[wgemini]

To me, destroyers in FS1 are basically modern day carriers. The only reason they are so big is to field as many as fighters as possible. Smaller, more agile cruisers were far more effective in ship v.s. ship battles. However, since fighters can't travel through subspace nodes easily, they needed a launch and supply platform to spearhead any inter-system operations (military or exploratory), destroyers are the perfect answer. That being said, they are not almighty. They need an entire battle group to protect them. Also, they are only necessary as offensive tools. The defenders don't need them since bases can pretty much serve the same purpose.

[TrashMan]

I actualyl allways found destroyer to carry too little fighters compared to theri size.

A modern carrier can carry 80fighters and is 300m long.
A Fs2 destroyer is over 2000 meters long, which is a MASSIVe increase in volume, and yet they carry only 120-150 fighters. Not even double

You might say beam cannons and armor take up a lot of space. Granted, they do that, but this is still redicolous.


and as far as piggy-backing goes, we do know inter-system jump drives are VERY expensive. The onlyl time you use them is when you're part of SOC special ops group. Sems to me that only some elite squadrons get them installed and only for specific missions.
Given the number of fighter seen pouring trough the nodes in FS1 and 2, the probablilty that all of them had such drives (and thus that all of them were elite) is very slim.
With that said, nothing in FS2 sez that piggy-backing ISN'T possibe....

[aldo_14]

I actualyl allways found destroyer to carry too little fighters compared to theri size.

A modern carrier can carry 80fighters and is 300m long.
A Fs2 destroyer is over 2000 meters long, which is a MASSIVe increase in volume, and yet they carry only 120-150 fighters. Not even double

You might say beam cannons and armor take up a lot of space. Granted, they do that, but this is still redicolous.

Why? 

You have life support, food/drink for several months (possibly even a biodeck?), 10,000-ish crew (a 80-150m long submarine has about 120, having similar life support requirements to a spaceship - albeit operating 'tours' for probably a shorter term period, especially with regards to oxygen) requiring recreation and sleeping space, possibly several inner hulls (for protection), a fusion reactor, possibly more self-contained repair equipment (i.e. more dependence on being able to make battlefield repairs, with the attendent difficulties of doing so in space), possibly a large number of escape pods (which would take up substantial space), more repair equipment for fighters/bombers (again, issues regarding operating in space and at very long distances from support and logistic chains), an inability to store fighters/bombers in prep areas 'on deck' as for carriers (i.e. need internal volume for all preperations and repairs), and possibly most importantly a need to store vast quantities of very large warheads (for both the fighters/bombers and the ships own flak/missile turrets). 

I wouldn't say it was particularly ridiculous, given the operating constraints upon a space vessel.

and as far as piggy-backing goes, we do know inter-system jump drives are VERY expensive. The onlyl time you use them is when you're part of SOC special ops group. Sems to me that only some elite squadrons get them installed and only for specific missions.
Given the number of fighter seen pouring trough the nodes in FS1 and 2, the probablilty that all of them had such drives (and thus that all of them were elite) is very slim.

Why?  Firstly, take the Shivans out the equation, because they evidently have a lot of resources & skill with subspace / drives.  And in terms of GTVA / NTF ships - how often do they actually jump out at the node, or in via it?(rather than making an intersystem jump from a base ship to meet an arriving vessel performing an inter-system jump, or to leave after escorting a ship which has departed through that node.

I think the techroom does say that, whilst very expensive, fighter jumpdrives are assigned to fighters/bombers performing operations requiring them (i.e. not restricted to elite/SOC type squadrons).  It doesn't mention any other way for a fighter to travel inter-system.

With that said, nothing in FS2 sez that piggy-backing ISN'T possibe....

True, but it's a question of which seems the most likely.  IMO it would see more likely that it's not possible, simply due to jumppoint sizes; a jumpoint represents the opening of a subspace-normal space 'connection', and that's what takes that amount of energy to form (not the act of traversal); thus I can't see any way how a ship could open an individual warp point without having its own drive.  Again, not provative that it's impossible, but I'd think that the expensive nature of jump-drives would mean you'd expect to see it (piggybacking) quite frequently where possible.

[BlackDove]

I thought the whole point of the Altair discovery was that the "piggy back a jump" was then possible. The fact that they figured out the intersystem jumping on fighters near the end was also probably influenced by the findings (though not necessarily IIRC), but the "tracking through subspace" was finally possible for fighters with the Ancients' knowledge of subspace.

It's one thing to plot a jump at a single point and then have everyone take different wormholes to the designated location - totally another to actually follow/calculate the exact same node alongside a cap (which was what the Ancients gave us).

AFAIK the tech descriptions of subspace don't preclude ships sharing a node 'tunnel'; it's not even clear whether there is ever more than one tunnel open/available anyways; I always thought the rush was to get into that tunnel before the Lucifer exited the other side in Sol (bearing in mind the non-relativistic nature of subspace physics), and the main use of subspace tracking (in particular intra-system jumps) was to allow the ships to be close enough to do so.  I've never seen anything I can remember to indicate a non-subspace capable vessel can 'piggyback' onto another ships wash, particularly given that the FS1 end scene is somewhat unique.

The tech stuff indicates a ship needs to oscillate in multiple dimensions (the role of the drive) in order to access an aperture into subspace; the ref bible mentions that it requires vast amounts of energy to sustain a subspace node/tunnel, but it doesn't say exactly how large that tunnel is and whether or not other ships can survive within.  If it is some sort of modulating harmonics type thing, then I'd imagine it can't be done passively (i.e. no piggybacking); but it's never made entirely clear how you travel in or exit subspace.

That's great, but that's not what I was saying. When I say "piggyback" I mean in context of the previous poster, sharing a node with other ships (naturally all ships entering would need a drive, I even think they'd need a specific kind of drive too, ie you can't jump inter with intra), which is what the Altair findings allowed us to do. There is no indication that we've been able to do that before, but the final mission of FS1 is an indication that we've been able to do it after.

[karajorma]

You might say beam cannons and armor take up a lot of space. Granted, they do that, but this is still redicolous.

It's not that ridiculous. Just 25 bombers take up a shedload of space.

[aldo_14]

AFAIK the tech descriptions of subspace don't preclude ships sharing a node 'tunnel'; it's not even clear whether there is ever more than one tunnel open/available anyways; I always thought the rush was to get into that tunnel before the Lucifer exited the other side in Sol (bearing in mind the non-relativistic nature of subspace physics), and the main use of subspace tracking (in particular intra-system jumps) was to allow the ships to be close enough to do so. I've never seen anything I can remember to indicate a non-subspace capable vessel can 'piggyback' onto another ships wash, particularly given that the FS1 end scene is somewhat unique.

The tech stuff indicates a ship needs to oscillate in multiple dimensions (the role of the drive) in order to access an aperture into subspace; the ref bible mentions that it requires vast amounts of energy to sustain a subspace node/tunnel, but it doesn't say exactly how large that tunnel is and whether or not other ships can survive within. If it is some sort of modulating harmonics type thing, then I'd imagine it can't be done passively (i.e. no piggybacking); but it's never made entirely clear how you travel in or exit subspace.

That's great, but that's not what I was saying. When I say "piggyback" I mean in context of the previous poster, sharing a node with other ships (naturally all ships entering would need a drive, I even think they'd need a specific kind of drive too, ie you can't jump inter with intra), which is what the Altair findings allowed us to do. There is no indication that we've been able to do that before, but the final mission of FS1 is an indication that we've been able to do it after.

Well, looking at the tech documents there's nothing to indicate that it is actually unusual to 'share' a node; the only description IIRC calls it a 'tunnel' rather than some sort of parallel wormhole, so my best guess would be that the importance of Altair is that it became possible to actually find out where the Lucifer was (by tracking it all the way through intra-system jumps) and jump in close enough in time to 'catch up' to it before it reaches Sol and exits that tunnel; this is assuming, of course, there is some sort of additional time dilation effect such that a 10 minute (for example) trip through subspace appears to be instantaneous from the POV of exiting and arriving.

EDIT; which I've checked, and is actually wrong; the FS1 failure debriefs mention a 40 hour time period for the Lucifer to arrive at Sol if the player fails, knocking that out (presumably there is some sort of dilation effect that lengthens the wait time in realspace).  So, for me, then.

 Shame; I thought the time dilation thing would have been quite a nice, simple and clean way to put it.  Although I would still think it's possible to share a node anyways, it's just a question of entry time; namely because the briefs don't mention this as if it's something new.

[Christopherger]

This is a very interesting discussion for I am just learning the technical and
tactical specs for the FS Universe. I have not commanded or served in
space before, though I have served in command up to Admiral in wet Naval
sims and can think of the evolution of ship type and ordiance and tactical
and stragetic aspects from that experience.  In both fleet and single ship
evolutions, missions and plans, the destroyer was indeed a type that
first came into being at the advent of the torpedo as a novel and signficant
tactical weapon. Its predicessor was the small ship type of the sloop, brig type
while the frigate evolved into the cruiser. The two types discussed here in this
thread, the Destroyer -Cararier and the Battleship were originally the
destroyer, which was first called the torpedo boat and evolved into the larger
destroyer and the Dreadnought which became the BattleShip with a
Battlecruiser sub type.

The destroyer was indeed a light unit, designed for fleet screening and
some independent action of its own in convoy escort, and other actions.
It became larger and larger with more and more ordiancne and top side
equipment added to the point of extreme limits.  It was always limited
by its cruising range, and the armor and ordinance and speed equations.

The Battleship was for a significant time the major fleet unit, and around
accumulations of battleship units in fleet actions, in squadrons, the fleet
strategy and tactics evolved. Naval strength was meant to both acquire
and hold territory, both by action and by what was known as the
"fleet in being" implications, by just existing, as the German HIgh Seas
Fleet did, the Fleet became a factor. I see that these factors all apply
to the FS universe, and that the major units, the Destroyers of the
classes mentioned, became signficant units in their own right, effecting
the battles and wars by just being in existence.

The exuation of ship size to function is indeed significant, the larger a
vessel and class, the greater the burden of support of the internal
crew and ordinance needed. So the size can increase incrimentally
with sometimes a lack of weapons and individual unit array, some
carriers had a large hull size relative to what they could actually deliver
in terms of figher units ....others did very well with this.

I look forward greatly to learning the specs more thoroughly, the
balance of unit size, function and strategy and tactics in naval war
have evolved over thousands of years, and it appears that this has
continued in the canon of the Space universe of FreeSpace.

[BlackDove]

AFAIK the tech descriptions of subspace don't preclude ships sharing a node 'tunnel'; it's not even clear whether there is ever more than one tunnel open/available anyways; I always thought the rush was to get into that tunnel before the Lucifer exited the other side in Sol (bearing in mind the non-relativistic nature of subspace physics), and the main use of subspace tracking (in particular intra-system jumps) was to allow the ships to be close enough to do so. I've never seen anything I can remember to indicate a non-subspace capable vessel can 'piggyback' onto another ships wash, particularly given that the FS1 end scene is somewhat unique.

The tech stuff indicates a ship needs to oscillate in multiple dimensions (the role of the drive) in order to access an aperture into subspace; the ref bible mentions that it requires vast amounts of energy to sustain a subspace node/tunnel, but it doesn't say exactly how large that tunnel is and whether or not other ships can survive within. If it is some sort of modulating harmonics type thing, then I'd imagine it can't be done passively (i.e. no piggybacking); but it's never made entirely clear how you travel in or exit subspace.

That's great, but that's not what I was saying. When I say "piggyback" I mean in context of the previous poster, sharing a node with other ships (naturally all ships entering would need a drive, I even think they'd need a specific kind of drive too, ie you can't jump inter with intra), which is what the Altair findings allowed us to do. There is no indication that we've been able to do that before, but the final mission of FS1 is an indication that we've been able to do it after.

Well, looking at the tech documents there's nothing to indicate that it is actually unusual to 'share' a node; the only description IIRC calls it a 'tunnel' rather than some sort of parallel wormhole, so my best guess would be that the importance of Altair is that it became possible to actually find out where the Lucifer was (by tracking it all the way through intra-system jumps) and jump in close enough in time to 'catch up' to it before it reaches Sol and exits that tunnel; this is assuming, of course, there is some sort of additional time dilation effect such that a 10 minute (for example) trip through subspace appears to be instantaneous from the POV of exiting and arriving.

EDIT; which I've checked, and is actually wrong; the FS1 failure debriefs mention a 40 hour time period for the Lucifer to arrive at Sol if the player fails, knocking that out (presumably there is some sort of dilation effect that lengthens the wait time in realspace).  So, for me, then.

 Shame; I thought the time dilation thing would have been quite a nice, simple and clean way to put it.  Although I would still think it's possible to share a node anyways, it's just a question of entry time; namely because the briefs don't mention this as if it's something new.

Don't know, I just think that signficance was put onto actually being in the same wormhole, being able to track others etc. Naturally it's all a matter of timing, since the transport time is short, but if you aren't able to "track" a ship into subspace, how are you going to go "with" it and end up in the same hole? Just doesn't make sense to me that if we were able to follow eachother into subspace, ship after ship in the same wormhole, that the Altair discovery was so important.

Launching fighters in subspace is obviously possible, Lucifer does it, and so does exiting subspace with a cap and fighters, considering we've seen that in the ani where Lucy blows (fighters exit first, followed by Lucy).

Usually however, I'd assume because the technology is expensive most likely - every ship takes their own wormhole and plots the jump coordinates at a mutual location. Say you have four bombers leaving - I'd think they all take their own wormhole to the destination, and exit four wormholes (when you see bombers jumping in). This is in contrast to all getting out of the same wormhole (Lucy exiting subspace then dying), seeing how they'd all exit one wormhole if they were all collectively innit.

Just the way I see it anyway.

[karajorma]

I just watched the FS1 outro again and quite frankly it proves neither argument. The fighters could all have formed their own jump points and they would have been lost behind the glare of the massive jump point the Lucifer is creating.

[aldo_14]

Don't know, I just think that signficance was put onto actually being in the same wormhole, being able to track others etc. Naturally it's all a matter of timing, since the transport time is short, but if you aren't able to "track" a ship into subspace, how are you going to go "with" it and end up in the same hole? Just doesn't make sense to me that if we were able to follow eachother into subspace, ship after ship in the same wormhole, that the Altair discovery was so important.

Launching fighters in subspace is obviously possible, Lucifer does it, and so does exiting subspace with a cap and fighters, considering we've seen that in the ani where Lucy blows (fighters exit first, followed by Lucy).

Usually however, I'd assume because the technology is expensive most likely - every ship takes their own wormhole and plots the jump coordinates at a mutual location. Say you have four bombers leaving - I'd think they all take their own wormhole to the destination, and exit four wormholes (when you see bombers jumping in). This is in contrast to all getting out of the same wormhole (Lucy exiting subspace then dying), seeing how they'd all exit one wormhole if they were all collectively innit.

Just the way I see it anyway.

Well, I tend to think that the Ancients tracking device was key because - I think - before that it was impossible to know where the Lucifer or any other ship (whether using intra-system jumps, inter-system, or maybe even inter-via-unstable) was, and thus to vector in forces to attack it at the precise moment (too early, and you risk being destroyed by it or Shivan support forces, too later and...er... boom).  Unfortunately it's far from clear exactly how nodes are formed; the closest thing to a canonical reference is probably the FS1 box art showing (IIRC) Terran and Vasudan fighters in subspace, and we know how usless the FS boxes are for that sort of thing.

[wgemini]

I don't think tracking is that big a deal for piggyback on a friendly ship. They would enter the wormhole together and thus can see each other all the way. Chances are little steering is required as the wormhole just pulls everything in it forward along a predetermined path. Of course, skills are required as the window of wormhole opening is very small. You better catch the ride along with the cruiser or you would be crashed by the collapsing wormhole.

Expenses aside, inter-node jumping is not that practical for a fighter. It requires a vastly different, and likely cumbersome, subspace engine. For a craft that depends on its agility, the extra mass could be fatal in a dog fight. It's not going to be very useful aside from special operations anyway since the fighters would need to be resupplied, which is impossible without a capital ship or a base around (assuming inter node communication is not that easy).

That being said, I still think it's the standard procedure to have a destroyer spearheading any inter-node operations. They may send several cruisers and fighter wings to establish a defense perimeter, but destroyers are crucial for sustained offensive air force projection.

[TrashMan]

My whoe rationalization was the following:

Jumps between systems require massive ammounts of power, and maby the way the node is opened is different - but the mechanics of the jump are the same. The ship has to vibrate in harmony with the opening to enter.

Destroyers make a big opening, and  that leaves enough room for several fightes to slip in. Of course, they have to use their own subspace drives to vibrate in the same way, which requires coordination between the ships. Thus both the destroyer and the fighters vibrate as one single object and pass trough one opening.

Makes sense to me...

[aldo_14]

My whoe rationalization was the following:

Jumps between systems require massive ammounts of power, and maby the way the node is opened is different - but the mechanics of the jump are the same. The ship has to vibrate in harmony with the opening to enter.

Destroyers make a big opening, and  that leaves enough room for several fightes to slip in. Of course, they have to use their own subspace drives to vibrate in the same way, which requires coordination between the ships. Thus both the destroyer and the fighters vibrate as one single object and pass trough one opening.

Makes sense to me...

The problem is that the vibration is the only mechanic described for opening a node; i.e. as far as the tech states, we don't know of any other role for a jump drive than to cause that oscillation.  Which would imply that all that energy requirements is solely for the vibration action.  We don't know if ships have to continue that vibration in subspace, AFAIK, but we also don't know if it's required in order to cross the threshold into and out of subspace.  And also because we don't have all that much on the mechanics of intra-system jumps, too; what we can derive from the tech difference is that there is some sort of key difference caused by the lack of stellar gravity, but exactly why that matters is left unknown.

It's tricky, of course, because we don't have much to go on.  One thing that occurs to me is that if fighters have to 'slip' in besides (and close to) a larger ship, why not go the whole hog and simply mount them to the deck for rapid detachment/deployment afterwards (we know docked ships can be dragged into subspace)? (albiet this isn't a for/against arguement, just something that'd look neat ).  My tendency is to think piggybacking isn't possible simply as we haven't seen it in FS1 or FS2 (and because there's no mechanic for it in FRED, i.e. to share a node), but we're really looking at a heads or tails type scenario here.  Certainly piggybacking would allow some interesting scenarios (especially for TV War era campaigns), although it also removes some of the restrictions that could also make for other interesting scenarios.

[karajorma]

It's also worth noting that just because piggybacking isn't possible in FS1 or FS2 that it can't be invented subsequently. It might be a fairly easy discovery that was required.

[TrashMan]

It's tricky, of course, because we don't have much to go on.  One thing that occurs to me is that if fighters have to 'slip' in besides (and close to) a larger ship, why not go the whole hog and simply mount them to the deck for rapid detachment/deployment afterwards (we know docked ships can be dragged into subspace)? (albiet this isn't a for/against arguement, just something that'd look neat ).  My tendency is to think piggybacking isn't possible simply as we haven't seen it in FS1 or FS2 (and because there's no mechanic for it in FRED, i.e. to share a node), but we're really looking at a heads or tails type scenario here.  Certainly piggybacking would allow some interesting scenarios (especially for TV War era campaigns), although it also removes some of the restrictions that could also make for other interesting scenarios.

Mount them to the deck?
Doesn' the Orion have a flight deck (from which you take off when haunting the Lucifer)?
And didn't the Aquaitaine have fighters "docked" with it when it first explored the nebula?

Granted, that doesn't prove anything. As far as FRED goes, how would you invision a mechanic like that?
You allready can set up wings to arrive at the same time anotehr ships comes (and VERY close to it too) so that really isn't needed. Unless you mean that a fighter HAS to be docked to the destroyer for piggybacking.

[aldo_14]

It's tricky, of course, because we don't have much to go on.  One thing that occurs to me is that if fighters have to 'slip' in besides (and close to) a larger ship, why not go the whole hog and simply mount them to the deck for rapid detachment/deployment afterwards (we know docked ships can be dragged into subspace)? (albiet this isn't a for/against arguement, just something that'd look neat ).  My tendency is to think piggybacking isn't possible simply as we haven't seen it in FS1 or FS2 (and because there's no mechanic for it in FRED, i.e. to share a node), but we're really looking at a heads or tails type scenario here.  Certainly piggybacking would allow some interesting scenarios (especially for TV War era campaigns), although it also removes some of the restrictions that could also make for other interesting scenarios.

Mount them to the deck?
Doesn' the Orion have a flight deck (from which you take off when haunting the Lucifer)?
And didn't the Aquaitaine have fighters "docked" with it when it first explored the nebula?

Yeah, the whole dock thing is an independent issue as there would possibly still be good reasons to dock a ship before jumping (NB: I'm thinking of simply bolting the things onto the sides, etc, of the ship - so like where you start on the Aquitane, etc - so you'd have them able to deploy over a wide are rapidly rather than risk being caught when coming out the fighterbay).  The Aquitane thing is interesting, as you're just sitting stationary there, so you can't tell if the ships are 'meant' to be attached to the hull, or just waiting for deployment orders.

Granted, that doesn't prove anything. As far as FRED goes, how would you invision a mechanic like that?
You allready can set up wings to arrive at the same time anotehr ships comes (and VERY close to it too) so that really isn't needed. Unless you mean that a fighter HAS to be docked to the destroyer for piggybacking.

For FRED?  Simple; fighters arrive or depart sharing the same jumpnode (warp ani) as the larger ship, rather than independent entry points.  The whole seeing separate warppoints is, to me, the reason I don't think we've seen that sort of piggybacking.  Not being possible in FRED isn't any indicator of the possibility within Freespace, of course, just that Volition never intended or planned to use it.

NB: the reason I'm assuming you'd need a shared warppoint is because, visually, there'd be no way tell the difference between inter-system and piggybacked jumps - I'd think a visible difference would be key in a game just so the player has an idea what's going on.  Also, I don't think it's any easier to exit a jump tunnel than enter it, in terms of energy requirements, because (presumably, IMO) you have to expand that infinitessimal entry/exit point to a traversible size in realspace.

Albiet I'd say this is really something that should be flexible in terms of campaign storylines, anyways.  I wouldn't use it, myself, though.