[Kosh]

But if the Vasudans had the tech all along, it would have been a tremendous tactical advantage over the Terrans and I doubt the T-V war had dragged on as long as it did.

Beyond being able to send raiding parties behind the lines to disrupt and divert precious terran fleet assets from the front (which is pretty much what they seemed to do in Ross 128), it wouldn't be that big of an advantage, especially considering their compartitively inferior capital ships (except the Typhon, but that only appeared late in the war.)

Btw, what was the exact command briefing about this?

[jdjtcagle]

No, all the months of allies with the Vasudans and we had to come up with the tech by ourselves?

[Prophet]

Beyond being able to send raiding parties behind the lines to disrupt and divert precious terran fleet assets from the front (which is pretty much what they seemed to do in Ross 128), it wouldn't be that big of an advantage,

So intelligence gathering isn't useful? Or the ability to project fighter power over multiple systems? Or not having to sent the core of your fleet (destroyer) trough a node in to hostile system but instead cleaning the area first with fighters and bombers?

inferior capital ships (except the Typhon, but that only appeared late in the war.)

So what you're saying is until Typhon appeared, all they had were Atens and kickass freighters?

[jdjtcagle]

That's another reason why I see them having bases of some sort...

unless they had a different type of destroyer which is most likely the answer... Terrans laughed at the design of the destroyer because they built something different than what was accepted to be effective.  Comparing Terran Orions to Vasudan XXX.

[Kosh]

So what you're saying is until Typhon appeared, all they had were Atens and kickass freighters?

Inferior =! not have. They probably did have other capital ships, but they were not as effective as their terran counterparts.

[eliex]

 For all the tech descriptions of the Typhon not being able to sustain BVas beam cannons, the Typhon in fact is one of the more powerful destroyers thanks to the fact that they have no beam blindspots and extremely tough armour.

 A bit like a destroyer lilith, except for the fact there is no BF Vas.   

[Kosh]

forgot to reply to this bit:

So intelligence gathering isn't useful? Or the ability to project fighter power over multiple systems? Or not having to sent the core of your fleet (destroyer) trough a node in to hostile system but instead cleaning the area first with fighters and bombers

It does matter, but it would take a lot of fighters and bombers to clean the area given the general suckiness of great war era Vasudan ships. Even in the tech description of the Aten it says very clearly that it is stronger most Vasudan warships, so they must have had other kinds of cruisers which were even worse.

I still think that it evened the score and allowed the war to degenerate into a stalemate. Terrans had stronger ships and better weapons, but the Zods had better propulsion systems. It does even things out if you think about it.

So why didn't they share this tech? Probably because after fighting a major war against the Terrans for 14 years they were not too willing to give up their trump card. It was a big deal when the Terrans figured it out because it was the only way to beat the Lucifer. The PVN was mostly wiped out by that point.

[Mad Bomber]

*skips over several posts*

My theory is that [V] had planned to have more cruiser classes than just the Aten. Their existence is inferred by the Aten's tech description, which says the Aten is the strongest of the Vasudan cruisers.

My guess is one of them was supposed to have a small fighterbay. That, plus periodic blockade runners, would be enough to keep the GTA on their toes through constant raiding.

[Gamma_Draconis]

Didn't the Aten have a stronger version of it like the Fenris and Cain class cruisers? I just can't remember.

[Woolie Wool]

I suppose the fighters were hiding out till a Vasudan destroyer could arrive and evacuate them. It still doesn't explain why they have 100% hull integrity despite doing "raids" on Terran convoys. It would have made more sense if the pilot was sent on a patrol mission and end up having a little skirmish with the Vasudan wings doing their own patrol in the area.

Why can't the Zods fly in shifts like real pilots? Do you really think pilots spend days in the air?

[blowfish]

Didn't the Aten have a stronger version of it like the Fenris and Cain class cruisers? I just can't remember.

No, it didn't.

If the Aten was one of the Vasudans' stronger warships, I can only imagine what their weaker ones would have been like — i mean there are freighters that come close to the Aten in firepower.

[terran_emperor]

Well, THe Ursa is superior to all cruisers...Hell, the Ursa is practically a one-man cruiser itself

[jdjtcagle]

Is there a model of a small vasudan carrier?

[FreeSpaceFreak]

At first, the Satis was thought to be a warship too, remember? Perhaps the tech description of the Aten was made up before we knew it was a freighter, and it wasn't changed after that due to the laziness of the GTVA

[Snail]

At first, the Satis was thought to be a warship too, remember? Perhaps the tech description of the Aten was made up before we knew it was a freighter, and it wasn't changed after that due to the laziness of the GTVA

They did change it, actually.

[Goober5000]

The Aten has 80% more hitpoints than the Fenris.

[blowfish]

It has much weaker weaponry though, and suffers from poor turret placement to an extent.  I would rate the Fenris much more effective overall.

[Kosh]

Also the Aten's turret armor is pretty weak.

[blowfish]

Its turrets are small though, and therefore hard to hit.  Gaping holes in collision detection also make it take less damage.

[CP5670]

That is only a problem with the high poly version in the media VPs, not the original model. These issues are supposed to be fixed in the 3.6.10 package.