[Sheepy]

but technically is how it would be done, in military comm terms.

[StratComm]

Originally posted by TrashMan


"The Repulse has arrived. The big fish has devoured the bait! Now sending in the Colossus!"

The Repulse is the main target as hte admiral is there - the brainz of the NTF forces in this sector, so of course it's mentioned. A collie wouldn't have a problem with a few lighter vessels in tow.
Just couse command doesn't specificly account every single fighter and cruiser that pops in front of you doesn't mean it shouldn't be there. After all, you all (pilots) can see them coming.
Besides, being caught up in the moment of the Repulses arrival and ordering the springing of a trap, anouncing the name of acompanying corvette or cruiser to the player isn't really a prority anyway...

Good way to rationalize it, but it's still BS.  Command has a tendency to announce when things arrive ("Incoming jump signature.  Hostile configuration.") even if that's just a fighter or two.  Command also has a precedent (if no ships in the field of battle do) to at least mention every hostile ship that enters the mission, even if one is relatively minor compared to the other (see King's Gambit).  Or at least command would have said something like "The Repulse has jumped in with escorts, we're sending in the Colossus."  (emphesis mine).  Without meeting at least one of those criteria, there's no excuse to go adding another ship to a retail mission.

And thanks to whomever split this off.  It never belonged in that other thread to begin with

[WMCoolmon]

I really don't see the point.

If it's not going to change things for the player, not going to do anything significant, just going to use up extra memory for the textures for all of the mission, jump in, and then explode, why should it even be in there?

IMHO it doesn't work well within the story. An Orion can easily handle two Leviathans; if it's a trap then it can always call for reinforcements (Assuming they'll actually be able to help.)

It also totally goes against the ships that the NTF uses. There are no Hecates, and only a couple Deimos corvettes, IIRC (Including the Belisarius). Obviously Volition wanted to make the point that the NTF is less well-equipped...throwing in an extra corvette would not help with that.

[TrashMan]

Command doesn'rt allways mention incoming ships or fighters. Very often other pilots inform you of it (wings and capships) while command stays silent.

besides, there is no need for two mesages if a cruiser/corvette jumps in with the Repulse (at the same time, not before or after)

Even if you wnated to put it in, you could simply use a generic fighter message ("Incoming hostiles" or something).

And the NTF aren't really weak - their total military power is significant if they were able to hold off the GTVA for 18 months.
We don't know what ship it has in it's arsenal (it might have a ecate in there) and how many really. We do know what ships are most common though.

If it's not going to change things for the player, not going to do anything significant, just going to use up extra memory for the textures for all of the mission, jump in, and then explode, why should it even be in there?

Don't new nebulas and HTL ships do just that? Nothing except for eye candy at a memory/performance cost? Adding to the atmosphere or belivabiltiy ofa situation is not what I would call a waste.

[StratComm]

You just invalidated your entire argument.  My whole point was that NONE OF THE DIALOGUE mentions other ships.  Command be damned, no-one or nothing in that mission even remotely implies that Koth brought escorts.  Adding them is flat out making things up.

EDIT: I just posted this in the Port forum, and it really fits well here.

Originally posted by StratComm
Briefings are supposed to be speculative for the player, not themselves a canonical source of every event that happens in the mission.

So don't change the mission based on what the briefing said, as that's not an accurate depiction of the events in mission anyway.

[TrashMan]

Heh.. If you're happy with a flet consisting of a single destroyer then fine.

I'm not.
and hte dialoge thing is an excuse for not adding ship, not a real reason. Command doens't have to count every ship....

[Xeandra]

As I remember it in the briefing it, or someware in the mission, it was said that there were other operations to lure the Repulse out, so the NTF might not have had any ships to send for escort.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Heh.. If you're happy with a flet consisting of a single destroyer then fine.

As I've already stated from the point of view of the NTF the enemy consisted of nothing more than a couple of enemy wings and a single damaged Leviathan.

And you think Koth should have scrambled the entire fleet to take it out? That's a real act of tactical genius. I suppose you'd use nuclear weapons to take out that spider in your bath too

Hell sending in the NTF flagship to kill one cruiser is overkill. The GTVA must have been banking on knowledge of Koth's personality (for instance that he liked to kill enemy capships personally whenever possible or something)

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by karajorma


And you think Koth should have scrambled the entire fleet to take it out? That's a real act of tactical genius. I suppose you'd use nuclear weapons to take out that spider in your bath too

Hell sending in the NTF flagship to kill one cruiser is overkill. The GTVA must have been banking on knowledge of Koth's personality (for instance that he liked to kill enemy capships personally whenever possible or something)

A corvette or a cruiser would have been sufficent.. Or several fighter wings...Why endanger himself?
If he was such a tactical genius then he wouldn't have acted like he did - it had to be suspicios.

Allright - bottom point - there are reasons pro et contra to make small changes to the mission.
Do those reason justify it? I don't know. for me yes, for you maby no..

[WMCoolmon]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Don't new nebulas and HTL ships do just that? Nothing except for eye candy at a memory/performance cost? Adding to the atmosphere or belivabiltiy ofa situation is not what I would call a waste.

But...why? An Orion is a fleet in and of itself; it carries several wings of fighters/bombers. It should be able to easily jump in, destroy the Leviathan, then jump out. It's tough enough that it could withstand any trap the GTVA could throw at it, long enough to escape.

Why would Koth bring in more ships - it'd simply weaken any strategic points in-system, and expose more of his assets to the GTVA than necessary. With subspace drives, it's better to let the other ship emerge, and then make a jump, as a ship can position itself in a better tactical position that way.

Edit: And maybe Koth didn't have a corvette at his disposal, which is why he didn't send one. Like I said, Volition gave the NTF mostly older hardware. They seemed to be trying to give the impression that it wasn't as well-backed as the GTVA.

[BlackDove]

Aside from bugs, nothing needs be changed. Ever.

[Singh]

Originally posted by TrashMan


A corvette or a cruiser would have been sufficent.. Or several fighter wings...Why endanger himself?
If he was such a tactical genius then he wouldn't have acted like he did - it had to be suspicios.

Allright - bottom point - there are reasons pro et contra to make small changes to the mission.
Do those reason justify it? I don't know. for me yes, for you maby no..

Where do the fighter wings come from? A destroyer, namely the repulse. Sending in several fighter wings (remember, he deployed only a few wings) would mean massive casualties, especially against a Leviathan class cruiser. Deploying a Corvette or another cruiser would also mean that there was a chance it would take serious damage, since Leviathans are not exactly easy targets - hell, it had managed to vape two cruisers already, wasting any more that were vital to blockading their areas would have been idiotic, to say the least. Plus it is also common sense - if you have a Juggernaught that is capable of vaping out an entire fleet in a single go, do you still send an entire fleet against it? No, you hide your assets, and let it chase nothing but shadows.

However, deploying his destroyer as well as the remaining fighters meant that he would minimize casualties as much as possible, since hte Destroyer alone could probably cripple or destroy it with a single barrage and then jump out, leaving the fighters to mop up what was left, if anything. The perfect solution.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TrashMan
A corvette or a cruiser would have been sufficent.. Or several fighter wings...Why endanger himself?
If he was such a tactical genius then he wouldn't have acted like he did - it had to be suspicios.

That's a pretty poor line of argument. I didn't say that Koth was a tactical genius. In fact it's pretty likely that the reverse is true. Anyone who is willing to ram the Colossus with a smaller ship in order to kill it can't be claimed to be the biggest genius ever.

However an attitude of "There's an enemy leviathan, send everything we've got!" is even more ridiculous. Tactician or not he's risen to the rank of admiral and you don't do that by completely over reacting to the situation.

Koth knew the Colossus was in system. If he suspected a trap why would he bring corvettes which you admit the Colossus could kill in a few shots anyway? It's pretty obvious that Koth didn't know the Colossus was ready to jump in or he wouldn't have leaped in himself.

So since Koth was going after a single Leviathan in order to make a quick kill why the hell shouldn't he just leap in and wipe it out.

Not to mention the fact that Koth needed to get interceptors to the site quickly to prevent the destruction of two of his cruisers. Quickest way to do that is to leap in and launch the alert fighters, Not to co-ordinate some half-assed corvette rendezvous with the them.

[TrashMan]

FS2 isn't really realistic about ramming Ya know.

When sometihng 2 km long chrashes into you, its' reactor core blowing up, you shouldn't survive. (needless to say I increased hte shokvawe damage alf all ships in my TBL)

That said we don't know how much Kolth knew about the Collie or even if it was within the system. And sending a whole fleet would be an overkill, but so is sending an Orion against a DAMAGED Leviathan (it fought before).

Besides, enemby bomber bugging out jsut when they were about to blow your cruiser out of the sky isn't realyl a sound tactical move. Kolth might have suspected a trap.

but in any case, simply sending a lot of fighters/bomber would have been better in any case - 4 wings attacking simontaniously is more then enough to bring down any cruiser fast and in case off a ambush the loses of 4 wings is nothing compared to 10000.

[karajorma]

I don't see how any of that is an argument in favour of Koth bringing in corvettes with him.

[Spicious]

It looks more like an arguement that the Repulse should be removed from the mission.

[Gregster2k]

If there's something I've learned from this thread it's that asking the community for permission to modify the main campaign is a really stupid idea. Release the missions as separate files and let the people who don't like it just not download it.

I can't believe these people can get this uptight. It could be worse, they could have no choice in the matter. You don't see people howling over the Half-Life 2 Substance mod which drastically modifies the storyline of Half-Life 2 (makes the Rebels fight the Combine WAY earlier). THEY understand that it is a mod, a reinterpretation.

[karajorma]

There's a difference between a reinterpretation and flat out saying that got it wrong. Take a look at which one Trashman was doing.

Furthermore the real issue I have with this (as opposed to things like NTV etc) is that this make no damn sense in the first place for the reason myself and others have suggested.

Finally Trashman knows how to FRED. Why was he insisting that Singh make the changes he wanted to the campaign instead of doing it himself?

[WMCoolmon]

Originally posted by Gregster2k
If there's something I've learned from this thread it's that asking the community for permission to modify the main campaign is a really stupid idea.

I have no problem with someone modifying the main FS2 campaign...if they want to air their opinion that a mission should be like that on forums that I have access to, then they should expect that some people might disagree.

[StratComm]

Originally posted by karajorma
There's a difference between a reinterpretation and flat out saying that got it wrong. Take a look at which one Trashman was doing.

And it's not like this is a one-time occurance.  Trashman has been trying to get us to accept his "vision" of Freespace for a long time.  First time I saw it, he was trying to say that screwed up by giving the Maxim a 2km range and that it should be changed.