[Kosh]

They would still need to test the redesign, or else it might not work.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
There has to be. Otherwise no one would have colonized anything outside the Sol system. If there's nothing profitable in space but the military, no one would have gone there.

Profitable spacebound industry means there'll be civvies. At the absolute minimum, there are the Naval contractors and food shipments.

It's likely that (in the FS universe) there are burgeoning industries in space. Mining guilds, random civilians going on cruises to exotic locales (Luyten or Aldebaren maybe?), various shipping companies all competing with each other, etc.

The Navy and SOC don't have a monopoly on all the ships in space. It'd be too much of an economic drain to run everything that way. Hell, most of the military ships and weapons in the game are made by private contractors! More likely the GTVA just commandeers ships in times of dire need, or near the front lines, where nearly all of FS and FS2 take place.

Or maybe civvies just avoid embattled areas like the plague.

(Ironic, innit, that all this talk of privatization in space is coming from a die-hard liberal. )

Or, Earth was simply overpopulated.  I'd expect a degree of civvie travel myself, but I don't see it as essential or wide scale..... sort of like the equivalent of having a private 747 nowadays.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Or, Earth was simply overpopulated.  I'd expect a degree of civvie travel myself, but I don't see it as essential or wide scale..... sort of like the equivalent of having a private 747 nowadays.

Even if that were the case, that Earth and Vas Prime were just overpopulated and the respective governments moved people offworld, it's been more than long enough for trade to become a necessity (especially since the destruction of Vas Prime and the cutoff of the Sol system).

Also, when I say "civilian" travel, I'm not just referring to the occasional rich bastard with his own Argo, or some random freelancer with his own ship a la Cowboy Bebop. I mean large corporations and guilds, too.

Today we have companies like Fedex and UPS shipping things by air -- that's privately owned. The various airlines that exist today, too. That's private ownership.

On a similar note, in the FS universe, there has to be some places with poor food production capacity, or SOMETHING to require a burgeoning, trading economy (unless you're of the opinion that the entire GTVA and its economy are both run in a neocommunist government-owns-all fashion). But even just the military components needed for fleet operation need to be built by corporations (e.g. Akheton, Sahr, Subach) and shipped. I'd expect some of said corporations to own at least a few of their own freighters for emergencies.

[Gregster2k]

Has anyone tried to create a mod that REPLACES FS2 ships with various FS1 versions for use with the main campaign? This way you can play FS2's main campaign with retro technology and see if you can beat it?

If this kind of mod doesnt exist already, maybe I'll make one...complete with turning the Colossus into the Hades and the Sathanas into the Lucifer...heh heh heh heh...

*runs off cackling with glee...to hell with continuity...im SO going to try this if nobody else has!*

[NGTM-1R]

You know, I like that idea. A lot...

[Gregster2k]

I think I'll start off very subtly, just changing the Terran fighters only to their FS1 counterparts and seeing if they have a chance...bwahahahahhaha. *cough* hmmm...and yes...athena would have its niche in the grand scheme of things...

...ill make the mod once i get bored enough to do it...

...resume the athena thread already in progress as if I didn't say anything...the previous discussion was getting interesting

Originally posted by TrashMan
New one..

In case you haven't noticed, it's slightly different and has more missile launchers..

I'm gonna add more detail to it, but terran designes are blocky, so don't expect vasudan smoothnes...

Call it the Athena Mk.II and make it into an Athena/Artemis hybrid in stats?

[Eishtmo]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Whatever you say, it allways cheper to upgrade older stuff than to build new one.

No, no it's not.  Sometimes, yes, it is.  Mostly though, it's not.

Think about the advances in technology the GTVA has developed since the Great War.  Shields, advanced energy weapons, new tracking systems, new armor, plus all the shared stuff that was picked up from the Vasudans.  In 32 years, the GTVA went from having plasma bolt weapons that couldn't hit **** to beam cannons that could take down everything from a fighter to a Demon destroyer.  That's a lot of tech to try to shoehorn into an already old fighter/bomber hull.  Be easier, and cheaper, to build a new one, from scratch, with all the tech already incorporated into it.

Plus, how many Athena's do you think were actually left at the end of the Great War?  Think of the losses the GTA and PVN took during that war, do you really think the more primitive fighters, which were in highest numbers and on the front lines from day one, actually survived?  The GTA needed fighters that could actually stand a chance against the Shivan hoards, so production of Apollo's and Athena's was likely haulted in favor of the Herc and the Medusa, the ships that could actually put the hurt on the Shivans.  After that, there's no point in keeping the older fighters around, there aren't enough, factories have already been retooled to make better fighters, and their tech is out of date as it is.

In the end, there was no point in upgrading these ships, they were obsolute and nearly extinct.  Scrap and move the new ships in as time permits.  After 32 years, they were simply all gone.

[NGTM-1R]

The Apollo and Athena could, and did, stand against the Shivan hordes. They had to. They were on the spot when the Shivans came, they had to hold the line until newer ships came along. And they held it, assisted by the newcomer Valkyrie.

And, in a flat-out comparision in the game, I've discovered I would rather fly an Apollo then a Myrmidon. Smaller target profile. Nearly the same amount of weaponry. Lower speed, ably solved by better burner capacity.