Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: CT27 on December 05, 2012, 04:51:11 pm
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Judging by some of the comments I've seen, a number of people think the Aeolus cruiser was better than the Hyperion. What does the GTVA gain by producing the Hyperion; also, would it have been better to make more Aeolus cruisers instead to fight the UEF?
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There's been a thread about it some time ago, it's got it's uses.
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maybe they're surprisingly cheap
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With two next-gen blue beams (yes, SBlues but still blue beams) and presumably the meson reactor to power them? They can't be as cheap as an Aeolus with two SGreens and a standard fusion plant.
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With two next-gen blue beams (yes, SBlues but still blue beams) and presumably the meson reactor to power them? They can't be as cheap as an Aeolus with two SGreens and a standard fusion plant.
Cheaper to crew them, quicker to build them than larger craft. Would also make use of shipyard capacity that can't build larger ships. Cruisers might fit into a bad slot tactically if you believe FS2 (and you probably shouldn't) but they do have a lot of advantages from a logistical standpoint.
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They are about as useful as a Lilith. Good for support, bad for anything else.
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We're comparing the Hyperion cruiser to the Aeolus cruiser, not Hyperions to Chimeras. Cruisers will always have inferior anti-capital ability compared to a corvette (unless you're the Lilith with an LRed) so they really need to be built as cheap fighter-suppression units, and its debatable as to whether or not the Hyperion is cost-effective in that area compared to the Aeolus.
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They are about as useful as a Lilith. Good for support, bad for anything else.
Uh but Liliths are unbelievably good
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Yeah Liliths pretty much do anything extremely well.
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I wouldn't say liliths are good a killing fighters.
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We're comparing the Hyperion cruiser to the Aeolus cruiser, not Hyperions to Chimeras. Cruisers will always have inferior anti-capital ability compared to a corvette (unless you're the Lilith with an LRed) so they really need to be built as cheap fighter-suppression units, and its debatable as to whether or not the Hyperion is cost-effective in that area compared to the Aeolus.
Assumption: that the GTVA does not have a need for warm bodies with blue beams, no matter the size.
Answer: there are 80 goddamn Sathanas out there somewhere, the GTVA needs all the blue beams it can get its hands on.
The Hyperions are more than capable of basic ship defense, and the GTVA has largely proved able to confront Shivan fighter attack when the chips are down. It does, however, have a desperate need for all the anticapital firepower that can be scraped together. The Hyperion fills a gap in the yard sizes that can turn out new warships and the ability to build and crew them quicker than larger ships makes them attractive for the short-term needs of the GTVA, particularly if Capella meatgrindered their fleets.
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Hyperions have a pretty good fighter screen - nearly Aeolus good, they're about as effective at taking down large targets as a wing of bombers, and they're capable of assisting in a shock jump, and they're very tough cruisers to boot! Also, taking down light cruisers would probably be a good use for them as well.
Edit: Although not strictly canon, if you played any of the HW:BP demo, you'd know that one of the easiest winning strategies is just to buy all Hyperions - they're cheap enough to buy in bulk and they have surprising firepower for their cost. Obviously Chimeras last longer, but they're relatively expensive
PPS I will say that I honestly think that cruisers are going to be exponentially cheaper than corvettes which are going to be exponentially cheaper than destroyers - simply because of the volume of materials required. For instance if a Hyperion costs 1 million Tev Credits to build, than a corvette will be 10 mil, and a destroyer 100 mil. I believe ( though I could be wrong ) that a similar principle applies to real world naval ships - not that an ultra advanced stealth destroyer doesn't have the ability to cost a lot, but it would have a tough time costing more than a super carrier and the size difference between those two classes is minuscule compared to FS scale. This is of course pure conjecture.
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What bothers me most about the Hyperion is that it's roughly twice the size of an Aeolus, despite featuring only small improvements in firepower and anti-warhead defense (though its pulse turrets do probably make a big difference in warhead defense).
After that, it's that the SBlue has a stupidly long fire-wait cycle, which combined with its modest damage per shot is a rather serious drawback. It would be much better off with a beam that fires twice as often but does half the damage per shot. It simply doesn't have the power to conduct effective shock-jumps against anything above a light cruiser, and given the overkill tendencies of the MBlue and BBlue against most targets, they're best supplemented by light beams that fire more often at the expense of less damage per burst.
With regards to cost: it does seem rather odd that the Hyperion would be cheaper than the Aeolus despite being twice as large and many years newer (along with the redesign the Aeolus already got that brought production costs down, IIRC). Especially when it comes to shipyard space, isn't that a major problem?
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However bad the Hyperion's SBlues are, the Aeolus's SGreens are worse.
SGreens barely pose a threat to shipping with that stupidly low sustained DPS (less than a single goddamn subach)
The SBlue is like twice as good.
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I suspect the Hyperion has major advantages in terms of subspace manouverbility, compared to the Aeolus.
While we havn't had any information about the Aeolus subspace abilities, AoA shows that the Hyperion can do incredible feats in that regard.
That manouverbility would make them very well suited for luring the enemies into a position that allows optimal use of the bigger shockjumping ships.
Of course that doesn't really work against UEF - with all their omni-directionally firing torpedoes they don't need to turn towards the cruisers to destroy them - but against the Shivans with their forward firing beams, it might be very usefull. And the Hyperion was designed as part of the specialized anti-shivan ships.
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I suspect the Hyperion has major advantages in terms of subspace manouverbility, compared to the Aeolus.
While we havn't had any information about the Aeolus subspace abilities, AoA shows that the Hyperion can do incredible feats in that regard.
Good point, actually. It would give cruiser-sized ships far more flexibility and viability in modern combat; their relatively frailty is made up for by their ability to get the hell out of dodge when things get too dangerous.
That manouverbility would make them very well suited for luring the enemies into a position that allows optimal use of the bigger shockjumping ships.
Of course that doesn't really work against UEF - with all their omni-directionally firing torpedoes they don't need to turn towards the cruisers to destroy them - but against the Shivans with their forward firing beams, it might be very usefull. And the Hyperion was designed as part of the specialized anti-shivan ships.
Eh...perhaps, but I'm a little skeptical. It assumes that the Shivans would never adapt to such a simple baiting method, and that the Hyperion's threat-level is sufficiently high to force a response even when a trap is suspected.
The Hyperion is actually rather well suited for fighting the UEF. While its AA capability is perhaps not as good as the Aeolus, it has far better warhead intercept capability--and the UEF loves its torpedo spam. Its SBlue's are not a big threat to Sanctus-and-up ships, but they're great for harassment and rapid raids on infrastructure and rear-line areas. Their range helps tremendously, and their slow ROF is offset by its high burst-DPS being enough to wreck the comparatively fragile rear-line and infrastructure targets. When facing warships, their firepower is valuable as a supporting element for corvette- and destroyer-level firepower--they can help to knock small chunks off of the health of a Karuna from range (even better if from the flanks) while the Kaurnas are tied up with bigger concerns. That dynamic requires good coordination though, and it's still not much more than harassment.
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Eh, cruisers are fodder, it's best to consider cruisers working in a partnership, although this didn't happen much in canon, it's obvious which cruisers are better when you jump them in together.
Liliths' are okay because their PD turrets are decently fast (the shivan ones are far better then the FS2 GTVA ones), the fish launchers are somewhat effective against the AI, and the LRED is cool.
Aeolus are better, actually, because of the flak screen along with the better AAA coverage, the SGreens allow it to do a little bit of anti capital ship damage, but that's not really what a cruiser is there for.
The Hyperion - I must admit I haven't seen working in a pair, but as you see in BP, if it's deployed in a tactical fashion it can be very useful.
Frankly though they're all way too easy to disarm if they're solo, or even supported at a distance by other fighters/capital ships, they all need close support and a lot of attention.
Edit; I should also drop a note in here... Cruisers tend to be more fun to play around, they change the game(mission) dynamic faster than any other vessel, they shift player focus and priority on arrival, and thus have the most impact on your play.
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Call me crazy, but the main problem with most cruisers is that :v: made a right botch up of weapon balancing in FS2, the SGreen is ridiculously weak. It needs to have almost triple the power to make it effective. I bet if you asked Volition staff now they'd probably agree they made a mistake
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I can think of nothing more disruptive to a sense of verisimilitude than a well-balanced set of weapons systems.
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Quite.
Ships being different (LRed -> Lillith, for example) makes them more distinctive in the mission beyond how their polygons look too.
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Weapons in the real world aren't balanced. Neither are factions. Imbalance makes fictional worlds feel more real.
This is essentially why I can't get into most 4X games.
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I concur, in example Command and Conquer Generals: Zero hour.
EA, in its efforts to balance the game, made it possible for a two hundred dollar GLA (terrorist scum with virtually zero advanced hardware) stinger site be able to easily shoot down f-117 nighthawks. I pretty much stopped playing any games that had the USA and GLA in them simultaneously at that point.
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I concur, in example Command and Conquer Generals: Zero hour.
EA, in its efforts to balance the game, made it possible for a two hundred dollar GLA (terrorist scum with virtually zero advanced hardware) stinger site be able to easily shoot down f-117 nighthawks. I pretty much stopped playing any games that had the USA and GLA in them simultaneously at that point.
But that's hilarious and awesome and at least in general true to the Nighthawk's weaknesses (really basic zero advanced hardware)
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Oh god let's not get into Zero Hour....
Stealth Comanches is all I need to really say. I don't care how good your stealth capabilities are versus radar, no soldier is ever going to have trouble hearing/seeing a goddamned attack helicopter sneaking up on them...
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Their commander would have to be some sort of tactical genius (http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/4544432/) or something.
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Oh I loved spamming SCUD Storms, Nukes and
Ion Particle Cannons on that game.
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i find it strange what command and conquer fans fixate on as too far unrealistic.
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Well the F-117 probably can't be tracked by crappy shoulder launched rockets from the 80's is what I'm saying.
I have to say though that Stealth comanches look awesome even when they are used against you. My friend used them against a bomb convoy I had heading to his base once, it looked glorious.
i find it strange what command and conquer fans fixate on as too far unrealistic.
Error: Cannot parse statement.
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Quite.
Ships being different (LRed -> Lillith, for example) makes them more distinctive in the mission beyond how their polygons look too.
In the Lilith's case, it also raises some rather jarring questions, like "How is the Lilith that impossibly good?", or "Why don't the Shivans just build Liliths as their mainstay warship?", or "How in the hell does this add up: like taking a Fenris, giving it the durability of a Deimos, giving it a BGreen, and not changing its appearance whatsoever?", or "Why is this one Shivan cruiser that is aesthetically identical to the Cain--weakest Shivan cruiser--undoubtedly better than every corvette, including Shivan ones, in almost everything?"
The SGreen's problem is its recharge cycle--in this case, it's not so much about balance as fun: the SGreen is often boring as hell because it only fires once in a blue moon. The LTerSlash, for all of its problems, is at least far more interesting to watch and play with.
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Undoubtedly better than any corvette?
I do believe there's a point at which you've gone too far espousing the Lilith's strengths. A Deimos will fairly wipe the floor with one, since those slash beams will take out the beam turret more often than not. Without the beam turret, a Lilith is exactly a longer lived Cain; useless.
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On an unrelated note, I always liked the Lilith's darker color. It's a little theory of mine that black/darker-colored Shivan capitals have reinforced armor plating, which is why the Lucifer and the Lilith have more HP.
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Undoubtedly better than any corvette?
I do believe there's a point at which you've gone too far espousing the Lilith's strengths. A Deimos will fairly wipe the floor with one, since those slash beams will take out the beam turret more often than not. Without the beam turret, a Lilith is exactly a longer lived Cain; useless.
Really? It's a relatively small target that's impossible to hit from the top. And those slash beams would have to take out that LRed fast; aren't the Lilith's turrets more durable than usual as well, given the Lilith's notable durability for a cruiser?
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Really? It's a relatively small target that's impossible to hit from the top. And those slash beams would have to take out that LRed fast; aren't the Lilith's turrets more durable than usual as well, given the Lilith's notable durability for a cruiser?
The beam turret is impossible to hit from above. Ok. Can't fire at targets above, either. So the angles from which that turret can't be hit are the same as those it can't itself cover. Explain how that's a strength.
That turret isn't small either. If you can see it, it's actually quite easy to hit, especially from the bottom. A Sobek will kill a Lilith quite easily in 1v1.
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That turret isn't small either. If you can see it, it's actually quite easy to hit, especially from the bottom. A Sobek will kill a Lilith quite easily in 1v1.
FRED testing says no.
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Not sure about the idea of testing capital ships against eachother in a 1on1 vacuum environment...
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Not sure about the idea of testing capital ships against eachother in a 1on1 vacuum environment...
It wasn't entirely a vacuum; I actually tried to deliberately slant it for the Sobek by giving it a waypoint sequence that would take it under the Lilith at angles giving the best shots and ensuring it would have the use of both beams (assuming they were still working). The Lilith didn't move.
But the slashers are just too unpredictable in action to reliably strike the LRed and cripple the Lilith without blatant abuse of sexps.
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Really? It's a relatively small target that's impossible to hit from the top. And those slash beams would have to take out that LRed fast; aren't the Lilith's turrets more durable than usual as well, given the Lilith's notable durability for a cruiser?
The beam turret is impossible to hit from above. Ok. Can't fire at targets above, either. So the angles from which that turret can't be hit are the same as those it can't itself cover. Explain how that's a strength.
That turret isn't small either. If you can see it, it's actually quite easy to hit, especially from the bottom. A Sobek will kill a Lilith quite easily in 1v1.
The Lilith maneuvers to give its LRed just enough of an angle to fire on its target. As soon as the beam shot ends, it maneuvers back so that the LRed is impossible to hit (being covered by the rest of the ship's hull). Rinse and repeat. Not fool-proof by any means, but it just tips the balance more in its favor.
Either way, the *best* case scenario is that the attack-oriented corvette with heavy anti-warship firepower disarms the Lilith's LRed before its health falls below 45%. Assuming the Lilith isn't able to jump out before it eventually gets destroyed, that's still a single, small cruiser giving a powerful, heavy-firepower corvette in its intended role a serious thrashing, by itself. No other cruiser in the game comes anywhere near that level of performance, and for good reason: it's like mounting a BGreen on a Leviathan--it's hugely disproportionate firepower for its size, type, and design.
I've always found the Lilith's LRed to be very dubious. Their Finest Hour is notorious for its major...errors, intentional or not, that really distort the performance of most ships present. The Colossus is completely unable to move (then how'd it even get there in the first place?), none of the Allied warships are allowed to use their beams because the beam-free-all cue comes just BEFORE they show up, and the *only* Lilith in FS2 appears with a beam cannon so powerful that it makes the Ravana a master of shock-jumping despite mounting only two of them and being a glass cannon in general--is it not possible that the only Lilith in FS2 was given an LRed for that mission so that it could 'clean up' the allied cruisers before the main focus of the mission (the Colossus's final battle) comes into play? Isn't it rather odd that the Lilith's tech description (not to mention its references in the rest of the game and mission) makes no mention of a heavy, destroyer-level beam cannon, but goes into detail about its incredible armor?
To me, the Rakshasa feels a lot more like the ideal, iconic Shivan cruiser--heavy forward firepower, modest point-defenses and durability, and entirely attack-oriented. Its firepower of 3 SReds is notably dangerous, but it doesn't scream 'a small cruiser-sized destroyer, sans fighterbay' like the Lilith's LRed.
With regards to the Hyperion: yes, the SBlue is a notable improvement over the SGreen; I'd say its best distinction is that it's a viable, light anti-ship weapon--whereas the SGreen isn't really good enough to practically serve in that role. To be honest though, if it were possible to swap out the SBlue's in order to upgrade the STerPulse turrets to TerPulse turrets, it would probably make the Hyperion significantly better in both the AA, escort, and supporting anti-shipping roles.
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Not sure about the idea of testing capital ships against eachother in a 1on1 vacuum environment...
It wasn't entirely a vacuum; I actually tried to deliberately slant it for the Sobek by giving it a waypoint sequence that would take it under the Lilith at angles giving the best shots and ensuring it would have the use of both beams (assuming they were still working). The Lilith didn't move.
But the slashers are just too unpredictable in action to reliably strike the LRed and cripple the Lilith without blatant abuse of sexps.
Nono, I just meant without fighter support/etc
Cruisers always struck me as fast attack vessels(FS2), or fighter screen/support ships(FS1)
I have no problem with the idea that something with an lred would butcher a corvette of any FS2 era description
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The Lilith maneuvers to give its LRed just enough of an angle to fire on its target. As soon as the beam shot ends, it maneuvers back so that the LRed is impossible to hit (being covered by the rest of the ship's hull). Rinse and repeat. Not fool-proof by any means, but it just tips the balance more in its favor.
So in your scenario, only the Lilith is allowed to maneuver? See, now you're just proving how silly it is to make comparisons like this. Maybe in the future, we'll see that beam cannon replaced with some sort of MRed, but right now, the Lilith is a heavily armored mobile cannon that will get shredded by a decent bomber wing or completely defanged by one Perseus mounting a bank of Trebs. Hell, the Lilith is probably the Shivan ship the UEF would have the easiest time with (apart from the terrible Cain).
The Rakshasa is in the same camp as the Moloch in that it looks like Volition had no idea what they wanted to do with the ship, so its armament is all over the place. If the Shivans show up in R2 or BP3, I hope its loadout might be looked at.
It wasn't entirely a vacuum; I actually tried to deliberately slant it for the Sobek by giving it a waypoint sequence that would take it under the Lilith at angles giving the best shots and ensuring it would have the use of both beams (assuming they were still working). The Lilith didn't move.
But the slashers are just too unpredictable in action to reliably strike the LRed and cripple the Lilith without blatant abuse of sexps.
Perhaps you're right. I should have tested more than once, because the Sobek destroyed the LRed fairly quickly when I ran it.
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The Lilith maneuvers to give its LRed just enough of an angle to fire on its target. As soon as the beam shot ends, it maneuvers back so that the LRed is impossible to hit (being covered by the rest of the ship's hull). Rinse and repeat. Not fool-proof by any means, but it just tips the balance more in its favor.
So in your scenario, only the Lilith is allowed to maneuver? See, now you're just proving how silly it is to make comparisons like this. Maybe in the future, we'll see that beam cannon replaced with some sort of MRed, but right now, the Lilith is a heavily armored mobile cannon that will get shredded by a decent bomber wing or completely defanged by one Perseus mounting a bank of Trebs. Hell, the Lilith is probably the Shivan ship the UEF would have the easiest time with (apart from the terrible Cain).
Any maneuvering on the part of the Lilith actually decreases its combat performance. It's LRed discharges continuously, which is why it has such a good sustained DPS. Breaking that continuous fire is suboptimal deployment. The Lilith works best beaming constantly until either something destroys its turret or something explodes.
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It can always manoeuvre in such a way that it keeps its target in the fof of the LRed while it's trying to leave the fof of enemy beam turrets. It's not so hard.
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Yes but there is no "maneuvering back so that the LRed is impossible to hit as soon as the beam shot ends" as Salty suggests unless you want to actually gimp the Lilith's power (the beam shot doesn't end for all intents and purposes)
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With regards to the Hyperion: yes, the SBlue is a notable improvement over the SGreen; I'd say its best distinction is that it's a viable, light anti-ship weapon--whereas the SGreen isn't really good enough to practically serve in that role. To be honest though, if it were possible to swap out the SBlue's in order to upgrade the STerPulse turrets to TerPulse turrets, it would probably make the Hyperion significantly better in both the AA, escort, and supporting anti-shipping roles.
The Hyperion is literally stated to be a notable improvement over every other cruiser the Tevs have (that we know of)!
The Hyperion combines the anti-fighter capabilities and speed of the Aeolus and the armor of the Leviathan. . . . The Hyperion is rapidly filling the ranks of the GTVA, phasing out earlier cruiser models.
I have no difficulty thinking that an Aeolus - story-wise would not have survived all the same things the GTC Duke did in AoA. Also, Terpulse weaponry is only carried by destroyers in game. I guess I'm slightly bewildered by why you would look at the plot line that either :v: or the BP team came up with and decide, with certainty, that everything that is stated in game must not be true because "it's twice the size of the Aeolus."
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TerPulse has a DPS against armor that approaches MBlue levels (455). It's a ridiculously powerful weapon. And even without the balance considerations, the turrets are way too big to fit on a Hyperion.
I can see replacing the SBlues with TerPulse in a sort of close assault variant, and Flak being interchangeable with STerPulse (on TEI ships), but replacing STerPulse with TerPulse? Not a chance in hell.
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TerPulse has a DPS against armor that approaches MBlue levels (455). It's a ridiculously powerful weapon. And even without the balance considerations, the turrets are way too big to fit on a Hyperion.
I can see replacing the SBlues with TerPulse in a sort of close assault variant, and Flak being interchangeable with STerPulse (on TEI ships), but replacing STerPulse with TerPulse? Not a chance in hell.
Woah, really? I guess it's tempered by its much shorter range and its prioritization of incoming warheads and enemy craft.
As for the other post: I'm not saying it's 'wrong', just that there is something of a disconnect between what it's said to be like and what it actually is, mainly in the area of size. Being twice the size of the ship it's meant to replace for the same role and general capabilities is quite odd, especially if one considers cruisers to be cheap, easily mass-produced, and expendable. The Aeolus, for all of its flaws (comparatively fragile, highly anemic pair of SGreens as its main anti-ship firepower, sub-par warhead intercept), is still an excellent cruiser in WiH due to how small, cheap, and flexible it is. The Hyperion sort of feels like the Sanctus in that its classification (and in some cases, effectiveness) doesn't quite match the size, numbers, and expendability of that classification. Only in this case, there's no peace-time-flexibility or age-of-design caveats to make the bizarre classification work well. Unlike the Sanctus, the Hyperion has a direct predecessor and they both fill the same role (roughly); it's a marked improvement over its predecessor, but not a huge leap forward...especially in light of it being twice the size, for a class of ship that is all about being small and widespread.
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Presumably it has a bunch of other advantages beyond direct combat capability that makes it worth its large size.
For example, the Duke was brought up.
Look how many consecutive jumps it was able to make with barely any cooldown in between. If it can jump quicker and more times it's more likely to survive.
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TerPulse has a DPS against armor that approaches MBlue levels (455). It's a ridiculously powerful weapon. And even without the balance considerations, the turrets are way too big to fit on a Hyperion.
I can see replacing the SBlues with TerPulse in a sort of close assault variant, and Flak being interchangeable with STerPulse (on TEI ships), but replacing STerPulse with TerPulse? Not a chance in hell.
Woah, really? I guess it's tempered by its much shorter range and its prioritization of incoming warheads and enemy craft.
As for the other post: I'm not saying it's 'wrong', just that there is something of a disconnect between what it's said to be like and what it actually is, mainly in the area of size. Being twice the size of the ship it's meant to replace for the same role and general capabilities is quite odd, especially if one considers cruisers to be cheap, easily mass-produced, and expendable. The Aeolus, for all of its flaws (comparatively fragile, highly anemic pair of SGreens as its main anti-ship firepower, sub-par warhead intercept), is still an excellent cruiser in WiH due to how small, cheap, and flexible it is. The Hyperion sort of feels like the Sanctus in that its classification (and in some cases, effectiveness) doesn't quite match the size, numbers, and expendability of that classification. Only in this case, there's no peace-time-flexibility or age-of-design caveats to make the bizarre classification work well. Unlike the Sanctus, the Hyperion has a direct predecessor and they both fill the same role (roughly); it's a marked improvement over its predecessor, but not a huge leap forward...especially in light of it being twice the size, for a class of ship that is all about being small and widespread.
Woah. . . woah. . . you think the Hyperion is the size of the Sanctus? You could fit ~ 3 Hyperions inside a Sanctus - it's also twice the length. For perspective the Aeolus is slightly more than half the size of the Hyperion voleume wise, and the Hyper's barely 20 meters longer.
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The Hyperion is designed with pulse weaponry in mind, so is somewhat future-proofed to allow for pulse cannon and blue beam refinements. The future is blue! Flak is so Reconstruction-era!
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Pffft! We all know the future is insta-reload AAAs and missiles that open portals to the hearts of stars. :P :V
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The Hyperion is the size it is because that's how ****ing big
esarai Stratcomm made it when he first modeled it and thought it looked good that way. The devs have made a reasonable effort to explain how it stacks up against other ships and why, but they're just working with what they have to try and tell a good story, not constructing some sterile and perfectly balanced fleet from scratch.
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Hyperion is a Stratcomm model.
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TerPulse has a DPS against armor that approaches MBlue levels (455). It's a ridiculously powerful weapon. And even without the balance considerations, the turrets are way too big to fit on a Hyperion.
I can see replacing the SBlues with TerPulse in a sort of close assault variant, and Flak being interchangeable with STerPulse (on TEI ships), but replacing STerPulse with TerPulse? Not a chance in hell.
Woah, really? I guess it's tempered by its much shorter range and its prioritization of incoming warheads and enemy craft.
Yeah, really. Some times ago, I tabled on a "capship-mounted maxim" for my mod. It was supposed to be mounted on the Hecate's big flak turrets, so I wanted it to be quite powerful. A while later, as I was looking through BP's weapon tbms, I discovered that this "mass driver" weapon was actually slightly weaker than the TerPulse in terms of DPS (it does 5 more damage per shot, but fires a little slower). My anti-capship weapon was roughly equivalent to a weapon that was capable of firing at strikecrafts.
The TerPulse is an amazingly powerful and versatile weapon. It mows down bombers and light warships with ease, wastes any fighter in 2 to 4 shots and provides a steady stream of damage against larger warships.
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The STerPulse is also quite effective against smaller warships. It slightly outdamages the SBlue in terms of DPS, and it seems to have a lower energy cost (considering that the Hyperion mounts 5 of them). With FS's standard crappy warship maneuvers the Hyperion can even take down a Cain without its SBlues, although I'n not sure how it would go if the Cain had a decent waypoint path.
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Oh! Another potential advantage of the Hyperion that hasn't been covered! It doesn't have flak magazines that might ignite in battle conditions. Considering that a Hecate had that problem earlier in WiH, I imagine an Aeolus under fire must be under considerable threat in terms of magazine explosions.
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Woah. . . woah. . . you think the Hyperion is the size of the Sanctus? You could fit ~ 3 Hyperions inside a Sanctus - it's also twice the length. For perspective the Aeolus is slightly more than half the size of the Hyperion voleume wise, and the Hyper's barely 20 meters longer.
No, no. I was comparing the Hyperion's oddity of its size being (seemingly) disproportionately larger than its designation and cost suggests with that of the Sanctus. The Sanctus works fine because it has several major caveats, especially the fact that it sort of doubles as a military freighter. The Hyperion is intended to replace the Aeolus, but is roughly twice as large while basically being an 'Aeolus except moderate improvements in firepower and point defense'.
Also, about the TerPulse: yes, it is indeed a great weapon, but its effectiveness against warships is strongly limited by its range. Considering they're only mounted on destroyers (so far), and that beam cannons of even FS2-era greatly outrange that, it's kind of rare for TerPulse turrets to engage warships at all. I suppose it does give me an idea: what if it had two fire modes--its current one for point defense and close-range anti-ship armament, and a second fire mode that has a significantly increased range but significantly decreased fire rate or damage per shot as a trade-off (and either increased FOF factor or being limited to only targetting warships and instillations)?
And about the Hecate having a problem with flak magazine breaches in WiH--when does that happen? If it only happens after the ship has taken a heavy beating, then isn't it rather like any other structural vulnerability (like a reactor breach, which is a far bigger concern on most Alliance warships given how many meson reactors they have for their various beam cannons and other functions)? A ship can't really be expected to avoid such secondary damage after sustaining such a heavy beating unless it's pretty much a durability specialist. Of course, pulse turrets are *probably* safer in that respect than flak guns, but look at the Aeolus--it's like half flak guns and still a rough match for a Leviathan in terms of durability.
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TerPulse has a range of 2.4km which is pretty decent for shooting at warships
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TerPulse has a range of 2.4km which is pretty decent for shooting at warships
Perhaps, but when mounted on a destroyer? Their ability to outrun and hunt down smaller, faster ships in a practical fashion seems questionable in most situations. One of the biggest advantages the Raynor and Titan have is that their heavy beams have such great range; throwing away such a massive range advantage so that your TerPulse turrets can be brought to bear at all seems a little...counterproductive, maybe? It seems to work great in a defensive fashion when ships are attacking them up close, but beyond that it seems odd.
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The TerPulse wouldn't be very interesting if it just performed like a beam cannon, though. It has its own tactical role.
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It would probably miss at long range anyway, considering its built-in inaccuracy.
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It would probably miss at long range anyway, considering its built-in inaccuracy.
That'd be interesting to test vs large (destroyer grade) targets.
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*goes off to test it in FRED*
The TerPulse can still hit destroyers with a reasonable amount of accuracy 7 KM away (I changed its range, obviously). Some ships will be more affected than others--for example, a Demon gets hit by most of the shots, but a Ravana dodges a significant number of them.
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At 7km the firing cone is around 90m wide, more than accurate enough to consistently hit a destroyer.
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The Hyperion was one of the first TEI ships to go into production, and as such (I assume) it was more of a testbed for next-generation capital ship weaponry then a frontline combatant. However, think of this logically. The Hyperion, in comparison to the Aeolus, has the following advantages:
* Increased Automation: The Hyperion likely requires less crew to operate, just going by how technology advances in ~30 years/however big the time gap is
* Shrinking the Supply Line: The Hyperion makes use of no kinetic weaponry, and as such does not need to be constantly rearmed as an Aeolus would.
* Efficiency: The Hyperion likely makes use of a revamped power grid, allowing for more powerful weapons/jump drives
* Increased Subspace Maneuverability: Again, borrowing from various tech entries/canon writing, the Hyperion likely features a next-generation jump drive allowing more frequent jumps
* Weapons Platform: The Hyperion's advanced power grid obviously allowed various new weapons technology to be installed and field-tested during the TEI's early days.
All-in-all, the Hyperion seems to be a superior weapon in terms of ship-ship combat, strike capability, and patrol capabilities but the slightly decreased AA capabilities leave the Aeolus as the superior sentry IMO. This seems to be congruent with the GTVA's general shift towards Shivan tactical mechanics, handing off increased AA responsibility to strike craft in exchange for the heavier capital-grade armaments seen on newer ships.
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It also looks a lot like a Taidaani destroyer, so that's cool.
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A butchered Taiidan destroyer, that is. And it's bloody hideous, too.
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The Hate Brigade strikes again...
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Yes. :pimp:
We will make the GTVA AND the UEF fleets feel so bad about themselves they'll leave their posts and take a vacation - while the Shivans set ALL the backgrounds from Pretty to Seizure-Inducing! :drevil:
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This is thread is under GTVA jurisdiction as per the Antares Convention, 2381. You posses no authority here Shivans. ;)
On topic: I though the Duke managed to do all those extra jumps because the Vishnans were keeping the ship from asploding?
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Based on what we've seen in Blue Planet so far, I'd say we have a pretty good idea what exactly the Hyperion is and why exactly it is useful.
The Hyperion isn't meant to be a hard target assault platform, unlike the Chimera, Bellerophon, and Titan warships with their devastating forward firepower, despite their frontal cannon configuration. During the forced entry of the unknown Knossos portal in N362, the Hyperions were used to spearhead the assault - destroying the formidable, and similarly equipped and sized Rakshasa class combatants and waves of fighters, before more valuable and more in demand assets ran the gauntlet. In this sense we see Hyperion combatants used similarly to the Aeolus - as anti-fighter gunboats, only with the added advantage of being effective against similarly scaled opponents. During the destruction of the Sathanas class warship by elements of the 14th battlegroup ("A Time For Heroes"), not the Bretonia, Duke, nor Persephone participated in the direct assault. It can be safely presumed they which they were escorting the logistics ships Solace and Fortune - they would have been, in fact, the only vessels escorting the fragile logistics ships.
We have seen them used successfully supplementing the firepower and area defense of large fleet maneuvers - the Elissa and Utica both participated in the attack on Artemis station, and the captain of the Nelson even ordered his fighter charges to ". . .spearhead our assault against the Tev cruisers. Punch a hole for us to the Atreus." - the cruisers were suggested to pose a serious threat to a Karuna class battle frigate- a vessel that must surely be the mass of four Hyperions.
We have also seen the Hyperions class Courage and Novikov destroy the Bandersnatch, a soft target. They completed their mission without escort, using only energy based weapons in an environment where nearly all deploy-able assets were deployed - in short, doing the job of several wings of bombers, under the cover of a significant and effective anti-fighter screen. There is an excellent chance that they even completed their mission at much less expense than an equivalent force of bombers would have. Hyperions, in other words, can perform the task of assaulting soft targets - be they space stations, freighters, or gas miners, more than adequately, while sill leaving the big guns of larger assets free to destroy imminent and hard armored dangers. We have seen the Hyperion combatant fall short once, during the defense of the GTL Agincourt, when it was confronted with two full squadrons of Federal fighters and two Karuna frigates - during the fighting a Chimera corvette, a combatant who's utility has almost never come under question, also fell to overwhelming force.
In contrast we have seen Aeolus' in only one role in the Blue Planet saga, that is the role of anti-fighter gunboat. The Cho, during the assault on the Akula and Ranvir, offered little or no anti-capital firepower and failed to intercept three Uhlan fighters that made entry only a hundred meters from the vessel, a failure by most standards. The Essex and Ajax also fell easy victim to Federal fighter squadrons - during their escort of the destroyer Meridian. The jump-five assigned Norfolk definitely demonstrates that a fully prepared Aeolus combatant is easy prey to the federations Uriel squadrons. The Aeolus is not only a one trick pony, it is a one trick pony that is less than half as successful at its intended role as the Hyperion is at its own (larger) role.
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I though the Duke managed to do all those extra jumps because the Vishnans were keeping the ship from asploding?
As far as I understand it, the Vishnans could only controll the crew's minds, not the machines, thus no matter how advanced the Vishnans are, they can't run Terran hardware beyond their capability.
Imagine it like overclocking a processor. With expert knowledge you can go to the very limit of what the chip can take, but no matter how much you know, there will be a point where it just get's too hot without physical changes (like a stronger fan or liquid cooling, ect.).
So even with the Vishnans being responsible for the crew running the engines so hard they eventually burned out, they only did so after more jumps than are usually necessary to get in and even out of the battlezone. Now if you factor in something like 10% more time between jumps for cooling down the drives, you still end up with very fast jumps, most likely beyond anything the Aeolus can dream of.
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In contrast we have seen Aeolus' in only one role in the Blue Planet saga, that is the role of anti-fighter gunboat. The Cho, during the assault on the Akula and Ranvir, offered little or no anti-capital firepower and failed to intercept three Uhlan fighters that made entry only a hundred meters from the vessel, a failure by most standards. The Essex and Ajax also fell easy victim to Federal fighter squadrons - during their escort of the destroyer Meridian. The jump-five assigned Norfolk definitely demonstrates that a fully prepared Aeolus combatant is easy prey to the federations Uriel squadrons. The Aeolus is not only a one trick pony, it is a one trick pony that is less than half as successful at its intended role as the Hyperion is at its own (larger) role.
I concur with your assessment of the Hyperion, but this is just wrong. The Diomedes fails in 100% of the occasions we see it in the campaign, but I don't think anyone here would call it an ineffective warship, and they would be very, very wrong if they did. There are very few occasions where the Nyx actually accomplishes anything. Deimos next to none.
Every Aeolus we see in the campaign needs to be approached carefully. Or not at all, in the Cho's case. That one will kill you in no time at all if you don't get away from it at mission start (Standard Flak is horribly effective).
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well, technically the Medea (iirc) doesn't fail in Artemis Station... :nervous: [/nitpick]
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In contrast we have seen Aeolus' in only one role in the Blue Planet saga, that is the role of anti-fighter gunboat. The Cho, during the assault on the Akula and Ranvir, offered little or no anti-capital firepower and failed to intercept three Uhlan fighters that made entry only a hundred meters from the vessel, a failure by most standards. The Essex and Ajax also fell easy victim to Federal fighter squadrons - during their escort of the destroyer Meridian. The jump-five assigned Norfolk definitely demonstrates that a fully prepared Aeolus combatant is easy prey to the federations Uriel squadrons. The Aeolus is not only a one trick pony, it is a one trick pony that is less than half as successful at its intended role as the Hyperion is at its own (larger) role.
If we're going by specific instances, BP canon states that the Aeolus has had a fairly low casualty rate. What we see in R1 is simply a small part of a much longer and larger war.
The Aeolus has more (6) flak guns than the Hyperion has pulse cannons (5), that IIRC each deal more sustained damage (200) and have a wider field of fire. Also, flak is more accurate because of the area effect of its explosion and its higher ROF. Now, the Aeolus does have much worse blob turrets, but it's still not "less than half as successful" in an anti-fighter role.
That said, the Hyperion is better overall.
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Sorry for double posting, but I'm using my friend's computer that won't let me edit posts.
That Aeolus couldn't stop Laporte and her wingmen because the narrative required them to survive. That doesn't actually detract from the Aeolus's effectiveness.
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Sorry for double posting, but I'm using my friend's computer that won't let me edit posts.
That Aeolus couldn't stop Laporte and her wingmen because the narrative required them to survive. That doesn't actually detract from the Aeolus's effectiveness.
That's a fairly artificial distinction.
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I think it's still relevant, though. After all, the Imperieuse's forward cannons were guardianed in Delenda Est. That doesn't mean that invulnerable forward cannons are part of the Titan's standard capabilities.
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I guess what I mean is, Kassim and Brie were plot-guardianed (again, special circumstance), and Laporte survives only because she immediately runs away (and even then, getting killed is pretty easy). Since dying will cause you to fail the mission, survival is the only possible outcome in the narrative.
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Since you wont drop it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6qR22XCKFEE#t=42s
Aeolus are food (This is on insane), so much for 'approach carefully'! :P
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And you couldn't do this to a Hyperion? Or any other capital ship?
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And you couldn't do this to a Hyperion? Or any other capital ship?
11:25 @QuantumDelta • Almost all of the big ships have blind spots and approach paths that aren't suicide
11:26 @QuantumDelta • (The Aeolus is actually from behind but that missions start point is advanced enough to let you charge in)
Amusingly :P
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Short answer: There's always a way through the defences of any ship class. If there wasn't, if there was a ship class that was completely protected from fighter attacks, it would not be interesting.
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(Massive tangent) ....and you've just summed up why I hate the massive damage dynamic :P
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I concur with your assessment of the Hyperion, but this is just wrong. The Diomedes fails in 100% of the occasions we see it in the campaign, but I don't think anyone here would call it an ineffective warship, and they would be very, very wrong if they did. There are very few occasions where the Nyx actually accomplishes anything. Deimos next to none.
Every Aeolus we see in the campaign needs to be approached carefully. Or not at all, in the Cho's case. That one will kill you in no time at all if you don't get away from it at mission start (Standard Flak is horribly effective).
Fair enough.
EDIT:
Strikethroughed
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Since you wont drop it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6qR22XCKFEE#t=42s
Aeolus are food (This is on insane), so much for 'approach carefully'! :P
A tactic like that only works on a stationary target with no fighter or bomber escort. If the Cho had been moving/maneuvering, not only would your survival have been highly questionable, your ability to safely knock out its turrets would be...greatly diminished. Also, keep in mind that you (unlike any pilot in the UEF) know the Aeolus-class extremely intimately, have tons of experience fighting both alongside and against it, and even when you started almost right next to the cruiser (and slightly behind it), you still lost a third of your health just getting to its (small) blind spot.
Uriels can easily neuter ANY ship--particularly ones that aren't maneuvering--if they aren't attacked/harassed/countered by other fighters or capable warships. I assume this is why mass Treb spam is so effective against uncoordinated/mass Uriel tactics--they're either too busy evading or too busy dying, and even a few interceptors can get into the fray with major results in that scenario.
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About the awesome post about the Hyperion a bit above: very good points. Yes, the Hyperion-class cruisers are sufficiently threatening (though probably only when faced in numbers of 2-on-1 or worse) as a screening element. However, the Nelson's decision to prioritize (or even focus on at all) the few Hyperion cruisers over, say, the pair of Chimera corvettes and the freaking Atreus itself is a little baffling. Hyperions simply can't be that much of a threat in that situation--there isn't enough time to deal the damage needed to stop a Karuna/Sanctus ramming charge in its tracks. Given that even a Karuna would be significantly outranged by the Atreus alone, it's a tad odd that the Nelson would divert any attention or effort away from his central goal of ramming the Atreus when the Atreus would open fire with its spinal beam before the Hyperions could be engaged for very long. I have to concede that, in that situation, it's not like there were a whole lot of other potential targets within range (and between the Nelson and the Atreus), but why have your fighters (the only 'X factor' you have) focus on the cruisers instead of the big, powerful beam cannons that will totally gut you before you get close?
Anyway, the Aeolus is more than just an anti-fighter gunboat, but again, keep its size in mind. It is by far the most heavily armed Alliance cruiser in FS2, relatively agile, and impressively durable--with a size that is surprisingly comparable (*not* equal to) to a wing or two of bombers, for example. And the Cho's attack on the Ranvir wasn't really a failure--consider a wing, or even two wings of bombers in its place--Laporte's wing could have mowed them down in seconds, with the Ranvir taking minimal (if any) damage. Instead, Laporte's wing got banged up by flak and PDB fire, the Ranvir took at least two SGreens (not much, but every noticeable chunk helps, especially when the whole idea is a tag-team 'mob-the-frigates' strategy), and it even provides a fairly secure zone/corridor for friendly fighters/bombers to approach the Ranvir. If it gets in range to use its flak guns, its damage output would be a threat, if a minor one.
In general, cruisers aren't meant to be threatening elements if you focus them down (or are capable of ignoring them). They're a threat when you can't ignore them but you're busy dealing with X threat Y kilometers away, and if given enough time you'll take some rather inconvenient (or worse) damage from them. They're a threat when they're deployed as anchoring/supporting elements with other cruisers and strike craft, requiring significant attention and prompt action (a wing of bombers escorted by an Aeolus and a pair of interceptors is no joke). They're a threat when, due to their numbers, expendability, and mobility/flexibility, they can be deployed at most points in a battle at opportune positions.
The Hyperion is quite a bit better at standing on its own as a warship, granted, but unless its attacking a lightly defended, non-durable target, cruisers really shouldn't be used that way--it throws the potential synergy/combined arms effectiveness away and puts cruisers at huge risk from smaller threats.
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Since you wont drop it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6qR22XCKFEE#t=42s
Aeolus are food (This is on insane), so much for 'approach carefully'! :P
A tactic like that only works on a stationary target with no fighter or bomber escort. If the Cho had been moving/maneuvering, not only would your survival have been highly questionable, your ability to safely knock out its turrets would be...greatly diminished. Also, keep in mind that you (unlike any pilot in the UEF) know the Aeolus-class extremely intimately, have tons of experience fighting both alongside and against it, and even when you started almost right next to the cruiser (and slightly behind it), you still lost a third of your health just getting to its (small) blind spot.
Uriels can easily neuter ANY ship--particularly ones that aren't maneuvering--if they aren't attacked/harassed/countered by other fighters or capable warships. I assume this is why mass Treb spam is so effective against uncoordinated/mass Uriel tactics--they're either too busy evading or too busy dying, and even a few interceptors can get into the fray with major results in that scenario.
Fighter escort AND it moving would have just meant I'd have backed off and taken out the fighters first.
Fighter escort and it not moving would have meant I'd have just sat in that spot and shot them like a friendly fire turret.
No fighter escort and it moving would have made absolutely ZERO. Difference.
I lost a third of my health on my first try, with no support from friendlies, while not really dodging much flak on insane vs the hardest to assault cruiser in the game (Assuming you're not coming at it from the correct position, which I'm not).
What do you want? I can and have done that while keeping 100% HP, it's just faster to do it taking collision damage to stop yourself instead of looping lots inside the Aeolus. Dodging flak isn't THAT hard, it just requires a bit of fine throttle / directional control work, anyone can do it.
Trebs wont stop a player (sigh at the AIs handling of trebs..) getting to a target like that, it wont even slow them down (not even a fraction of a second if they're good) unless it's fired straight along their flightpath (which depending on the position of the enemy fighter could change things a fair bit).
If you're going to make a fairytale combat scenario where more assets were committed though, you would expect to see a bigger UEF response (IE; Not just Uhlans), the point behind that mission though is to see two valuable ships go splat, so it's 3vsAWHOLECRAPLOADOFSTUFF.
All you need is 1 minute in a simulator as a UEF pilot to see where the weak points are on all the smaller ships that you can do stuff to as a fighter, it's practically a no brainer.
Situations change in combat all the time, but the approaches and blindspots don't, if people are using trebs to upset you in a uriel, just position yourself between their capital ship and them and they'll be helping you out instead of hindering you.
If you wanna see what a Uriel can do in a 'more difficult', 'more like what you were trying to describe as an obstacle' then feel free to watch; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bOKVguQpaY and proceed to STFU.
The example given was how easily a single fighter, not equipped with anything in particular designed to take out turrets / capital ships neuters a cruiser and then continues on with the mission when everyone seems to respect them far too much. Capital ships are back ground noise used to tell the story, the good game play comes from dogfighting or tactical play amongst the dialogue and stage play (yea I count beams as stage play).
Uriel with a tiny bit of rear-guard back up maims entire fleet. Want to keep escalating?
The rest of your point is just copying the stuff that has been said earlier in the thread. Cruisers are Support fire / Attention grabbers as part of a theatre of operation, not roost rulers or stage setters, they're game changers and play makers.
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The idea that you represent the average combat pilot in FS and your exploits should be used to measure what they can do is hilariously hard to sustain, QD. The average pilot would be represented by an AI pilot, though of what level is probably open to debate. Players are singular, far outnumbered by AIs, and they are special. By their nature they are meant to represent some better, usually far better, than average.
So no, your video is pointless; your protestations of what the Uriel can do are pointless; we must proceed from what it will actually do in the game controlled by the average pilot, who in this case isn't represented by a human at all and thus neither you nor I nor Salty over there are actually valid examples.
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My first reaction to that was that I'm very concious that I tend to take my performance in the game for granted, and expect most (if not all) people who play to be capable of the same, and so feel the videos are roughly the equivalent of what one should expect from play once they have the tactics down... and, that I tend to be quite fervent when arguing from that position.
And, that what you say is correct, but having taken some time to think about it, and recall more and more of my multiplayer adventures... I can't agree.
While skill levels vary massively, and, even in a head-to-head a player may not be able to beat an insane level balls of steel AI, for example... they will always be /more useful/ than that AI, unless it's scripted ridiculously...
AI are blind to tactics and strategy, in so far as there are many tricks the player can use that the AI just cannot deal with, but a player would be able to just by sitting back for a split second and thinking about it (using a hostile cap ship to shield you from trebs for example, or even indeed dealing with someone who has done that), the AI only do what they have been told by the fredder, which usually is a very minimum required amount (guard this, attack this, disable this being the three fredded instructions that are used.. in fact if you went through all the campaigns written by V and the community, I wouldn't be too surprised to find that any one of those three commands outnumber all of the other commands put together (if you exclude manoeuvring for capships I guess?)) to make the AI be in the right sorts of places at the right times.
Mods like BP have gone through a fair amount of trouble to improve upon that and /still/ even the best of the AI doesn't approach the level of even a rookie pilot in terms of effect on the battle.
I can't subscribe to the theorum that the GTVA/UEF/Shivans/Whichever race your mod happens to use, should be represented by the entirely incapable AI... Perhaps my viewpoint is "skewed" by multi, but the multi missions always tend to play in a more engrossing fashion than even the /best/ mods, without even NEEDing a storyline to suck you in...
In such a foray, no matter how guarded (Even by other players!), All cruisers are fodder, but they demand immediate attention, either when used to defend an objective, or when used to attack / support an attack of an objective, they change the game. The display of the AI, however should most definitely not be taken as that of a 'standard' pilot. Even in BP :<
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The display of the AI, however should most definitely not be taken as that of a 'standard' pilot. Even in BP :<
The display of the AI must be inherently taken as standard when it appears, because it is literally everything that isn't the player. That is the very definition standard. The player is just as inherently not-standard by virtue of being the player.
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My viewpoint couldn't be more different, mostly because of multi.
While ingame tends to be taken as > fluff, the fluff almost always contradicts the AIs performances (read; related to any time a squadron or pilot(s) are singled out in missions).
Multi adds to that feel, especially in the coops where multiple "AI couldn't do this without massive scripting" roles, or TvTs where the players are attacking / defending capital ships.
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And therein lies your problem. Blue Planet is not a multiplayer mod, in and of itself. Applying multiplayer standards and definitions to it is inherently wrong, because it is not multi (and the multi project for BP isn't exactly the same thing).
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Question, QD: in multi, would eliminating the fighter cover of an Aeolus still be an afterthought the way you treated it earlier? You can't just use the limits of the ai to excuse the stupidity of friendly pilots.
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Yes and no, it depends on what tactic the enemy are using, most of the cruiser/corvette duels are 2 bomber 2 fighter, or all myrm or 3 myrm 1 eri (and the eri has maxim to strip away turrets from extreme range).
If both sides are all myrm then the most skilled pilot tends to get sent to run interference while the other 3 bomb, if 2 bomber 2 fighter, 1 fighter goes with 2 bombers 1 defends (does depend on what the other team are running but that was most successful unless they turtled up), and if you're running 3 myrm 1 eri you almost entirely ignore the opposing force no matter what they're running in the hopes you can burn their cruiser/corvette first.
Because of my play style I prefer to take out fighter cover first unless there's a time critical component to the mission, that actually applies in single player too, pull them away from their ship and then blat them to death.
There are people who much prefer to sit back at their ship and pull the enemy to them, and there are people who prefer to go all in and try to zerg stuff down.
Overall though, you can still do it.. you just have to be a lot more careful (If you hadn't guessed from the above I prefer the 2 fighter 2 bomber style, but it was extremely unpopular in squad wars because the bombers are so fragile and sluggish if your fighter pilots aren't up to the challenge the bombers /will/ end up deaded).