[DeepSpace9er]

They cost millions if not billions to produce and the technology on them isnt at all cheap. They are slow, easy targets, piss poor at defending themselves, require cheap fighters to protect them etc. Why bother build them! There is no point! You might as well have Carriers defended by Aeolus type cruisers. Oh, and long range strategic fusion warheads capable of incinerating a station in one shot.

[ChronoReverse]

Well, installations are rather important in the way cities are important.  They're a point of gathering.

But you're right about the destroyers.  While they were usefull before the advent of beam weaponry since they were tough to kill, their purpose really isn't as strong any longer.

Personally, I'd improve the AWAKS technology further for even more range and go with carrier battle groups.  The carrier would be guarded by modified Aeolus cruisers and Deimos corvettes.  Just like in modern naval warfare, specialization would be the way to go; the corvettes would dump a large portion of other weaponry in exchange for more anti-capital firepower while the cruisers would focus on anti-snubfighter and bomb weaponry.  The carrier would have multiple lauch bays (unlike the Colossus... why would a huge ship like that have ONE fighter bay?!?).

The carrier and its battle group will never engage directly unless absolutely necessary.  Since all snubfighters are equipped with short-jump drives, they'll jump to the engagements (as they already do).

A new class of warship/fighter should also be created: a gunship.  Larger than a bomber, yet smaller than a cruiser.  It should handle like a really heavy bomber, but pack AAAF and flak turrets.  It's primary purpose would be to avoid getting hit while providing firecover to bombers and fighters.  I wouldn't want to be on one of these ships, but they'll make life easier for the fighters and bombers.


Oh and I just thought of one more thing.  The fusion mortar will be replaced with a long-ranged Stiletto derivative.  At the rate fusion mortars are fired (rather ineffectually, I might add), if they were stilleto IIs, the sathanas would be crippled by a dozen fenris cruisers in a matter of minutes.

[DeepSpace9er]

I would say that battleships (Fs2 Destroyers) were obsolete when Aircraft Carriers proved to be dominant in 1945.

[Knight Templar]

Except that Destroyers have teh beams, and are the aircraft carriers.

[ChronoReverse]

They also die ridiculously fast until attack from a few squadrons of heavy bombers covered by a few wings of fighters.

[Trivial Psychic]

The R2 revision for Inferno will go a long way to specializing ship classes, their weapons, and roles.  I think you should check out in some of their more recent threads for this.

Later!

[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by ChronoReverse
They also die ridiculously fast until attack from a few squadrons of heavy bombers covered by a few wings of fighters.

So does any other capital ship. What's your point?

[Flaser]

Fighters were awsomely ovepowered by the end of FS2 - FS1 was a lot more balanced.

[ChronoReverse]

@KT

They don't cost nearly as much

[karajorma]

Originally posted by ChronoReverse
They also die ridiculously fast until attack from a few squadrons of heavy bombers covered by a few wings of fighters.

A carrier would die even faster and would be completely screwed if something like a lilith jumped in.

[ryuune75]

Originally posted by DeepSpace9er
I would say that battleships (Fs2 Destroyers) were obsolete when Aircraft Carriers proved to be dominant in 1945.

Yes, that's why huge battleship aren't produced anymore in the true world, carriers are the way to go since WW2, and beside, why use big cannons when you can launch intercontinental missiles from small ships or submarines?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by ryuune75
Yes, that's why huge battleship aren't produced anymore in the true world, carriers are the way to go since WW2, and beside, why use big cannons when you can launch intercontinental missiles from small ships or submarines?

*sigh* Not this again.

Everyone always brings up the same stupid arguement about how come the battleship became obsolete after the introduction of the carrier.  Sure it became obsolete on Earth but that's because the Germans and Japanese never figured out how to teleport their battleships in next to the carrier.

  If there was a way for a battleship to jump in next to the aircraft carrier completely ignoring its screen of fighters then the aircraft carrier concept would be in deep trouble. It has to launch its fighters before it can do any damage to the battleship. The battleship on the other hand can start firing immediately. If just one hit takes out the runway then it's all over. The carrier would be defenceless.

The solution to this problem would be to start arming the aircraft carrier so that it could defend itself. In which case you end up with something similar to the FS2 destroyer. A ship with powerful weapons to attack things close to it and fighter craft for long distance attack.

While I have no problem with people saying that their can be carriers in the FS2 universe they aren't superior to the destroyer. If you want carriers to replace the destroyer you'd need to guard them with a fleet of ships designed to kill enemy battleships. In terms of tonnage that's probably equivalent to 2-4 destroyers maybe more.  Which solution is better isn't absolute. A fleet of destroyers has the advantage that it can split up but suffers from the fact that all the ships in the fleet are jack-of-all-trades as opposed to the specialisation of the carrier fleet.  A sensible military would use both solutions.

Carriers do work very well in a support role though. When attacking an enemy system I can easily see the advantages of having destroyers smash through the jump node and neutralise any blockade and then have the carrier jump in once the area was at least partially secured to provide a blanket of fighters and bombers.

  A single carrier guarded by aeolus cruisers trying to do the same thing would get owned so quickly it wouldn't be funny.  Worse it probably wouldn't do much damage to the enemy unless it fitted all it fighter craft with extremely expensive intersystem jump engines and launched them in subspace.

[diamondgeezer]

DS9er, you do know FS is supposed to be a vaguely WWII-style dogfighter, right? It's like the whole thing of not using Newtionian physiscs - it's more fun this way. And complaining about a lack of 'realism' in a sci-fi game is only going to get you laughed at

[karajorma]

What's worse if that his case for realism is fundementally flawed on top of missing the point about what's fun and what isn't.

[ryuune75]

Originally posted by karajorma
Everyone always brings up the same stupid arguement about how come the battleship became obsolete after the introduction of the carrier.  Sure it became obsolete on Earth but that's because the Germans and Japanese never figured out how to teleport their battleships in next to the carrier.

And how do you overcome this problem? Of course in FS2 ships seem to jump out of nowere, but this is just not-realistic too, if there is a way the destroyer can know where the carrier is, so the carrier can know where a destroyer is, and thus as soon as the destroyer exit subspace the carrier will have swarms of bombers ready to blast away the destroyer much faster than the destroyer cannons can sink the carrier.

Of course the destroyers of FS2 are NOT the battleships of WW2, because they are heavily armed, but also they have their own fighter escort, so they are carrier-hybrids, and all the above doesn't apply at all.
But if you put a pure destroyer (no fighter wings) against a carrier, well, it's no match...

And i also think it makes sense to have this kind of ships, because on earth carriers need to be built to the purpose of launching fighters, so they must be flat with no real space for big weapons... in space you can just drop the fighters out of the ship any way you want, they won't crash anywere, so a pure carrier ship makes no sense, you need only a little space to store them.

And talking about realism, well, i dont' give a damn about that in a game, i actually like big maybe-unrealisti badass ship, becasue they are plain cool!

[SadisticSid]

If Freespace was realistic there'd be nothing but battleships in space conducting combat at extreme ranges.

Carriers only became dominant on Earth because battleships were comparatively limited in range, accuracy and offensive flexibility. In space none of these limitations would really apply - there'd be no atmosphere to limit the range of beam weaponry (think about it, there'd be minimal attenuation because there's no outside influence to 'unfocus' energy weapons), there'd be no consideration of ballistic weapons - point at a target and hit it instantly with a beam or railgun or something as gravitational and atmospheric effects are also non-existent, and since a ship could relocate to any position it wanted, instead of being restricted to travelling on a (essentially) 2D plane, any considerations of inflexibility also fly out the window.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by ryuune75
And how do you overcome this problem? Of course in FS2 ships seem to jump out of nowere, but this is just not-realistic too, if there is a way the destroyer can know where the carrier is, so the carrier can know where a destroyer is, and thus as soon as the destroyer exit subspace the carrier will have swarms of bombers ready to blast away the destroyer much faster than the destroyer cannons can sink the carrier.  

So your entire defence strategy depends on knowing exactly when and were the enemy are going to attack from? I see a very short military career for you.
 How many suprise attacks did you see in FS2? You think they were all due to carelessness on the part of command?
 You also ignore the possibility of the enemy forces doing their recon using a stealthed fighter.  
 And what about situations where the GTVA is engaging a force of unknown size (like in the nebula)? As soon as they saw a single fighter they'd have to scramble the entire fighter complement on the off chance that there is a shivan destroyer about which now knows the location of the carrier.

Originally posted by ryuune75
Of course the destroyers of FS2 are NOT the battleships of WW2, because they are heavily armed, but also they have their own fighter escort, so they are carrier-hybrids, and all the above doesn't apply at all.
But if you put a pure destroyer (no fighter wings) against a carrier, well, it's no match...

I agree that FS2 destroyers are hybrids. In fact it pushes my example even further into the destroyers favour because it's own fighter wing would be able to take on anything the carrier could launch for quite a while.
That's what makes completely dumping them in favour of vulnerable carriers so stupid.  As for the battle between a carrier and a pure battleship it would simply come down to two factors. How quickly the carrier can launch and how quickly the battleship can disable that launch equipment.  It's definately not a foregone conclusion.

Originally posted by ryuune75
And i also think it makes sense to have this kind of ships, because on earth carriers need to be built to the purpose of launching fighters, so they must be flat with no real space for big weapons... in space you can just drop the fighters out of the ship any way you want, they won't crash anywere, so a pure carrier ship makes no sense, you need only a little space to store them.

Which basically brings us back to the FS2 style destroyer. A ship using a small amount of its available space to hold fighters and the rest for mounting weapons.

The simple fact is that I don't hate carriers. I love them. I'm even basing my Seeds Of Rebellion mini-campaign around one of the damn things But they are not a replacement for the destroyer.

[Ghostavo]

Destruction of the Colossus... fighterbays smashed... engines disabled... er... I had a point here somewhere... really I had...

Anyway... how is your carrier going to protect itself against bigger menaces? No, not Sobeks and such or Orions... I'm talking about a real ship crusher like the Ravana and the mother of them all, the Sathanas? How many bomber would you need to take them down, considering they too have a fighter escort, after all they are hybrids?

[ryuune75]

Originally posted by karajorma
So your entire defence strategy depends on knowing exactly when and were the enemy are going to attack from? I see a very short military career for you.

No really! Surprise attack is the key to victroy! How the Japanese nearly destroyed US fleet at Pearl Harbour? With a surprise attack! And how the US managed to win at the end with a crippled fleed? Of course with a surprise attack!
So knowing where the enemy is IS the key to victory in all battles. A carrier that makes a sneak attack on a battleship wins, and so does a battleship that makes a surprise attack on a carrier.
Difference is, to attack with a battleship you have to move all the ship, the carrie just send his bombers to do the work faster and at longer ranges, hopefully.

Originally posted by karajorma
Which basically brings us back to the FS2 style destroyer. A ship using a small amount of its available space to hold fighters and the rest for mounting weapons.

True. So in the end we think almost in the same way, hybrid destroyers seem the way to go.

[ryuune75]

Originally posted by SadisticSid
If Freespace was realistic there'd be nothing but battleships in space conducting combat at extreme ranges.

Maybe. Or maybe not. The fact is we don't have a damn clue about what technology we will have in the future.

Maybe we'll have huge battleship, or maybe we'll travel between stars in pink soap bubbles, who can tell?

The only thing we can do now is to create a game that is just cool to watch and play, and probably out successor will laugth at us and our teories....