[aldo_14]

During the TV War, a vasudan destroyer must have made it into Ross 128 - the FS1 intro sows the apollo pilot having been in a skirmish with the Vasudans before being attacked.

Seeing as there were no fighter-mounted inter-system drives (unless I'm much mistaken - it seems very unlikely to me, nayways) in either fleet, that implies a Vasudan capship was in the Ross 128 system to launch that Vasudan patrol... which would mean it HAD to pass through the Delta Serpentis system - and the node to Sol.

Which seems...odd, to me.  Because it would mean the Vasudans were within a jump to Earth, and had enough control of the system to send fighter-carrying ships (a Typhon, basically) into the next system.

[CP5670]

It is well known that FS1 had numerous inconsistencies with the jump nodes and system locations; this looks like one of them.

[TheVirtu]

..and then it would be raped by all of the GTVA's defenses set up in Sol.

[Gloriano]

I thik it was some sort Vasudan patrol in Ross128 if there was any

[Goober5000]

I think we might change the node map for TVWP to account for that. Say, connect Betelgeuse, Ikeya, and Ross 128 together.  Supposedly Betelgeuse was on the front lines of the war.

[Hunter]

It's not uncommon for warships / destroyers to go on "Cowboy Raids", hitting locations randomly in an attempt to divert forces away from another location. If the destroyer had been in Ross 128, then maybe it had a purpose. Oh, and, if it DID try and make a jump to SOL, I imagine they have a significant amount of forces out from Jupiter's moons (those capable of sustaining domes and such) all the way back to Earth. Ofcourse, this is all just theory - Since nothing like that was established.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Holy Imperial Gloriano
I thik it was some sort Vasudan patrol in Ross128 if there was any

Had to be a destroyer - only way the fighters could get there.

Interesting / irritating, isn't it?  Because, outside of Sol, DS would have been the most heavily defended / fortified system in the GTA - it seems inconceivable that they wouldn't have massive amounts of weaponry on station there.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by aldo_14


Had to be a destroyer - only way the fighters could get there.4

I disagree.

Originally posted by Me, on SG


Orions are expensive. Hell, all capital ships are expensive. Fighters are much, much cheaper, and far more common. In fact, most of the TV War engagements were probably almost entirely fighter based, perhaps for conrol of the space above a planet, or bomber assaults on installations or whatever. However, until after the end of the TV War, GTA fighters had to be carried from system to system Via larger ships. Now, the only ships we ever saw in FS1 capable of doing this were the Orion and the Typhon, but we are told that very few of these were ever destroyed. For all their power, we've all played FS1, and we've all seen that these things are not invulnerable, simply difficult to kill. Therefore, wouldn't you think that both the Terrans and Vasudans would be concentrating as hard as they could at destroying what is, as far as we know, their enemies only means of transporting fighters and bombers between systems? I mean, eliminate enemy fighters and bombers from a system, even for a short time, and you could decimate that system. More telling than that is the fact tha the tech room tells us that the Typhon was first introduced in 2333, two years before the Great War. The Vasudans must have had something transporting fighters and bombers between systems, mustn't they?

So it's possible, in my mind, it was a smaller ship, though that's not really important.

[EDIT]Thinking about it though, I doubt it was a single ship doing the launching. IIRC (though I may not be), Ash says "Routine Skirmish"... either way, neither him nor the comm operator on the station seems particularly surprised that there were Vasudans there. Perhaps the Vasudans had a hidden base here, working as a sort of semi resistance cell, or perhaps just trying to get close enough to the R128 defelctor to have a look at the technologies being tested - Freighters and parts could probably be smuggled in easier than a warship, though it'd still be rather difficult.[/color]

[Joey_21]

He's got a point - although that makes me wonder... after the T-V alliance, why did it take so long to equip GTA fighters with subspace jump drives as well if the Vasudans had them all along?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Black Wolf

I disagree.

Based on known ships in the game.

[Eishtmo]

Based on known ships, yes, there would have to be a destroyer in system.  However, there are other possibilities:

1)  The Vasudan's had a base of some sort in the system.  Perhaps there was even a great deal of ground fighting going on in the system because of it.

2)  The Vasudan's have small carriers.  No actual evidence for this aside from the lack of any canon destroyers before 2332, despite the obvious use of fighters and the fact that the war had lasted 11 years by then.

3)  There are other ways to get fighters into a system besides carriers and destroyers.  Specifically, Atens.  I know, no fighterbay (not exactly big enough anyway), but one could strap fighters to the hull of such ships and have the Aten enter the system then release the fighters.

4)  A destroyer slipped through.  There actually seems to be a great deal of that going on, ships entering and exiting nodes without notice, so it might happen.

Goober5000 says:

I think we might change the node map for TVWP to account for that.  Say, connect Betelgeuse, Ikeya, and Ross 128 together. Supposedly Betelgeuse was on the front lines of the war.

Uh, no, I don't think that would be a good idea.  Though it is odd that in the FS1 mission briefs, we're told Betelgeuse is connected directly to Antares when the map says it isn't.  More inconsistancies, the game is full of them.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Eishtmo


3)  There are other ways to get fighters into a system besides carriers and destroyers.  Specifically, Atens.  I know, no fighterbay (not exactly big enough anyway), but one could strap fighters to the hull of such ships and have the Aten enter the system then release the fighters.

That's an interesting idea, for sure.... although could a lone Aten have got into DS, let alone Ross 128?  If the Vasudans were able to 'punch' into Ross 128, did that mean the arrival of the Shivans effectively saved Sol from Vasudan invasion?

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by aldo_14


That's an interesting idea, for sure.... although could a lone Aten have got into DS, let alone Ross 128?  If the Vasudans were able to 'punch' into Ross 128, did that mean the arrival of the Shivans effectively saved Sol from Vasudan invasion?

Not with the Terrans attacking Antares (albeit unsuccessfully) in Operation Thresher. If they were desperately trying to prevent a Vasudan invasion, they'd be on the defensive, not opening new battle lines.

[StratComm]

I've always understood the T-V war, where you enter it in FS1, to be a stalemate and a conflict that neither side wants to win very badly.  Terrans are all over "Vasudan" space and vice-versa, but they don't want to risk their shiny new destroyers in combat unless they absolutely have to.  I also get the feeling that subspace nodes do not behave the same way as a body orbiting a star, and that fixed emplacements around nodes are set up to work for days, or at most weeks, before they drift out of position.  Therefore, there may not be anything stopping a ship from jumping in to a system unless it is being actively blockaded by frontline warships (with engines powerful enough to hold themselves around the node as needed) and with the FS1-era deployment ethos I've already mentioned, risking a destroyer in an obvious place like a node seems like a chance that Command wouldn't want to take.

EDIT: And remember, FS1's node map doesn't define space very well; all of the maps we have that are worth their salt are from FS2 (or based on them) so it's just one of the minor inconsistancies between the games.  I like FS2's version better, because it makes nodes more important than they seemed to be in FS1, but that's more of a personal preference.

[aldo_14]

My view of the TV War has always been akin to trench warfare in WW1 - the 2 sides bogged down trying to break up node blockades, with fighter and cruiser assaults akin to 'going over the top'.

[Taristin]

Perhaps... There were ships that the Terrans were mistaken about. Ships like the Satis. It was initially mistaken for a cruiser. Perhaps there were things that looked like freighters, that were, in essence, Carriers. Although Terran Command claimed to have had Agents in the Vasudan Government, it is possible that not all information passed between them was accurate.

[Eishtmo]

I beginning to think that the 14 Year War, near the end anyways, wasn't anything like any of us think it might have been.

Node blockades don't seem very effective, or even in place in most places, ships are in places that they seemingly shouldn't be in, and, well, everything.

What we might be looking at is that fleet combat and fighter actions during the war may NOT have been a big part of the conflict at all.  Most of the major battles were happening on the ground, amongst the various planets.  The fleets and fighters were mearly there to try to cut off or protect supplies to these engagements and provide air support.

Well, it's just an idea now.  I've got to do more thinking on this, there's something wrong with the way everything plays out near the end and I'd like to figure out why.

[Eishtmo]

Well, I've been going over it, and this is the best I can figure:

They're leftovers.

Most of the battles are for specific nodes, especially those between the two spaces (Antares, Vega and possibly Regulus, not sure on that one).  However, odds are good that over time, and there's a lot to play with, bits and pieces of each fleet got stranded on the other side.  Instead of wasting their lives trying to get back through the node and home, they wandered deeper into enemy territory and began blowing things up, especially transports and freighters.

After awhile, it probably became a viable tactic, and the Vasudan (possibly the Terrans as well, hard to say) began pushing their forces farther and farther behind enemy lines, until they got as deep as Ross 128.  Most of this was probably made easier due to nodes behind the lines (save probably Sol's) were pretty much unpatrolled, or lightly guarded.  The Galatea was probably sent to Betelgeuse to clean up one of these pockets at the beginning of the game.  Meanwhile, the main fleet was busy holding the line, trying to keep the Vasudans from pouring in while trying to go "over the top" themselves.

So the war (near the end anyway) was a trench battle, but with lots of little battles throughout both sides territories.  There also seems to be a great deal of ground combat as the losses on both sides is not only high, but attrociously high, far greater than fleet actions could possibly do.  There is also reports of large scale food shortages on each side, which either means extensive ground warfare, or the cutting of supply ships (meaning those little battles behind the lines are very effective and used by both sides).

That's my thoughts on it at least.

[Ace]

Originally posted by Eishtmo
Well, I've been going over it, and this is the best I can figure:

They're leftovers.

Most of the battles are for specific nodes, especially those between the two spaces (Antares, Vega and possibly Regulus, not sure on that one).  However, odds are good that over time, and there's a lot to play with, bits and pieces of each fleet got stranded on the other side.  Instead of wasting their lives trying to get back through the node and home, they wandered deeper into enemy territory and began blowing things up, especially transports and freighters.

After awhile, it probably became a viable tactic, and the Vasudan (possibly the Terrans as well, hard to say) began pushing their forces farther and farther behind enemy lines, until they got as deep as Ross 128.  Most of this was probably made easier due to nodes behind the lines (save probably Sol's) were pretty much unpatrolled, or lightly guarded.  The Galatea was probably sent to Betelgeuse to clean up one of these pockets at the beginning of the game.  Meanwhile, the main fleet was busy holding the line, trying to keep the Vasudans from pouring in while trying to go "over the top" themselves.

So the war (near the end anyway) was a trench battle, but with lots of little battles throughout both sides territories.  There also seems to be a great deal of ground combat as the losses on both sides is not only high, but attrociously high, far greater than fleet actions could possibly do.  There is also reports of large scale food shortages on each side, which either means extensive ground warfare, or the cutting of supply ships (meaning those little battles behind the lines are very effective and used by both sides).

That's my thoughts on it at least.

I pretty much share this view on it too.

[Flaser]

I totally agree with Eisthmo, except for the groundwar thing - there probably were quite a few, but only on habitated planets. Even by 2335 there would be no more than a dozen colonised worlds - the presence of Arcadia installations pretty much prooves that a notable fraction of all operations and general economy was entierly space-based.

The reason is that the Arcadia is not fit for orbital placement, and if the economy were planet-based space-elevators or advanced shuttles would lead a key role. - However such installations and fleets don't allow a flexible war - they are too volnurable to terror attacks.
Of course these things are better to capture than to destroy, but they still don't allow a moving defense.

Instead trench battle or never ending tactical engagements the GTA would have had to develop blockade methods a lot earlier.

The other reason what may support the planet-based philosophy is the importance of Earth after the Great War - however it's the Sol system that's lost not just Earth.

Unlike the colonies Sol had roughly 50-100 years to build a stellar economy starting even before the discovery of subspace using nuclear/ion engines.

So by the time the expansion begins the resources of Sol are readily availible thanks to the several mining stations and gasminers throughout the system, as well as the spacedocks in Moon orbit.