Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Andreas on December 22, 2004, 01:16:58 pm
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Post-Capella, shouldn't the GTVA replace their destroyed Colossus (:ick: ) with a sort of an inter-rim design, the GTD Hades. An excellent compromise between firepower and...um, firepower? After all, they must cost a lot less than a Colossus (obviously), and not much more then a Hecate or two, not to mention how much more effective a Hades is then a Hecate. And the GTVA's aging Orions must be replaced in near future. Your opinions?
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They need to steal more Shivan technology to make another hades.
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how did they make teh original one?
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Not necessarily. After all, with 30 years of technological advances, you would believe the GTVA could churn out another Hades.
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Originally posted by pecenipicek
how did they make teh original one?
For the sake of national security, that information is classified at the highest level.
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Too bad the GTI had to go bad.... The GTVA could have really learned a lot from the GTI.
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... why... would they make another one? The Hades was supposed to be a super-weapon of doom.
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Umm...against the Shivans, maybe?
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I don't think rebuilding the military is pretty high on their list at that point in time, quite frankly the GTVA may be pretty much bankrupt from relief for the Capellan refugees the cost of the colossus and the Knossos gate to Sol
Funds and Acquiring enough Shivan technology will be the main problems.
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Being bankrupt never stopped nations from building massive militaries before.
With a renewed Shivan threat, and a greater one at that, shoveling another trillion dollars (or whatever) into a new class of ships is not out of the question. What kind of ship, however, is the question.
Probably an improved version of the Colossus, as well as a general upgrade to the fleet (especially new weapons). After that, who knows?
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My personal guess is that the GTVA will happily pour money into their military...because that will help the economy via military contracts.
On the other hand, following experiences in the Nebular Campaign and the Battle of Capella, I think the Hecate-class is going to be one of those "This didn't work the way it was supposed to" things. It fends off multiple wings of hostile fightercraft pretty well, but the Hecate lacks the beam firepower to deal with corvette-sized targets (nevermind destroyers) quickly and decisively.
Either they'll turn to a new destroyer design, or they'll upgrade the Orion. I favor the second option at least for the first decade or two. The Orion is already pretty tough; replace the armor with collapsed-core molybendum, tinker with the turret armament, possibly add two or three more small turrets, and you have yourself a pretty good destroyer.
The Hades...the GTVA does have a copy of the technical specifications, minus the sheathe-shielding data, lying around somewhere. (Reference the last Silent Threat CB ani.) They might go for a slightly re-designed version of the Hades that uses mostly or wholly Terran technology. The basic design is certainly sound and can be copied with current GTVA technology.
On the other hand, I think the GTVA will also make an effort to copy the Iceni, which makes a nice substitute for a destroyer if you're not worried about carrying fighters.
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The GTVA built the Iceni...it's mentioned somewhere that the Iceni was stolen from the Polaris shipyards or something.
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It was built there by Bosch.
Of course, I have my theory that the Iceni (based on its decidely FS1 anti-fighter armament) was actually a discarded design idea from the Great War.
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I'd figure they wouldn't revive the Hades but they may draw a few technical inspirations from it.
The Hades as a design sort of sucks when you compair it to the Orion. Sure its bigger and meaner but its got alot of dead areas and weak spots. Less coverage of beam cannons too. Even the Hecate has some better elements.
I figure the Hecate was never designed to be the upfront battleship the Orions turned into. I wonder if they (in-game theoretically) spent more time making it the information/fighter/bomber hub of the fleet with the corvettes duking it out. The Hecat IS supposed to have a much larger fighter/bomber group...and fighters and bombers did determine most of The Great War battles.
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Hmmm.....
methinks the thing they'd want from the Hades would be super-lasers.
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Hades has a lot of blind spots on it's beam cannon coverage, but if you add a couple of beams into right places, it can take out a Demon and a Ravana quite easily without fighters or bombers (that is, if no enemy fighters/bombers are present either). And they carry a LOT of fighters (according to ST, they propably have an assembly line on that ship ;) ).
I never really understood the purpose of Hecates. If these ships are/were supposed to replace the Orions, then GTVA is/would have been royally screwed. You don't never see Hecates duking it out with...um about anything. Sure it might have more fighters then an Orion, but dear god, help if even a corvette engages it...:ha: Besides the Hecates are rather ugly. And propably made in Vasuda :o
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After the great war it was a time of experimentation with new technologies, many things came and went. Looks like the hecate was the latter.
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Originally posted by Ai No Koriida
Hades has a lot of blind spots on it's beam cannon coverage, but if you add a couple of beams into right places, it can take out a Demon and a Ravana quite easily without fighters or bombers (that is, if no enemy fighters/bombers are present either). And they carry a LOT of fighters (according to ST, they propably have an assembly line on that ship ;) ).
If you could add beams into those places, then they already would have :p
Originally posted by Ai No Koriida
I never really understood the purpose of Hecates. If these ships are/were supposed to replace the Orions, then GTVA is/would have been royally screwed. You don't never see Hecates duking it out with...um about anything. Sure it might have more fighters then an Orion, but dear god, help if even a corvette engages it...:ha: Besides the Hecates are rather ugly. And propably made in Vasuda :o
I agree with Icefire; I think the Hecate is a carrier and rear-of-line C&C rather than a ship-to-ship fighter. The Deimos - or rather strike groups of them - is probably aimed at harrying enemy capships along with bomber and fighter cover from said Hecate.
Offhand, how many missions were there with the Aquitane alongside the player? And how many of those were intentional? (i.e. not protecting a retreat or whatnot where the Aq. didn't have a choice whether to fight or not)
My objection to the Hecate simply rests on its hiedous ugliness.......
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Hecate's are rubbish at Anti-Capship attacks, play the mission when the Pegasus fighter is being tested when that Moloch jumps in Aquatine barely does any damage to it. slash beams were a rubbish idea (they have Stilettos). They should learn from the Shivans and use BGreens and SGreens more often.
Hades class ships would be rare there would probably like the Shadow Enhanced Omegas from B5
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Given the abject failure of the 'destroyer' concept since the development of uber-bombs and bombers, I agree with those who suggest a division between powerful combatants like the Cvs and escort carriers that stay at a distance and sub in fighters. The Deimos has (ridiculously) 80% the hp of destroyer-class vessels, so they are a complete waste of time, money and lives. Hecate is just too awful for words.
They need to move towards a less-complex design, like the famously successful 'flattened arrowhead' layout, to increase weapon flexibility, and create a class of smaller-than-cruiser ships for picket work with flak and AAA beams. Convert an Ursa to have a flak turret, perhaps? Strip off the bombs for more speed, and it'd make an excellent augment to a capships defence vs bombs.
Everyone SHOULD have learnt from horrible designs like Colin. A fleet of 3-4 Cvs protected by several 'gunships' for point defence would last much longer in combat vs both bombs and beams, and still have less than the volume of a single destroyer.
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A fleet of 3-4 cvs would be vulnerable to fighter & bomber attack, though; somewhere along the line you have to be able to transport, deploy and resupply escort fighters. If you look at a naval carrier, it's useless ship to ship. But it's still pretty much the most vital part of any fleet, ever since WW2.
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I hate to be rude, but my post specifically mentioned provision for AA defence. I realise I didn't mention an escort carrier for fighter support; but I was comparing vs cap performance. Even 3 cvs, an escort carrier, and a pile of flakboats would massively outperform an orion for only slightly more volume. And anyway, its cap v cap that GTVA large ships get pwned (because they suck), and several smaller vessels with escort is better. Debate! :)
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Naval carriers also have flak/aaaf defenses (several 'rings' of frigates, destroyers, etc which are also de-facto decoys); but they still rely upon a fighter screen for defense.
Anyways, flak is ineffective against any fighters with trebuchet-style missiles, and there's no way to judge if you can put enough flak turrets (bearing in mind that they appear to be ammo-based) on a standard sized ship to cover an entire convoy...... if you take, for example, a modified Ursa or even an all-flak equipped cruiser, they're still dead meat to any fighter/bomber with the right weapons - and if your AAAf escort, etc, gets disabled, you have a big problem.
(The problem with a fleet of specialised ships is that it leaves you very open to divide-and-conquer tactics)
And, of course, I think the sheer cost of having all those ships would be a problem; as well as duplicated core systems taking up cost (each ship needs its own reactor, arms dumps, life-support, sensors,etc; so no 'bulk value'), you've got a major issue in how you're going to find the docking space to repair or refit 4-6 ships instead of a single destroyer/carrier. And if your individual ships have less armour than said single ship - as they will do - you'll end up with a naturally higher chance of losing a ship or ships in engagements.
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Actually, the smaller ships will have MASSIVELY MORE hitpoints than single large ship, since Deimos has a ridiculously high amount of hp.
However, I at no point suggest a lack of fighters. I simply point out that destroyers are a total waste of time and are far to easily destroyed. If you lose a GTD, you lose it all; if you lose a Cv, who cares, you've got more. Who CARES what the chances of losing a single element of the fleet is; the point is that if you had one ship it'd ALL be gone, but with a diverse fleet, you've still got 80% left. The current CV + fighters fleet is utterly unrealistic, and you should know that since you're talking about realistic carrier battlegroups. I guess the USN doesn't know as much about building a single huge ship instead of a fleet as you, eh?
I wasn't aware that flakkers were ammo based, or that trebs don't get intercepted. I know Stilletos do; are you sure trebs don't?
The 'huge bomb' in FS has done to FS fleets what aircraft did to REAL fleets; they've made single huge warships an enourmous liability. The USN can afford to defend a supercarrier with a fleet larger than most other countries navies, because that's what they need to protect their investment. With subspace the carrier can be kept away from the scene of the battle.
Again, however, you've totally ignored the point that I was suggesting an improvement in the GTVAs derisory vs cap abilities. You can't say an Aoulus near a capital ship doesn't expand its survivability vs bombers and distract the enemy.
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I wanted to begin a thread like this a while ago....
incredible it was supposed to talk about a possible Hades Built after the Capella Supernova.....
and ended up talking about the future of the GTVA Fleet....what's the best things and stuffs....
i think that the GTVA's will evolve to smaller-tougher-powerful-rapid ships...like the Deimos... ... ... we need to speed for fast evacs...if we are supposed to continue with the 'Evac system-collapse jump nodes' strategy when we are being swarmed by the Shivans...(Like in Capella)
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Originally posted by Pnakotus
Actually, the smaller ships will have MASSIVELY MORE hitpoints than single large ship, since Deimos has a ridiculously high amount of hp.
But individually they will be weaker, so a large capship like a Ravana, or even a Sath, can concentrate its fire on a single one. Divide & conquer, after all; whilst a group has the advantage of being able to maneuver and flank, they are individually weaker and susciptible to problems if a single ship is disabled, disarmed or simply unable to communicate and co-ordinate.
Originally posted by Pnakotus
[BHowever, I at no point suggest a lack of fighters. I simply point out that destroyers are a total waste of time and are far to easily destroyed. If you lose a GTD, you lose it all; if you lose a Cv, who cares, you've got more. Who CARES what the chances of losing a single element of the fleet is; the point is that if you had one ship it'd ALL be gone, but with a diverse fleet, you've still got 80% left. The current CV + fighters fleet is utterly unrealistic, and you should know that since you're talking about realistic carrier battlegroups. [/B]
You can't fight the Shivans in a war of attrition;and you don't have an infinite amount of corvettes, or an infinite amount of repair & resupply depots for them either.
Yes, if you had 1 ship losing it would be a bigger loss than part of a corvette battlegroup; but you'd be operating at a reduced risk of losing that ship, because it is individually stronger (ignoring the relative fighter complements that a destroyer has and a light carrier might have).
And destroyers don't necesarrily operate at the front lines in FS anyways; they're carriers, they provide fighter coverage for a wide region. When I'm talking about realistic carrier battlegroups, I'm talking about a carrier relying upon other ships for ship-to-ship combat, and using its fighters and bombers for support of the fleet and its own defense; that's exactly how I think it works in FS2.
Originally posted by Pnakotus
[B I guess the USN doesn't know as much about building a single huge ship instead of a fleet as you, eh?[/B]
I was thinking of the aircraft carriers' role in the Falklands War, primarily; the Harriers air superiority was key in that operation, and the defense against Argentine exocets was key.
You may note i never suggested removing small ship classes, but simply not removing destroyers.
Originally posted by Pnakotus
[BI wasn't aware that flakkers were ammo based, or that trebs don't get intercepted. I know Stilletos do; are you sure trebs don't?
[/B]
I'm assuming[/b] flak is ammo-based because it looks like some form of fired explosive charge; there's a precedent for this in capships use of missiles.
Not all trebs would be intercepted; and you could use maxims to disarm a ship if push came to shove - flak simply isn't that useful. I think you'd need the less powerful long range flak
Originally posted by Pnakotus
[BThe 'huge bomb' in FS has done to FS fleets what aircraft did to REAL fleets; they've made single huge warships an enourmous liability. The USN can afford to defend a supercarrier with a fleet larger than most other countries navies, because that's what they need to protect their investment. With subspace the carrier can be kept away from the scene of the battle.[/B]
A destroyer is a carrier. It's just a carrier which is equipped to fight as well, because space is a more mobile battlefield. IIRC, it's very rare a (Terran) destroyer will voluntarily go into combat in FS2.
Originally posted by Pnakotus
[BAgain, however, you've totally ignored the point that I was suggesting an improvement in the GTVAs derisory vs cap abilities. You can't say an Aoulus near a capital ship doesn't expand its survivability vs bombers and distract the enemy. [/B]
No, but that applies to any ship posing a distraction anyways; transports, cruisers, corvettes, fighters, etc. I don't think that replacing capital ships with small fleets of specialised vessels will offer any actual improvement to the effectiveness of an entire fleet; for all the Hecates physical weaknesses, think of how many ships its fighter & bomber wings took out on the other side, and protected on the GTVA side.
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I think post-Capella, destroyers classes would be fast enough to Flank, enemy ship and take it out (Hunter killer's). Or Artillery class destroyer with one beam that is powerfull and has insane range.
or just build lots normal destroyers
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Mostly the GTVA's problem during FS2 was it's own arrogance in dealing with the Shivan's I mean they only sent 2 Fleets to deal with the shivans whoever was in command at that time should have been shot after Capella
Aeolus Cruisers while it has weak hull points is a very effective Anti-Fighter Capship they should replace the Fenris and Leviathan.
More Iceni Corvettes should be built as they were probably more effective at their role than Deimos's.
With the Sathanas threat known all existing and future destroyers should be fitted with Mlonjir Beams
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and 2 huge fleets should be permanently stationed at the Capella nodes, so If a Sath comes out, it sees a web of BFGreens and blows up!
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What Capella nodes? The nonexistant ones?
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BFGreens were on the overgrown stupid gun-lookalike garbage disposal ship..
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Originally posted by Janos
What Capella nodes? The nonexistant ones?
There are node connections between Epsilon Pegasi and Capella as well as Vega and Capella.
They have been destrabilized and rendered virtually useless to conventional subspace travel...but my theory is that they still exist. They just are not traversable.
Its like a road that now has a thousand potholes in it. Its still there...you just don't want to take a Honda Civic on it :D
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Originally posted by Janos
What Capella nodes? The nonexistant ones?
Ever heard of something called a Knossos, which the Shivans could make and point towards GTVA space.
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Oh dear...
The Knossos portals are not Shivan. They were built by The Ancients, and the Shivans had nothing to do with them - they just use the ones that are there.
Icefire: Interesting argument. I'm not sure I totally agree, but it's an interesting idea...
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Originally posted by kietotheworld
Ever heard of something called a Knossos, which the Shivans could make and point towards GTVA space.
But Knossos was not a Shivan construction (accoding to canon, but I believe they could build something similar) :confused: .
Oh, and IceFire had a point and I had forgot about that: Shivans can use more unstable nodes than GTVA forces.
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Originally posted by kietotheworld
Ever heard of something called a Knossos, which the Shivans could make and point towards GTVA space.
The fact that Capella is now an expanding cloud of gas at over 10,000 degrees and that it is likely to stay that way for hundreds of years might prevent that though.
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i agree with that.............and the GTVA knows that.....so they cancelled the destruction of the Nereid...(which was going to collapse the Vega-Capella node)
(i think...)
Everything in Capella was destroyed...and everything that enters there will be burnt in seconds...
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Originally posted by karajorma
The fact that Capella is now an expanding cloud of gas at over 10,000 degrees and that it is likely to stay that way for hundreds of years might prevent that though.
Or it might not. I doubt the GTVA will take any chances on the subject.
The Shivans have Knossos portals in their territory, which they could presumably copy if they so choose.
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I figure the Hecate was never designed to be the upfront battleship the Orions turned into.
I definatly agree with that. The description said it was replacing the Orion as FLAGSHIP, not replacing them all together. The Orions are just the "dirtywork" destroyers
Aeolus Cruisers while it has weak hull points is a very effective Anti-Fighter Capship they should replace the Fenris and Leviathan
They were supposed to, but then they were cancelled for some reason.
They should learn from the Shivans and use BGreens and SGreens more often.
SGreens are one of the most ineffective beams in the game. The problem with it is that it has a rediculously long 45 second recharge time. If they got it down to 7 or 8 then it might be feasible to use them more. They don't even do that much damage per cycle either, which makes the recharge time a major handicap. Even BFGreens have a quicker recharge time.
More Iceni Corvettes should be built as they were probably more effective at their role than Deimos's.
If it had better AAA coverage, I would agree. Derelict's GTFf Cypher is a good example of just how powerful they can be (although the Cypher had better AAA coverage).
With the Sathanas threat known all existing and future destroyers should be fitted with Mlonjir Beams
Mjolnir beams are just SGreens. Not much to be excited about really. Those things would barely scratch a Sathanas' hull armor.
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Originally posted by Kosh
Mjolnir beams are just SGreens. Not much to be excited about really. Those things would barely scratch a Sathanas' hull armor.
actualy mjnor beams are... well mjllnor beams, they are the most effective GTVA beam.
So yeah, mjlnorse arent Sgreens
(and speaking of wich, greenBeam is a great SGreen suplement)
reference:
http://home.att.net/~clay.h/fs2/beamfaq.htm
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I can't help but imagine the Knossos is more of a doorlock than a door........
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Originally posted by Kosh
They were supposed to, but then they were cancelled for some reason.
The Aeolus was cancelled because it was too damn expensive to produce. Now if I could only remember where I read that.
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^
Well actualy it's in implication, it said (i belive in the tech room) that the allience was retiring cruisers becasue corvettes were more cost efficient.
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Originally posted by karajorma
The Aeolus was cancelled because it was too damn expensive to produce. Now if I could only remember where I read that.
I've heard that repeatedly, but never found canon evidence to bear it out...the closest I've found is that on the official FS2 website they say the Aeolus was considered to be too underpowered to hold its own against other large ships. Which is, of course, complete and utter bull****...
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
I've heard that repeatedly, but never found canon evidence to bear it out...the closest I've found is that on the official FS2 website they say the Aeolus was considered to be too underpowered to hold its own against other large ships. Which is, of course, complete and utter bull****...
I read somewhere i think the Techroom that they only built two Dozen Aeolus's
What was the purpose of the Colossus anyway was it to combat the Shivans or was it a terror weapon to keep rebelling systems in line?
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its stated in the colossus animation. its supposed to defend the GTVA space from any future shivan threat...
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Originally from Inferno ships.tbl
"The Alcyone was brought into service by RNI following the retirement of the old Aeolus class. Sharing a very similar design, the Alcyone's standardised systems and cost-effective, modular hull improved on the Aeolus' expensive and proprietary hardware which forced the GTVA to abandon its wider use. The Alcyone is the core cruiser of the GTVA's Terran fleets, and mounts a vicious array of anti-fighter weaponry at close and medium ranges. The cover of an Alcyone's guns is always a good thing in combat."
Maybe that's what you were thinking of kara? I don't know if R1 had the same description but anyway, I can't remember reading anything canon about why the Aeolus was scrapped...
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The GTC Aeolus is the first cruiser class ever produced by the RNI shipyards orbiting Laramis II. Only two dozen of these cruisers were put into service in GTVA fleets, with production ending in 2365. Allied Command assigns Aeolus-class ships primarily to guard slow-moving convoys against fighter and bomber wings, as these cruisers are severely out-gunned by most capital ships in service today. Their flak and AAA turrets serve as marvelous deterrents to smaller craft, however.
Voila. The only possible reason I can think of for the Aeolus to be retired (and probably other people came to the same conclusion) was the expense. The armament and speed are über - there would have to be a very strong reason to not continue producing them.
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If you wanted to be really technical, you could point out that producing a ship and putting it into service are two differant things...but I doubt there are more Aeolus' flying around then the two dozen or so mentioned.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
Voila. The only possible reason I can think of for the Aeolus to be retired (and probably other people came to the same conclusion) was the expense. The armament and speed are über - there would have to be a very strong reason to not continue producing them.
"As these cruisers are severely outgunned by most capital ships in service today."
They gave a reason, Goober. It's not cost.
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That's not a valid reason; the Fenris and Leviathan are too. But the Aeolus is far better than both of them at protecting convoys. That alone should be more than enough justification for continuing to produce Aeoluses.
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Maybe, but they don't build those anymore that we know of, either.
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They're outgunned by corvettes and destroyers because those things are meant to kill cruisers.
The Fenris and Leviathon are even more easily blown away by other capital ships and they still kept those.
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Probably msot levis/fens were great war leftovers.
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Originally posted by SadisticSid
[Maybe that's what you were thinking of kara? I don't know if R1 had the same description but anyway, I can't remember reading anything canon about why the Aeolus was scrapped...
The odd thing is I could swear I read it somewhere long before I played Inferno. Oh well, guess the mind's playing tricks on me :)
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I'm sure more than one person has thought of it. It's the only reason that makes sense. :)
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Originally posted by FireCrack
actualy mjnor beams are... well mjllnor beams, they are the most effective GTVA beam.
So yeah, mjlnorse arent Sgreens
(and speaking of wich, greenBeam is a great SGreen suplement)
reference:
http://home.att.net/~clay.h/fs2/beamfaq.htm
Yes, they are SGreens. Look at the table files and it tells you what kind of beam it has.
They gave a reason, Goober. It's not cost.
That means nothing. The Mentu has no anti-capital beams at all, yet the Vasudans kept it into production. The Aeolus was supposed to replace the Fenris and Leviathan, and it has over twice the firepower of both of them.
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$Subsystem: turret01,30,1.0
$Default PBanks: ( "MjolnirBeam" )
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Increadibly late...but...you guys are giving the Hecate an INCREDIBLY rough time. All it needs is a few beam weapon upgrades, and she'd be sweet. The forward cannon's (2 on the nose) both need to be BGreen's, the 2 side cannons (one the engine fine) are fine as Gslash's and the cannon on the back should be upgraded to a BGreen as well. With these modifications, the Hecate would be able to hold its own. That said, it was DESIGNED to be more of a anti-fighter/cruiser ship, with the Orion taking the anti-warship field. The Orion has heavy weapons and they are well placed. The Hatshepsut beats both hands down though ;)
The Aeolus is by far one of the best cruisers in the game. It has 2 beam cannons! most crusiers only have 1! (Rakshasa has 3 i think...) Its strong, and needs a call back. The Leviathen was hopeless, as its slow, weak, and has 1 beam cannon facing only forwards. The Fenris was faster, but still far to weak. Why dont they upgrade them with heavier armour and more powerful engines???
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Anyone who considers the Leviathan weak is obviously forgetting the maybe 1 time he had to fly against one. Sure, we see them getting munched up by absolutely overwhelming forces here and there, or getting vaporized by a beam of irregularly high power, but the things are harder than a brick for their size and pack 4(!) anti-fighter beams with at least 2 covering any direction besides directly fore and aft. They are slow, but since cruisers are primarily defensive warships by FS2 anyway that's not as much of an issue as everyone seems to think. Convoys can move as quickly as the slowest ship, and the likelyhood of a Leviathan lasting through escort duty are pretty high. The Aeolus lacks the armor of the Leviathan (does it even top that of a Fenris?), which is the only possible reason to discontinue its production.
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Make a Leviathan deadlier by replacing the Terran Turrets with Long Range or Standard Flak cannons and equiping its missle turret with an EMP-Adv. or a Pirahna missle. :devil:
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The aeolus outarmours both the levi and the feneris
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Originally posted by Ai No Koriida
[The Hecate was] propably made in Vasuda :o
Um, no. Vasudan ships are all about flowing curves. The Hecate, with all its random fins and oversized engines, looks more like the result of an anime cartoonist's anchovy-pizza-induced nightmare.
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ois it just me or was the modeller for the heacate inspired by a grassshopper's head? and tell me those side fins aren't legs.
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I thought the Hecate looked more like a squashed cockroach, myself.
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There's nothing wrong with terran ship designs or the Collin.
the main reson terran capships get pawned is couse teh [V] guys gave them awfull beams. Terran beams do less damage, the have a greater re-charge rate and their lifetime is shorter.
They are approximately 4 TIMES weaker than shivan counterparts.
The SGreen is a espacially dumb case (45 seconds re-charge!!!!)
Try putting LRBGrens on Colossus and watch it carve the Sathanas.
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The (FS2) capship texturing is ****ed up at the very least.
Probably worth noting the likely reason the ter ships don't have good beams is simply because they don't have good enough reactors to power better ones........
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Originally posted by TrashMan
There's nothing wrong with terran ship designs or the Collin.
the main reson terran capships get pawned is couse teh [V] guys gave them awfull beams. Terran beams do less damage, the have a greater re-charge rate and their lifetime is shorter.
They are approximately 4 TIMES weaker than shivan counterparts.
The SGreen is a espacially dumb case (45 seconds re-charge!!!!)
Try putting LRBGrens on Colossus and watch it carve the Sathanas.
Well the Shivan is suppose to be the uber enemy and the Sathanas supposed to be the uber battlesihip, I don't see anything wrong with that.
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What I don't understand is why certain people continue calling the Colossus some variant of "Collin" There is neither two 'l's nor any 'n's in the entire flipping word.
Terrans are supposed to be renowned for their weaponry (as opposed to Vasudans, who specialized more in reactors and propulsion) but the trend doesn't seem to continue into FS2. You always get the sense that the Terran war machine relies more heavily on numbers than technology.
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Originally posted by StratComm
What I don't understand is why certain people continue calling the Colossus some variant of "Collin" There is neither two 'l's nor any 'n's in the entire flipping word.
Terrans are supposed to be renowned for their weaponry (as opposed to Vasudans, who specialized more in reactors and propulsion) but the trend doesn't seem to continue into FS2. You always get the sense that the Terran war machine relies more heavily on numbers than technology.
I'm more interested in why everyone keeps misspelling 'Colin'.......
:p
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underneath strat's post
Last edited by StratComm on 08-23-2027 at 08:34 PM
WTF????
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What does speed exactly have to do with anything, in game terms? Since all of the ships seem to move at top speed, and have no problems, what's the problem?
Hell, speed doesn't matter when traversing systems, because they just need to jump ffrom point A to point B, and it doesn't matter in combat, because all vessels are usualyl right up near each other, and don't maneuver much.
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It's nice to be able to run away if you need to.
There have to be restrictions on subspace drives we don't know about, because otherwise quite a few of the places were FS battles take place wouldn't have battles taking place there.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
My personal guess is that the GTVA will happily pour money into their military...because that will help the economy via military contracts.
The GTVA would be too broke to pay out for government contracts. The only way the GTVA to get the funds to replenish their treasury is to let the economy fix itself, (which would take a very long time since resources and money have been drained into the war effort) and use tax money gathered to rebuild the fleet.
Unless the GTVA has a total self sustained economy, which makes cannon sense in a rediculous sort of way.
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This is pretty simple.
Mixing the requirements for a carrier and a battleship(destroyer because for some reason FS reverses things) is possibly the worst idea, ever conceived...by anyone...ever.
By being a jack of all trades the destroyers in FS are the worst compromise between firepower and fighter capacity, making them worthless overall.
With subspace travel there is NO REASON why ships of the line (destroyers) should ever...EVER carry fighters...EVER.
What the GTVA needs is a carrier, its really that simple, something designed to launch, recover, and DESTROY fighters.
A carrier capable of defending itself while it withdraws from direct-fire combat = GOOD!
A destroyer that sacrifices firepower, armor, speed or maneuverability to carry fighters into a direct-fire(IE line of sight) battle = BAD!
If the GTVA had dedicated ships of the line, say a Hecate with actual firepower supported by multiple Deimos corvettes and screened by fighters and cruisers they would pwn, but instead they suck.
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Originally posted by Drew
The GTVA would be too broke to pay out for government contracts. The only way the GTVA to get the funds to replenish their treasury is to let the economy fix itself, (which would take a very long time since resources and money have been drained into the war effort) and use tax money gathered to rebuild the fleet.
Unless the GTVA has a total self sustained economy, which makes cannon sense in a rediculous sort of way.
Since when has being broke stopped a government from spending money? They PRINT the money, they don't care.
GoreChild...no. Don't make us hurt you. Your own logic defeats itself.
With subspace travel, there are no rear-area posistions for a carrier to take. Everywhere is equally vunerable to attack. A carrier is too high-value a target, it must be able to defend itself. Hence the FS destroyer.
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By being a jack of all trades the destroyers in FS are the worst compromise between firepower and fighter capacity, making them worthless overall.
:wtf:
Apparently you haven't played Freespace 2, or else you would have heard of a little ship called the Orion, which, when broadsiding a target, can destroy a Sobek with two BGreens and one or two slash turrets, easily bringing some of the most effective firepower in the GTVA to bear with a quick rotation.
What the GTVA needs is a carrier, its really that simple, something designed to launch, recover, and DESTROY fighters.
And, if you look around in the various user-made campaigns, you would find that several carrier designs have been implemented and completed.
With subspace travel there is NO REASON why ships of the line (destroyers) should ever...EVER carry fighters...EVER.
What, so you say that, just because fighters have a subspace drive, they should never have to dock with a larger ship except a rare, multi-billion dollar carrier? The purpose of the fighterbay in a destroyer is the ability for a destroyer to support itself in a direct confrontation with enemy capital ships by using its smaller squadrons to ward off enemy fighters and bombers and disable enemy turrets. Also, they allow the destroyer, which can be more commonly produced than a massive carrier, to reinforce its battlegroup with quick, easily-delivered firepower through fighters and strike bombers.
If the GTVA had dedicated ships of the line, say a Hecate with actual firepower supported by multiple Deimos corvettes and screened by fighters and cruisers they would pwn, but instead they suck.
:wtf:
A battlegroup of that size is just far too improbably and inefficeint. Sure, they would kick some serious ***, but in one place at a time only.
And Hecates, despite what many say, has some serious firepower, at least in its forward arc. You know those two turrets on the front? Those are beam turrets. When a Hecate jumps in, it just simply maneuvers to put a Shivan/NTF/Vasudan/HOL target in its sights, pushes the button, and makes the bad guy go away.
A destroyer that sacrifices firepower, armor, speed or maneuverability to carry fighters into a direct-fire(IE line of sight) battle = BAD!
A destroyer that carries more firepower, significantly tougher armor, speeds of over 15 m/s for its enormous size, and can almost turn on a dime in-game, and be able to deliver several squadrons of lethal fighters and bombers at various targets = NOT BAD! :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by nuclear1
:wtf:
Apparently you haven't played Freespace 2, or else you would have heard of a little ship called the Orion, which, when broadsiding a target, can destroy a Sobek with two BGreens and one or two slash turrets, easily bringing some of the most effective firepower in the GTVA to bear with a quick rotation.
And, if you look around in the various user-made campaigns, you would find that several carrier designs have been implemented and completed.
What, so you say that, just because fighters have a subspace drive, they should never have to dock with a larger ship except a rare, multi-billion dollar carrier? The purpose of the fighterbay in a destroyer is the ability for a destroyer to support itself in a direct confrontation with enemy capital ships by using its smaller squadrons to ward off enemy fighters and bombers and disable enemy turrets. Also, they allow the destroyer, which can be more commonly produced than a massive carrier, to reinforce its battlegroup with quick, easily-delivered firepower through fighters and strike bombers.
:wtf:
A battlegroup of that size is just far too improbably and inefficeint. Sure, they would kick some serious ***, but in one place at a time only.
And Hecates, despite what many say, has some serious firepower, at least in its forward arc. You know those two turrets on the front? Those are beam turrets. When a Hecate jumps in, it just simply maneuvers to put a Shivan/NTF/Vasudan/HOL target in its sights, pushes the button, and makes the bad guy go away.
A destroyer that carries more firepower, significantly tougher armor, speeds of over 15 m/s for its enormous size, and can almost turn on a dime in-game, and be able to deliver several squadrons of lethal fighters and bombers at various targets = NOT BAD! :rolleyes:
I have played Freespace2.
User campaigns, though fun, dont count because I was criticizing the naval model that Volition would have the GTVA follow and since the retail game is canon and user campaigns are not. And I wasnt really criticizing anyone but the GTVA and they dont really exist.
Dont talk down to me, I'm not a child, I wasnt talking down to you, but now I will.
I never said that fighters shouldnt have to dock, I said the carrier shouldnt be put anywhere near harms way(IE it hides in subspace if possible) or it lingers a good distance away, where it doesnt have to get shot at by stuff that can kick its ass.
In fact, why have fighter carrying ships at all if fighters can just zip all over the galaxy at will through subspace. Why not just have fighters in an underground bunker just jump into battle then back into their stupid bunker once the battle is over? Keep questioning the science fiction and it gets really stupid, really quick.
My point is, destroyers in the FS universe literally dont have to carry fighters. In relatively few missions do you actually support the Aquitane directly, in fact, unless forced(nebula time), the Aquitane rarely engages the enemy, hell its already acting just like a real carrier would! Why even put guns on it? Just make it a big flying hangar and launch hundreds of "deadly" fighters(your words not mine) to pummel enemies to dust?
Your example of the Orion is kind of cute. So effectively, in a broadside engagement with a smaller ship(a Sobek class carvette), the Orion(read battleship/carrier idiot combo) wins. Well ****, I never saw that coming, imagine how much quicker it could win if it gave up the fighter bays for more ordnance and armor, hell, maybe then it could beat medium sized Shivan ships and survive.
Your point about a battlegroup of a destroyer supported by corvettes and cruisers being improbable is just simply not true. It IS however improbable if you want to LOSE which makes me wonder about the strategic thought that went into any of the GTVA campaigns. The GTVA controls dozens of star systems and has innumerable resources at its command, it can afford battle groups like that if it wants to win.
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Hmm...let me repeat.
There is no rear area. Everyone in a system is equally vunerable to attack. A carrier must be able to defend itself against attack from a ship of the line. And a ship of the line must be able to defend itself against bomber attack. Distance does not provide you insulation from hostile attack anymore.
Hence, the FS destroyer, which offers the ablities of both a ship of the line and a carrier in one platform. The tactical thinking you are basing your argument on is flawed, obscelent because of the nature of FS space combat.
It also happens to probably be the thinking that resulted in the Hecate-class destroyers. And those times when the Aquitaine had to run like hell from a Moloch should tell you just how safe your proposed carrier would be.
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It should also tell you how much better a full split between destroyers and carriers would be. Would a Deimos run from a Moloch? Hell no. It would have gone in and killed the sorry Shivan bastard.
A carrier in the same situation would have had more fighters and bombers (not to mention an escort group...) to counteract the threat.
Instead, you get a poorly designed hybrid which can't defend itself from fighters and quivers at the thought of a ship six times smaller then it is.
As to the distance issue: like hell there isn't a rear area. Anywhere the Shivans are is called the front lines. Anywhere where you have tons of GTVA between you and the Shivans is called the back area. Even if the Shivans do jump that far back, it will take them a lot longer to reinforce their position then for the GTVA to reinforce its. (Seeing as your forces are closer)
(And I find it amusing how you can go from saying the Hecate kicks ass to admitting it sucks. )
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For one, I was never "talking down to you." I was presenting an argument for your position, and, now that you decide to start bad-mouthing, I'll counter.
You've never played the Freespace 2 campaign. I can assume that through the fact that you apparently don't recollect the mission "The Sicilian Defense", where, in an assault on an NTF Orion-class destroyer, a Sobek-class corvette jumps in on its broadside to assist you. Now, without destroying at least one of the Orion's beam cannons, the Sobek is almost guaranteed to be destroyed in one salvo from the Orion's main turrets.
Apparently you've not well-considered your "stupid bunker" theory. If you're referring to a planetary-based launch site, the power requirements to escape the atmosphere and gravitational pull of a planet or moon would make the time to charge the subspace drive ineffecient; hence, the fighters (and especially bombers) would not have the same quick response time that they would if they had simply been launched from the hangar bay of a destroyer, most of which destroyers deploy their fighters directly into the heat of a battle, or quickly enough into clear space and with little energy cost of the fighter's engine to allow a quick jump into subspace to respond to a threat.
And Orions, in case you haven't noticed, have a very high probability of engaging and surviving against medium-sized Shivan warships. Remember those two BGreens that it can bring to bear? Those could very easily cripple or destroy Cain-class or Moloch-class warships easily. As for Lliths and Destroyers, the Orion has a fighterbay for that: deploy bombers and strike fighters, take out the Shivan beam cannons, then torch the Shivans.
As for the carrier sequence, it seems that, once again, you undermine plot and strategy. While a carrier would indeed be effective at simply retrieving/deploying ships in one area, you miss one primary consequence: vulnerability. Even if you did add large amounts of anti-fighter/bomber weapons onto its hull, you miss the problem with those "medium-sized Shivan warships", or anything corvette-class and above. The carrier, with the exception of its docked fighters, which may very well be away on a sortie, as you describe, has little defense against these large capital ships.
Hecate-class destroyers are intended to serve as flagships, not as front-line assault weapons. Orions were birthed in the need to deliver heavy firepower during the Terran-Vasudan War right at the frontlines of major battles. A Hecate only engages when it must, or if no other heavy support is present for the player. The Hecate was created in a time of relative peace, with no real need for a frontal assault weapon.
With your arguments, it seems to me that you are indeed a child, and have little room for your own "strategic thought". There. Accuse me of "down-talking"?
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Since when has being broke stopped a government from spending money? They PRINT the money, they don't care.
GoreChild...no. Don't make us hurt you. Your own logic defeats itself.
With subspace travel, there are no rear-area posistions for a carrier to take. Everywhere is equally vunerable to attack. A carrier is too high-value a target, it must be able to defend itself. Hence the FS destroyer.
Sorry I missed your post before, my bad.
Cant ships hide in subspace? or is there some sort of science fiction explanation as to why they cant?
Your idea of carriers needing to defend themselves is logical. A carriers strength, however, lies in the hundreds of fighters it can launch to defend itself and blast enemy ships to shreds.
If we take for granted that fighters(+ bombers obviously) are the key to winning a battle, then you realize that if the GTVA fielded a true carrier they would win almost by default since their fighters would EASILY outnumber the fighter complement of any "destroyer." Add to the carrier's arsenal a plethroa of flak guns and anti-fighter beams and along with its airwing it can defend itself(and its escorts) from enemy fighters.
And no, my logic doesnt defeat itself. You cant defeat logic with science fiction.
Sorry if I've been a jerk, I'll stop, and sorry to nuclear1 if I sounded like an ass. :confused:
OK...lets take a model of FS naval combat.
Let us assume then that destroyers fulfill the need for carriers in being basically a floating base for fighters, which can range throughout star systems(through subspace) carrying out attacks on enemy ships etc. This seems like an ideal situation for a carrier, more fighters = more firepower. Now that I think of it the GTVA seems to go for the option of one ship that does everything because its probably cheaper, rather than specialized ships that would actually win.
After all, why have 2 ships that rule when you can have one that...doesnt so much.
:D
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Originally posted by GoreChild
Sorry if I've been a jerk, I'll stop, and sorry to nuclear1 if I sounded like an ass. :confused:
No problem. ;)
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(...)
If we take for granted that fighters(+ bombers obviously) are the key to winning a battle (...)
That's the problem, it isn't taken for granted. A destroyer can deliver more damage per time unit than an absurdly amount of bombers. That coupled with subspace drives, makes a pure carrier a not practical idea. If you try really hard to make a carrier in FS, odds are (if it's balanced of course) that it will look like a FS destroyer.
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Originally posted by nuclear1
For one, I was never "talking down to you." I was presenting an argument for your position, and, now that you decide to start bad-mouthing, I'll counter.
You've never played the Freespace 2 campaign. I can assume that through the fact that you apparently don't recollect the mission "The Sicilian Defense", where, in an assault on an NTF Orion-class destroyer, a Sobek-class corvette jumps in on its broadside to assist you. Now, without destroying at least one of the Orion's beam cannons, the Sobek is almost guaranteed to be destroyed in one salvo from the Orion's main turrets.
Apparently you've not well-considered your "stupid bunker" theory. If you're referring to a planetary-based launch site, the power requirements to escape the atmosphere and gravitational pull of a planet or moon would make the time to charge the subspace drive ineffecient; hence, the fighters (and especially bombers) would not have the same quick response time that they would if they had simply been launched from the hangar bay of a destroyer, most of which destroyers deploy their fighters directly into the heat of a battle, or quickly enough into clear space and with little energy cost of the fighter's engine to allow a quick jump into subspace to respond to a threat.
And Orions, in case you haven't noticed, have a very high probability of engaging and surviving against medium-sized Shivan warships. Remember those two BGreens that it can bring to bear? Those could very easily cripple or destroy Cain-class or Moloch-class warships easily. As for Lliths and Destroyers, the Orion has a fighterbay for that: deploy bombers and strike fighters, take out the Shivan beam cannons, then torch the Shivans.
As for the carrier sequence, it seems that, once again, you undermine plot and strategy. While a carrier would indeed be effective at simply retrieving/deploying ships in one area, you miss one primary consequence: vulnerability. Even if you did add large amounts of anti-fighter/bomber weapons onto its hull, you miss the problem with those "medium-sized Shivan warships", or anything corvette-class and above. The carrier, with the exception of its docked fighters, which may very well be away on a sortie, as you describe, has little defense against these large capital ships.
Hecate-class destroyers are intended to serve as flagships, not as front-line assault weapons. Orions were birthed in the need to deliver heavy firepower during the Terran-Vasudan War right at the frontlines of major battles. A Hecate only engages when it must, or if no other heavy support is present for the player. The Hecate was created in a time of relative peace, with no real need for a frontal assault weapon.
With your arguments, it seems to me that you are indeed a child, and have little room for your own "strategic thought". There. Accuse me of "down-talking"?
You keep making the point that there "isnt any front like and no rear area." Ok, lets take that for granted now, anyone is vulnerable.
What happens when the shivans jump in close to a carrier? Well since any ship can enter subspace, why doesnt the carrier just...jump away? Hell it doesnt have to worry about leaving its fighters behind, they've got subspace drives too. Thats assuming the carriers escorts of upgunned destroyers and such dont torch the shivans anyway and is the reason real navies in real life put their carriers in the middle of a battle group. There isnt really any rear area in real life anyway, not with combat nowadays, hence destroyer pickets and such.
You make the argument that having fighters based on planets wouldnt work because it would be too slow. Why cant the fighters just enter subspace from within the atmosphere after they take off? Oh yeah, cuz this would preclude the need for starships which would make this game kind of boring right?
I understand that Volition wanted to do something different and cool with switching all the names for ship classes around and getting rid of carriers so that they could have cool ship vs. ship battles, and they have succeeded, this game rocks, though it isnt very realistic, but then again, what sci-fi is?
And about me being a child, I said I was sorry about acting like a jerk, give me some credit.
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Originally posted by GoreChild
You keep making the point that there "isnt any front like and no rear area." Ok, lets take that for granted now, anyone is vulnerable.
What happens when the shivans jump in close to a carrier? Well since any ship can enter subspace, why doesnt the carrier just...jump away? Hell it doesnt have to worry about leaving its fighters behind, they've got subspace drives too. Thats assuming the carriers escorts of upgunned destroyers and such dont torch the shivans anyway and is the reason real navies in real life put their carriers in the middle of a battle group. There isnt really any rear area in real life anyway, not with combat nowadays, hence destroyer pickets and such.
You make the argument that having fighters based on planets wouldnt work because it would be too slow. Why cant the fighters just enter subspace from within the atmosphere after they take off? Oh yeah, cuz this would preclude the need for starships which would make this game kind of boring right?
I understand that Volition wanted to do something different and cool with switching all the names for ship classes around and getting rid of carriers so that they could have cool ship vs. ship battles, and they have succeeded, this game rocks, though it isnt very realistic, but then again, what sci-fi is?
And about me being a child, I said I was sorry about acting like a jerk, give me some credit.
Shivans can track enemy through subspace so They will just follow the jumped carrier.
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Originally posted by nuclear1
No problem. ;)
Missed this post too, sorry.
So if Shivans can track through subspace whats to stop the carrier from jumping repeatedly to evade pursuers? That and its escorts of course, which it would obviously rely on for protection.
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GoreChild: do you understand the concept of subspace in relevence to FS? No, a ship cannot just enter subspace. Subspace for capital ships needt to be done in a jump node, or there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING keeping them from being persued. This is canon, the shivans can track through subspace.
Also canon: FIGHTERS CAN NOT ALL MAKE INTER SYSTEM JUMPS. Inter system drives are expensive, and difficult to use, and are RESTRICTED to ONLY SOC squads. Also canon.
In the 5 seconds it takkes for a subspace drive to engage, at 40m/s, even pointing DIRECTLY away from a planet, you have fallen several hundred meters. FS fighters and bombers don't have enough force nescessary for them to EVER acheive escape velocity, and even if they could enter susbspace in an atmosphere, they MUST jump to somewhere INSIDE the planet's gravity field.
Your posts about FS spec destroyers doesn't make ANY sense, seeing that fighters are NOT able to make intersystem jumps.
You're wrong about Shivans needing to hold a large amount of space if they jump in behind GTVA lines. They need ONLY hold the jump node, and should they succeed, there is NO way of escaping the system.
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About the Shivans subspace tracking:
Doesn't really matter, as what's stopping you from jumping them straight into a web of RBC's and Orions?
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that a heavily armed shivan destroyer, vs a lightly armed carrier, in subspace, is suicide for the carrier. even the fighters will be useless, without shielding. stiletto's won't work well for disarming something, because the shielding it has (canon from the cbani's) won't protect it...
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Originally posted by Hippo
GoreChild: do you understand the concept of subspace in relevence to FS? No, a ship cannot just enter subspace. Subspace for capital ships needt to be done in a jump node, or there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING keeping them from being persued. This is canon, the shivans can track through subspace.
Also canon: FIGHTERS CAN NOT ALL MAKE INTER SYSTEM JUMPS. Inter system drives are expensive, and difficult to use, and are RESTRICTED to ONLY SOC squads. Also canon.
In the 5 seconds it takkes for a subspace drive to engage, at 40m/s, even pointing DIRECTLY away from a planet, you have fallen several hundred meters. FS fighters and bombers don't have enough force nescessary for them to EVER acheive escape velocity, and even if they could enter susbspace in an atmosphere, they MUST jump to somewhere INSIDE the planet's gravity field.
Your posts about FS spec destroyers doesn't make ANY sense, seeing that fighters are NOT able to make intersystem jumps.
You're wrong about Shivans needing to hold a large amount of space if they jump in behind GTVA lines. They need ONLY hold the jump node, and should they succeed, there is NO way of escaping the system.
Fighters can indeed make INTRA-SYSTEM jumps.
You say subspace for capital ships needs to be done in a jump node? You're simply wrong, plenty of missions have enemy capital ships appearing out of nowhere into your general vicinity via subspace, an example is Surrender Belisarius.
I never said the Shivans needed to hold territory, territory is pretty irrelivant in space.
Technically a planet's gravity field is rather large, and since the only real areas of strategic importance are around planets or are the planets themselves, this isnt a problem.
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The carrier probably jumps out as soon as the destroyer jumps in, and the destroyer still has to recharge it's subspace drive. Even with emergency power reallocation, the carrier still has a distance advantage.
Also, the carrier's fighter superiority would mean that it can swat down the Shivan fighters (weaker hulls, overreliance on shields) and then get to work on disarming and disabling the destroyer.
(Also, complete conjuncture: wouldn't lower mass ships move through subspace faster? Meaning the carrier can outrun the destroyer even in subspace? Or am I stuck in terran thinking?)
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Originally posted by Hippo
that a heavily armed shivan destroyer, vs a lightly armed carrier, in subspace, is suicide for the carrier. even the fighters will be useless, without shielding. stiletto's won't work well for disarming something, because the shielding it has (canon from the cbani's) won't protect it...
Yeah, come to think of hiding in subspace from Shivans is a crappy idea since they own subspace pretty much.
Like hiding underwater from sharks.
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Originally posted by Jal-18
The carrier probably jumps out as soon as the destroyer jumps in, and the destroyer still has to recharge it's subspace drive. Even with emergency power reallocation, the carrier still has a distance advantage.
Also, the carrier's fighter superiority would mean that it can swat down the Shivan fighters (weaker hulls, overreliance on shields) and then get to work on disarming and disabling the destroyer while the carrier runs.
(Also, complete conjuncture: wouldn't lower mass ships move through subspace faster? Or am I stuck in terran thinking?)
Mass and speed are all relative in space. Lower mass ships arent necessarily faster, they ACCELERATE faster and are thus more maneuverable but everything can reach the same theoretical speeds, it just takes time.
As for the physics inside subspace, you might as well ask Volition since they made it up.
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Faster acceleration is all you really need in a chase. As I stated before, the carrier is not going to be loitering in an area where there aren't friendlies, so as long as it survives for a little while it can still come out on top.
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subspace speed is a constant... Whatever time they enter subspace apart from each other, is the distance they will stay.
Also, should the carrier run through an intra system jump, it is instant, and is immediately stuck somewhere else in the system untill ITS drives recharge. something that the shivans would presumably do faster, and they would be tracked, no doubt...
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But if the carrier is stuck in the middle of a GTVA fleet, does it matter? Even if the carrier is destroyed, so is the destroyer, and that's a far greater loss. (Carrier plus ship of the line, instead of just carrier.)
And I disagree that subspace speed is a constant. The last mission of FS1 is impossible if what you claim is true.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Since when has being broke stopped a government from spending money? They PRINT the money, they don't care.
Inflation. Theres this thing called an economy, and there isnt _any_ economy that cant run on worthless money. Without an economy to tax, the government will effectily break down, no matter how much money it prints.
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Yes, but does the government truly understand that? Given real-world examples...probably not.
It takes time to charge up for a subspace jump, people don't go around with their jumpdrives charged and ready to go. And as I've pointed out before, a destroyer can target the carrier's hangers and engines with its first and second salvos in whatever order it deems fit. Poof, you can't run, and you are restricted to whatever fighters you already have on combat aerospace patrol, a small fraction of the aerospace group that probably doesn't include any bombers.
Depending on where the hostile destroyer exits subspace, it may even be physical impossible to jump out. If he's parked himself right in front of your bow, you're pretty screwed.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Yes, but does the government truly understand that? Given real-world examples...probably not.
It takes time to charge up for a subspace jump, people don't go around with their jumpdrives charged and ready to go. And as I've pointed out before, a destroyer can target the carrier's hangers and engines with its first and second salvos in whatever order it deems fit. Poof, you can't run, and you are restricted to whatever fighters you already have on combat aerospace patrol, a small fraction of the aerospace group that probably doesn't include any bombers.
Depending on where the hostile destroyer exits subspace, it may even be physical impossible to jump out. If he's parked himself right in front of your bow, you're pretty screwed.
It would be suicide for an enemy to do this because he'd jump right into the middle of a battlegroup, asking to get his ass annihilated by escorts. Though I wouldnt put it past the shivans to sacrifice one of their ships to disable the carrier.
Also is there no such thing as a subspace inhibitor field? Could be useful.
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No there is no such inhibitor field, if there was it would have been used in the blockades and the NTF would have won by default (no one would enter those three NTF systems).
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Yes, but does the government truly understand that? Given real-world examples...probably not.
Any economist will tell you that any government that excessivly prints money will eventually destroy its own economy. The massive amount of material loss during the war and at cappella dictates that there is way to much to rebuild to just print money and hope the economy dosnt fix the input. The only way the GTVA could use an inflated money supply is if it _forced_ companies to recognize it as worth somthing, when its actually worth nothing. Even then, in a free economy, companies and people wouldlnt recognize the forced currency, because it wouldnt be able to meet their needs, and then you would see market type currency where people start using things that have fixed value for currency, like metal, ore, drugs, subspace coils, or anything like that.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Hmm...let me repeat.
There is no rear area. Everyone in a system is equally vunerable to attack. A carrier must be able to defend itself against attack from a ship of the line. And a ship of the line must be able to defend itself against bomber attack. Distance does not provide you insulation from hostile attack anymore.
Not completely true. Subspace jumps take a few minutes and can be detected. We seen bofore that ships can hide undetected in-system, thus a carrier would bea completely plausable design.
I'm not adocating the replacmenet of destroyer with battleships - in fact, I think it's best to have all - carriers, destroyers AND battleships. Each has it's own pro et contra, and a sensible military likse diversity...
A destroyer can deliver more damage per time unit than an absurdly amount of bombers. That coupled with subspace drives, makes a pure carrier a not practical idea. If you try really hard to make a carrier in FS, odds are (if it's balanced of course) that it will look like a FS destroyer.
Where do you get that from? 2 wings of Ursas with Helios outstrip any destroyer in terms of firepower.
GoreChild: do you understand the concept of subspace in relevence to FS? No, a ship cannot just enter subspace. Subspace for capital ships needt to be done in a jump node, or there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING keeping them from being persued. This is canon, the shivans can track through subspace.
the GTVA can allso track ships trough subspace. You allso forgot one thing - subspace drives need time to charge. If a carrier jumped immediately after the Shivan destroyer jumped in, it couldn't follow instantly. that would give the carrier a small head start, and when the destroyer comes after him in subspace, the carrier could make use of the distance gained and it's fighters. Besides, carriers would probably be faster than destroyers...
In the 5 seconds it takkes for a subspace drive to engage, at 40m/s, even pointing DIRECTLY away from a planet, you have fallen several hundred meters. FS fighters and bombers don't have enough force nescessary for them to EVER acheive escape velocity, and even if they could enter susbspace in an atmosphere, they MUST jump to somewhere INSIDE the planet's gravity field.
Whare did you get this?
We have no idea if FS2 fighters can land and take off of planets and we have no idea just how much power would that require given their reactors and stuff... It is highly possible they might have some anti-gravity drive to take off planets (the repulsion force of such drive would be weaker the further from the planets surfice, so it wouldn't be practical in space) or something else.
Besides, who said that fighters have to take off bunker on planets? Ever heard of fighterbases? (space station designed purealy for housing fighters).
subspace speed is a constant... Whatever time they enter subspace apart from each other, is the distance they will stay.
Something is bothering me. If subspace speed is nocstant, why can fighters outrung a capship in subspace then? How the hell did the fighters/bombers catch up with the Lucifer then?
That makes no soense at all....
Also, should the carrier run through an intra system jump, it is instant, and is immediately stuck somewhere else in the system untill ITS drives recharge. something that the shivans would presumably do faster, and they would be tracked, no doubt...
What? In-system jumps are not instant! Every jump takes time - the greater the distance, the longer the time.
System-system jumps take 15 minutes or more (Lucifer jump), while in-system jumps are much shorter.
It takes time to charge up for a subspace jump, people don't go around with their jumpdrives charged and ready to go. And as I've pointed out before, a destroyer can target the carrier's hangers and engines with its first and second salvos in whatever order it deems fit. Poof, you can't run, and you are restricted to whatever fighters you already have on combat aerospace patrol, a small fraction of the aerospace group that probably doesn't include any bombers.
Depending on where the hostile destroyer exits subspace, it may even be physical impossible to jump out. If he's parked himself right in front of your bow, you're pretty screwed.
A carrier would have multiple fighterbays, so it's practicly impossible to disable them all so fast. Espacially if they are on opposite sides of the carrier.
Oh...and do you forget the 3 axis thingie? What's stoping the carrier to turn up or down and jump?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Where do you get that from? 2 wings of Ursas with Helios outstrip any destroyer in terms of firepower.
1) 2 wings of Ursas (8) worth of Helios do about 108800 damage per minute, unless I'm misinterpreting the following link http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fs2/fred2/tables/fs2weaponchart.shtml
A single BGreen does 46588 damage per minute, half of it each time it fires!!
http://home.att.net/~clay.h/fs2/beamfaq.htm#BEAMTABLE
2) It might be more expensive trying to get 2 wings of Ursas equiped with Helios to destroy something than having a Destroyer do the samething, with the bonus of not having to reload.
3) Helios can be stopped in midflight, a beam cannot.
In a long battle, bombers might prevail, but in the first minutes of the battle, a destroyer rules supreme, afterwards, it's kind of tied.
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Trashman, we've had this argument with you before. I'll address some of the bigger points:
Originally posted by TrashMan
Not completely true. Subspace jumps take a few minutes and can be detected. We seen bofore that ships can hide undetected in-system, thus a carrier would be a completely plausable design.
Subspace jumps take a seemingly arbitrary amount of time, yes. But there really isn't much canonical evidence to support any theory about transit time. I will point out that with subspace tracking, a carrier would be traced very quickly once an enemy ship comes across one of its combat patrols. And tracking only works if an allied ship with tracking equipment is within a limited range of the jumping ship, so you can't count on any kind of early warning.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Where do you get that from? 2 wings of Ursas with Helios outstrip any destroyer in terms of firepower.
But it's rare that a destroyer actually has two wings of heavy bombers available at all, much less ready to go at a moment's notice, armed to the teeth with the most powerful and expensive bombs available. A destroyer's cannons, on the other hand, can be charged up and fired with literally a moment's notice.
Originally posted by TrashMan
the GTVA can allso track ships trough subspace. You allso forgot one thing - subspace drives need time to charge. If a carrier jumped immediately after the Shivan destroyer jumped in, it couldn't follow instantly. that would give the carrier a small head start, and when the destroyer comes after him in subspace, the carrier could make use of the distance gained and it's fighters. Besides, carriers would probably be faster than destroyers...
Shivans have superior subspace technology. Relying on that "head start" to keep your carrier out of harm's way is stupid. For example, the enemy capital ship can launch it's strike craft to jump after the carrier and hastle or disable it until the destroyer's engines recharge for persuit. And why, precisely, would carriers be faster?
Originally posted by TrashMan
Besides, who said that fighters have to take off bunker on planets? Ever heard of fighterbases? (space station designed purealy for housing fighters).
We've got no canonical evidence that fighterbases are practical, if ever even deployed, in the Freespace universe. Arcadia's are the only stations we ever see with a fighter compliment, and those are assumed to be small, police-like outfits. The fighterbase can't retreat, and so is no good when there is no front line to protect it.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Something is bothering me. If subspace speed is nocstant, why can fighters outrung a capship in subspace then? How the hell did the fighters/bombers catch up with the Lucifer then?
That makes no soense at all....
The subspace corridors for system-to-system jumps are somewhat like corridors in normal space; there is an overall "flow" but craft can navigate within them with the same level of thrust and speed as they could in normal space. Fighters are faster than capships, so they can give chase to them in a subspace corridor.
Originally posted by TrashMan
What? In-system jumps are not instant! Every jump takes time - the greater the distance, the longer the time.
All evidence points quite to the contrary, actually. In-system jumps are so close to instantaneous that any tactical advantage that time would allow is pretty much negligable. The only time we even see a ship taking longer than a few moments to arrive is when the Carthage and Dashor come through to secure the Knossos, and then the most logical conclusion is that their delay was due to their subspace drives powering up rather than some transit delay.
Originally posted by TrashMan
A carrier would have multiple fighterbays, so it's practicly impossible to disable them all so fast. Espacially if they are on opposite sides of the carrier.
Oh...and do you forget the 3 axis thingie? What's stoping the carrier to turn up or down and jump?
That's not an arguable point. The Hatshepsut's fighterbays are on opposite sides of its hull, and the Hecate's bay is tucked away where there is practically no good line of sight. So it's a trend that already exists. But without an early warning system (which can't exist in Freespace due to reasons stated above) you'd have to keep a huge variety of craft on ready status, and quite frankly heavy bombers just aren't common or expendable enough to have on deck ready to launch all the time, and that's assuming the flight deck would be available with interceptors and space superiority fighters being deployed all over the system. At any rate, the carrier would be hard-pressed to launch more strike craft than an attacking destroyer (who would have everything available ready to go for the attack) in the time it would take to resolve an engagement.
As for turning out of the way, have you actually played Freespace? :rolleyes: Capship turning rates are abysmal at best.
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Funny thing though, how if pitted against each other the bombers would beat the destroyer...
edit: in response to above post,
The situation everyone seems to be using is if a carrier gets jumped by a destroyer it dies, and therefore it sucks. Consider the following:
1) In the converse of that statement, the carrier has far greater air superiority and would take down the destroyer.
2) A carrier is not a defensive weapon. You use carriers to project force and to transfer insane amounts of fighters to where you need them, fast.
3)Related to above: any ship will suck if put in a certain situation. If we based our opinion of the Ursa on how it handles in a dogfight, (with say...Dragons) [V] would have taken it out a long time ago, no? But since that's obviously not it's role, we still use the Ursa, as the bomber it was ment to be. A carrier is not supposed to be able to fight off a surprise destroyer attack.
And everyone seems to forget that carriers always have escort groups. You simply can't jump a lonely carrier: at the least, it'll have some cruisers to protect it.
edit2: Ghostavo apperantly agrees with my point 3. And I used the example since they were debating which does more damage, destroyers or a wing of bombers.
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Because the bombers are designed to destroy capital ships while capital ships are design to blow each other apart, have you thought of that? What you are saying would be like saying:
"Funny thing though, how if pitted against each other the fighters would beat the bombers..."
EDIT:
I hate editing... anyway
About your point 3, there are other scenarios where such a carrier group (if such existed) would fare poorly when compared with a FS destroyer group, like running blockades for example.
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Which is why you would use a destroyer/battleship group for blockade running. We're assuming (against all proof) that the GTVA aren't complete morons. You use ships that are good for certain missions on those missions, and avoid getting them into spots where they aren't.
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But what advantage does having multiple groups grants if FS destroyer group can do all a carrier group can and even more? It's more expensive building several classes of ships than just one class of ships.
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Precisely why I said that ALL staded ship claees are usefull in certain conditions and should all be in-game.
All evidence points quite to the contrary, actually. In-system jumps are so close to instantaneous that any tactical advantage that time would allow is pretty much negligable. The only time we even see a ship taking longer than a few moments to arrive is when the Carthage and Dashor come through to secure the Knossos, and then the most logical conclusion is that their delay was due to their subspace drives powering up rather than some transit delay.
What evidence? when command sez reinforcements are on the way, it ALLWAYS takes AT LEAST 5 minutes for them arrive..even fighters. Since they charge hteir jump dirves ain just a few seconds, then they would arrive nigh instantly if the in-system jump was instantanious...
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Not completely true. Subspace jumps take a few minutes and can be detected.
I think I already argued this with you, or someone, once, and proved it wrong. Basically, all we can deduce about insystem subspace travel is that while there must be some kind of restrictions, we don't know what they are, and so therefore must assume there are none.
The longest lead time we can give for any forewarning of an incoming ship is about a minute. That's not much time, not enough to plot a subspace jump and get your drives charged or launch more then two more wings of fighters.
Originally posted by TrashMan
the GTVA can allso track ships trough subspace.
Irrevelant. Warning time is too short to make effective use of this information.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Besides, carriers would probably be faster than destroyers...
Considering the noncombatant role you're advocating for them and the idea they carry ub3rmillions of fighters, no, I suspect they'd actually be SLOWER, since they aren't supposed to be near a battle and actually have to move to engage or disengage.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Ever heard of fighterbases? (space station designed purealy for housing fighters).
Such an installation would be even MORE vunerable to attack then a carrier. At least carriers aren't always in one place. And they would almost certainly top the target list of any potentional enemy, so they will be the first to recieve attention from bomber squadrons or destroyers.
Originally posted by TrashMan
A carrier would have multiple fighterbays, so it's practicly impossible to disable them all so fast. Espacially if they are on opposite sides of the carrier.
But that's not how FS ships do things, is it now? They have one or two fighterbays only. And that makes good sense, really, because a fighterbay is an inherent weak point in the ship's hull. A carrier with six or seven fighterbays is asking to have itself blown apart when somebody shoots into the bay and sets off fighter munitions stored there.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Oh...and do you forget the 3 axis thingie? What's stoping the carrier to turn up or down and jump?
But changing course takes time, during which you will get pounded on and possibly lose your engines or be destroyed.
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Originally posted by Jal-18
And everyone seems to forget that carriers always have escort groups. You simply can't jump a lonely carrier: at the least, it'll have some cruisers to protect it.
If you're going to start arguing carrier groups then be fair and give the destroyer the same advantage you're giving to the carrier.
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I'm glad some people have seen my point.
Having all 3 classes of ships would be ideal. In fact having destroyers AND battleships would be excellent for assaults and "forced entry" into systems with defended jump nodes, a case where a carrier would be exceedingly vulnerable.
Engage enemy capital ships with destroyers and battleships while the destroyers' fighter complement defends it and its fleet from bombers and takes out fixed emplacements like sentry guns/mjolnirs or whatever.
Assuming the enemy at the jump node are pushed back or sufficiently engaged, at the critical juncture carrier(s) jump in and deploy fighters and bombers which would be fueled, armed and waiting in the tubes(real carriers keep fighters on their catapults at all times during rough times). This would most likely tip the battle in the GTVA's favor.
I dont remember in the game if there are mined jump points but that would certainly complicate things.
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@Ghostavo: Because right now, destroyers are doing mediocre jobs at the tasks they're assigned, which leads to more loses. If you split them into carriers and battleships, you spread out your forces, and you maximize their effectiveness by having them worry about one task and one task only.
@karajorma: since they're talking about a single destroyer jumping in and attacking a carrier, the destroyer doesn't get the benefits. If you have a destroyer group jump in and attack a carrier group, then it becomes a fleet battle and not a true test of carrier-vs-destroyer. (Although that makes me realise that a destroyer coming in out of nowhere isn't exactly a fair combat test either.)
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Precisely why I said that ALL staded ship claees are usefull in certain conditions and should all be in-game.
What evidence? when command sez reinforcements are on the way, it ALLWAYS takes AT LEAST 5 minutes for them arrive..even fighters. Since they charge hteir jump dirves ain just a few seconds, then they would arrive nigh instantly if the in-system jump was instantanious...
The support ship is all the evidence you could ask for. Arrives the moment you call it in. And the outer limit on reinforcements is 3 minutes in the previously mentioned mission, not the minimum as you are implying. And most of the time, fighter wings show up precisely on cue.
The reason these debates always degenerate into arguments of defense is that defense is precisely where the dedicated carrier/battleship idea fails. Offensively, they are capable of outclassing a destroyer, without question. But defensively, they are both severly handicapped by the ability of an opponent to exploit its weaknesses. Talking about escort groups is a non-sequiter, because for whatever reason neither Terrans or Vasudans (who have their own seperate command priorities) nor the shivans EVER actually escort their capital ships the way any current tactician would want. In fact, I can't think of more than maybe one mission where a capital ship was actually being reinforced by a cruiser or corvette, in either Freespace game. So it's not that the argument that "an escort would do this" is a bad one, it's just a useless one because, for whatever reason, escorting ships in the context of subspace and the Freespace universe in general is obviously something that isn't done.
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LOL..battleships handicapped defensivly?
StratComm, the WW2 battlehip Iowa has 116 AA guns and uber-thick armor. It would take a whole lot of fihhters to take one down. And it wouldn't be standing still waiting to get blown up.
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Don't get me started on that carrier/battleship discussion. The BB's lost in Pearl Harbour don't count. the only other battleships sunk by airplanes I can think of are the Repulse and Priince of Whales, and to sink them, the japs mobilised every airplane they had in the vicinity from multiple bases - hundereds of them.
Mind you, the Prince of whales and especilly the Repulse (it was a battlecruiser actually) have vastly inferior AA armament than the american designs (they learnt their lessons well).
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Allso, did it ever occur to you that [V] didn't put battlegroups in for other reasons? As in - ship limits and game speed.
In game there is a constant mention of battlegroups, alltough we only see the Colossus battlegroup.
EDIT: Remeber that many things were done for gameplay resons - like fighter wings that you call popping out allmost instantly, while the one command scramles take a lot longer.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
LOL..battleships handicapped defensivly?
StratComm, the WW2 battlehip Iowa has 116 AA guns and uber-thick armor. It would take a whole lot of fihhters to take one down. And it wouldn't be standing still waiting to get blown up.
Single strike by a midwar US dive-bomber squadron. Not so hard after all.
Originally posted by TrashMan
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Don't get me started on that carrier/battleship discussion. The BB's lost in Pearl Harbour don't count. the only other battleships sunk by airplanes I can think of are the Repulse and Priince of Whales, and to sink them, the japs mobilised every airplane they had in the vicinity from multiple bases - hundereds of them.
Mind you, the Prince of whales and especilly the Repulse (it was a battlecruiser actually) have vastly inferior AA armament than the american designs (they learnt their lessons well).
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First off, the Japanese aircraft that sank Force Z were old, obscelent Nell bombers, 1920s-era aircraft; second, there were only about forty of them.
Let me start naming the other battleships lost wholely or in part to air action for you then: Bismarck, Tirpitz, Hiei, Yamato, Musashi, Ise, Hyuga, Kongo, Haruna. Those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head; I've probably missed one or two Japanese ones that were lost toward the end of the war.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
LOL..battleships handicapped defensivly?
StratComm, the WW2 battlehip Iowa has 116 AA guns and uber-thick armor. It would take a whole lot of fihhters to take one down. And it wouldn't be standing still waiting to get blown up.
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Don't get me started on that carrier/battleship discussion. The BB's lost in Pearl Harbour don't count. the only other battleships sunk by airplanes I can think of are the Repulse and Priince of Whales, and to sink them, the japs mobilised every airplane they had in the vicinity from multiple bases - hundereds of them.
Mind you, the Prince of whales and especilly the Repulse (it was a battlecruiser actually) have vastly inferior AA armament than the american designs (they learnt their lessons well).
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Allso, did it ever occur to you that [V] didn't put battlegroups in for other reasons? As in - ship limits and game speed.
In game there is a constant mention of battlegroups, alltough we only see the Colossus battlegroup.
EDIT: Remeber that many things were done for gameplay resons - like fighter wings that you call popping out allmost instantly, while the one command scramles take a lot longer.
WTF?
PoW had a great AA defense for that time, and there was only 44 Nell and Betty bombers that attacked PoW and Repulse.
Where the hell did you got that information?
Also, There's much more battleships that was sanked in airattack.
Tirpitz, Marat, Petropavlovsk, Conte di Cavour, Impero, Roma, Strasbourg, Clemenceau, Setsu, Hiei, Haruna, Ise, Hyuga, Musashi and Yamato.
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And while your at it, you may as well count the Bismark. Not technically sank by them, but aircraft certainly were essential to taking her down. Battleships are no longer in service precisely because of the overwhelming superiority of airborn offensives. Never mind that you still can't seem to get past WW2.
And if you want to argue about something in a game, use what's in the game for your arguments. If technical limitations of the engine are what prevented battlegroups from showing up (and I actually agree that they are) then that becomes part of canon anyway, since the story arc was built under those limitations. Deal with it.
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bravo StratComm
*thunderous applause*
:yes:
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Originally posted by TrashMan
LOL..battleships handicapped defensivly?
Arm fighters with maxims and the battleship is f****d without air support. I suppose you're about to tell me that for some WWII related reason that isn't a weakness. :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by karajorma
Arm fighters with maxims and the battleship is f****d without air support. I suppose you're about to tell me that for some WWII related reason that isn't a weakness. :rolleyes:
Falklands could probably be used as an example, too; without air superiority from the Harriers, the British taskforce would have been doomed to failure.
Of course, on the subject of carriers, both of the ones deployed required a great deal of defense from supporting warships; IIRC they used them to form perimiters round the carriers, to provide both longer range radar, AAAf and simply to act as diversionary targets.
It's arguably a perfect model for this, actually.... because the British forces relied upon the Harriers cased on the carriers, but at the same time a succesful attack upon just one of the carriers could have spelled disaster.
Of course, therein lies the reason why the Orion is described as a 'carrier/destroyer' - it serves exactly that role. It just has the advantage of more places to put weaponry, unlike naval carriers which need stuff like runways and a sea-hull. So it can fulfill that key role of a fighter platform, yet is able to defend itself rather than rely on escorts.
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Originally posted by StratComm
And while your at it, you may as well count the Bismark. Not technically sank by them, but aircraft certainly were essential to taking her down. Battleships are no longer in service precisely because of the overwhelming superiority of airborn offensives. Never mind that you still can't seem to get past WW2.
You could count Bismarck. Yamato was flodded near the entrane of the harbor to serve as a coastal battery as I recall (and was blown up later).
And I was only naming ships in the pacific theathre. POW was a newer british ship and was far superior to the Repulse, but still it was inferior to later american designes. After Pearl Harbour, they popped every ship with as much best AA guns as they could.
Regardless, in FS2, the greatest weakness of hte battleships is lost (distance to carrier/fighter base)
And if you want to argue about something in a game, use what's in the game for your arguments. If technical limitations of the engine are what prevented battlegroups from showing up (and I actually agree that they are) then that becomes part of canon anyway, since the story arc was built under those limitations. Deal with it. [/B]
Yeah, the game was built armoud those limitations, BUT.. Battlegroups ARE mentioned and one is seen which means that batlegroups ARE canon.
Arm fighters with maxims and the battleship is f****d without air support. I suppose you're about to tell me that for some WWII related reason that isn't a weakness.
Really? As far as I recall, Maxim doesn't have a Big Damage flag.
the other thing is - how do you belive a FS2 battleship would look. How long would it be, how well armoured or armed?
Untill you answer such questions than you can't calim the above.
Of course, I can makea UBER battleship, and you can make a UBER bomber and we can continue upping hte HP, damage and range til lthe game chrashes:D
EDIT: 44 Nell and Betty bombers? Strange... Inthe book I'm reading the number is a little higher.
And "Betty" and "Nell"? :confused: I guess those are american names for some Jap fighters?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
You could count Bismarck. Yamato was flodded near the entrane of the harbor to serve as a coastal battery as I recall (and was blown up later).
And I was only naming ships in the pacific theathre. POW was a newer british ship and was far superior to the Repulse, but still it was inferior to later american designes. After Pearl Harbour, they popped every ship with as much best AA guns as they could.
Regardless, in FS2, the greatest weakness of hte battleships is lost (distance to carrier/fighter base)
Yeah, the game was built armoud those limitations, BUT.. Battlegroups ARE mentioned and one is seen which means that batlegroups ARE canon.
Really? As far as I recall, Maxim doesn't have a Big Damage flag.
the other thing is - how do you belive a FS2 battleship would look. How long would it be, how well armoured or armed?
Untill you answer such questions than you can't calim the above.
Of course, I can makea UBER battleship, and you can make a UBER bomber and we can continue upping hte HP, damage and range til lthe game chrashes:D
EDIT: 44 Nell and Betty bombers? Strange... Inthe book I'm reading the number is a little higher.
And "Betty" and "Nell"? :confused: I guess those are american names for some Jap fighters?
Yamato was attacked by nearly 500 American dive and torpedo bomber on it's way to Okinawa, and it was sunk off the coast of Kyushu.
It was NEVER salvaged.
Betty and Nell are 2 engines bomber.
G3M Nell
Japan's first all-metal monoplane bomber.
used extensivley in strategic bombing campaign in China.
Design of late 1920's, it had little defense armament and weak armor.
Initially It attacked Chinese city without fighter escort and it suffered heavy losses to the Chinese fighter defense.
G4M Betty.
All-metal monoplane bomber.
It had a great aerodynamic structure, and heavy defense armament.
It's major drawback was its lack of armor.
It turned into a fireball very quickly.
44 Nell and Bettys armed with torpedo's and bombs attacked PoW and Repulse, 3 was shotdown and more then 20 was damaged by the AA fire.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Really? As far as I recall, Maxim doesn't have a Big Damage flag.
the other thing is - how do you belive a FS2 battleship would look. How long would it be, how well armoured or armed?
Untill you answer such questions than you can't calim the above.
So? Once the fighters have knocked the battleship down to 10% hul then you send the bombers in for one or two massed strikes. End of battleship unless you've put stupidly large amounts of AAA on it.
And don't try giving me the "you don't know what an FS2 battleship would be like" argument. I've had 2 bloody years of you ramming the concept down our throats.
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The "battlegroups" mentioned in Freespace are not a group of ships that clusters itself together, but rather a grouping analogous to a fleet. The Psamtic was leader of the 13th Vasudan battlegroup, but you never see her deployed with escort. Rather, these battlegroups move in to a system and disperse to hunt/engage the enemy. The same is true presumably of the Colossus battlegroup, the only other place that the term is used. And since the Colossus jumps in alone in the mission where Bosch has the main beam cannons disabled so he can slip the blockade, the only safe assumtpion is that the "battlegroup" wasn't directly supporting the Colossus the whole time. The only time it is deployed with any sort of escort is in Clash of the Titans II (IIRC), where you are told an entire fleet would be present to draw out the Shivans. Instead you see three ships.
The only "battlegroup" you actually see is the hodge-podge of ships escorting the colossus in the cutscenes, but since the Orion seen is the Galatea you can't take those seriously, and much less as canon.
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Originally posted by karajorma
So? Once the fighters have knocked the battleship down to 10% hul then you send the bombers in for one or two massed strikes. End of battleship unless you've put stupidly large amounts of AAA on it.
Assumttion. First those fighters have to get to those 10%.
And battleships would have a massive ammount of AA guns, since they have no fightercover.
And don't try giving me the "you don't know what an FS2 battleship would be like" argument. I've had 2 bloody years of you ramming the concept down our throats. [/B]
YEAS! YAES! And I'm gonna keep ramming it! :drevil:
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA :dizzy:
No seriously - what you described was my battleship concept. I askd about yours.
@StratComm - you draw your conclusions howevery ou like, but please don't call them cannon simply becouse you interpret it like that. The normal existence of battlegroups is pefectly valid and open in FS2. Destroyers are tough ships and they can afford to brake off and move alone when needed.
So that, my friend, is open territory...
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Originally posted by StratComm
The only "battlegroup" you actually see is the hodge-podge of ships escorting the colossus in the cutscenes, but since the Orion seen is the Galatea you can't take those seriously, and much less as canon.
THat Orion was the Galatea?:wtf: THe Galatea was destroyed before the Colossus was even commisioned. DO you have a Screenie showing its nameplate?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Assumttion. First those fighters have to get to those 10%.
And battleships would have a massive ammount of AA guns, since they have no fightercover.
Why do you think I gave the fighters maxims? The range of the maxim is longer than the effective range of any AA gun (even if you gave the battleship maxims too the fighters would still be more effective). They'd just park up 3km away from the battleship and reduce it to scrap metal at long range and there would be f**k all the battleship could do to stop them.
The only assumption in that is that you're not planning to invent new uber weapons for the battleship. Nothing in the FS universe that has been seen on a capship is of any use against a fighter with a maxim parked 3km away.
Originally posted by TrashMan
no seriously - what you described was my battleship concept. I askd about yours
Quite frankly as far as I'm concerned a battleship is just a destroyer with a couple more guns instead of a fighter bay. Basically a scaled up deimos. Like the deimos it would be a danger to anything that got close to it but would be highly vulnerable to long range weapons.
I certainly don't consider it death with an engine like you seem to. Basically it's a destroyer with a couple more beams.
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Trashman, that goes back to the story arc thing I was refering to earlier. While my arguments are an extrapolation of what we see in the game, the evidense just isn't there to support fleet deployments the way you envision them. Period. And if a destroyer is "a tough ship that can afford to go out on its own" as you said, then why would command replace them with less rounded warships? Why replace their capabilities with ships who can only do, at best, a marginally better job of certain things but which must be escorted at all times by a sizable percentage of the fleet? It doesn't make any tactical sense.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
THat Orion was the Galatea?:wtf: THe Galatea was destroyed before the Colossus was even commisioned. DO you have a Screenie showing its nameplate?
I don't have a screen cap, but the Galatea nameplate on that destroyer is one of the myriad inconsistancies and outright stupid blunders of the cutscenes. They weren't done in-house by :v: due to time constraints, IIRC, and their accuracy is more than a bit lacking.
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Originally posted by karajorma
Why do you think I gave the fighters maxims? The range of the maxim is longer than the effective range of any AA gun (even if you gave the battleship maxims too the fighters would still be more effective). They'd just park up 3km away from the battleship and reduce it to scrap metal at long range and there would be f**k all the battleship could do to stop them.
The only assumption in that is that you're not planning to invent new uber weapons for the battleship. Nothing in the FS universe that has been seen on a capship is of any use against a fighter with a maxim parked 3km away.
Maxim is one of [V]'s flukes... Normally, there's no way a fighter could have a weapon with a longer range than a 2-3km warship.
So basicly, without any new weapons (jut normal Maxim range) fighters would have a VERY tough time.
Quite frankly as far as I'm concerned a battleship is just a destroyer with a couple more guns instead of a fighter bay. Basically a scaled up deimos. Like the deimos it would be a danger to anything that got close to it but would be highly vulnerable to long range weapons.
I certainly don't consider it death with an engine like you seem to. Basically it's a destroyer with a couple more beams.
Death with engines? No.. but very dangerous...yes.
A Deimos is a very difficult opponent.
Now imagine the ship with several times the firepower and a lot's of HPs and tough turrets.
It would take a LOT of fighters/bombers to take it out, but it would be doable, espcially since a carrier would have a ****load of them.
On the other hand, if the BB ever gets in close then it's curtians.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Maxim is one of [V]'s flukes... Normally, there's no way a fighter could have a weapon with a longer range than a 2-3km warship.
So basicly, without any new weapons (jut normal Maxim range) fighters would have a VERY tough time.
Even if you mount maxims (or even a version twice as powerful) on the battleship it still loses. The fighters face a single opponent that is 2km or more in size at a distance of 3km that is hardly moving. The battleship faces a quick moving 20m long multiple target at a distance of 3km with shields that protect it against the maxims effects anyway.
Furthermore the GTVA have never mounted fighter weapons on a destroyer so now you're calling for the introduction of new uber weapons several orders of magnitude better than anything that the GTVA has used previously.
This is ludicrous fanwank. If I were to participate in this kind of lunacy I'd simply claim the fighters have uber shields, move at C fractional and are all flown by relatives of superman. Either get serious and remain within the context of the game or don't even bother attempting to argue your point with me.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Death with engines? No.. but very dangerous...yes.
A Deimos is a very difficult opponent.
Now imagine the ship with several times the firepower and a lot's of HPs and tough turrets.
It would take a LOT of fighters/bombers to take it out, but it would be doable, espcially since a carrier would have a ****load of them.
On the other hand, if the BB ever gets in close then it's curtians.
Sorry but without fighter support a battleship is dead meat. It's not just that I don't believe in your concept of a battleship. I think it goes completely against canon and therefore is as risable as the noob uber destroyers with BFGreens on all the turrets.
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The Deimos is the closest thing to a perfect warship in FS, IMO. If it had a fighterbay, then it would be an incredibly dangerous asset. The Iceni is even closer, but as it was a one-off it's hard to say. I'd draw a comparison to ships like the KMS Graf Spee - a smallish ship, but vastly more powerful than anything else it's size, and much faster than anything bigger. I'd prefer to see heavy corvettes/frigates more than "battleships" - they're much more tactically flexible, cheaper, faster and simply better than current destroyers. Add a fighterbay to a Saphah-class frigate (from Derelict) and you've got the perfect capship. 3km-long superdestroyers are simply too vulnerable. Yes, they have a lot of firepower, armour etc., but the problem is it's incredibly easy to outmaneuvre them. All you have to do is jump in a couple of cruisers and bomber wings. The cruisers draw it's fire, while the bombers disable it/destory it's main weapons. It is then entirely ****ed (so to speak;)). It has no means of getting away, and/or no means of driving off attackers while it awaits backup. The KMS Tirpitz was a perfect example.
I myself have a few light destroyer/heavy frigate designs in the pipeline, as they're simply more useful than a Hecate for practically anything...
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Originally posted by karajorma
Even if you mount maxims (or even a version twice as powerful) on the battleship it still loses. The fighters face a single opponent that is 2km or more in size at a distance of 3km that is hardly moving. The battleship faces a quick moving 20m long multiple target at a distance of 3km with shields that protect it against the maxims effects anyway.
Furthermore the GTVA have never mounted fighter weapons on a destroyer so now you're calling for the introduction of new uber weapons several orders of magnitude better than anything that the GTVA has used previously.
WTF are you taking about? Putting Maxims on a wcapship? where did you get that from?
I said FIGHTERS with NORMAL weapons (maxims too, but with normal range.. that range is a fluke, just like a Myrmodon carring Helios bombs).
Sorry but without fighter support a battleship is dead meat. It's not just that I don't believe in your concept of a battleship. I think it goes completely against canon and therefore is as risable as the noob uber destroyers with BFGreens on all the turrets.
That's just the point. A BB isn't cannon. Neither is a missile corvette, or any other possible ship class that we haven't explicitly seen.
So are you saying that no one should ever make any other ships except cruisers, corvettes and destroyers? That's just bogus.
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The range may be a fluke, but it's there. You can't dismiss it that easily.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
The range may be a fluke, but it's there. You can't dismiss it that easily.
If it's a clear error, I can.
What if they accidently gave the Mekhu laser damage a few extra 0's. The game wouldn't make any sense at all, since you would pund destroyers to oblivion with the weakest laser. Well, this mistake is just as bad, only it's not that obvious.
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Hardly. This isn't an error; the Helios is debateable, but I doubt that's an error either.
It was meant to be this way. The point at which you get access to the Maxim is a pretty good clue; you're flying a Serapis at that point and a capital ship will eat you alive at close range. So they give you the Maxim as a survival tool. Now you don't to get up in the face of every Rakshasa or Cain that comes along.
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The tech description for the Maxim is confusing, but it basically says it fires energized uranium slugs. Those slugs would have a very high range, there's nothing to slow them down. The energy part of the weapon might wear out after a kilometer or so, but that slug still has a ton of kinetic energy. If you fire a bullet in space, it will do the same damage from 10 m as it will from 10,000 m, ignoring gravity and all those other forces that would deflect it a micrometer. So Maxims having a high range doesn't seem like much of a fluke.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
If it's a clear error, I can.
What if they accidently gave the Mekhu laser damage a few extra 0's. The game wouldn't make any sense at all, since you would pund destroyers to oblivion with the weakest laser. Well, this mistake is just as bad, only it's not that obvious.
ngtm1r's right, Freespace is pretty extensively balanced and weapons errors would have been the first ones caught. The Helios in the Myrmidon is an easter egg if anything (the Myrm even has missile bays big enough to accomodate a Helios missile) but there is rarely, if ever, an instance of a professionally developed mission where that combination of ship and ordinance is even possible. But the Maxim is clearly supposed to be able to outrange capital ship guns; it's shaking of the player ship and the resulting low accuracy only serve to reinforce that. You can't call something an error just because it violates your vision of how everything should work.
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Shouldn't a laser have nigh infinite range then too? Shouldn't ALL weapons have nigh infinite range?
And what's up with that "you need the Maxim to survive" thing?
I NEVER used it and I passed FS2 and all difficulties several times.
It really doesn't make any sense for a fighter to have such a long-range weapon, while a capships doesn't.
Hell, even a todays smallest sedstroyer has weaponry with greater range than any FS2 ship!!!LOL
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Shouldn't a laser have nigh infinite range then too? Shouldn't ALL weapons have nigh infinite range?
And what's up with that "you need the Maxim to survive" thing?
I NEVER used it and I passed FS2 and all difficulties several times.
It really doesn't make any sense for a fighter to have such a long-range weapon, while a capships doesn't.
Hell, even a todays smallest sedstroyer has weaponry with greater range than any FS2 ship!!!LOL
You must use your imagination to comfort yourself, like think "the energy of the laser decays quickly" or something.
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Originally posted by Raa
They need to steal more Shivan technology to make another hades.
The Kayser and beam cannons are stolen Shivan technologies. The only thing Shivan about the Hades was the weaponry.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
WTF are you taking about? Putting Maxims on a wcapship? where did you get that from?
I said FIGHTERS with NORMAL weapons (maxims too, but with normal range.. that range is a fluke, just like a Myrmodon carring Helios bombs).
The idea that someone would say "Poof! The Maxim no longer has a range of 3km because I say so" was so stupid that I didn't even consider the possibility that you meant that. I was assuming you meant putting fighter weapons on battleships because that was the only argument I could see that made the remotest bit of sense. My apologies for not realising the sheer depths that you'd go to in order to win the argument.
While I'm here the Maxim is not the only FS2 weapon with a really long range. Is the Treb also an imaginary weapon too?
Originally posted by TrashMan
That's just the point. A BB isn't cannon. Neither is a missile corvette, or any other possible ship class that we haven't explicitly seen.
So are you saying that no one should ever make any other ships except cruisers, corvettes and destroyers? That's just bogus.
As above I was refering to putting Uber weapons on capships when I said canon. Now I realise that you have even less respect for canon than I though.
Fine. In Trashmanverse where up is down and left is right and you've completely rewritten FS2 canon in order to make it work the battleship is not vulnerable to fighter attack.
In the real FS2 universe however it's a giant target with "shoot me for lots of bonus kill points" written on it.
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What have you been smoking today? :wtf: Must be good! :D
As you said, the TREB is a canon weapon, granted. So why not put it on the capships turrets? 40 missile turrets with trebs all shooting at the player! Whippe!
But anyway..it seems that you are constantly stretching my words around. I would appriciate it if you cut it.
Just couse I want to make a BB doesn't mean I have no respect for canon. In fact, I prolly respect it more than you do.
I never said BB's woud (or should) be invulnerbale to fighter/bomber attacks, I only said they would be far less vulnerable than destroyers (Just the destroyers mind you.. not their fightercover).
If a typical destroyer has 20 aa capable turrets, then a battleships should have a t least 40.
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I'm going to step in here and backup kara, 'cuz he knows what he's talking about.
For one, the Treb is never mounted on a capital ship turret. Why? The Treb is not intended to take up an entire turret on a capital ship. Trebs are made to be used by bomber interceptors that are deployed to protect a capital ship, allowing the Treb more effective use than if fired from a turret.
And 40 AAA turrets? That's just... overkill. Even the Aeolus had two SGreens on the front end of the ship. While those turrets are still easy to counter (hint: Treb), that's just stupid to have a ship nearly twice as large as a destroyer be bristling with anti-fighter death. It's ineffective. As seen usually, big ships are usually put into production for one primary reason: killing other big ships (read: Colossus, Orion, Hatshepsut).
And the Helios was definitely a programming error on the part of Volition. The Myrmidon, which is designed to be a successor to the Ulysses, is able to carry almost every anti-fighter weapon except the Harpoon, but able to carry a bomb that can kill destroyers in several volleys? That's called a mistake.
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um and most of modern beam weaponry is based on shivan technology remember? doesnt anyone remember the intels lol!
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40 AAA turrets?
I said AA capable - that means any turret that can shoot at fighters (Terran turret, Flak or AAAf)
And since any ship I, or anyone else make will not be canon (maby the ship type will), I really fail to see the point of this descussion, since nothing I make will EVER be canon.
Allso, in the campaign I'm making, fighters aren't going to have such a redicolous advanatage (Treb will have a Bomb flag, so it can be shot down..and the Maxim..I'll either cripple it's range, or give capships something with equal range)
Capships in FS2 are still to weak in my oppinion.
I mean, a 2.5km long high-tech warship that has 15 weak turrets!?!?!? Who are you kidding?
Eh..don't worry..the Shivans won't have a BB.
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Interesting...
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Originally posted by TrashMan
But anyway..it seems that you are constantly stretching my words around. I would appriciate it if you cut it.
Just couse I want to make a BB doesn't mean I have no respect for canon. In fact, I prolly respect it more than you do.
I've already explained above that the fact you want to make a battleship isn't what means you have no respect for canon. I'll say it again because you apparently didn't get it last time. The fact that you decided that not only does the maxim not have a range of 3km in your universe but also try to use that as a reason why I am wrong is what means you have no respect for canon.
Putting uber weapons on your ship is the lack of respect for canon I thought you had. Arbitrarily changing the range of a canon weapon because you want to win an argument is the even bigger one you have.
The maxim has a range of 3km. For it to be a mistake by [V] as you seem to believe it would have to have been missed by the table designers, the mission designers and the playtesters. Do not hold up the myrmidon/helios thing up for comparison as there is no situation in the entire main campaign where you can actually put the helios on a myrmidon anyway so it was very easy for them to have missed.
Do not even think of daring to claim you have more respect for canon while spreading such herasy.
Originally posted by TrashMan
I never said BB's woud (or should) be invulnerbale to fighter/bomber attacks, I only said they would be far less vulnerable than destroyers (Just the destroyers mind you.. not their fightercover).
No you didn't. Had you said that I'd have have made a completely different argument because it is obvious to anyone not dead from the neck up that without fighter cover both are equally vulnerable to long range maxim style attacks while the battleship is obviously less vulnerable to short ranged attacks or bombing runs.
My whole complaint was in the way you refused to admit that a battleship without fighter escort was a sitting duck.
In fact you have continued to argue that a battleship could destroyer enemy fighters at maxim range. (A comment that only makes sense when you LATER tell people that you don't mean 3km by that.
That's not me twisting your words. That's you failing to make yourself clear. If you meant 1km say 1km. Don't reduce the maxim's range to 1km in your head and expect us all to realise that's what you mean telepathically.
If I made an error in assuming you meant putting bigger weapons on battleships when you said that they could deal with fighters at maxim range that's because I assumed you knew what maxim range was. The thought that someone would simply change the range of a canon weapon and not say so didn't even occur to me.
Anyway you've finally managed to say that the battleship is vulnerable to fighters which is what I wanted so I'll leave it here.
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Should I close this?
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You don't have to. I think we can try to keep it civil, but just in the event that it does degenerate further, I'll PM you. Kara, Trash, that means you two. Could we just for once have a decent discussion that doesn't fall into this flaming pit? :doubt:
As for Trashman: I've only got one suggestion for your post. When you mentioned adding the "Bomb" tag to the Treb, that seems a little unreasonable. Maybe just lessen its Subsystem Damage factor instead? It would make still a viable weapon against bombers (which it was intended for anyway), but it wouldn't be so ridiculously easy to take a capital's bite away. ;)
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The bomb flag wouldn't really help much: the Stiletto II has it too, but it's very rare for a Stiletto to get shot down. They move too quickly.
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Allso, in the campaign I'm making, fighters aren't going to have such a redicolous advanatage (Treb will have a Bomb flag, so it can be shot down..and the Maxim..I'll either cripple it's range, or give capships something with equal range)
Capships in FS2 are still to weak in my oppinion.
I mean, a 2.5km long high-tech warship that has 15 weak turrets!?!?!? Who are you kidding?
I kind of disagree. Capships shouldn't be big targets, but fighting one should not be excessively difficult or unfair. Besides, large ships in FS carry all those fighters for a reason.
Eh..don't worry..the Shivans won't have a BB.
The Sathanas will do fine. Why do you call this class battleship and not juggernaut?
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
The bomb flag wouldn't really help much: the Stiletto II has it too, but it's very rare for a Stiletto to get shot down. They move too quickly.
atilettos are always being shot down for me.
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Maybe you should stop trying to fire from maximum range and get closer to the target.
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well if you're close nothing gets shot down more-or less negating the argument.
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What it really does is show that you have no basis for your argument because you are complaining about a weapon you don't use properly.
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What it realy shows it that you dont have any idea what's being talked about. We are talking about enabling the bomb tag for the treb to weaken it against caphips. Range is the treb's primary advantage.
If you add the bomb tag it will weaken the trb becasue you are now forced to used it at short range.
Relocate.
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Why on Earth would you want to weaken the treb? Why not just up the difficulty?
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Originally posted by willy_principal
i agree with that.............and the GTVA knows that.....so they cancelled the destruction of the Nereid...(which was going to collapse the Vega-Capella node)
(i think...)
Everything in Capella was destroyed...and everything that enters there will be burnt in seconds...
I know this was much earlier in the topic, but I did want to clear this up. The Nereid was sent through the Vega-Capella node to collapse it, even after the supernova. I'm sure that, for all the GTVA knew, the Shivans could have had ships capable of withstanding the forces of the supernova. Heck, we never even see the Sathanes that remained behind actually get destroyed; who knows, maybe they had strong enough armor to make it?
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Unlikely, seeing as one was taken down just by the beam weapons on the Colossus.
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Uh, there was a whole squadron of Sekhmets with Helios bombs assisting the Colossus. In many cases, the player even gets the kill!
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We're not totally sure how beams work and how much energy they deliever, though. Plus it took the Colossus a fairly long time even so.
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Originally posted by Mongoose
I know this was much earlier in the topic, but I did want to clear this up. The Nereid was sent through the Vega-Capella node to collapse it, even after the supernova. I'm sure that, for all the GTVA knew, the Shivans could have had ships capable of withstanding the forces of the supernova. Heck, we never even see the Sathanes that remained behind actually get destroyed; who knows, maybe they had strong enough armor to make it?
supernovas have enough explosive, radioactive power to wipe solar systems clean. and remmeber the black hole that forms.
any sathanas that stayed behind, didnt make it.
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Originally posted by karajorma
I've already explained above that the fact you want to make a battleship isn't what means you have no respect for canon. I'll say it again because you apparently didn't get it last time. The fact that you decided that not only does the maxim not have a range of 3km in your universe but also try to use that as a reason why I am wrong is what means you have no respect for canon.
Putting uber weapons on your ship is the lack of respect for canon I thought you had. Arbitrarily changing the range of a canon weapon because you want to win an argument is the even bigger one you have.
The maxim has a range of 3km. For it to be a mistake by [V] as you seem to believe it would have to have been missed by the table designers, the mission designers and the playtesters. Do not hold up the myrmidon/helios thing up for comparison as there is no situation in the entire main campaign where you can actually put the helios on a myrmidon anyway so it was very easy for them to have missed.
Do not even think of daring to claim you have more respect for canon while spreading such herasy.
Heresy? No at all...
You are REALLY stretching it here. Who ever said putting UBER weapons on my ships? Like I told you before, I'm a master at balancing things, so everything would fit in.
And unless you haven't figured it out by now - changing any tbl entry of ANYTHING completely is warranted when making a campaign. My campaign won't be canon anyway ,so why would I worry over the range of a singel weapon.
and on another note - the Maxims range can easily pass undetected. I passed FS2 dozens of times, and I did use the Maxim, but I never noticed it's long range... I guess it normal when youre allways less than 800m from the target.
..
No you didn't. Had you said that I'd have have made a completely different argument because it is obvious to anyone not dead from the neck up that without fighter cover both are equally vulnerable to long range maxim style attacks while the battleship is obviously less vulnerable to short ranged attacks or bombing runs.
My whole complaint was in the way you refused to admit that a battleship without fighter escort was a sitting duck.
In fact you have continued to argue that a battleship could destroyer enemy fighters at maxim range. (A comment that only makes sense when you LATER tell people that you don't mean 3km by that.
That's not me twisting your words. That's you failing to make yourself clear. If you meant 1km say 1km. Don't reduce the maxim's range to 1km in your head and expect us all to realise that's what you mean telepathically.
If I made an error in assuming you meant putting bigger weapons on battleships when you said that they could deal with fighters at maxim range that's because I assumed you knew what maxim range was. The thought that someone would simply change the range of a canon weapon and not say so didn't even occur to me.
Anyway you've finally managed to say that the battleship is vulnerable to fighters which is what I wanted so I'll leave it here.
Again...you got it all wrong. Read my posts again, and you'll notice that I never said a BB wouldn't be vulnerable to fighters.
and when I wrote that thing I didn't know Maxim had a 300m range, so I assumed fighters would be close enough to get pounded by Flak/AAAf..
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
I kind of disagree. Capships shouldn't be big targets, but fighting one should not be excessively difficult or unfair. Besides, large ships in FS carry all those fighters for a reason.
The Sathanas will do fine. Why do you call this class battleship and not juggernaut?
Battleship - smaller than a Sath/Colossus, has no fighterbays, has ****loads of frepower.
Oh - and whay make capships a bit tougher? Well, they don't cray DANGER when you approach them.
Ever played X-Wing Alliance? Now there's a game where a warship was friggin dangerous. Those Star Destroyers spit a hail of laser beams at you in bursts, and 3-4 hits and you're done for.
Extreemly difficult to take out singlehandedly, but still doable (did it 2-3times)....
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Originally posted by Drew
supernovas have enough explosive, radioactive power to wipe solar systems clean. and remmeber the black hole that forms.
any sathanas that stayed behind, didnt make it.
A supernova of Capella would form a neutron star, not a black hole. You need a REALLY big star to make a black hole. Most supernovas result in neutron stars.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Battleship - smaller than a Sath/Colossus, has no fighterbays, has ****loads of frepower.
Oh - and whay make capships a bit tougher? Well, they don't cray DANGER when you approach them.
Ever played X-Wing Alliance? Now there's a game where a warship was friggin dangerous. Those Star Destroyers spit a hail of laser beams at you in bursts, and 3-4 hits and you're done for.
Extreemly difficult to take out singlehandedly, but still doable (did it 2-3times)....
Can't Star Destroyers carry tons and tons of fighters?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Heresy? No at all...
You are REALLY stretching it here. Who ever said putting UBER weapons on my ships? Like I told you before, I'm a master at balancing things, so everything would fit in.
Not very modest, are we...
Somehow I have a hard time believing that statement. Just because you make everything overgunned to the point where factions are roughly equivalent does not mean that you've balanced things well for playability. By its very nature as a storytelling flight sim, Freespace tends to be fighter-centric in its gameplay. Making a battleship bristle with flak and AAAf makes it extremely annoying to fight against, because it's a crapshoot rather than any symbolance of skill to take one down.
Of course, from what I've seen you're preference in gameplay is a lightshow rather than something requiring actual skill. Your disposition toward overgunned, oversized craft with no real weakness besides getting overwhelmed points highly to this. I can't think of a single ship you've posted, ever, that had a weakness that could be taken advantage of, except for the Typhon-clone if you forget to give it a turret in between the engine legs.
Originally posted by TrashMan
and on another note - the Maxims range can easily pass undetected. I passed FS2 dozens of times, and I did use the Maxim, but I never noticed it's long range... I guess it normal when youre allways less than 800m from the target.
There is a difference between playing a game and testing a game. In testing, you try every possible scenario. That's why I still think the Myrmidon/Helios combo is deliberate; it would have been considerably easier to simply remove the comment from the tables when someone noticed it than to dissalow the combination in every single mission, yet :v: did not. Likewise, had the Maxim's range not been intentional, someone would have noticed quite quickly that it was all too easy to take out AAAf or Flak turrets without getting shot at.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Ever played X-Wing Alliance? Now there's a game where a warship was friggin dangerous. Those Star Destroyers spit a hail of laser beams at you in bursts, and 3-4 hits and you're done for.
Extreemly difficult to take out singlehandedly, but still doable (did it 2-3times)....
Yes. On the highest difficulty I took down an ISD with my X-Wing. ALONE.
The ship you propose would eat a lone fighter alive. Hell, I can take on a Sathanas alone at mid-level difficulty and stand a reasonable chance of living to tell about it. Not so this...thing.
If I can take on the biggest, toughest, meanest ship in the game with nothing more then an Artemis D.H. and some Cyclops bombs, and win, that should tell you something. FS capital ships ALL need fighter support to work effectively. They are combined-arms weapons for a combined-arms environment. Making them otherwise is a complete and utter lack of respect for the canon.
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Originally posted by Drew
supernovas have enough explosive, radioactive power to wipe solar systems clean. and remmeber the black hole that forms.
Supernova's don't always result in a black hole.
That said I consider it unlikely that anything could have been hit by the supernova and survived.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Heresy? No at all...
You are REALLY stretching it here. Who ever said putting UBER weapons on my ships? Like I told you before, I'm a master at balancing things, so everything would fit in.
For goodness sake Trashman! I've already explained this several times. I assumed that you must be putting uber weapons on the capship to get around the Maxim's 3km range. The thought that you didn't know the range of the Maxim cannon didn't occur to me because I had already stated that the Maxim has a 3km range several times. In fact I stated that fact 3 times in one post!
It's looks like you're not reading my posts very carefully before you respond to them so I suggest that you re-read this before you comment because I'm not trying to flame you. (or at least trying hard NOT to flame you :D)
Originally posted by TrashMan
And unless you haven't figured it out by now - changing any tbl entry of ANYTHING completely is warranted when making a campaign. My campaign won't be canon anyway ,so why would I worry over the range of a singel weapon.
You're more than welcome to do whatever the f**k you like in your campaign. You can make your ships fly backwards for all I care. In fact I've even offered to help when you had problems with your missions in FRED. I can't stress this enough. I have nothing against you doing whatever you like in your campaign
However this thread was not about your campaign. This thread was a discussion about why carriers were not used in the FS2 universe. Later on a discussion of battleships in the FS2 universe was also added but at no point was the thread about reasons battleships can't be used in Trashmanverse. The entire argument revolved around the real FS2 universe and any extentions to it which try to remain true to its canon.
We don't care about Trashmanverse because you hold all the cards there so there is no point in arguing with you that you're wrong. You could have a giant pink bunny rabbit eat the shivan fleet at the end and it still wouldn't be wrong.
Try to claim that the GTVA were idiots for not having a giant pink bunny defence system in FS2 however and we'll quite rightly regard you with a mixture of pity and horror.
Originally posted by TrashMan
and on another note - the Maxims range can easily pass undetected. I passed FS2 dozens of times, and I did use the Maxim, but I never noticed it's long range... I guess it normal when youre allways less than 800m from the target.
How's it my fault that you were so unobservant as to not notice the Serapis fighters shooting at things you could hardly even target in "The Fog of War"? :p
Originally posted by TrashMan
Again...you got it all wrong. Read my posts again, and you'll notice that I never said a BB wouldn't be vulnerable to fighters.
and when I wrote that thing I didn't know Maxim had a 300m range, so I assumed fighters would be close enough to get pounded by Flak/AAAf..
You might have never said it outright but you most certainly implied that a battleships AA would be able to defend it against enemy fighters even wthout its own fighter screen. If you weren't arguing that why the hell did you respond to me at all?
Now if you made that error due to you not realising the range of the Maxim that's forgivable but the fact that you didn't post a comment to retract that implication when I told you that the maxim had a 3km range is what I find less admirable.
Instead of simply admitting that you were wrong because you didn't know the range of the maxim you instead decided that you were going to claim it was a mistake and reduce the range in Trashmanverse. Again that is fine in and of itself but it has no relevence whatsoever in this discussion.
Changes to canon in your universe can not be used to make my reasoning for the vulnerabilities of battleships invalid. Either you stick to FS2 canon in arguments like this or you simply stay out of discussions about their weaknesses in the FS2 Universe.
Originally posted by Woolie Wool
A supernova of Capella would form a neutron star, not a black hole. You need a REALLY big star to make a black hole. Most supernovas result in neutron stars.
From what data I can see in the ISDB Capella may be just large enough to form a black hole (i.e 3 times the mass of Sol). I like to say that whether a black hole would be formed or not is completely up the campagn designer as it is completely dependant on how the shivans made the star go nova in the first place.
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It will lose about 75% of that mass in the supernova, though.
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The mass calculation is made before the blowoff from a supernova, IIRC, so Capella could be said to form a black hole, as kara said already, if the campaign designer sees fit. The reverse would also be true (if capella was too light but somehow formed a black hole anyway) because again, the supernova process was not a natural phenomenon but a forced reaction by a technologically advanced species. I think the end cutscene discounts that if you take it as part of canon (I tend to treat all of the cutscenes with skepticism since they have some rather notorious mistakes, though the latter few are, for the most part, ok), but there's nothing saying it couldn't happen.
karajorma: well said.
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Originally posted by StratComm
That's why I still think the Myrmidon/Helios combo is deliberate; it would have been considerably easier to simply remove the comment from the tables when someone noticed it than to dissalow the combination in every single mission, yet :v: did not.
I tend to agree that it was most likely an easter egg. However it is easy to miss if it wasn't. You only get the Helios in two missions. Bearbaiting and High Noon. In both missions you're scrambled in a bomber. There is quite simply no mission in which you could test the two together without cheats or editing the mission.
This is not true for the maxim. As I said before it would have had to have been missed in over 10 missions, with a varienty of ships by both the mission designers and the playtesters. As you say Strat there is a difference between playing and playtesting.
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That's quite true. The only other thing to point out is that while we see the end result of mission testing, we really don't know how many iterations of missions were passed through before they were cleared for publishing. It's possible that it came up in an early version (as forgetting to restrict the loadout the first time through isn't uncommon) but we'd never see it. But yes, if it weren't for us looking through the tables, that combination would have taken forever to find.
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Originally posted by karajorma
For goodness sake Trashman! I've already explained this several times. I assumed that you must be putting uber weapons on the capship to get around the Maxim's 3km range. The thought that you didn't know the range of the Maxim cannon didn't occur to me because I had already stated that the Maxim has a 3km range several times. In fact I stated that fact 3 times in one post!
It's looks like you're not reading my posts very carefully before you respond to them so I suggest that you re-read this before you comment because I'm not trying to flame you. (or at least trying hard NOT to flame you :D)
Looks like we're both assuming to much...
And no, I never tough you actually flamed me.. I tough more you supported your oppinion with great zeal. And that's not bad...
How's it my fault that you were so unobservant as to not notice the Serapis fighters shooting at things you could hardly even target in "The Fog of War"? :p
My point is - If I missed it(and I played FS2 a zillion times), then so can many others, including the testers.
I can't calim for sure it was a mistake, but since the maxims range is wierd, you can't be sure either is intentional.
for a wing of FIGTERS(not bombers) to be able to pund a destroyer away without even getting hit is... well...redicolous
You might have never said it outright but you most certainly implied that a battleships AA would be able to defend it against enemy fighters even wthout its own fighter screen. If you weren't arguing that why the hell did you respond to me at all?
// That depends what you exactly mean by defend. Against how many craf of which type? You see, even the weakes destroyer in FS2 can defend itself alone if attacked by..let's say a wing of Lokis. My whole point is that a BB would have a far better AA defence (as good as having it's own interceptor wing), and you would need a sizebale attack to breach it's defences...
Now if you made that error due to you not realising the range of the Maxim that's forgivable but the fact that you didn't post a comment to retract that implication when I told you that the maxim had a 3km range is what I find less admirable.
Instead of simply admitting that you were wrong because you didn't know the range of the maxim you instead decided that you were going to claim it was a mistake and reduce the range in Trashmanverse. Again that is fine in and of itself but it has no relevence whatsoever in this discussion.
Quite frankly, I couldn't belive a [V] would make something like the Maxim cannon on purpose. It kinda kills the realistic feel of the FS universe for me.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
My point is - If I missed it(and I played FS2 a zillion times), then so can many others, including the testers.
I can't calim for sure it was a mistake, but since the maxims range is wierd, you can't be sure either is intentional.
I'm 100% sure it was intentional. Just cause you missed it doesn't mean that everyone else would. I spotted it right away. Besides as I said that whole thing with the serapis fighters firing their guns would just scream bug!!!!11111 at any halfway competent playtester. Considering that very few bugs got past them I have to conclude that the [V] playtesters were indeed competent.
It's also worth noticing that the maxims range was still not corrected in FS2 v1.2 after its release.
Originally posted by TrashMan
for a wing of FIGTERS(not bombers) to be able to pund a destroyer away without even getting hit is... well...redicolous
That's cause you're stuck with your WWII mentality. Look at Babylon 5 for a more realistic example of how vulnerable a capship is without fighter cover.
As I explained earlier the battleship is an enormous target while the fighter is a tiny one. Remember that you're not dealing with a WWII situation. FS2 fighters carry weapons which are pretty damn powerful even if you ignore the maxim. There is nothing overpowered or unrealistic about the maxim. It fits into the weapons spectrum pretty easily.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Quite frankly, I couldn't belive a [V] would make something like the Maxim cannon on purpose. It kinda kills the realistic feel of the FS universe for me.
Quite frankly what you believe or don't believe has no bearing on me or most likely everyone else reading the thread. As for the FS2 universe having a realistic feel :ha:
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Trashman, please take no offense to this.
Originally posted by TrashMan
It kinda kills the realistic feel of the FS universe for me.
Freespace... realistic....
:wakka:
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They would have tested the multiplayer missions as well, wouldn't they? In some of those you have access to both the Myrmidon and Helios, I think. It's been too long since I played them to be sure...
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Originally posted by karajorma
I'm 100% sure it was intentional. Just cause you missed it doesn't mean that everyone else would. I spotted it right away. Besides as I said that whole thing with the serapis fighters firing their guns would just scream bug!!!!11111 at any halfway competent playtester. Considering that very few bugs got past them I have to conclude that the [V] playtesters were indeed competent.
You know, a wise person is never 100% sure in thing one hasn't proved correct.
That's cause you're stuck with your WWII mentality. Look at Babylon 5 for a more realistic example of how vulnerable a capship is without fighter cover.
As I explained earlier the battleship is an enormous target while the fighter is a tiny one. Remember that you're not dealing with a WWII situation. FS2 fighters carry weapons which are pretty damn powerful even if you ignore the maxim. There is nothing overpowered or unrealistic about the maxim. It fits into the weapons spectrum pretty easily.
That has nothing to do with WW2 mentality. Both carriers and battleships were vulnerable to fighter attacks in WW2, but battleships were a lot tougher.
When I say battleship, immgine a Orion with heavier beams and two Aeoulus cruisers glued to it's sides.
And you Babylon 5 argument has no real value, since how tough capships are to take out depends on the weaponry, armor and shieldsing of the fighters/bombers attacking and the capship itself.
As for the FS2 universe having a realistic feel :ha:
FS2 has a realistic FEEL to it..more realistic than most other space sims I've seen. More realistic than Star Wars and Freelancer...
Starlancer was for instance very realistic.
As for the ship movement - ships can move like that in space in real life. Think computer controled thrusters spread out across the fighter (and if you look at the FS2 concept art, you'll see they are there). Those thrusters are used to simulate in-atmosphere like movement.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Freelancer...
Starlancer was for instance very realistic.
Ahh, WHAT?!
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Originally posted by TrashMan
You know, a wise person is never 100% sure in thing one hasn't proved correct.
Trashman, give it up. There's like a 0.00001% chance that the Maxim's range is a bug. It's far too easy to notice.
Originally posted by TrashMan
That has nothing to do with WW2 mentality. Both carriers and battleships were vulnerable to fighter attacks in WW2, but battleships were a lot tougher.
When I say battleship, immgine a Orion with heavier beams and two Aeoulus cruisers glued to it's sides.
And you Babylon 5 argument has no real value, since how tough capships are to take out depends on the weaponry, armor and shieldsing of the fighters/bombers attacking and the capship itself.
And Freespace fighters are not heavily shielded/armed compared to their capital ship counterparts? If anything, it makes the B5 argument stronger to bring that up, since the limitations of aircraft in WWII, namely range and paper-thin protection from projectile weaponry, has been eliminated in Freespace. Besides, a ship like you're describing is closing fast on an uber-ship, which is never a valid argument for everything. If the terrans had been able to build a ship so armed, wouldn't they have done it a long time ago?
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I searched a bit and I found that Star Destroyers do have tons of fighters, and given the argument at hand I can't help but ask...
Why hasn't TrashMan proposed the same thing to the Star Wars universe (carrier and battleship seperate fleets instead of a unique star destroyer design)?
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Yes. On the highest difficulty I took down an ISD with my X-Wing. ALONE.
The ship you propose would eat a lone fighter alive. Hell, I can take on a Sathanas alone at mid-level difficulty and stand a reasonable chance of living to tell about it. Not so this...thing.
If I can take on the biggest, toughest, meanest ship in the game with nothing more then an Artemis D.H. and some Cyclops bombs, and win, that should tell you something. FS capital ships ALL need fighter support to work effectively. They are combined-arms weapons for a combined-arms environment. Making them otherwise is a complete and utter lack of respect for the canon.
Don't worry. You won't have even a glimmer of hope of destroying even a light cruiser alone in Starforce.:devil:
Of course, you won't be taking on caps alone. Even the transports have AAA beams (in the case of a transport, one and ONLY one). However, you cannot just let a cap fend for itself. The enemy will have plenty of bombers, and nine times out of ten, some caps of their own. On the flip side, fighters will not be able to stand alone either. If you're attacking a corvette or larger ship, fire support from a capship is essential.
(Things are a bit different in the actual Starforce sci-fi universe. In Starforce stories and fluff, caps can kill a fighter with one hit from even their weakest weapons, bombs are a lot weaker relative to capship main guns, and bombers and fighters attack in huge hordes. A typical battle may have 10,000 caps and over 500,000 fighters and bombers involved at any one time.)
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Originally posted by TrashMan
As for the ship movement - ships can move like that in space in real life. Think computer controled thrusters spread out across the fighter (and if you look at the FS2 concept art, you'll see they are there). Those thrusters are used to simulate in-atmosphere like movement.
Which you better hope to god they don't teach our pilots to do. In short: if you limit our pilots to manuevers and tactics that work well in atmosphereic like enviroments, the first truely space-adapted race that comes along will slaughter us.
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Such a maneuvering system would be so clumsy and impractical that no engineer would ever consider it. Besides, unless an FTL system were discovered, fighting an interstellar war would be completely impossible.
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Don't worry. You won't have even a glimmer of hope of destroying even a light cruiser alone in Starforce.:devil:
Yes you will. All you need to do is find a blind spot, and on the mods I've seen you using in your screenshots, there are plenty.
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
A typical battle may have 10,000 caps and over 500,000 fighters and bombers involved at any one time.)
Oh, phew. For a second there, it was sounding utterly ridiculous...
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Originally posted by TrashMan
You know, a wise person is never 100% sure in thing one hasn't proved correct.
Give it up Trashman. Anything over 99.5% gets rounded up to 100% in general conversation unless you're a complete nerd. The chance that the maxim is a mistake is vanishingly small
Originally posted by TrashMan
When I say battleship, immgine a Orion with heavier beams and two Aeoulus cruisers glued to it's sides.
Uber ship! Well maybe not but certainly heavier than anything I'd put into the game.
Originally posted by TrashMan
And you Babylon 5 argument has no real value, since how tough capships are to take out depends on the weaponry, armor and shieldsing of the fighters/bombers attacking and the capship itself.
I was simply saying that you might as well pick a different frame of reference. The WWII one isn't serving you well.
Originally posted by TrashMan
FS2 has a realistic FEEL to it..more realistic than most other space sims I've seen. More realistic than Star Wars and Freelancer...
I didn't find the maxim one iota less believable than anything else in the game. On top of which if the Maxim was as unbelievable as you claimed it is surely you would have noticed that fact before?
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
Oh, phew. For a second there, it was sounding utterly ridiculous...
My sarcasm detector is beeping.
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Originally posted by SadisticSid
Yes you will. All you need to do is find a blind spot, and on the mods I've seen you using in your screenshots, there are plenty.
The Dainishi is the exception. It's the ****tiest cruiser in the game, and is basically a bulk transport with a medium anti-cap beam and an AAA beam tacked to the bow. I'm talking about something like the SIC Eurus (an Eclipse with a different name and even better armament), or the EFC Aegis (like the Aegis from OTT but with my own tables. It has pulse cannons EVERYWHERE, and three AAA beams as well).
In case you think I'm crazy for uprating the Eclipse's armament, fighters move a lot faster than they do even in Inferno. An EFF Raziel, the closest thing to the Vesuvius from Inferno that exists in Starforce, has a top speed of 100 m/s and can do 175 with the burners on.
The pulse cannons that replace the EA blob turrets have a projectile velocity of 650, a damage of 90 (which is double against unshielded hulls), and a fire wait of 0.2. Not a nice weapon to get shot at by, even with the stronger shields and hull in Starforce (580 shields and 380 hull for the Raziel).
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
My sarcasm detector is beeping.
:lol:
I quite like this thread (lots of ideas+arguments, as well as some fun) - keep on!
And to contribute:
I don't think the Helios on the Myrmidon to be a bug, especially no problematic one. For a succesor of the Ulysses it's pretty sluggish I think, and I think I remember that in the description an extreme payload compatibility was mentioned.
And for the Maxim... I don't really think it is a bug, but I do have to admit that I don't really like it.
About FS carriers - dunno.
About battleships - well, imagining them to be esentially destroyers without fighterbays and instead more armor and weapons (maybe 1 cruiser worth of weapons more?), I think for backup for the destroyers in very hard battles, they might be an idea (maybe 2 Dest + 1 BB ambushing a Sathanas - of course not from front up [remember I said "ambush"]). They would however be much rarer than the normal destroyers, seen that way.
And if the Shivans had a battleship, it might even have shields, rendering those Maxims next to useless. :devil:
[edit] And for the post-Capella-thing:
Maybe none of the ships hit by the supernova survived. But still the leftover of the SN might only be a (very hot + dense) nebula, maybe with a neutron star or white dwarf, that the Shivans would have no trouble travelling through, taking into account their advanced shield tech and all (and hell, they created that SN-remnant, so they might just as well have created it to whatever specifications they liked) .
And for new GTVA military concepts - as they really can't compare with the Shivans concerning large ships (remember that fleet of Sathanii?) maybe the often-mumbled-about-gunship-class (or what it was) might be the best idea; i.e. something mounting a small anti-cap-beam (maybe also some small antifighter turrets), yet maneuverable enough (maybe like a Medusa) so if a Sathanas suddenly shows up, most of them would manage to get out of its front arc without being destroyed.
If it was to have shields or not would be a question - it would be on the very edge of what I'd imagine GTVA being technologically capable of.
[/edit]
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Isn't a battleship in essence a Super Destroyer class ship (which exist ingame by the way)?
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Depends on how you see it. You could cal the Colossus and Sathanas battleships. But they aren't called so in-game and from what I understood, the idea discussed here is something like what I stated above.
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Well by the definition proposed by most people, a FS battleship would have no fighters. A superdestroyer is just that, a large destroyer; battleships would be somehow fundamentally different.
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Somewhat like that?
Originally posted by Mav
About battleships - well, imagining them to be esentially destroyers without fighterbays and instead more armor and weapons (maybe 1 cruiser worth of weapons more?), I think for backup for the destroyers in very hard battles, they might be an idea (maybe 2 Dest + 1 BB ambushing a Sathanas - of course not from front up [remember I said "ambush"]). They would however be much rarer than the normal destroyers, seen that way.
And if the Shivans had a battleship, it might even have shields, rendering those Maxims next to useless. :devil:
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Have any of you ever tried Sandwich's FS CapShip Turret Upgrade? That tends to render Maxims useless, as those little "Terran Turrets" or "Terran Huge Turrets" get a huge boost in fire rate and range, at least up to 3000 meters.
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Such a maneuvering system would be so clumsy and impractical that no engineer would ever consider it. Besides, unless an FTL system were discovered, fighting an interstellar war would be completely impossible.
Clumsy and impractical? Works well for our fighters here.
Ever seen what a fighter with variable thrusters can do? Those are some crazy maneuvers. and the atmospehre gets in the way and slows them down. In space, they would turn even faster and more precise.
Such a system is what we humans are fammiliar with. No one sez we can't learn to do it another way, but is it really that much better?
In the long run it all depends on the pilots I guess.
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Originally posted by karajorma
Give it up Trashman. Anything over 99.5% gets rounded up to 100% in general conversation unless you're a complete nerd. The chance that the maxim is a mistake is vanishingly small
//////// What makes you so sure that it's 99,5? Who measured it?:D
Uber ship! Well maybe not but certainly heavier than anything I'd put into the game.
////// and what is teh Colossus?
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Such a system has been used as an excuse before; Robotech does according to the novels. It's simpler to train the pilots to fly in one environment. Of course, in Robotech you go to Battloid mode and all bets are off.
But the expense and difficulty of training a pilot to fly and fight in two totally dissimilar settings might warrant such a system.
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And as I stated before, that's exactly what you don't want to do.
It's the differance between learning to fight underwater and learning to fight on land. Tactics and manuevers that you might be able to pull off in an underwater fight will get you hurt on land, because you're not used to fighting in an enviroment where you suddenly have much more freedom of movement and everything moves faster.
Same thing with space, except multiplied several times over. A land-locked pilot in a ship designed by land-locked engineers will not survive his first encounter with a race that has take full advantage of the nuances of space combat. What good is saving a couple million dollars and manhours if the poor chap kicks the bucket anyways?
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Trashman: Yeah, if you're going to start actually demanding percentages then you're taking this way too seriously ;)
Oh, and "Teh Colossus" is an uber-ship, whos only purpose is story-driven. Not to mention that it doesn't have speakable anti-fighter defenses.
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Originally posted by Jal-18
Same thing with space, except multiplied several times over. A land-locked pilot in a ship designed by land-locked engineers will not survive his first encounter with a race that has take full advantage of the nuances of space combat. What good is saving a couple million dollars and manhours if the poor chap kicks the bucket anyways?
If everyone else is doing it the same way, and they seem to be, then that's somewhat moot, yes?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
What makes you so sure that it's 99,5? Who measured it?
Seriously Trashman are you that desperate to win a point that you're reduced to arguing about where I got my percentages from? :p
I put the percentage at close to 100% for exactly the same reason that I put the chance at 0% that Dave Baranec had an epileptic fit on his keyboard for 5 hours and later found he'd written Freespace 2.
Are you seriously telling me you'd need to e-mail DaveB to assign that percentage chance yourself?
Originally posted by TrashMan
and what is teh Colossus?
The colossus is at least twice as big as a battleship. The amount of weapons you can put into a ship before people start saying you're making uber ships is proportional to their size. Your ship is much more powerful for its size than anything I'd put into the game.
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4.5km is long enough I think to warant serious firepower....
Anyway, terrna Vasudans and Shivans seem to use thruster control to simulate "normal" air combat. And I see nothing wrong with that frankly, as pilots can be very effective and precise.
I played games with newtonian physics, where fighters could zipp at lest 90000mk/h and could strafe and go backwards and stuff - and dogfights were IMPOSSIBLE. You couldn't hit a friggnig starbase at that speed and controling a fighter like that was a challenge even for the AI.
but seriously, you CANNOT tell for sure how effective, expensive or difficult such fighters would be compared to "normal" ones.
You can guess, but that's all you can do for now...
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Originally posted by TrashMan
4.5km is long enough I think to warant serious firepower....
That's slightly bigger than (read twice the size of) the Orion with a pair of cruisers on the side you described earlier.
At that size then yes the weapons you describe are much more reasonable. Well reasonable if you like putting big ships into your campaigns.
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Hah, the Vasudans and Shivans behave as if they were in an atmosphere because the game engine constrains them to. Personally, I have no doubt that the Shivans at least would be excellent at fighting in space, and far more effective then Terran pilots.
I've also played Newtonian games, and I figured out very quickly that the key to good manuevering is to use only as much engine power as necessary-and to use an equal amount in the opposite direction to stop. Once you get used to the enviroment, it's not that much more difficult to pilot a fighter then in a FSy type game.
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Originally posted by Jal-18
Hah, the Vasudans and Shivans behave as if they were in an atmosphere because the game engine constrains them to. Personally, I have no doubt that the Shivans at least would be excellent at fighting in space, and far more effective then Terran pilots.
I've also played Newtonian games, and I figured out very quickly that the key to good manuevering is to use only as much engine power as necessary-and to use an equal amount in the opposite direction to stop. Once you get used to the enviroment, it's not that much more difficult to pilot a fighter then in a FSy type game.
Acutally, Shivan spacecraft DOES move 3Dimensionally.
Look at the ships.tbl file.
It has a entry for manuevering back and sideways.
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I question the necessity of quoting a post directly above yours... :wtf:
They're still restricted by the game engine, and even so, they still manege to destroy your dumbass wingmen, (Even on equal difficulty.)
The amount of differance I'm thinking of between a true-space race and a land-locked one is that of an Ursa trying to hit a Dragon. There's no contest.
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Originally posted by Jal-18
I question the necessity of quoting a post directly above yours... :wtf:
1) It prevents any misunderstandings over who is being replied to
2) It prevents your post looking strange if someone happens to post while you're still writing your answer.
3) You can show which specific point your answering.
I may question why the entire post was quoted rather than just the actual point that was answered but that's a rather minor consideration :)
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Originally posted by Jal-18
The amount of differance I'm thinking of between a true-space race and a land-locked one is that of an Ursa trying to hit a Dragon. There's no contest.
You're comparing an Interceptor with a Heavy Bomber????
Now I played one game with the most realistics physics I ever seen. ships you accelerate as long as your thrusters worked and you could reach allmost c. It was hilarious when the speed meter begun showing 7 digit values.:D
Back to the point - if you ever read interviewws with astronaouts, they will tell you that controling a shuttle precisely is insanely difficult, and they don't even go that fast when theyre around space stations and such. Now immagine trying to pull presice manouvres at 200000km/h with laser bolts with your name on it flying all around.
One more thing - what do you think is better? To have atmospheric fighters and space fighters separate or one multi-purpose fighter that can fly both in and out of atmosphere.
Now, if the same flight control works in both areas, its more easy to train pilots. Otherwise, pilots would have to know two different flying and control technuiques.
I honestly thing that a space fighter that simulates normal aircraf movement in space (+ add strafe..that's easy and not confusing, since you wouldn't be using it in atmosphere anyway..) would be more efficient than a "move everywhere" fighter.
It would prolly be more cost effective, you could train more pilots and build more of them.
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First of all, concept of "space combat" itself doesn't look too reallistic to me at all.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
One more thing - what do you think is better? To have atmospheric fighters and space fighters separate or one multi-purpose fighter that can fly both in and out of atmosphere.
You just go from one silly disprovable assertion to another don't you :p
The fact that you're crap at I-war doesn't mean that newtonian style fighters don't work. It just means that you would never be good enough to fly one :) A fighter designed to shoot down enemy craft while travelling at several thousand km/s is going to find an FS2 style ship a sitting duck.
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I never played I-War....and I excelled at every space-sim or shooter I ever tried.
And if you manage to hit ANYTHING while cruising at 200000km/h I'll personalyl give you a gold medal.
DIO is prolly right at one thing - there will be no dogfighting in the future (not with missiles with uber-range). But then again, if we ever discover subspace, such missiles might become useless.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And if you manage to hit ANYTHING while cruising at 200000km/h I'll personalyl give you a gold medal.
That depends on the speed of what you're attacking..........
(NB: being able to get up to that velocity would be very useful as an escape method, though)
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If you manage to have fighters travelling that fast in a combat situation, chances are it's not piloted by a human. (too many G's)
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You're comparing an Interceptor with a Heavy Bomber????
No. I'm saying that that's about the amount of differance your method of training would produce in fighting styles. The land pilot would behave absolutely sloth-like compared to the space pilot.
Back to the point - if you ever read interviewws with astronaouts, they will tell you that controling a shuttle precisely is insanely difficult, and they don't even go that fast when theyre around space stations and such. Now immagine trying to pull presice manouvres at 200000km/h with laser bolts with your name on it flying all around.
As noted, anything flying around that fast is definately not human.
They don't go that fast relative to what? You're aware that the speed necessary to stay in orbit alone is around 5 mps?
One more thing - what do you think is better? To have atmospheric fighters and space fighters separate or one multi-purpose fighter that can fly both in and out of atmosphere.
(To me at least) the obvious answer is two seperate fighters. You don't seem to understand that fighting in an atmosphere and fighting in the vacuum of space are completely differant, and require differant craft and differant training. Too much SF these days would have you believe that an F-15 could fight just as effectively in space as in the air.
Now, if the same flight control works in both areas, its more easy to train pilots. Otherwise, pilots would have to know two different flying and control technuiques.
Oh bugger for the pilots. If they want to survive, they'll learn both.
I honestly thing that a space fighter that simulates normal aircraf movement in space (+ add strafe..that's easy and not confusing, since you wouldn't be using it in atmosphere anyway..) would be more efficient than a "move everywhere" fighter.
It would prolly be more cost effective, you could train more pilots and build more of them.
Reread the rest of my arguement.
(And as far as I know, making new pilots has always been cheap and unskilled labor... ;) )
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Actually pilots, and especially good ones, are extremely hard to come by in a wartime situation. You can create the craft easily enough, but replacing the men and their training takes much longer. Not necessarily more resources, granted, but you can't just manufacture a good pilot, it takes experience and a lot of it.
Oh, and the space station/space shuttle bit probably assumes slow speeds relative to one another. Even if both are traveling at 100,000kph, their relative velocities would probably be pretty small once they are in proximity to one another.
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You must every piece of knowledge and imagination to make up something that would make Freespace reallistic.
It doesn't matter if the thing you made up isn't reallistic, you only need to "THINK" its reallistic.
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Originally posted by StratComm
Actually pilots, and especially good ones, are extremely hard to come by in a wartime situation. You can create the craft easily enough, but replacing the men and their training takes much longer. Not necessarily more resources, granted, but you can't just manufacture a good pilot, it takes experience and a lot of it.
Which makes it even more stupid to put air combat trained pilots in space. All you'd succeed in doing is wasting your pilots when they got blown up by pilots trained in how to fight in space.
Originally posted by StratComm
Oh, and the space station/space shuttle bit probably assumes slow speeds relative to one another. Even if both are traveling at 100,000kph, their relative velocities would probably be pretty small once they are in proximity to one another.
That is during a docking manouver. You don't ever do a docking manouver at combat speed if you can help it. To much chance of something going wrong.
Originally posted by TrashMan
And if you manage to hit ANYTHING while cruising at 200000km/h I'll personalyl give you a gold medal.
1) Given that your number is several times higher than the speed of light I think it's a rather silly point to make in the first place :p
2) I never said that a ship had to be travelling at relativistic speeds to beat FS2 craft. Travelling at a meer 1km/s would be enough to severely outclass anything in FS2 ad.
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200000 Km/h. Faster than the speed of light? :wtf:
Speed of light=299,792,458 meters per second (in a vaccum)
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I should read more carefully. Doh!
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Eh..one zero to many...damn typo...
My only point is, that without evidence that it really would be better, all we do here is pushing our own little theories as the absolute truth.
I don't know which would be better. Maby I am wrong, but that has yet to be proven. And even if space-fighters with "tweaked" movement controls are inferior to space-based ones - the question remains how much. Enought to warrant it?
Vector thruster controls, strafe ability, reverse thrusters and an aircombat control system (note - no gravity and atmospehere here, so it woul be able to do moer extreeme manouvres) - I really doubt you could beat me in a "space" fighter..