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General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: mosshadow on November 22, 2015, 10:41:34 pm

Title: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: mosshadow on November 22, 2015, 10:41:34 pm
You would think that someone in the military or civilian bureaucracy would notice that a fighter pilot has racked up more kills than a destroyer, including capital ship kills. Not to mention that on many missions you might end up being the sole survivor. Or even that during bombing missions the only one actually following orders and destroying the correct targets instead of wasting their bombs on frigates. Even stranger, Alpha one is badass enough to fly within a few feet of a shivan destroyer before releasing his payload right into a beam cannon, while the other 12 or so bombers wimp out and launch from a kilometer away.

Surely its time to start a cloning program or at least take him out of the fight and make him a trainer. Or even better, promote him and make him captain of a Corvette. That Deimos will be killing Sathanas in no time!
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on November 23, 2015, 02:14:36 am
It's just one of those "don't think too much about it" things about FS. You know, like physics.
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Shivan Hunter on November 23, 2015, 02:24:32 am
Alpha 1 has been making use of the extreme nootropic effects of Bosch Beer.
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: headdie on November 23, 2015, 02:51:56 am
Alpha 1 is the cover story for a prototype AI in a believable human shell which takes 20 years and a star system's financial output to produce each time.  The loss of the first unit in Sol was nearly the deathblow to the project until a second prototype was located and activated for use in the GTI fighter corps.

After the relative success of this second unit it was decided to rebuild and evolve the project prompting a 3rd prototype which came online in time for the end of the NTF rebellion and the second encounter with the Shivans.

With the 3rd prototype recovered it is believed that a 4th is under development in a highly discrete GTVI facility.  It is unknown if a Vasudan analogue has been developed or if the Vasudans even know of the project.
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Shivan Hunter on November 23, 2015, 03:39:13 am
highly discrete GTVI facility

It's very definitely one GTVI facility. Not 1.5 or 0.70710678118 of them.
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: potterman28wxcv on November 23, 2015, 04:52:21 am
I just love how in the very first mission of FS1 you are Alpha 1, even if you seem less experienced (complete newbie) compared to Alpha 2

I don't want to break the immersion, but imo the Volition guys just wanted you to be Alpha 1 at all time, for some reason.
(just like why Vasudans would send waves of damaged Anubis 2-3 at a time in the first mission ? A punishment maybe ?)
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: headdie on November 23, 2015, 04:58:38 am
highly discrete GTVI facility

It's very definitely one GTVI facility. Not 1.5 or 0.70710678118 of them.

With the GTVI all bets are off
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 23, 2015, 05:14:31 am
Alpha one as a single person is not canon. Just like when Beta 3 gets shot down in a mission yet there's another Beta 3 in the next mission Alpha 1 gets replaced by another Alpha 1 every time you die.
Try playing on insane with no restarts, see how far you can get. That's the canon life expectancy of Alpha 1.
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Kie99 on November 23, 2015, 05:29:46 am
They do in Freespace 2, he's sent on exchange missions as the best the Terrans have to offer, put on SOC missions and put at the head of his own elite squad.
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 23, 2015, 05:39:01 am
We only know that the Alpha 1 at the end a squadron arc is the same guy as the Alpha one in the first mission of the next arc and that he's the same person throughout the SOC Loops(but no mention of the Alpha 1 from the first SOC Loop is made in the 2nd). After your transfer no references are made to any of your previous assignments.
For all we know, the Alpha 1 who just transferred in to the 242nd might have died on his 3rd sortie and the Alpha 1 that leaves to do some SOC work isn't the same guy, just someone from the same squadron.

The Head of the 70th Blue Lions might have been some other Alpha 1 that also distinguished himself in the Nebula and NTF civil war but he was flying completely different missions than the other Alpha 1s we play.
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Shivan Hunter on November 23, 2015, 05:40:06 am
I just love how in the very first mission of FS1 you are Alpha 1, even if you seem less experienced (complete newbie) compared to Alpha 2

is it even possible in FS1's engine for the player (in a singleplayer mission) to be anyone other than A1? I remember FRED doesn't let you, but idk how FS would have handled it if you used notepad...
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: jr2 on November 23, 2015, 07:58:50 am
Only one way to find out...
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: tomimaki on November 23, 2015, 08:00:44 am
Avoid Alpha 1 and you won't get hit, pilot. :shaking:
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: acespace2142 on November 23, 2015, 09:22:12 am
I have never thought that Alpha 1 was any one person in particular. The story of freespace 2 is trying to show the entire GTVA war machine to the player. You are simply the pilot who was given the designation Alpha 1 for that particular mission.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: mosshadow on November 23, 2015, 09:29:18 am
I have never thought that Alpha 1 was any one person in particular. The story of freespace 2 is trying to show the entire GTVA war machine to the player. You are simply the pilot who was given the designation Alpha 1 for that particular mission.

But your kills are tracked, thats why you get all those awards.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: acespace2142 on November 23, 2015, 09:51:26 am
I have never thought that Alpha 1 was any one person in particular. The story of freespace 2 is trying to show the entire GTVA war machine to the player. You are simply the pilot who was given the designation Alpha 1 for that particular mission.

But your kills are tracked, thats why you get all those awards.

That is simply because it would be a bad idea from a gameplay standpoint to individually track kills for each alpha 1 you play as.
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: acespace2142 on November 23, 2015, 09:55:23 am
They do in Freespace 2, he's sent on exchange missions as the best the Terrans have to offer, put on SOC missions and put at the head of his own elite squad.

And then executed.
Title: Re: Have you ever wonder, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Goober5000 on November 23, 2015, 11:12:25 am
Alpha one as a single person is not canon. Just like when Beta 3 gets shot down in a mission yet there's another Beta 3 in the next mission Alpha 1 gets replaced by another Alpha 1 every time you die.
Try playing on insane with no restarts, see how far you can get. That's the canon life expectancy of Alpha 1.

If Alpha 1's multiple deaths are canon, that would make every mission failure also canon.  Since, canonically, the missions proceed according to the campaign story, then, canonically, Alpha 1 doesn't die until, at the earliest, the end of the last mission.  (In both FS1 and FS2.  It's actually possible to die and still complete the FS1 campaign.)


Alpha 1 is the cover story for a prototype AI in a believable human shell which takes 20 years and a star system's financial output to produce each time.  The loss of the first unit in Sol was nearly the deathblow to the project until a second prototype was located and activated for use in the GTI fighter corps.

After the relative success of this second unit it was decided to rebuild and evolve the project prompting a 3rd prototype which came online in time for the end of the NTF rebellion and the second encounter with the Shivans.

With the 3rd prototype recovered it is believed that a 4th is under development in a highly discrete GTVI facility.  It is unknown if a Vasudan analogue has been developed or if the Vasudans even know of the project.

I like this theory. :nod:


The real-world reason why the player was always Alpha 1 is that the single-player game code made certain assumptions to simplify things.  The restriction was removed in FSO.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 23, 2015, 11:21:18 am
Alpha 1 is one person but a good pilot. The player can search through possible universes until they find one where A1 flies all of their missions well. The ace's achievements aren't too ridiculous compared to some of the superb pilots and soldiers humanity has seen in past wars, especially because flying on Insane requires caution and teamwork.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Lorric on November 23, 2015, 11:46:34 am
Both Alpha 1s I see as a single person in their respective game. Both would take their place alongside the greats of human military history.

Of course in reality they're your classic silent and unseen player protagonist.

Also, the Alpha 1s do get noticed in game, taking a meteoric rise through the ranks and gaining access to the latest ships and weapons and being placed in charge of the entire force of fighters and bombers on the most critical of missions.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Meneldil on November 23, 2015, 11:49:26 am
The medal case also suggests one pilot, and could have easily been left out.

The ace's achievements aren't too ridiculous compared to some of the superb pilots and soldiers humanity has seen in past wars, especially because flying on Insane requires caution and teamwork.
I don't know anything about RL fighters, but they certainly look a lot less durable than FS ones, which makes it even more believable.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 23, 2015, 12:10:44 pm
300 A2A kills in a few months is definitely ridiculous, as is 40+kills per sortie. With the universe hopping stuff we can also say that you're hopping into a different universe where instead of person X flying Alpha 1 for the 64th Raptors it was person Y who was more capable and got it done.

especially because flying on Insane requires caution and teamwork.

By that you mean using your wingmen as disposable canon fodder. I can totally buy that. Alpha 1 was a real survivor, he had no moral issues with making his wingmen die by the dozen if it meant he could live and complete the mission objectives.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 23, 2015, 12:15:28 pm
Emil Lang got 18 fighters in one day. FreeSpace also drops targets and potential aces very close together thanks to the magic of subspace, and there are no real ammo or fuel constraints. The environment does believably favor some crazy ace counts.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 23, 2015, 12:21:07 pm
Wonder how insanely good you'd have to be to get through all of FS2 in one go on insane. Even the greatest FS veterans would probably still die/fail an objective once or twice while going through the whole campaign.
Then again, if enough people played it and put enough time in it maybe someone would emerge who'd be able to pull it off, just like A1 is something that had to happen when you have tens of thousands of pilots.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 23, 2015, 12:31:09 pm
Yeah! Someone did a statistical analysis of World War 1 air combat and predicted that you'd be likely to get approximately one Red Baron even if you treat each duel as a statistical event (not quite a fair coin flip, but you get the idea).
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 23, 2015, 12:44:48 pm
Wait, what?! If you treat each duel as a 50/50 then the chances of winning 100 duels are 1/2^100. That's on the order of magnitude of 10^-31...
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: IcemanFreespace on November 23, 2015, 01:01:20 pm
This last line of thought is right on point. Just like I point out to people hating on the realism of a movie we're watching. It's crazy. It's extraordinary. That's why the guy is in the movie. If he was just an ordinary policemen getting killed or paid by the mob there'd be no movie.
On the topic, it seems Alpha 1 is getting noticed, he is moving through units/weaponry/ranks at an amazing pace. He's in the field because his fighting prowess makes him invaluable, as proven by many missions.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 23, 2015, 01:03:33 pm
Wait, what?! If you treat each duel as a 50/50 then the chances of winning 100 duels are 1/2^100. That's on the order of magnitude of 10^-31...

That's why I said it's not a fair coin flip.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: headdie on November 23, 2015, 01:25:52 pm
Wait, what?! If you treat each duel as a 50/50 then the chances of winning 100 duels are 1/2^100. That's on the order of magnitude of 10^-31...

That's why I said it's not a fair coin flip.

also to a certain point each duel survived by the ace is a learning experience further stacking the odds in the ace's favor as time goes on
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 23, 2015, 01:40:24 pm
Wait, what?! If you treat each duel as a 50/50 then the chances of winning 100 duels are 1/2^100. That's on the order of magnitude of 10^-31...

That's why I said it's not a fair coin flip.

aye but you also said we'd get the idea
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 23, 2015, 01:49:21 pm
presumably the paper in question (http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0607/0607109.pdf)
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Spoon on November 23, 2015, 03:14:47 pm
also to a certain point each duel survived by the ace is a learning experience further stacking the odds in the ace's favor as time goes on
Yeah, in WWII a lot of the Aces flew missions against pure rookies. That really makes em rake up the kills.
Let's take germany's top scoring ace; Erich Hartmann, 345 confirmed soviet planes shot down.
How many of these russians were well trained, well experienced pilots? Possibly none of them.

And during the battle of brittain, the union jacks barely had any time to train their pilots, it sure becomes an easy task to gun down masses of untrained pilots when you've already mastered your own flying skills.

And then you've got to wonder, how many potential super talented ace pilots died young in their carreer? If they just had a slightly more smooth learning curve in their part of the war, or a slightly better plane to fly with. Would the war have gone drastically different if you scratch the luftwaffe's top 5 aces? How many potentially super aces did these aces kill before they could get to their potential?

It's always fun to speculate.

Wonder how insanely good you'd have to be to get through all of FS2 in one go on insane. Even the greatest FS veterans would probably still die/fail an objective once or twice while going through the whole campaign.
Then again, if enough people played it and put enough time in it maybe someone would emerge who'd be able to pull it off, just like A1 is something that had to happen when you have tens of thousands of pilots.
You'd also need to take away all the knowledge and foresight of these FS veterans. I think a lot of FS2 vets can almost dream how every mission goes.
And pretty much every mission in freespace is stacked against you in one way or another. You are pretty much always outnumbered.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Cobra on November 23, 2015, 03:48:14 pm
Alpha 1 is the cover story for a prototype AI in a believable human shell which takes 20 years and a star system's financial output to produce each time.  The loss of the first unit in Sol was nearly the deathblow to the project until a second prototype was located and activated for use in the GTI fighter corps.

After the relative success of this second unit it was decided to rebuild and evolve the project prompting a 3rd prototype which came online in time for the end of the NTF rebellion and the second encounter with the Shivans.

With the 3rd prototype recovered it is believed that a 4th is under development in a highly discrete GTVI facility.  It is unknown if a Vasudan analogue has been developed or if the Vasudans even know of the project.

I get Ace Combat 3 feelings from this. :P
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: potterman28wxcv on November 23, 2015, 06:31:50 pm
Wonder how insanely good you'd have to be to get through all of FS2 in one go on insane. Even the greatest FS veterans would probably still die/fail an objective once or twice while going through the whole campaign.
Then again, if enough people played it and put enough time in it maybe someone would emerge who'd be able to pull it off, just like A1 is something that had to happen when you have tens of thousands of pilots.

Except that in real life you cannot do the campaign more than once.

The real situation would be : you discover Freespace for the first time, you get some quick tutorials on the flights commands, and then you're just thrown off into Insane.
How long will you survive ?

And even this would be far from reality, considering humans are far better than AIs.

Remember that Ace Vasudan on the second mission of FS1 ? Just think of how he would actually shred you in pieces with both his superior fighter and his deeper experience..

The first time I played FS1 on Insane (which was the first time I played it), I think I didn't even last the first mission
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Kie99 on November 24, 2015, 04:02:16 am
That's pretty much a staple of video gaming though, isn't it?  You face a series of very difficult missions and play through the story, the one where you're successful is the one that "happened", the rest are disregarded.  I can't remember the last objective based game I played where I didn't die dozens of times, in nearly all of them it's been made explicitly clear that I'm playing the same character in the very next mission.  Freespace also indicates it with the ranking progression and medal case.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: IcemanFreespace on November 24, 2015, 07:39:12 am
It's also unfair to compare with RL because the game is designed so you're the hero from the get go, if you're not the best pilot in the mission in 90%  of them, you'll fail the mission. BP is a little different, missions are often bigger than Alpha 1.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: StarSlayer on November 24, 2015, 10:05:08 am
One thing to consider when figuring kill counts is in Freespace, and combat sims in general, is that OpFor hardly ever bugs out and every engagement basically requires wiping out the entirety of the enemy force.  In terms of narrative Shivans would probably disinclined to withdraw assets from an engagement but real combat rarely demands complete annihilation of the enemy.  Jasta 11 runs into an enemy squadron over the trenches, von Richtofen and crew might only need to shoot down a couple planes before OpFor concedes the battlespace.  They didn't constantly fight until either side was completely eliminated.  Even in an individual engagement if a pilot realizes they are out positioned or disadvantaged they are likely to try to evade and escape.

The fact that most combat sims such as Freespace and Ace Combat do not really factor in moral and self preservation probably goes a long way towards inflated statistics.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: IcemanFreespace on November 24, 2015, 10:45:19 am
And for anyone thinking how wildly unrealistic tactics and gameplay are in FS, I'll just throw this out there. Many real world pilots, before and after breaking the sound barrier era, say that it's all nice and well until you fly into the battle. Then all hell breaks loose and it's every man for himself.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 24, 2015, 10:46:33 am
One thing to consider when figuring kill counts is in Freespace, and combat sims in general, is that OpFor hardly ever bugs out and every engagement basically requires wiping out the entirety of the enemy force.  In terms of narrative Shivans would probably disinclined to withdraw assets from an engagement but real combat rarely demands complete annihilation of the enemy.  Jasta 11 runs into an enemy squadron over the trenches, von Richtofen and crew might only need to shoot down a couple planes before OpFor concedes the battlespace.  They didn't constantly fight until either side was completely eliminated.  Even in an individual engagement if a pilot realizes they are out positioned or disadvantaged they are likely to try to evade and escape.

The fact that most combat sims such as Freespace and Ace Combat do not really factor in moral and self preservation probably goes a long way towards inflated statistics.

It's really hard to disengage in FreeSpace. Really really hard. You can't warp out without dying so you have to fly away really far.

If anything it most resembles those World War II carrier battles where they'd launch strikes at each other and sometimes a whole strike would just never come back.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 24, 2015, 11:03:59 am
And even flying away really far can be hard if you don't have something else to distract your pursuers. While running away you have to dodge primaries and missiles which slows you down while whatever is chasing can just close the distance in a straight line if they're falling behind.

In almost all situations you're better off trying to win an almost impossible fight than trying to run away.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on November 24, 2015, 11:33:59 am
I would use Playing Judas as the perfect example of this.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: StarSlayer on November 24, 2015, 01:41:32 pm
Whether or not disengaging is difficult in Freespace(either because of narrative purposes or game mechanics), that nearly every engagement demands complete annihilation of the enemy doesn't present typical air combat.  Most real pilots were not required to wipe the skies clean every time they went up.  Even at the Marianas Turkey Shoot were the combat was heavily lopsided in favor of the USN of the 373 aircraft the IJN Carriers put up to strike at the USN roughly 130 made it back to the bird farms. 

I was attempting to make a point about combat sims in general not specifically Freespace.  Player performance will always be a little atypical since nearly every mission involves heavy combat and OpFor almost never attempts to husband its forces.  Obviously realistic hours long sorties with no contact with the enemy or fights that end indecisively because they AI doesn't want to get shot down would make for a game with the same sales potential as Call of Duty: Go Dig a Latrine Devildog III.

Though a parody campaign similar to John Scalzi's Red Shirts where the rest of the Freespace Universe acts normally except when Alpha One shows up would be potentially hilarious.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 24, 2015, 02:27:02 pm
If anything it most resembles those World War II carrier battles where they'd launch strikes at each other and sometimes a whole strike would just never come back.

Have to agree with Starslayer here. In the entire Pacific War, this only happened once that I can think of off the top of my head; Hiyo launched 18 aircraft to land at Henderson Field, which was presumed to have just been taken by Japanese ground forces. Marine Wildcats and AA got them all.

On nearly every other carrier mission of the war, at least a quarter of the aircraft launched actually came back. It could be deeply skewed in type (torpedo vs. dive bombers, US at Midway, escort fighters vs. strike aircraft, Japanese at Santa Cruz) but overall at least a quarter came back. (Not always fit for combat.)
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: mosshadow on November 24, 2015, 03:25:47 pm
The numbers launched in WW2 though are much larger, Freespace has tiny numbers.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 24, 2015, 03:34:44 pm
If anything it most resembles those World War II carrier battles where they'd launch strikes at each other and sometimes a whole strike would just never come back.

Have to agree with Starslayer here. In the entire Pacific War, this only happened once that I can think of off the top of my head; Hiyo launched 18 aircraft to land at Henderson Field, which was presumed to have just been taken by Japanese ground forces. Marine Wildcats and AA got them all.

On nearly every other carrier mission of the war, at least a quarter of the aircraft launched actually came back. It could be deeply skewed in type (torpedo vs. dive bombers, US at Midway, escort fighters vs. strike aircraft, Japanese at Santa Cruz) but overall at least a quarter came back. (Not always fit for combat.)

Right, but zoom in to the scales you're operating on at the FreeSpace level. A quarter of a destroyer's air wing coming back translates to potentially quite a few FreeSpace missions of total wing losses.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 24, 2015, 03:42:33 pm
In the whole game you'll probably end up with ~300 kills, some of which might be on caphips. That's about 2 destroyers' air wings. And that's over 36 missions. So you end up killing around 1/8th of a destroyer's air capacity per mission.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: niffiwan on November 24, 2015, 05:02:55 pm
.... Obviously realistic hours long sorties with no contact with the enemy or fights that end indecisively because they AI doesn't want to get shot down would make for a game with the same sales potential as Call of Duty: Go Dig a Latrine Devildog III.

Very important point here about gameplay/player agency vs simulation/realism.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: mosshadow on November 24, 2015, 05:17:35 pm
In the whole game you'll probably end up with ~300 kills, some of which might be on caphips. That's about 2 destroyers' air wings. And that's over 36 missions. So you end up killing around 1/8th of a destroyer's air capacity per mission.

It would be hilarious if a B-52 bomber came back from each mission having killed 30 Su-22s, a carrier, and two cruisers.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 24, 2015, 06:19:58 pm
To be fair, the closest FS equivalent to a B-52 is the Ursa and you won't be getting any fighter kills in that unless you get really lucky with the turret or treb spam.
An Artemis or Bakha are more like the Ju-87 Stuka and there are some Stuka aces who would qualify as fighter aces(5+ A2A kills).
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Mongoose on November 24, 2015, 08:30:18 pm
To be fair, the closest FS equivalent to a B-52 is the Ursa and you won't be getting any fighter kills in that unless you get really lucky with the turret or treb spam.
Speak for yourself.  At least in FS1, I used to love KO'ing light fighters with a few shots of tri-Prometheus goodness. :D
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 24, 2015, 08:36:38 pm
Well if you're playing on Easy you can ram start ramming them too  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Lorric on November 24, 2015, 08:46:14 pm
The Killboard in the original Wing Commander is rather amusing.

(http://lparchive.org/Wing-Commander/Update%2008/22-08_kills.png)

One of these is not like the others. :)
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 24, 2015, 09:39:30 pm
Right, but zoom in to the scales you're operating on at the FreeSpace level. A quarter of a destroyer's air wing coming back translates to potentially quite a few FreeSpace missions of total wing losses.

You misunderstand us both.

A quarter came back from any particular mission; since they did not disperse effort in such a way. Realistically, "breaking" a unit for a single combat rarely requires more twenty or thirty percent casualties. Over the long term they're much more durable, but for the course of a single combat encounter?

These are not things simulated by this game, or any other outside of perhaps Steel Panthers and Close Combat.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 24, 2015, 10:08:42 pm
FreeSpace does disperse its efforts, though, and it's really hard to disengage in FreeSpace. The really high casualty rates on a tactical level make a lot of diegetic sense. I don't know if the casualties make any sense strategically given the number of NTF destroyers you can impute.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: mosshadow on November 24, 2015, 10:37:25 pm
Also one other thought, consider how many people are inside a GTVA destroyer, I believe they said 30,000 at one point. Those smaller ships are carrying thousands of people assuming it scales linearly to size. Many of those ships can be killed by a few fighters or bombers even with AI pilots. Those fighters are only carrying one to two people. It's a bit of a lopsided tradeoff, especially since I can't think of why you need so many people for ships with so few turrets.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: The E on November 25, 2015, 12:46:28 am
We only know that Koth had 10000 people with him when he tried to ram the Colossus. Comparing that to what modern military ship's companies are like shows that FS capships require a lot fewer personnel to run, relatively speaking.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: headdie on November 25, 2015, 01:04:10 am
Also one other thought, consider how many people are inside a GTVA destroyer, I believe they said 30,000 at one point. Those smaller ships are carrying thousands of people assuming it scales linearly to size. Many of those ships can be killed by a few fighters or bombers even with AI pilots. Those fighters are only carrying one to two people. It's a bit of a lopsided tradeoff, especially since I can't think of why you need so many people for ships with so few turrets.

With large ships you also have maintenance, cooks, security detail and a bunch of other roles who exist just to keep the ship functional all running on a 3 or 4 shift per day rotation so there are 3 or 4 people per position in most cases
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: The E on November 25, 2015, 01:57:20 am
Also one other thought, consider how many people are inside a GTVA destroyer, I believe they said 30,000 at one point. Those smaller ships are carrying thousands of people assuming it scales linearly to size. Many of those ships can be killed by a few fighters or bombers even with AI pilots. Those fighters are only carrying one to two people. It's a bit of a lopsided tradeoff, especially since I can't think of why you need so many people for ships with so few turrets.

Consider that a Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, which is about the size of a Fenris, carries about 5000 crew.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on November 25, 2015, 02:30:57 am
We only know that Koth had 10000 people with him when he tried to ram the Colossus.
That and the crew of the Hecate class is stated to be 10,000 in the tech room. The Psamtik is also described as holding "thousands on board". It's possible that Koth's crew size was nonstandard for an Orion for some reason, but it's more likely that GTVA destroyers (or at the very least the Terran ones) pretty much all hold a crew of 10,000.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Herra Tohtori on November 25, 2015, 03:00:06 am
If you're comparing FreeSpace kill counts to WW2 aerial victories, remember that overclaiming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_and_overclaiming_of_aerial_victories_during_World_War_II#Examples_of_overclaiming) was pretty common in WW2 kill counts but not present at all in FreeSpace. There are some fairly hilarious examples of overclaiming listed on that article...


That said, while the "fake physics" of FreeSpace are obviously geared to make the gameplay feel somewhat like what uninformed people think WW2 air combat (in space) would be like, there are a lot of things that make it completely different. Situational awareness is easy to maintain with 3d radar and sensor displays, and you don't need to worry about fuel or altitude at all. You also don't need to maintain airspeed to be able to maneuver effectively (or to not fall out of the sky in a death-spin). Altitude is meaningless since the fighting occurs in microgravity environment. And while secondary weapons run out of munitions, there's no ammo count for primaries (in retail) so you can continue fighting more or less indefinitely as long as you can stay alive. FreeSpace fighters are also much, much tougher than aircraft; even without shields, their critical systems are much better protected and they are much less vulnerable to total existency failures - one hit from any caliber weapon can kill the pilot or disable the engine or flight controls in a real aircraft, while on FS2, one-hit-kills only really happen if you don't avoid the beam and get hit by it. Of course on Insane difficulty you can get shredded pretty damn fast by concentrated primary weapon fire as well, but a single hit won't be able to kill you.

But ignoring the differences between real air combat and FreeSpace combat, even then there's the matter of vastly more concentrated action. Pilots in Axis air forces could fly hundreds of combat sorties during their careers; for Allied pilots, their "tour of duty" was shorter (mainly because they could afford it) and they rotated experienced pilots back to homefront to train new pilots. And most of those sorties, even for aces, did not result in confirmed kills. I guess it's possible that the FreeSpace games omit a lot of the uneventful "bread and butter" missions that Alpha 1 participated in but ended up not worth portraying, but even then the sheer number of kills that Alpha 1 can regularly achieve would be highly exceptional in real life air combat.


But, if an ace pilot was not limited by concerns about fuel and had unlimited ammo, and didn't have to worry about a stray shot potentially killing them - I guess in that situation, from the perspective of pilot abilities, it wouldn't be so far-fetched.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 25, 2015, 05:20:08 am
Some of those things would work against aces, wouldn't they? Situational awareness and lack of altitude would kill Boom and Zoom, and the fact that the fighters are a lot tougher doesn't help either. The quick 360 rotation times and large numbers of enemies make it pretty damn difficult to reliably avoid getting shot(though you do have recharging shields for that very reason).
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: IcemanFreespace on November 25, 2015, 06:26:51 am
Unlimited fuel and ammo is the big one-try killing 20 aircraft in IL-2 Sturmovik and it's impossible simply because you run out of cannon quickly and machine guns aren't as useful, and you'll run out of those in a hurry too.
The element of not falling from the sky is also playing into FS favor because combined with shields you can be extremely aggressive. Also, WW2 didn't have a Trebuchet to boost your kill count like mad.
On the topic of killing large ships, if you made the most damage they'll give the kill to you, which sounds about right in real life-there's certainly one bomber that applies more damage then the others. Again, mechanics of fuel and ammo(bombs) make it impossible to do several bombing runs at it while you can fly around freespace giving them hell constantly.
I'd say the only really unrealistic thing about fs combat which helps alpha 1 tremendously is that enemies come in 4 by 4, not all at once or in a couple of concentrated waves.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 25, 2015, 06:39:01 am
To be fair, you won't be getting that many treb kills in FS2 unless you're just picking a Herc/Ares and lobbing them everywhere. Trebs become available pretty late in the campaign and treb-boats are rarely the best option for intercept.
I can definitely see where you're coming from. If the player wasn't always outnumbered and counted on to massively overperform to win almost any engagement you could pick up 10-20 kills per mission while staying relatively safe and eventually rack up completely ridiculous kill numbers.

I bet RL pilots never had to deal with **** like trying to stop 40 bombers that teleport about 4km from the warship you're supposed to protect while badly armed with finicky missiles and outright bad primaries  :mad:.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Spoon on November 25, 2015, 07:57:42 am
To be fair, the closest FS equivalent to a B-52 is the Ursa and you won't be getting any fighter kills in that unless you get really lucky with the turret or treb spam.
Speak for yourself.  At least in FS1, I used to love KO'ing light fighters with a few shots of tri-Prometheus goodness. :D
Yeah, getting kills in the Ursa really isn't all hard, it has plenty of forward firepower when equipped with Prom S
I've made plenty of kills in it, but then that's mostly in retail freespace situations, slow slow ai.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 25, 2015, 05:36:13 pm
FreeSpace does disperse its efforts, though, and it's really hard to disengage in FreeSpace.

First: that's not actually an obvious inference. The only time we get a real sense of the flight tempo of a GTVA destroyer is during the endgame at Capella, when they are balls to the wall and beyond any normal definition of "maximum effort". The pace of operations, based on any time we fly destroyer escort or are attempting to clear the way for a destroyer, suggests it's actually much slower as they rarely devote more than a squadron to the task. (In some ways, FS1 actually seems to have a higher operational tempo considering the scale of ops like the attack on the Eva vs. many of the FS2 missions that are similar, like The Sicilian Defense.)

WW2 ships disperse effort too; and what you're ignoring is that most of the dispersed effort, CAP and ASW patrols, always comes back. You're trying to argue for the majority of the dispersed effort suffering just as hard as strikes, as far as I can tell, which is crazy talk. If you want to talk about situations where we're in the game and which we're emulating in the missions, it's strike ops. That's the comparison being made.

Second, the argument it's very hard to disengage is ultimately fanon, and while it does match available evidence nicely to say that these people can't rather than won't disengage, I've seen more than enough fighters jump out and survive to know that what you're saying isn't a gospel truth.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 25, 2015, 05:50:22 pm
Nah, 'hard to disengage' is a pretty basic truth of the gameplay. Getting out of a fight isn't easy in FS. Warping out is one of the riskiest things you can attempt.

Because the missions we get in FreeSpace tend to be pretty high-intensity compared to a lot of the implied patrols and whatever else fighters do, it's no surprise that the wings we see are suffering such heavy casualties — and it lines up with historical precedents like the Pacific war. What doesn't make sense to me are the waved attacks, which is why I don't use many of them.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Spoon on November 25, 2015, 06:28:23 pm
Nah, 'hard to disengage' is a pretty basic truth of the gameplay. Getting out of a fight isn't easy in FS. Warping out is one of the riskiest things you can attempt.
Truth.
The time that you hold still while your jump drives need to spin up is lethal. Disengaging from a fight when there are ships that are faster than yours around is nearly impossible.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: StarSlayer on November 25, 2015, 06:31:58 pm
It's really, really difficult for infantry to disengage from cavalry, the mounted arm excels at carving through fleeing infantry like cake.  Yet history is littered with units routing before cavalry with predictable results despite formed infantry being very robust against horsemen.  Similarly I can't see real flesh and blood NTF or GTVA pilots not attempting to flee from a downward spiraling combat situation even if it flies in the face of logic and is suicidal.  Not unless the Terrans decided to start completely removing moral breaks from their pilots after the unfortunate case of Lieutenant Ash. 

I'd wager its because in a game the player would feel cheated if quarter of the available things to shoot or blow up decided to heel and toe it instead of engaging and opening up ethical questions about constantly hunting down fleeing OpFor Baddies to pad your kill count.  There is are a lot of silly things in Freespace for the sake of gameplay, you can't tell me the GTVA couldn't build bombers that could drop their entire payload in a single run.  But they need to have bomber piloting missions that don't involve one run and done so we get to arduously fly in two weapons at a time.

Spoon is that better? :P
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Spoon on November 25, 2015, 06:39:19 pm
Man, Starslayer. You really really really love the term 'OpFor' Don't you? In your last 5 posts, 4 of them have 'OpFor' in it, 5 occurrence total.

Please do me a favor and stop doing it, it's making you seem like you are trying so hard to be operator tacticool  :p
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 25, 2015, 06:49:34 pm
What to do when Opfor calls for exfil when you've got fox3 on six with heavy radar spike, no sweep from wing? Break left, burner punch and flares out with full yaw and full roll. Subspace turn on and you're safe.:P
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Spoon on November 25, 2015, 07:07:33 pm
 :lol:
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 25, 2015, 07:36:52 pm
But they need to have bomber piloting missions that don't involve one run and done so we get to arduously fly in two weapons at a time.

Not for long :D
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: IcemanFreespace on November 25, 2015, 07:49:25 pm
What to do when Opfor calls for exfil when you've got fox3 on six with heavy radar spike, no sweep from wing? Break left, burner punch and flares out with full yaw and full roll. Subspace turn on and you're safe.:P
This reminds of me of the Troy Queef column "Dab of oppo" on sniffpetrol. Those who read it know.  :D
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: mosshadow on November 25, 2015, 08:32:30 pm
It's really, really difficult for infantry to disengage from cavalry, the mounted arm excels at carving through fleeing infantry like cake.  Yet history is littered with units routing before cavalry with predictable results despite formed infantry being very robust against horsemen.  Similarly I can't see real flesh and blood NTF or GTVA pilots not attempting to flee from a downward spiraling combat situation even if it flies in the face of logic and is suicidal.  Not unless the Terrans decided to start completely removing moral breaks from their pilots after the unfortunate case of Lieutenant Ash. 

I'd wager its because in a game the player would feel cheated if quarter of the available things to shoot or blow up decided to heel and toe it instead of engaging and opening up ethical questions about constantly hunting down fleeing OpFor Baddies to pad your kill count.  There is are a lot of silly things in Freespace for the sake of gameplay, you can't tell me the GTVA couldn't build bombers that could drop their entire payload in a single run.  But they need to have bomber piloting missions that don't involve one run and done so we get to arduously fly in two weapons at a time.

Spoon is that better? :P

One other thing they could do is eject from their ships I suppose.

Oh wait. :lol:
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Spoon on November 25, 2015, 09:56:00 pm
Spoon is that better? :P
Much!
Thanks  :p :lol:
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Snarks on November 26, 2015, 12:01:48 am
The GTVA actually really hates Alpha 1's guts. If his performance is anything less than stellar, he will get court martialed. Failing that, they assign him to progressively more insane sorties until he finally dies by the end of FS2.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: potterman28wxcv on November 26, 2015, 02:50:47 am
What doesn't make sense to me are the waved attacks, which is why I don't use many of them.
Exactly. I would be curious to see what a no-wave FS1 & FS2 campaign would look like
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 26, 2015, 08:07:36 am
The GTVA actually really hates Alpha 1's guts. If his performance is anything less than stellar, he will get court martialed. Failing that, they assign him to progressively more insane sorties until he finally dies by the end of FS2.

This actually makes sense, because it's canonical (as of the first mission of FS2) that Alpha 1's performance on tiny convoy escorts can alter the outcome of warship engagements millions of miles away.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: Spoon on November 26, 2015, 08:13:14 am
A tiny convoy filled with Vasudan refugee's no less.
Apparantly incredibly vital to the war effort!
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: General Battuta on November 26, 2015, 08:20:38 am
More canonical evidence for Project Nagari :science:
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: mosshadow on November 26, 2015, 10:05:58 am
The GTVA actually really hates Alpha 1's guts. If his performance is anything less than stellar, he will get court martialed. Failing that, they assign him to progressively more insane sorties until he finally dies by the end of FS2.

Kinda makes me wonder what if someone did a multibranching campaign where there was 2-3 outcomes based on how well you do on each mission.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: wardog300k on November 26, 2015, 11:12:14 am
Kinda makes me wonder what if someone did a multibranching campaign where there was 2-3 outcomes based on how well you do on each mission.

Final Destination is such a campaign, currently its planned to have 3 branches, but more could be added later on, near the end.

BTW, its coming out soon...only a few months / years / centuries remaining till that  :p
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: FrikgFeek on November 27, 2015, 09:43:38 am
Exactly. I would be curious to see what a no-wave FS1 & FS2 campaign would look like

By no-wave you mean only 1 wave with reasonable numbers or every single ship warping in simultaneously?
I recently started replaying ST:R and noticed just how ****ing many Shivans you have to kill. In "He Who Rides the Tiger" I ended up with 41 kills due to near-infinitely respawning waves of Manticores and Basilisks(and 3-4 wings of Dragons too  :shaking:). I didn't even kill them all, I warped out as soon as the Ratna did. If I had to guess I'd say there were at least 80 Shivan craft in that mission, depending on how fast you kill them(since they respawn after a whole wing dies). If they all launched or jumped in simultaneously it would be completely impossible.

If done well, a no-wave campaign would be a lot less frustrating than waves gone wrong. Seriously, killing opponents faster should be rewarded with some safetey, not more respawns that get progressively harder to deal with as you start running low on shields, weapon energy, and dumbfires. If you just had everything that could ever jump in as a wave jump in instantly it would be impossible and probably break the engine or something.
Title: Re: Have you ever wondered, what the GTVA thinks of Alpha 1?
Post by: jr2 on November 30, 2015, 03:49:00 pm

If done well, a no-wave campaign would be a lot less frustrating than waves gone wrong. Seriously, killing opponents faster should be rewarded with some safetey, not more respawns that get progressively harder to deal with as you start running low on shields, weapon energy, and dumbfires.

Don't forget running low on your wingmen as well.  They are useful distractions on lower difficulties, and I've heard on higher difficulties they also do manage to assist you a good deal.