo of every other torpedo swarm makes it though point defenses.
I was using that model for my prototype ssm, and they are way less effective than 4 cyclopses, but do damage. I was also reading around and seeing if I could fiddle with the ssm.tbl stats in mission to give goofy values on some shots, making the technology feel really unperfected.
My other SSM idea: have them only functioning with an AWACS in theater, and be fredded to appear flakey even then. Then it's like "hey! let's put subspace drives in these torpedos and warp them in! Cool! oh wait, that doesn't work so well." Fiddling with +offest is on my to-do list.
On a side note, SSM infyrno strikes are hilarious.
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To be honest, I'd keep the HP up, and just use armor types to make other ships tougher as you need them to be.
Four SGreens sounds alright, though. Effectively it becomes a super-Aeolus with a fighter bay. :P
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Well, in game you are never told what kind of beams anything has beyond aaf, slashing, or normal. If you pay close attention to the size and sound, you can tell that they're different, but it isn't like targeting the beam gives you any names.
With hp vs armor, I guess it just depends on how much table work I want to do vs what effect I want to have in mission. It's a cool concept and might definitely have a place here. Prototype beam resistant armor that has serious flaws vs torpedos could make any escort type mission way more hectic.
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You don't have to use any justified technobabble to use the armor types. It's a story-telling tool. It's not even table work, too. You can set armor types in FRED.
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Fancy! *runs off to read about armor*
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If you're basing it off the BP modpack they have an excellent selection of armor types already set up with fairly informative names.
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My other SSM idea: have them only functioning with an AWACS in theater, and be fredded to appear flakey even then. Then it's like "hey! let's put subspace drives in these torpedos and warp them in! Cool! oh wait, that doesn't work so well." Fiddling with +offest is on my to-do list.
SSMs in WiH always, ALWAYS need an AWACS-enabled ship near the target. You will note that, in every mission where SSMs appear, there's either a Charybdis or three or a wing of Auroras present.
And I do think that SSMs are a REALLY new tech, nowhere near ready to be deployed even in an experimental way in a timeframe close to Capella.
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OK thats fine. How about precision jumping with AWACS to help? I had a mission idea involving the player flying around an enemy cruiser formation to the optimum attack vector and then calling in reinforcements and having a capital ship arrive at that spot a short time later.
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Really really early prototyping might be justified? Precision jumps, for instance, which are one of the tactical cornerstones of the TEI anyway. So instead of SSMs you call in a wing of Ares for a Maxim or Treb strike.
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My other SSM idea: have them only functioning with an AWACS in theater, and be fredded to appear flakey even then. Then it's like "hey! let's put subspace drives in these torpedos and warp them in! Cool! oh wait, that doesn't work so well." Fiddling with +offest is on my to-do list.
SSMs in WiH always, ALWAYS need an AWACS-enabled ship near the target. You will note that, in every mission where SSMs appear, there's either a Charybdis or three or a wing of Auroras present.
And I do think that SSMs are a REALLY new tech, nowhere near ready to be deployed even in an experimental way in a timeframe close to Capella.
Remind me to make a feature request to be more easily able to enable/disable specific SSM strike in-mission. Or to try and write that myself one day (although given the size of my TODO list, that day is probably a bit far away).
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Remind me to make a feature request to be more easily able to enable/disable specific SSM strike in-mission. Or to try and write that myself one day (although given the size of my TODO list, that day is probably a bit far away).
What do you mean ? SSM strikes seem fairly easy to manipulate already as-it-is.
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SEXP-based strikes are super easy to manipulate, but I'd just like to be able to render inoperative all TAG-C with a single SEXP. I know it's already doable, I can think of a few way to do something like that already. I just think it would be prettier to have an ON/OFF switch :).
Anyway, as I said, if I ever get the courage to dive into the source code, I would probably write a small patch myself (if that's still on my mind then), which may or may not be accepted in that distant future anyway.
EDIT - actually, there's a few more thing I'd like to be able to do with SSM, like being able to set a mximum number of active strikes, a general cooldown system (independant from an individual fighter's TAG cooldown), messages to be played if a SSM strike can't be fired. Part of all this can probably be done through scripting, but Fred and table-based solutions might be more handy, especially to newcomers.
EDIT 2 - but I think we are getting off topic here, and this might not be the best place to discuss all this :s.
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OK next question: What do you think the fighter/bomber complement of the Diomedes would be? I was guessing 3 wings of fighters and a wing of light or medium bombers, with crew to get 16 ships in the air at one time, and a few spares, giving maybe 24 ships total or so. Does this seem reasonable, to high, or too low?
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Try to look at what was launched in Darkest Hour and Aristeia, that should give you an idea.
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I remember in Astride about 6 interceptors circling the thing. Is that it? I won't be able to look at the missions until tonight.
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It also launches a wing of Herc-IIs on Hard and a wing of Artemis bombers on Insane. I'd say no more than four wings (16 fighters) standard, and a little extra space for shuttles, resupply ships, and fighters or escape pods recovered in an emergency.
This is assuming the Medea may not have been able to recover all its strikecraft before it jumped.
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OK so that sounds about right. I'll check fred when I get home to be sure. I was also thinking four wings with a spare ship or so per wing for repairs, a supply or two, and a couple of pods, etc. At any rate, I don't think it should able to deal with more than two squadrons at absolute maximum logistical ability.
Also on those missions, we can't assume from just what was given in campaign that the 12 ships it launches in Aristeia is its maximum complement. Some ships may have been damaged or even deployed elsewhere at that time. It isn't like the Hood tossed out its full 120 fighter compliment either and it was sitting there waiting for the engagement.
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I wouldn't put more than 12 fighters on there.
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So one squadron plus support as a normal complement? It's a convenient squad base that way.
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It's a far more versatile ship than the Chimera/Bellerophon classes which are rather specialized and shouldn't really be mass produced.
....huh?
The Chimera is in most ways a next-gen Deimos. Extremely good point defenses, good speed, good anti-ship firepower (in the Chimera's case, impressive firepower for a corvette), decent enough durability, and not too much larger than a Deimos to make mass production raise a few questions. A Diomedes is much larger, probably more expensive (if four TerSlashBlue's and a sizable hanger bay and fighter maintenance facility is cheaper than 3 MBlue's and a tad more point defenses, why not just outfit Chimeras with 3 TerSlashBlue's instead of MBlue's?), and isn't a full package in itself like a Deimos, as it requires a craft complement to operate as intended. The FS2-era Deimos is still around and will be for years to come because it's so cheap to build and cost-efficient for its size/class. Its capabilities are largely anemic compared to a Chimera, but it has a great role already as a super-versatile, low-medium size general combatant.
It also launches a wing of Herc-IIs on Hard and a wing of Artemis bombers on Insane. I'd say no more than four wings (16 fighters) standard, and a little extra space for shuttles, resupply ships, and fighters or escape pods recovered in an emergency.
This is assuming the Medea may not have been able to recover all its strikecraft before it jumped.
Given the size of the Diomedes, 16 fighters sounds a bit low for an upper limit. I'd lean more towards 20, with standard support craft (like the 16 estimate). Maybe 12 fighters and 4-8 bombers, capable of operating as a single unit for unpredictable, mid-sized strikes. Kind of like a Karuna pair, but you'd only need to add an Aeolus or Hyperion to complete the unit.
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Tactically speaking the Diomedes is much closer to a next-gen Deimos than the Chimera. Chimeras and Bellerophons are intended to serve as shock jump units.
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Tactically speaking the Diomedes is much closer to a next-gen Deimos than the Chimera. Chimeras and Bellerophons are intended to serve as shock jump units.
Interesting. The size and capabilities of the Diomedes makes it feel more like a pocket-destroyer (kind of like the Iceni?) than a Deimos-like combatant. A Chimera has many of the same qualities of the Deimos taken to a higher level; the main difference is its heavy beam cannons being all forward-oriented instead of spread out. If a Chimera need only turn to face the general direction of the target to kill it, isn't it much more efficient than having a TerSlashBlue or two immediately available, but little more to actually use against the target? If three MBlue's don't take it out in a salvo (or nearly kill it), chances are the Shivan ship has the firepower to gut the Chimera OR Diomedes before much can be done.
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Maybe the Diomedes could be best described as a GTVA Moloch MK II? It seems to fare quite well on that task. (Or that might be my tiredness talking, your pick.)
Anyway off to sleep, the sacred time of imagination and dreaming of being on the bridge of a Dio fighting two Shivan corvettes at a time.
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Maybe the Diomedes could be best described as a GTVA Moloch MK II? It seems to fare quite well on that task. (Or that might be my tiredness talking, your pick.)
Anyway off to sleep, the sacred time of imagination and dreaming of being on the bridge of a Dio fighting two Shivan corvettes at a time.
Two Molochs at the same time? F****ng A.
I may make that happen if I can get this little campaign off the ground. One Moloch isn't really a challenge.
Also, I was thinking of the Chimera and Bellerphon as, in addition to shock jumpers, node blockaders. It seems to me that if the GTVA knows that the Shivans have at least a hundred Sathani ready to go, and if they believe that a third incursion is inevitable, then you would want to be able to rapidly deploy a whole armada of capital ships with all firepower firing out the front to whatever node the Shivans finally end up trying to come into GTVA space through. Basically, you would want enough Chimeras etc to be able to one shot a Sathanas and rotate out whichever ships took a beam hit before they killed the Juggernaut (another good use for shock jumping there. Have two fleets of juggernaut killers and have them pop in on the blind side each time a Sathanas comes through a node, and rotate them out).
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If three MBlue's don't take it out in a salvo (or nearly kill it), chances are the Shivan ship has the firepower to gut the Chimera OR Diomedes before much can be done.
Depends entirely on how they're targeted. Three MBlues could significantly **** up the weapons, targeting, or power system of nearly anything short of a Sathanas. Maybe that too if you try hard enough.
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First time posting pics... lets see if this works.
(http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj625/bfobar/Clipboard03_zps052bb455.png)
I reskinned her to try to look more like Hecate Armor themes. Thank you Aesaar for the .psd file.
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This is where I wouldn't actually mind seeing the old model (You know, the GTMf Sparta), 'specially since this is supposed to be before all the TEI stuff, and looking *exactly like them* despite supposedly being ignored for years...
But whatever that old thing is tilemapped. Ungh. I can see why you wouldn't want to use it (that and Aesaar's new model is sexy)
Maybe no painted stripes because it doesn't seem to fit the Capella-era ships. The Terrans didn't seem to be keen on colorful stripes until the newer generation ships.
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It looks a little odd to me that you have the blue beam dishes still, weren't they metallic back then?
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You could try pasting the Mjolnir's beam emitter texture (beam2) onto the emitter.
Its the metallic thing with warning stripes that kid of looks like a docking point , and was at some point a staple for tilemapped beamdish textures. Esarai also made a glowy version which would be a cool in-between the supar glow TEI beam dishes and the old dull metallic ones.
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I have a feeling this is going to end with me offering to make a Capella-era version...
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Dont really see why you'd need to. I was thinking the beam emitters looked too blue for the main guns, but I'm still working through redrawing LOD3, learning GIMP along the way.
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(http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj625/bfobar/screen0045_zps9d70de82.png)
I got a little time to work on it this weekend, and make the beam emitters look not like the BP era beams among other things.
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Looks pretty well dude, but what about using...older turrets?
Resized Deimos or Hecate turrets for example.
This thing could've been used as a SOC ship though...
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Maybe because they're ugly as **** ?
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Guess you are refering to my turret line...
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At any rate, I need to move on to trying to put some of my plot and character ideas in to fred now.
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Question: Why the move to TerPulse and the removal of flak turrets on the new generation capital ships? Rule of cool? Are the TEVs trying to get away from ammo dependency?
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Flak weapons are pretty awesome, and I suspect that this is not a move which has been greeted with universal adoration on the part of warship designers or commanders. But one major weakness they have is that they are **** against warheads, whereas pulse weapons are excellent. TEI designers likely wanted tighter anti-warhead defense, relying on AAAs and escorts to kill the launch vehicles.
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Pulse weapons would be excellent against warheads if they didn't have $FoF in their table. They're not much better than flak at that. Still much better at fighter killing than Heavy Flak though.
PDTerPulse doesn't have the FoF problem, but it's never used. Presumably a WiH2 weapon. It appears to be a GTVA Khatvanga equivalent, with lower damage, a rate of fire of 5 shots per second, and a range of 1800m.
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Morgan Technologies and the Sahr Corporation are still working to lock down the magnetic bottle on the larger pulse weapons. The PDTerPulse is a low-damage but highly accurate variant first deployed en masse for use in minelayers.
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Morgan Technologies and the Sahr Corporation are still working to lock down the magnetic bottle on the larger pulse weapons.
But is this something they'll achieve before BP3?
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In my opinion, it's hard to beat Long Range Flak. 4k meters and a fast rate of fire still knocks down warheads and strips off shields and armor beyond maxim range, even with the low per shot damage and a $FOF. I figured that the drawback would be needing to resupply with cargo containers full of ammunition after every little engagement. Kinda like autocannons vs ppcs in battletech.
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The new model is fine. If you want to make it look even older, then just leave it unpainted, like the Deimos and Aeolus skin, though that is not necessary I think.