[magatsu1]

I like the way Shivan Caps have such focused firepower. Kinda like a Hunter

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by magatsu1
I like the way Shivan Caps have such focused firepower. Kinda like a Hunter

True, but it could potentially be their Achilles' heel, too. It's just that the GTVA has never properly thought through their tactics enough to account for that. The GTVA Navy has to learn to counterpunch. Use the Shivans' frontal-gun mentality against them and give 'em a swift broadside to the rear.

[briefing to skeptical admiralty]

The other thing the GTVA needs to keep in mind is: mobility, mobility, mobility. All that Shivan firepower is for naught if they can't effectively consolidate it against their targets. Which is why Allied Command needs to put much more emphasis on bomber superiority and, more importantly, survivability. You can pack as many of those juggernaught-killing bombs on that crate with thrusters, but if it can't turn and it can't defend itself, it's as good as dead.

Multitudes of lighter warships, especially of dedicated anti-cap cruisers and light carriers, would be more flexible than the pre-Capella mentality that Bigger is Better. (Don't put all your eggs in one basket and all that.) Besides, you can have one big destroyer versus seven cruisers, at the same/similar price. You can split up the cruiser force, but the destroyer itself can't be in more than one place at once, no matter how many fighters it carries.

Which is why I think cruisers and corvettes are the backbone of the Navy, and if more ships in that size range had fighterbays, destroyers wouldn't need to be so common. Destroyers are big and powerful, yes, but they're also slow and horridly expensive. And as the Colossus' demise showed us, all that effort can be for naught, very quickly. Cruisers, on the other hand, can perform much the same role with more mobility, with roughly equal to better effectiveness (depending on how many there are and how well they're placed tactically). Each individual cruiser is also more expendable.

The old mentality that "capital ships can only really be engaged by other capital ships" has been proven wrong time and time again. It's time for the smaller ships -- fighters, bombers, cruisers, escort carriers, and corvettes -- to take center stage in the GTVA Navy.

[/briefing to skeptical admiralty]

Okay, I'm done.

[Ghostavo]

Cruisers cannot replace destroyers... have you seen how much punch they can take? A sole fighter can beat the crap out of it. Now imagine what wave after wave after wave of shivans fighters would do to a fleet composed "primarily" of them... the shivans would almost even need bombers... Capital ships can only really be engaged by other capital ships because only capital ships can deploy fighters... corvettes could possibly survive a fight... but win one?

The shivans simply cannot be beaten because they have just too many advantages... size... numbers... technology... you name it they have!

Flanking maneuvers you increase the survivability rate of the alliance yes, but you cannot simply stop a Sathanas from entering a system and nuking the nearby planet or star. Especially after wave and wave and wave again of fighters, bombers, cruisers, corvettes, and destroyers entering the system.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
Cruisers cannot replace destroyers... have you seen how much punch they can take? A sole fighter can beat the crap out of it. Now imagine what wave after wave after wave of shivans fighters would do to a fleet composed "primarily" of them... the shivans would almost even need bombers...

You assume I'm referring to old wastes of scrap metal like the Fenris? Hah. I'm talking, next-gen, 40K-hitpoint cruisers with 3SGreens. Or cruisers bristling with antifighter death like the GTWc Gryphon (which, incidentally, has a fighterbay...) and the Aeolus.

And I'm talking about groups of cruisers and equivalent sized vessels in place of big, slow targets.

Capital ships can only really be engaged by other capital ships because only capital ships can deploy fighters... corvettes could possibly survive a fight... but win one?

Which is why I think there should be cruiser, corvette and frigate-size ships with fighterbays, so that destroyers aren't the only ships that can deploy fighters. You missed the entire point of my previous post.

The shivans simply cannot be beaten because they have just too many advantages... size... numbers... technology... you name it they have!

Flanking maneuvers you increase the survivability rate of the alliance yes, but you cannot simply stop a Sathanas from entering a system and nuking the nearby planet or star. Especially after wave and wave and wave again of fighters, bombers, cruisers, corvettes, and destroyers entering the system.

I'm well aware of the Shivans' massive, mind-numbing numerical advantage, and their technological superiority. I'm talking about tipping the scale somewhat so that, in a one-on-one situation or at a choke point, GTVA stuff could maybe compete, or at the very least hold the line longer so that a Meson-equipped ship could come and demolish the Shivans' entry point before things became too out of hand.

Improving the odds of survival from 1:10^9 to 1:10^8 is still an improvement.

[Ghostavo]

If you mention cruisers that have ridiculously large hitpoints, why not a single fighter that has the power to nuke a planet? A cargo container that can supernova star? Any fighter (except really light ones) can take on any cruiser in the FS universe and win. A single ravana could probably take on a dozen cruisers and win with moderate damage (unless you use ridiculous trigger events like continuous beams and other stuff).

About the carrier thingy, do you even know if a corvette has the space to launch, recall, repair and refit fighters?

[NGTM-1R]

The real problem with tactics, both GTVA AND Shivan, is that they deploy their big ships unescorted.

You would be amazed at how much more effective your destroyer becomes with a corvette and a few cruisers for support. This is something I've messed about repeatedly with in FRED, and when the destroyer actually deploys with a battlegroup in attendance, it works much better. An Orion becomes a real powerhouse when backed up by a few Leviathans and an Aeolus or two to cover it against fighters and bombers. A Colossus or Sathanas with a sizeable escorting cruiser group is close to unstoppable.

[StratComm]

Actually I could definitely see something corvette-sized deploying fighters, but in a near-dropship fashion.  In other words, the ships have the size to launch and recover fighters, but not to house all of the facilities for their long-term deployment.  They get armed up and readied on a carrier or destroyer in advance, loaded into a corvette, and launched when a battle is joined.  It might have some small stash of munitions for the fighters, but I wouldn't wager much.  If they survive the battle, they are either forced to remain damaged or return to a carrier/destroyer to be repaired.  And there simply isn't enough space in a cruiser to house a fighterbay.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Multitudes of lighter warships, especially of dedicated anti-cap cruisers and light carriers, would be more flexible than the pre-Capella mentality that Bigger is Better. (Don't put all your eggs in one basket and all that.) Besides, you can have one big destroyer versus seven cruisers, at the same/similar price. You can split up the cruiser force, but the destroyer itself can't be in more than one place at once, no matter how many fighters it carries.

          You miss one point, though seven cruisers may equal a destroyer in firepower, you need all seven of them in the same place to do that. One their own, in or lesser numbers, a Destroyer could destroy them one by one, repair, and then continue killing them.

           Look at the Sathanas, it destroys a Sobek with little damage, then the Phoenicia. It would have destroyed the Colossus too without a co-ordinated fighter attack. All the eggs in one basket can be a bad thing, but when your opponent doesn't know about the basket. Usually the basket kicks butt (at least for a while).

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Ghostavo


Flanking maneuvers you increase the survivability rate of the alliance yes, but you cannot simply stop a Sathanas from entering a system and nuking the nearby planet or star. Especially after wave and wave and wave again of fighters, bombers, cruisers, corvettes, and destroyers entering the system.

30 RBCs, 5 Deimos and 10 wings of Erinyes blockading the node.   Kill 'em before they can see you.

[Akalabeth Angel]

30 RBCs, 5 Deimos and 10 wings of Erinyes blockading the node. Kill 'em before they can see you.

    That's when the Shivans employ their ability to make jumps at uncharted nodes, and they jump behind the blockade and blow it apart because all the RBCs are pointed the wrong way and the Erinyes don't have capital-killing weapons.

[Ghostavo]

aldo_14, with that scenario it is impossible to come through the node with or without destroyers (unless you are shivan, in which case you deploy Sathanas which would either ram the RBC or at least create a protected "box" around the node, a Ravana would jump and then jump again to another part of the system, another Ravana would jump in or a Demon, etc... the Deimos would be powerless against at least 2 Ravanas possibly, maybe 3 Ravanas because of the 5th so they can beat them with minimal damage).

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
If you mention cruisers that have ridiculously large hitpoints, why not a single fighter that has the power to nuke a planet? A cargo container that can supernova star? Any fighter (except really light ones) can take on any cruiser in the FS universe and win. A single ravana could probably take on a dozen cruisers and win with moderate damage (unless you use ridiculous trigger events like continuous beams and other stuff).

[/b]

You're again assuming the cruisers have no fighter or bomber support, and that they'd be brain-dead enough to attack the Ravana in its frontal arc, where its two LReds could tear apart a cruiser in one shot.

Good gunnery against the Ravana's engines, and stick behind it, and that'd likely be one dead Ravana no matter how superior Shivan tech is. (A good use for a TAG missile, to increase the precision of subspace jumps so that the cruisers could reliably come in on the enemy destroyer's rear.)

As for the "ridiculously large hitpoints" comment, bear in mind the Aeolus has 38000 (IIRC). And it's quite compact. So it's not much of a stretch to have a slightly larger, dedicated anti-cap cruiser with maybe 40k hitpoints. Or a dropship-style cruiser (which, admittedly, could only MAYBE carry four fighters, but still quite versatile.)

About the carrier thingy, do you even know if a corvette has the space to launch, recall, repair and refit fighters?

You again assume I am talking about the Deimos and Sobek. I am not.

The GTVA would need to deploy a new class of ships that size in order to get fighterbays onto such midsize ships. But, barring all that, yes. Yes they would. Just not in the numbers that a destroyer has. (2-2.5 Escort carriers, 'vette sized, would ~= 1 destroyer, for fighterbay number purposes, depending on whether we're talking Orion or Hecate.)

The SCv Moloch actually occupies less volume than the Deimos, and it has a fighterbay... while the Deimos and Sobek admittedly do not have carrying capability, it doesn't mean future generations of corvettes can't or won't.

I could especially see the Vasudans, who generally have very compact fighter designs (see Seth and Thoth), making a carrier-equipped hybrid corvette capable of supplying and deploying 3 wings or so. More dedicated designs would show up later on, methinks.

You miss one point, though seven cruisers may equal a destroyer in firepower, you need all seven of them in the same place to do that. One their own, in or lesser numbers, a Destroyer could destroy them one by one, repair, and then continue killing them.

Point conceded. But supposedly, smaller ships can recharge their jump drives faster, so if the cruiser captains are smart and have fighter escort, they can be slippery little bastards.

And again, consolidating their attacks on a destroyer's weak point(s) and covering each other against enemy fighters (imagine trying to attack seven Aeoluses at once! ) could work fairly well.

Newer destroyers like the Hecate have very few weak points and redundant systems, making them resistant to such tactics. But the cruiser group would at least have a fighting chance, especially if they resorted to harassment techniques, and left fairly quickly.

[aldo_14]

Don't know if a Moloch actually repairs & resupplies fighters, rather than  simply ferrying them into & back from battle dropship-stylee, though.  Seeing as the Shivans seem to have high attrition rates, it raises the question whether/why they even bother having repair facilities?

EDIT; and yet FS1 had to recoving a Dragon being repaired at a cargo dump, IIRC.

Originally posted by Ghostavo
aldo_14, with that scenario it is impossible to come through the node with or without destroyers (unless you are shivan, in which case you deploy Sathanas which would either ram the RBC or at least create a protected "box" around the node, a Ravana would jump and then jump again to another part of the system, another Ravana would jump in or a Demon, etc... the Deimos would be powerless against at least 2 Ravanas possibly, maybe 3 Ravanas because of the 5th so they can beat them with minimal damage).

Actually, you'd deploy RBCs in a roughly circular way round the node, to prevent ramming tactics (plus Mjolnirs are small targets).  Plus almost certainly set up a good number to fire at the rear of ships to disable them (roadblock).  The Deimos is essentially for AAAf / flak cover against fighters or bombers.

Basically, if you can get enough mjolnirs (and not considering mines, of course), you should be able to get sufficient firepower to kill or cripple any large ship in the node.  But you need to have fighter or AAAf cover to protect these RBCs, both from enemy fighters or from high-yield explosives sent through the node.  It's these which are tircky (and the bit you work on for missions...either clearing a path or stopping the enemy doing it).

EDIT: if you're talking about uncharted nodes, it's a whole other issue.  FS2 does raise questions over why the Shivans didn't use these (the most obvious answer being that they weren't interested in attacking the GTVA, another possibility being that the Great War nodes no longer led to Shivan space/were now totally unstable).... the 'safe' option would be to fire a meson bomb down these and collapse them, if such a thing would work.

[Ghostavo]

A ravana will only fight if it has a chance to use it's front arc or at least part of it. I give you that Cruiser are not stupid enough to stay in front of a Ravana, but no destroyer is going to be stupid enough to have it's engines disabled. The precision of subspace jumps is unknown, although it is known that a 5000km miscalculation is a very serious mistake. TAG missiles don't increase precision of subspace jumps, but the precision of readings of that ship. If you want to say increase the precision about the position of that ship is ok, but nano jumps such as those are not known in the FS universe, which could have saved millions of lives once and once again. Seeing that that doesn't happen one must think if either they can be done or not.

Go check the size of a destroyer, go check it's volume against a corvette, then go see the tech description.

Destroyer Volume =+\- 6!!! corvettes' volume

If you think a corvette has the ability to use 3 wings of fighters/bombers, even 4 if you wish, a simple Orion:

's cavernous hanger bays easily accommodate more[/B] than two dozen fighter or bomber wings.

which kind of agreed when I said the volume of a destroyer was +\- 6 times that of a corvette, except as you see, a corvette to be able to support a fighter complement such as that would need to take most of it's heavy weaponry. The Moloch, as you said, the only corvette that has a fighterbay, is easily dealt with in spite of it's much advanced tech, by a Deimos or Sobek. Destroyers are cost effective for the task they do: carry fighters and fight against other capital ships, and they do it superbly. A ravana (even taking it's advance tech into account) is the perfect example of this. A perfect killing machine with a fighterbay. Any ship below a destroyer that has a fighterbay will have a weakness against other ships of the same size that don't.

Another point, by pitting cruisers against a destroyer, you must take into account that destroyers HAVE fighterbays, so if you want to have fighters you would also need a destroyer (or your corvette designed carriers) which would in turn leave you with a fleet with "double" the size of what it is to do the same job.

Aldo, what about the part about creating a protected box around the node with the Sathanas?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Ghostavo

Aldo, what about the part about creating a protected box around the node with the Sathanas?

Not sure what you mean.  unless you mean putting a perimeter of ships in which basically act as bodyguards.... in which case there's an issue of collision damage and blocking of the node, depending on the perimeter size.... i.e. if the enemy manages to get quite a lot of ships in very fast, then there's an issue of them overwhelming the defenses.  But, IMO, if you have enough firepower, close enough in, you can turn this to your advantage and use the shockwaves and debris to damage the enemy craft coming in.  Ideally, you actually want a few ships to be disabled rather than destroyed, to create a good killzone or simply act as a blockade.

[Ghostavo]

I mean Sathanas jumping one by one in different directions so that they form a "box" so that they stop any beam cannons from firing at the proximitty of the node. IIRC the Sathanas has a very long jump, so it might ram a few RBC or not, but the thing is that it would serve as an obstacle in front of many RBC. Once many of these are out of doing their job of firing at anything that comes through the node it is a simple matter of bringing a Ravana and escaping with it out of the area. And Sathanas have fighterbays, so with 6 engine subsystems and a fighterbay it "might" be destroyed, but it would put a hell of a fight.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
I mean Sathanas jumping one by one in different directions so that they form a "box" so that they stop any beam cannons from firing at the proximitty of the node. IIRC the Sathanas has a very long jump, so it might ram a few RBC or not, but the thing is that it would serve as an obstacle in front of many RBC. Once many of these are out of doing their job of firing at anything that comes through the node it is a simple matter of bringing a Ravana and escaping with it out of the area. And Sathanas have fighterbays, so with 6 engine subsystems and a fighterbay it "might" be destroyed, but it would put a hell of a fight.

I don't believe a Sath would be able to jump quickly enough to avoid a well-aimed barrage at its engines.  Quickest we've seen a Sath jump was something like 5-10 minutes in 'Bearbaiting' IIRC, if you have a very large number of RBCs you could probably disable it.  Also an issue as to how many Sathani could arrive at once.

I think it's possibly to lock down a node, it's just a question of getting the firepower organised to do so (not possible in FS2 due to the NTf in particular).  I don't think you could blockade it indefinately, but long enough for, for example, storyline purposes.

[Ghostavo]

It's not a question of either the Sathanas will survive or not, but a question of will they provide enough distraction for a Ravana to slip by

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
If you want to say increase the precision about the position of that ship is ok, but nano jumps such as those are not known in the FS universe, which could have saved millions of lives once and once again. Seeing that that doesn't happen one must think if either they can be done or not.

[/b]

Who said anything about nanojumps?

I was talking about coming in on the Ravana's backside and disabling it with a well-placed beam salvo.

Go check the size of a destroyer, go check it's volume against a corvette, then go see the tech description.

Destroyer Volume =+\- 6!!! corvettes' volume

If you think a corvette has the ability to use 3 wings of fighters/bombers, even 4 if you wish, a simple Orion:

which kind of agreed when I said the volume of a destroyer was +\- 6 times that of a corvette, except as you see, a corvette to be able to support a fighter complement such as that would need to take most of it's heavy weaponry. The Moloch, as you said, the only corvette that has a fighterbay, is easily dealt with in spite of it's much advanced tech, by a Deimos or Sobek. Destroyers are cost effective for the task they do: carry fighters and fight against other capital ships, and they do it superbly. A ravana (even taking it's advance tech into account) is the perfect example of this. A perfect killing machine with a fighterbay. Any ship below a destroyer that has a fighterbay will have a weakness against other ships of the same size that don't.

Another point, by pitting cruisers against a destroyer, you must take into account that destroyers HAVE fighterbays, so if you want to have fighters you would also need a destroyer (or your corvette designed carriers) which would in turn leave you with a fleet with "double" the size of what it is to do the same job.

[/b]

You misunderstand. There are corvette-sized carriers (Escort Carriers) which can carry about 10-12 wings, depending on size. They would be rather lacking in weaponry but would be cheaper to deploy than destroyers. Ideally they'd stay back from combat and let their fighters do the work. In terms of volume they would likely be larger and wider than other 'vettes, to allow for fighterbay space.

And then there are hybrid corvettes, like the 3-wing Vasudan thing I mentioned, and the Moloch. Again, slightly less direct firepower than normal 'vettes, but more fighter support.


Destroyers still have a very important role, don't get me wrong, but I'm just saying that the "bigger is better" mentality could be de-emphasized. Better tactics can make up for the reduction in muscle.

[Ghostavo]

er... please don't compare navy with space... space fighters in FS are enormous, the smallest has 15m...

If you want to come "in on the Ravana's backside and disabling it with a well-placed beam salvo" why cannot the Ravana "come in and blow the entire fleet with a well placed beam salvo? (Especially with the fighter support from it's own fighterbay which the cruisers don't have)