[Anaz]

I've got no problems with the idea behind it, or the overall shape of it, I just think that super ships should be, well...super

[Roanoke]

It nailed a Ravana no problem. How much more super do you need ?

[Flipside]

Thing is, if command had decided to build 30 Destroyers instead of 1 Juggernaut, they would have been more versatile, less vulnerable, and would still have bought down a Sathanas, especially considering most of the work was done by Alpha 1 by taking out the Saths main beams, else the C would have been roasted alive.

This is why the US Navy mothballed ships like the Missouri, and instead focussed on groups of Ticos and the like, because small. adaptable ships which could be refitted to newer technologies more easily proved to be more effective than simple 'bigger is better' thinking. When the Colossus started being build, it was using tech that was 30years old by the time it came into service. Whereas increasing the production rate of Hecates for example, would see a slow progression of more and more advanced ships which could be kitted out to meet the needs of the moment.

Yes, the Colossus sunk the NTF, but so could 30 Hecates, and they could have been much more malleable and much harder to outmanouvre, thus making the job of blockading the nodes behind the C a heck of a lot easier, allowing the GTVA to focus more on the Nebula ops. In fact, once Alpha had removed it's 'teeth' the Sath could hae been destroyed by multiple wings of bombers at leisure.

[NGTM-1R]

Nothing quite screams "You're DOOOMED!" like a battleship, though.

The Colossus single-handedly destroyed the NTF as a military force, doing in weeks what would have taken multiple destroyers months. The NTF had a lot of practice at node blockades, and threw back multi-battlegroup attempts to breach them repeatedly. They could not stop the Colossus. Sometimes you can get away with a bunch of smaller ships, but sometimes they just die too fast when exposed to heavy fire one at a time.

[Flipside]

It is true that the C did a lot of damage to the NTF, but the colossus was overpowered for what it was used for. As stated, it was designed to flatten the Lucy. Three Hecates could take down an Orion pretty swiftly, especially with fighter and bomber support. And even if you played safe and used 5 Hecates, that would give you the ability to defend 6 jumpnodes simultaneously (still working on the '30' value), yo could defend a larger area and engage more enemies simultaneously. The C had 8 Beam weapons, which usually meant it could engage 4-8 large targets at once. 5 Hecates could engage/delay almost twice that number, maybe not with the same single-hit power, but still effectively enough to mean far less ships were being allowed to slip through.

At the end of the day, I would much rather face a single large, unmanouverable ship like the C than a large number of smaller, more manouverable ships covering a large area giving me less room to breath, regroup or evade.

[aldo_14]

I think one of the problems with the Colossus was that it never, as far as I remember, tore the hole out of another ship.  All I remember of the big C was being rammed by another ship, failing to hit the Iceni, and being waxed by a Sathanas.

That and it was a horrible shade of khaki yellow and green......

[Jal-18]

Actually, even the Tico's are now seen as too big... the USN loves the Burkes.

[Mongoose]

aldo, it did tear the hell out of the Sathanas, albeit a disabled one,  in High Noon.  I think that mission is the reason why I like the Colossus.  I had played through Bearbaiting about fifty times in a row, getting more and more frustrated each time, in order to get all four of the Sathanas's beams disabled. Then, when High Noon came around, all I had to do was sit back, relax, and watch the Colossus pump more firepower into the Sathanas than any other allied ship had shown up until that point.  I liked the dialogue about the ship's heat sinks being absolutely pushed to the limit, and watching those massive BFGreens pound into the Sathanas never got old.  When that thing finally went up in the game's most massive explosion of all (I think you could feel the shock wave at several thousand meters), I almost felt like cheering.  I can't really explain it, but that, I think, is why I'm a big C fan.

[Dark RevenantX]

I can explain it.

You were very tired and all from the bearbaiting mission.
When you got to high noon, you expected work but got none, and you were therefore glad.  Because you got to sit back and relax while the colossus tore the sathanas apart, you gave it respect, and therefore liked it.

[karajorma]

The problem with the Colossus is that we never really got to see it in action.

While numerous destroyers might also be capable of taking down the NTF to does anyone here think that they could have done it without taking massive casualties too? Hecates and Orions are comparatively weak. Every time one is destroyed you lose 10,000 personnel. The Colossus on the other hand destroyed the entire NTF with no loses.

When the colossus is used for the task it was designed for then it does a fantastic job. I certainly wouldn't want to be on the crew of an Orion facing a lucifer class. A few shots and boom. The big c on the other hand would stand up to that kind of firepower long enough to deal with the threat.

Problem with the Colossus wasn't that it was constantly misused by command so much as the fact that when it was used properly, we didn't see it.

[Ghostavo]

Not to mention when you saw it in action you had to be on the look out for it not to try to make a home run with you, alpha 1, as the ball!

God how I hate the location of that ship's rotation axis.

[Mongoose]

It's funny; I've never experienced that baseball effect myself, although I almost wish I had.

Dark RevenantX, you might be right.  Regardless of how I got through Bearbaiting, though, I think that the sci-fi nerd in me would have still been thrilled at the prospect of watching a several-kilometer-long warship tear into another several-kilometer-long warship with absolutely massive green beams.

Maybe one conclusion that we can draw from this is that our perspective of the Colossus is skewed by the missions we saw it in, which were mainly tailored toward Alpha 1's perspective.  It might be interesting for someone to make a test mission that really puts it through its paces.  Whether it involves taking down a few Hecates and Orions at once, or whether it's mano-a-mano with a Lucifer, I think it would be interesting to see how the Colossus really performs.  If someone was interested enough, you could even try making a mini-campaign of the Colossus's destruction of the NTF; we already have most of the ship names from the command briefings.  Who knows; if I ever decide to learn FRED, and if I ever develop enough creativity to come up with a good story/dialogue, maybe I'll give it a shot.

[Mefustae]

While many would agree that the Colossus was the embodiment of bad naval mentality (Bigger is Better went out of style a loooong time ago), I personally consider the Colossus to be the 'Little Behemoth that Could'...

...You have to remember that, as some have said before, the Colossus did exactly as it was meant to do, it annihilated the current threat of the NTF, and held its own against a large scale (yet somewhat preliminary) Shivan Incursion. You cannot escape the fact that the Colossus proved admirably in what it was designed to do, save the GTVA (albiet for only a short time). Sure, a fleet of 30 Hecates would have been the better choice superficially, providing better mobility, customisation, and saturation of the enemy, but really, how would they have faired against 80 Sathani, no better than the colossus, and instead 30,000 of the Colossus crew dead, you'd have a whopping 300,000 Deaths! I don't know about you, but that's a pretty big number of Deaths...

...Moreover, you have to consider that the Colossus was built, not only a super-weapon against opposition to the GTVA, but as a major Morale booster, which it succeeded in doing quite admirably. I mean, who here didn't feel a little bit more upbeat and just plain awed when you first played through FreeSpace 2 and saw the Colossus blow the stuffing out of the NTF. 30 Hecates may have lifted the spirits of the GTVA, but not nearly as much as the Awesome scale of the Big C...

...Basically what i'm saying is; if you're examining the effectiveness of any ship, especially the Big C, you have to not only look at the Military aspect of its role, but also the Political and Social aspect too...

[Ghost]

FS2 engine never had the capability to show the Colossus destroying so many ships. I'm willing to overlook this.

I like the Colossus. I don't even mind its texturing. I think the C kicks ass, you know? Big ol' pump-shotgun shape, lots of beams, invincible against fighters, blows the living shit out of destroyers and cruisers, etc... But a primarily forward-armed juggernaut blindsiding it is certainly going to destroy it. "OMGWTFBBQ COLLOSSUS SUX IT CAN'T TAKE A SATHANAS" SHUT THE **** UP. The reason the C died isn't because it sucks. It's because Command 1. Used the thing too much. 2. The coding kicked the C down to 66 in the mission where it dies, even if you take out all 4 beams on the first Sath.

[Mefustae]

Wait, i've completely changed my mind...I was just playing the mission "Sixth Wonder", doing pretty well i might add, and the Colossus shows up as per usual. At this point, i just sat back back and prepared myself for an entertaining laser-light show. And so, i waited...i waited...i waited some more...I put time compression up to 16x...nothing...NOTHING?!?

...So, i start flying around the Big C, hoping that whomever's driving this giant hunk of scrap will wake up and press the big red button marked "FIRE!", but alas, 40 in-game minutes passed quickly with Time Compression on full force, and nothing had yet happened...

...So i decide to take matters into my own hands, getting my Subachs (sp?), i fly down the the Deimos Corvette below, crank TC up to 64x, and unleash an unrelenting stream of Purple Death...

...At 120 ingame minutes (which is about Five minutes at 64x Compression), i've got the 'Vette down to 5%, Enif Station is almost at 12%, and the Big C, useless as per usual, is YET to fire...

...I get the 'Vette down to 1% and start to believe i might actually finish this mission, and then, lo and behold, Enif Station goes up in smoke, in less than a second compressed 64x, the 'Vette & Colossus have jumped, and i've failed the mission...

...It is for this reason that i shall forever truly Loathe the Colossus for taking away 5 minutes of my life that i could have been wasting in a far more productive manner...

[TopAce]

That's the problem with the mission. Simply do not give any orders in that mission. That's not safe.

V had incautios FREDers, nothing special.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Mongoose
aldo, it did tear the hell out of the Sathanas, albeit a disabled one,  in High Noon.  I think that mission is the reason why I like the Colossus.  I had played through Bearbaiting about fifty times in a row, getting more and more frustrated each time, in order to get all four of the Sathanas's beams disabled. Then, when High Noon came around, all I had to do was sit back, relax, and watch the Colossus pump more firepower into the Sathanas than any other allied ship had shown up until that point.  I liked the dialogue about the ship's heat sinks being absolutely pushed to the limit, and watching those massive BFGreens pound into the Sathanas never got old.  When that thing finally went up in the game's most massive explosion of all (I think you could feel the shock wave at several thousand meters), I almost felt like cheering.  I can't really explain it, but that, I think, is why I'm a big C fan.

It didn't though (IMO); that's my point.  

There's a crippled Shivan warship setting of its starboard side, and it takes a bloody age to destroy it - and in the process wrecks itself by overheating the beam cannons....

There's not a single point I can remember, where the Colossus does a 'hero' bit and simply annihilates an enemy fleet or whatnot... it's always against a weaker opponent.

It's a technical thing, as has been pointed out.  But it's still annoying; we never see the Colossus being, well, super IMO.  Put me in a losing battle, the Aquitane / Psamptik / Carthage / whatever surrounded by enemy vessels, and have the big C jump in and tear them into tiny shreds.  That'd make me like it more.

[vyper]

One simple reason why the Colllossus was a bad idea: dreadnoughts went out with world war one.

You'd think the design of ships-of-the-line would've evolved slightly by the era of FS2. It was the phallic extension of Command, in a bad way.

[TrashMan]

Personally, I liek the idea of a rifle-shaped warships (alltouhg they sure picked an ugly rifle for hte big C).

The problem with C wasn't it's shape or it's weapon placements..

It was:
1. Stupid command
2. Weak beams...terran beams fire 4 times slower than shivan ones.. It's just too big of a handicap. Give terrna and shivan beams the same fire rate and THEN watch the Big C in action.

[Singh]

The big C in itself had nothing drastically wrong....

What was wrong was the way command used it did. The biggest mistake with the colossus was that Command woke up that morning obviously drunk and acting all moronic-like.