[karajorma]

AFAIK no-one other than you has claimed turrets are in some way low space or low complexity. 

Actually I've claimed that they do take up low amounts of space given the free beam upgrades the FS1 ships got. Well actually I've said that beams don't take up more space than plasma or flak turrets. Whether all three take up a lot of space is another matter.

The main point though was that the reason why all the turrets on the Orion weren't changed from TT and THT to beams is not just a matter of space.

[aldo_14]

Now this I have much less of an objection to. The fighterbay on a corvette or frigate class would probably be quite small but as long as you don't overpower the beams then I don't have an objection to a corvette that specialises in fighter killing over anti-cap.

The only problem, I've found, is that the restrictions upon such small 'carriers' are hard to show just via tables.  You could maybe have 20-30 fighters on a Deimos, but you'd only be able to operate for a very limited time before needing to resupply; perhaps not even being able to repair damaged fighters.  I always loved the idea, myself, of having cruisers or even cargo ships head into battle with a wing of stripped-down fighters clamped onto their sides, able to deploy in seconds if necessary simply by undocking.

[karajorma]

Well that's surely a problem for the mission designer to show rather than anything that should be in the tables

[aldo_14]

Well that's surely a problem for the mission designer to show rather than anything that should be in the tables

Absolutely, but it's rather annoying when concepting these kinds of ships.

[TrashMan]

AFAIK no-one other than you has claimed turrets are in some way low space or low complexity.  Um... in any case, the tbl entries give the Orion and the Hecate exactly the same reactor values (and the same speed and hitpoints).  So it's clearly a tradeoff of heavier beam weaponry for AAAf, and possibly some internal space (the Hecate is something like 100m longer) for flak ammunition (as it's undefined as whether this is energy or munitions based).

So...there is no difference in power output atall to explain.

S owhat are you trying to tell me? That the Hecate was badly desgned, considering what weapons you could mount on her, or that the few Af beams and flak guns require as much power as several beam cannons?

The Iceni also disproves your notions of exponential weaponry counts.  It's also a ship designed and built to run, not fight.  So you're concept of a smaller battleship is a vessel built to escape capture, not one which played any sort of front line combat role (hell, for the majority of the NTF rebellion it seems to have been hidden as an asteroid).  There's a solid reason for that, of course; Bosch wasn't fighting a war, he was creating a distraction.

Irrelavant what it was used for - what it could do is what matters. You claimed that that ammount of powerfull weapons culdn't be mounted on a small frame or that there wouldn't be enough power for htem. And yet, a 800m ship holds more firepower than the hecate. Scale it up to destroyer size and you get a BB.
So it IS possible withing the FS universe to build one... touche!

Battleships - and I presume you must mean the WW2 version - weren't actually hard to kill once the fighter came along.  that's why they were all dumped or relegated to shore bombardment.   The problem is that, firstly, this is a spaceship.  You can't just get the crew to pop out on deck and easily transfer over supplies; you lose the living supplies onboard a spaceship, you lose the ship.  It's closer to a submarine in operating principles (except can't 'surface').  Secondly, you can't 'hide' key systems, and if you can, it's not going to offer any advantage over every other ship in existence.  So any impact (compared to other ships armour and vulnerability) shuffling about subsystem locations has is negligible at best.

Yeazh right...coming from a man with a P.H.D. in starship construction, I'm very well inclined to belive you 
Battelships WERE harder to kill than otehr vessels. You drop a 500kg bomb on it's turet, the turret crew scratches it's head. Yo udrop that bomb on a carrier, the bomb blasts trough the deck and into the hangarbay.

Carriers have been going down from 1-2 bombs or torpedo its. For a BB you need much more.

But anyway, telling me you can't shield critical system differntly from ship to ship is bogus.
Teh abiltiy for a ship to survive the battle is if you ask me more important than the crews mess hall or sleeping accomodations. Tehy can sleep in the corridors.. and besides, friendly bases are a jump away.

Teh difference is not that a BB has the critical systems heavily armored and others lightly - it has EVERYTHING armored, but the critical systems are even mroe armored. In any case, think of it as a destroyer with subsytems that are 3 times as tough.

But I thought you were saying ships could jump in and engage at close range willy-nilly thanks to subspace?

So are you now citing the weight and resulting speed loss of heavy armour as a disadvantage?  Doesn't that effectively cripple your 2.5x Orion battleship?  Now it can't move fast atall, and it must be engaging destroyers at long range!

What? Micro-jumps? No way - I hate that idea. I'm talking normal jumps..like from one planet to anotehr..those sorts of distances..
and yes, surprisingly, you forget one thing that makes FS different that RL battles - the abiltiy to escape allmsot instantly...

The fact that NTF, the Shivans or even the GTVA don't use it very much is simple - you wouldn't be able to kill the enemy. After all, if you could jump out the second your hull integrity gets compromised (less than 50% or 30% ..hatever), wouldn't you do it?
No sense in staying and dying when there's nothing realyl important to gain.

that abiltiy reduces the BB's supcetivness to fighter/bomber attacks if it's alone. When attacked by something it can't handle alone it simply jump out towars a frienldy base or fleet. Not liek you can disable/destroy it fast enough to stop it - not even with 500 bombers you couldn't... it would jump out before you ene aquired lock, let alone the slooooow bomb reached it.

Given that the same basic facts of range apply in FS2, and it's now well established that 'air' power dominates over larger immobile vessels, any captain worth their salt would surely question the logic of sending their ship in to act as a sacrificial lamb purely to draw fire from an enemy they can't even hit.

Obviously, "fleet actions" and "subspace drives" are unknonw terms to you.
1. BB has better armor and point-defense than any destroyer.
2. BB can jump out if in trouble..big armor makes it highly unlikely (read: impossible) you can destroy it fast enough wiht bombers alone
3. heavy weapons = dead enemy warship if it's weapons range


Situation 1:
2 BB, and 1 Hecate hold the node.
3 destroyer try to break the blockade


Situation 2:
Reverse roles. The attacker is now the defender.

Situation 3:
3 destroers vs. 3 destroyers

What do you think the outcome would be?

[TrashMan]

oh...here's the pic of 100 fighters or so, cramped up in a Orions bay

I was actually being rahter mercifull, since I used mostly perseus fighters (very small ones) to fill the Orion with and I even cramped them more than the mainhalls show. It doesn't show very well from this angle, the bay extends into the Orion a bit, it can't follow the runway exactly, as it doesn't leave enough room for the central strip.

Of course, the box isn't the actualy fighterbay, but rahter the volume representation.

[karajorma]

A double post and then you forgot to add the picture!

[aldo_14]

S owhat are you trying to tell me? That the Hecate was badly desgned, considering what weapons you could mount on her, or that the few Af beams and flak guns require as much power as several beam cannons?

Few?  It has 11 more turrets - that's almost twice as many - and is 100m longer (and thus probably higher mass and engine requirements).   Also it only has one less beam cannon, and 3 more AAAf.

Irrelavant what it was used for - what it could do is what matters. You claimed that that ammount of powerfull weapons culdn't be mounted on a small frame or that there wouldn't be enough power for htem. And yet, a 800m ship holds more firepower than the hecate. Scale it up to destroyer size and you get a BB.
So it IS possible withing the FS universe to build one... touche!

Firstly, it's 998m long (and rather dense in terms of volume within that length)

Secondly, it does not have the firepower of the Hecate.  It has 3 Big Greens compared to the Hecates' 5 (1 big green + 4 slashing), less flak, and absolutely no AAAf beams.  This is a ship that's actually very vulnerable to fighter attack as a result of that.

Yeazh right...coming from a man with a P.H.D. in starship construction, I'm very well inclined to belive you
Battelships WERE harder to kill than otehr vessels. You drop a 500kg bomb on it's turet, the turret crew scratches it's head. Yo udrop that bomb on a carrier, the bomb blasts trough the deck and into the hangarbay.

Carriers have been going down from 1-2 bombs or torpedo its. For a BB you need much more.

But anyway, telling me you can't shield critical system differntly from ship to ship is bogus.
Teh abiltiy for a ship to survive the battle is if you ask me more important than the crews mess hall or sleeping accomodations. Tehy can sleep in the corridors.. and besides, friendly bases are a jump away.

Teh difference is not that a BB has the critical systems heavily armored and others lightly - it has EVERYTHING armored, but the critical systems are even mroe armored. In any case, think of it as a destroyer with subsytems that are 3 times as tough.

Right, because you're any more qualified than me on the design of these things.  You've magicked up the super-strong extra armour for the subsystems, I notice......either way, you can't avoid the issue of the weight of that armour.  Any placement of 'dispensible' systems to improve surviveablity is something that will be done by every other ship; why the hell would any ship use a less than optimum placement of systems?

Plus if you have crew sleeping in corridors, etc, then they impinge repair work (not to mention it would destroy morale) or anything that requires access via or in those corridors.   Also, you can't assume help is a jump away (Assuming the jumpdrives and engines are even operational by this stage; those would be first targets for bombers), particularly for a ship intended to jump into hostile territory and hold it's position there.  And what's the point of surviving a battle if the next stage is 3 months in drydock being repaired in order to be habitable?  (just so it can crawl back into another wave of bomber attacks)

And, again, I note that battleships are now considered obsolete and not used by any of the major navies, whereas carriers form the lynchpin of all modern naval groups.  Force projection is king in the battlefield; it doesn't matter if your vessel has weaker armour, or less guns, if it keeps you out of your firing range, and it its.

What? Micro-jumps? No way - I hate that idea. I'm talking normal jumps..like from one planet to anotehr..those sorts of distances..
and yes, surprisingly, you forget one thing that makes FS different that RL battles - the abiltiy to escape allmsot instantly...

The fact that NTF, the Shivans or even the GTVA don't use it very much is simple - you wouldn't be able to kill the enemy. After all, if you could jump out the second your hull integrity gets compromised (less than 50% or 30% ..hatever), wouldn't you do it?
No sense in staying and dying when there's nothing realyl important to gain.

that abiltiy reduces the BB's supcetivness to fighter/bomber attacks if it's alone. When attacked by something it can't handle alone it simply jump out towars a frienldy base or fleet. Not liek you can disable/destroy it fast enough to stop it - not even with 500 bombers you couldn't... it would jump out before you ene aquired lock, let alone the slooooow bomb reached it.

So the ship is built to retreat whenever  any form of sensible tactics are used against it?  Only attacking small targets unprotected by fighter cover?  Isn't that something any bomber wing can do, just as - or more - effectively?  Did you ever consider that perhaps it's just not possible to jump out that quickly?  Take 'Slaying Ravana' - why would that ship just sit there and take that punishment, when it can escape to friendly territory (and being Shivan, has the most effective jump drives known)?  Why not jump out at 15% hull, when it's had it's pound of flesh?  Same for the Sathanas getting positively raped by the Colossus, with no beam weapons - why didn't it just evacuate?

Obviously, "fleet actions" and "subspace drives" are unknonw terms to you.
1. BB has better armor and point-defense than any destroyer.
2. BB can jump out if in trouble..big armor makes it highly unlikely (read: impossible) you can destroy it fast enough wiht bombers alone
3. heavy weapons = dead enemy warship if it's weapons range

More supposition and logic stated as blind fact, I note.
1/ Absolutely no evidence to justify that.  You've cited a battleship the strength and armament of the Colossus, that is half the size - that's a fairly ludicrous concept in it's own; why do you think the Colossus was 5-6km  long?  To give the contractor ****s n' giggles?  Hell, there's not even any evidence you can-crucially - fit a reactor of that power level into a destroyer sized vessel.
2/Absolutely no canonical evidence to support that is even possible (in fact, it's more contradicted by what we see in FS2)
3/Enemy does not have to engage in weapons range.  In fact, if we accept 2, it never will!

Other facts to consider;
1/ Destroyers have far greater force projection range than any 'pure' capital ship thanks to numerous fighter and bomber wings
2/ Bombers are the most effective form of anti-capship attack, especially now we have the Helios and Trebuchet bombs.  The latter allows operation outside AAAf beam range.
3/ Indications of comparative corvette and destroyer crew numbers indicate that fighterbays have a comparatively minimal impact on crew numbers
4/ The Colossus reactors could not power weaponry above it's standard loadout without damaging the ship and overloading heatsinks
5/ Armour decreases speed and maneuverability (see Fenris Vs Leviathan; the newer, heavier ship is slower by a substantial amount)
6/Every example you've given of this sort of 'painless' upgrade with magic new technology has been rather rubbish.  Such as the Lev/Fenris, the Orion/Hecate, and the Iceni/Hecate comparisons.  There is no canonical evidence that any FS2 technology is without penalty.

Situation 1:
2 BB, and 1 Hecate hold the node.
3 destroyer try to break the blockade


Situation 2:
Reverse roles. The attacker is now the defender.

Situation 3:
3 destroers vs. 3 destroyers

What do you think the outcome would be?

1/Win for attacker.  Initial waves of fighters and bombers are equipped with inter-system drives and used to strip down battleship weaponry; fighters perform interceptor protection.  With the battleships disabled and/or disarmed (or tactically retreating due to heavy damage), the attacking destroyers can enter the system, launch their full fighter complement and have at least a 2:1 numerical advantage over the sole destroyer.  Of course, this is with the same caveat as 3).  An alternative is to simply outmaneuver the blockade; engage the the battleships (as they are the most vulnerable to disablement, given their slow speed) with fighters and bombers to disable or just distract them, and jump the destroyer ASAP into a new location.  This can then be used to harrass and flank blockade ships, using the destroyers bomber wings to either directly engage the capital ships or to thin out the enemy interceptor ranks.  (as the destroyer 'should' hang back for fighter/bomber cover, it may never be directly engaged; the emphasis would be stripping down the battleships and establishing space superiority; as soon as one side has numerical advantage of fighters/bombers, they effectively control the node)

2/Win for defender.  All 3 destroyers stand off beyond beam range (about 5 km, perhaps), and launch a full complement of bombers (estimating around 60 per ship, that would be about 180 bomber wings versus a maximum - on the same estimates with 20 per BS - of 110 interceptors).  Bombers again use long range weaponry to disarm and disable the battleships, and a clear numerical advantage allows defensive fighters to swiftly establish space superiority and permit bombers to operate with impunity.  It's possible the battleships may escape, but their low speed and lack of a fighter complement leaves them extremely vulnerable to bomber raids in open space; also, if they have sustained significant damage to life-vital areas of the ship it'd only be a matter of time before the crew was unable to function.

Of course, in 1 and 2 there is absolutely no purpose in the battleship that a 3 or 4 strong corvette force wouldn't perform.  In fact, those corvettes would be more effective due to their increased flexibility of movement and thus tactical positioning.  I personally would never sent a homogenous destroyer force to break a blockade, but use a staged attack with a number of corvettes or cruisers intended to arrive, and rapidly maneuver to try and split enemy fields of fire.

3/Depends on tactical positioning.  Defenders have the advantage of locality and preparation, and are likely to win as a result; the main issue is how many fighter and bomber assets can be deployed by the defenders before full scale combat begins.  It's quite likely the destroyers will never fire at each other in 'anger', but that their bombers will do the killing job.

[NGTM-1R]

I personally would never sent a homogenous destroyer force to break a blockade, but use a staged attack with a number of corvettes or cruisers intended to arrive, and rapidly maneuver to try and split enemy fields of fire.

This was quite likely the strategy the GTVA used against the NTF. It didn't work.

The best canon evidence indicates that only one ship of cruiser size or above can enter or exit a node at the same time. (During "The Death of Hope" the Shivans managed two cruisers at once. Yet another aspect of the canon this mission messes with, or possibly just an indication of the Shivans' superior subspace capablities.) With only one capital craft able to exit a node at a time, the battleship concept begins to look much better. We already know that it is possible to knock out cruisers and corvettes practically as they come out of subspace, one by one.

[karajorma]

Situation 1:
2 BB, and 1 Hecate hold the node.
3 destroyer try to break the blockade


Situation 2:
Reverse roles. The attacker is now the defender.

Situation 3:
3 destroers vs. 3 destroyers

What do you think the outcome would be?

Okay. I'll bite. Cause my answer is slightly different from Aldo's. Situations like this aren't a simple numbers game. In all cases I'm using a sensible definition of what a BB is not your ridiculously uber version. I'm also assuming that all three attackers can jump through the node at the same time. I happen to believe they can't but if we use that as the model then it will always be the defender who wins regardless of which ships are involved.

Situation 1.

Variable. It all depends on whether the destroyers can get the 2 minutes that they need to recharge their engines and jump out without being destroyed. If they can the defenders are ****ed. The attackers can jump to a rally point, launch fighters and send them in against the defenders. If they were sensible they will have realised that the destroyer was the biggest threat to them and targetted it during their run past the BBs. If they've managed to destroy it that will really screw the BBs. 3 destroyer's worth of fighters and bombers vs whatever the enemy destroyer managed to get into the air before it was destroyed? The BBs are basically sitting ducks.

Without additional node defences like Mjolnirs I'm going to give this one to the attacker. I doubt that the BBs are going to be able to kill two of the destroyers in the couple of minutes that are needed for the drives to recharge and even at 5% hull a destroyer can still launch all of it's fighter craft. It is possible a clever defender could win but the odds are stacked against him.

Situation 2.

Defenders. The BBs have to get in range of the enemy capships before they can do anything. Furthermore the destroyers really don't care if the enemy does run the blockade. They've got subspace tracking and can have fighters at the enemies new location instantly (fighter drives appear to be able to make an in-system jump within a matter of seconds.)

Situation 3.

Defenders. Unless it's a surprise attack the defenders are going to lose less air support in the initial exchange. Without one side doing something monumentally brilliant or stupid the defenders should be able to parlay that initial advantage into a victory. 

This was quite likely the strategy the GTVA used against the NTF. It didn't work.

The best canon evidence indicates that only one ship of cruiser size or above can enter or exit a node at the same time. (During "The Death of Hope" the Shivans managed two cruisers at once. Yet another aspect of the canon this mission messes with, or possibly just an indication of the Shivans' superior subspace capablities.) With only one capital craft able to exit a node at a time, the battleship concept begins to look much better. We already know that it is possible to knock out cruisers and corvettes practically as they come out of subspace, one by one.

The problem is that your battleship would arrive first. Then what does it do? Soak up the punishment from the destroyers fighter support until the attackers have managed to get it far enough away from the node that they can dare to send in a destroyer? During this time it's completely vulnerable to attack from fighters or bombers armed with trebs and maxims. If it starts to lumber towards any particular destroyer that destroyer can move faster than it can and continually stay out of its range. All the while launching more fighters and bombers. Once the BB has recharged its engines it can jump out but the fighters can instantly follow it and disable and destroy it where ever it does choose to pop up.

If you are making an attack against a node you need fighters out there as quickly as possible in order to support your ships.

[aldo_14]

I personally would never sent a homogenous destroyer force to break a blockade, but use a staged attack with a number of corvettes or cruisers intended to arrive, and rapidly maneuver to try and split enemy fields of fire.

This was quite likely the strategy the GTVA used against the NTF. It didn't work.

The best canon evidence indicates that only one ship of cruiser size or above can enter or exit a node at the same time. (During "The Death of Hope" the Shivans managed two cruisers at once. Yet another aspect of the canon this mission messes with, or possibly just an indication of the Shivans' superior subspace capablities.) With only one capital craft able to exit a node at a time, the battleship concept begins to look much better. We already know that it is possible to knock out cruisers and corvettes practically as they come out of subspace, one by one.

Although the success of blockades is somewhat linked to the players achievements elsewhere in several missions; the very first sees the Sirius and Alpha Centauri blockades fail if the player loses both Iota transports.  The Kings Gambit also mentions NTF forces sucessfully running a number of blockades (and IIRC shows how a blockade operates, although I don't really remember the mission), and at least one cruiser ran the Knossos blockade.  So it's far from impossible; it seems that the standard tactics are to arrive, and then jump to rally before coming back and attacking the enemy.  (NB: it's hard to tell if the primary blockade method is to stop entry or exit; the latter IMO makes sense if you can have variable exit vectors for a jump, or multiple simultaneous jumps).

And the problem I have with the BS class is that it isn't designed to be fast or agile in that sense; it's a sponge to soak up turret fire (because there's no real way to make a capship invulnerable to bombers without sacrificing it's use for offensive purposes).  And with FS capship weaponries, it's easily possible to sit back out of range and hit via bombers - in fact, it seems standard practice.  So all the primary advantages the BS class is suposed to bring over a destroyer are pretty much neutralized by standard blockade tactics; FS2 shows that any blockade can be breached, but that one key aspect is hunting down those ships.  Now, a destroyer has the fighter and bomber firepower to cover (pretty much) that system; a BS doesn't.

[FireCrack]

Why does everyone always refer to the iceni as a frigate, i'm preety sure the game always calls it a corvette...

[aldo_14]

Why does everyone always refer to the iceni as a frigate, i'm preety sure the game always calls it a corvette...

Because it's referred to as Bosch' command frigate in a briefing; plus it's not quite the same size or spec as the Cv ships (people take the NTF part as support for that sometimes, although it seems the same situation as the GTVA Colossus).  I think - offhand - the only point where 'corvette' is used is in the tbl entries for the filename and short reference name.  And one of the flags.  It's tricky to define.

[TrashMan]

Few?  It has 11 more turrets - that's almost twice as many - and is 100m longer (and thus probably higher mass and engine requirements).   Also it only has one less beam cannon, and 3 more AAAf.

It may just as well have 20 mroe. Those are mostly flak and terran turrets. BGreens use more power than slashers, and the Orion has more beams overall. And if your'e triyng to tell me that several flak guns, 3 AAF's and laser turrets use more power than a BGreen, then you need your head examined.

Secondly, it does not have the firepower of the Hecate.  It has 3 Big Greens compared to the Hecates' 5 (1 big green + 4 slashing), less flak, and absolutely no AAAf beams.  This is a ship that's actually very vulnerable to fighter attack as a result of that.

And as we all know, slashers are utterly useless. Teh Iceni would rape the Hecate in a 1vs1 battle.
PDF weapons can't take up much power, as a fighter reactor can easily supply several  Kayers, which is more powerfull than any PDF weapon mounted on a capship.
And of course, the BB would be bigger....

Right, because you're any more qualified than me on the design of these things.  You've magicked up the super-strong extra armour for the subsystems, I notice......either way, you can't avoid the issue of the weight of that armour.  Any placement of 'dispensible' systems to improve surviveablity is something that will be done by every other ship; why the hell would any ship use a less than optimum placement of systems?

why do they do that now?

Plus if you have crew sleeping in corridors, etc, then they impinge repair work (not to mention it would destroy morale) or anything that requires access via or in those corridors.   Also, you can't assume help is a jump away (Assuming the jumpdrives and engines are even operational by this stage; those would be first targets for bombers), particularly for a ship intended to jump into hostile territory and hold it's position there.  And what's the point of surviving a battle if the next stage is 3 months in drydock being repaired in order to be habitable?  (just so it can crawl back into another wave of bomber attacks)

Are you telling me a destroyer would sustain such damage better? That it's armor would prevent the mess hall or bunks from getting trashed?
And do yo uthink it's better to survive a battle, but spend the next 3 months in drydock, or to lose the ship completely?

So the ship is built to retreat whenever  any form of sensible tactics are used against it?  Only attacking small targets unprotected by fighter cover?  Isn't that something any bomber wing can do, just as - or more - effectively?  Did you ever consider that perhaps it's just not possible to jump out that quickly?  Take 'Slaying Ravana' - why would that ship just sit there and take that punishment, when it can escape to friendly territory (and being Shivan, has the most effective jump drives known)?  Why not jump out at 15% hull, when it's had it's pound of flesh?  Same for the Sathanas getting positively raped by the Colossus, with no beam weapons - why didn't it just evacuate?

Running away from something you cant't handel is hte only sane tactics.. Or are you saing a destroyer would stay if 500 bombers jumped in beside it?

If the BB has heavy armor, good PDF and several interceptors, than it can defend itself more than adequatly against bomber attacks...unless of course they are mass attacks, but then again, no ship can survive mass attacks.

And the Ravana isn't getting away, since if it did, you wouldn't be able to finish the mission. The game isn't fun if there's no big explosions ..Gameplay before logic and realism, remeber?

More supposition and logic stated as blind fact, I note.

True, but you are the one using them.

1/Win for attacker.  Initial waves of fighters and bombers are equipped with inter-system drives and used to strip down battleship weaponry; fighters perform interceptor protection.  With the battleships disabled and/or disarmed (or tactically retreating due to heavy damage), the attacking destroyers can enter the system, launch their full fighter complement and have at least a 2:1 numerical advantage over the sole destroyer.  Of course, this is with the same caveat as 3).  An alternative is to simply outmaneuver the blockade; engage the the battleships (as they are the most vulnerable to disablement, given their slow speed) with fighters and bombers to disable or just distract them, and jump the destroyer ASAP into a new location.  This can then be used to harrass and flank blockade ships, using the destroyers bomber wings to either directly engage the capital ships or to thin out the enemy interceptor ranks.  (as the destroyer 'should' hang back for fighter/bomber cover, it may never be directly engaged; the emphasis would be stripping down the battleships and establishing space superiority; as soon as one side has numerical advantage of fighters/bombers, they effectively control the node)

Few fighters/bombers equipped with such drives - surely not enough to overpower the interceptors from the BB's and the DD AND the PDF of the ships as well (as they would be parked right next ot hte node)
And destroyer entering the system will be fired upon by the 2 BB's and and quickly destroyed. Given that they can only launch 1 fighter wing at a time - and at a very slow pace if what we've seen in game is any evidence, destroiyer entering with little or no fightercover are toast. Plain and simple.

2/Win for defender.  All 3 destroyers stand off beyond beam range (about 5 km, perhaps), and launch a full complement of bombers (estimating around 60 per ship, that would be about 180 bomber wings versus a maximum - on the same estimates with 20 per BS - of 110 interceptors).  Bombers again use long range weaponry to disarm and disable the battleships, and a clear numerical advantage allows defensive fighters to swiftly establish space superiority and permit bombers to operate with impunity.  It's possible the battleships may escape, but their low speed and lack of a fighter complement leaves them extremely vulnerable to bomber raids in open space; also, if they have sustained significant damage to life-vital areas of the ship it'd only be a matter of time before the crew was unable to function.

On this we agree. With the full fightter complement of hte DD's in air, ANY attcking ships, unless they enter in force or escorted with a lot of specialized DPF cruisers will bet quickly overrun.
However, if a BB does get away, it will pull enemy fighters/bombers after it to chase it, thus reducing some of hte pressure from the other two ships. If it jumps close to an enemy installation or something, it can live long enough ot do some serious damage before going down..Teh attacker would stil llose though.

3/Depends on tactical positioning.  Defenders have the advantage of locality and preparation, and are likely to win as a result; the main issue is how many fighter and bomber assets can be deployed by the defenders before full scale combat begins.  It's quite likely the destroyers will never fire at each other in 'anger', but that their bombers will do the killing job.

for resons stated above, the defender will win. Defenders typicly have the advantage sinvce they can wield more fighters/bombers at the start, while the attackers can start deploying them onyl after tehy jumped in, with only minimal fighter protection while it's deploying. Of course, if the attacker manages to survive long enough to depoly a adequate fightercover, the battle can turn either way.
However, looking at the possible losses in these scenarios, it's better for hte defender to have BB's, as with them any enemy capship clearing the node would be destroyed faster - and thus would be able to dish out less damage to the defender.

[TrashMan]

1/ Absolutely no evidence to justify that.  You've cited a battleship the strength and armament of the Colossus, that is half the size - that's a fairly ludicrous concept in it's own; why do you think the Colossus was 5-6km  long?  To give the contractor ****s n' giggles?  Hell, there's not even any evidence you can-crucially - fit a reactor of that power level into a destroyer sized vessel.

There is cannonical evidence.. the Iceni for one. And Like I said, you don't know the limitation of most FS2 tech, so you can't scream "impossible".. Especialyl since I have nowhere stated that it would have 14 beam cannons or the like. I belive I said 4 cannons(and I havn't even stated which type) and heavy plasma turrets (weaker than beamz) OR, if you insist on no THT's beam cannons and TREB launchers.

2/Absolutely no canonical evidence to support that is even possible (in fact, it's more contradicted by what we see in FS2)

I would like to see that evidence that stops ships from jumping out once the enemy has arrived.
And following CANON evidence of bomber speed, the distance tehy arrive from the target, the lock time and release range and hte bomb flight speed, it takes quite some time for the bomb to actualyl reach the warships hull.
Here, make a test if you don't belive me - set up a bomber wing to arrive some distance fro mthe warship (standard distance is usually 2000 meters), arm them wit hstandard bombs and order them to attack. Time how long it taakes for hte bomb to actualyl reach the warship...

3/Enemy does not have to engage in weapons range.  In fact, if we accept 2, it never will!

It will if it has to or if you come to him. It's not like ambushes or node blockades or X other possible scenarios never happened in FS2.

1/ Destroyers have far greater force projection range than any 'pure' capital ship thanks to numerous fighter and bomber wings

True. That's a destroyers greatest asset. But it's not too much of a use if the enemy can calculate your position based on the bombers jumpin in or find you with long-range sensors and hten come and take the fight to you.

2/ Bombers are the most effective form of anti-capship attack, especially now we have the Helios and Trebuchet bombs.  The latter allows operation outside AAAf beam range.

Effective? Varries depending on the target.
The speed with which they can destroy targets? Generally not very good.

3/ Indications of comparative corvette and destroyer crew numbers indicate that fighterbays have a comparatively minimal impact on crew numbers

Depends what you coinsider minimal.. 3000-4000 people ain't small

4/ The Colossus reactors could not power weaponry above it's standard loadout without damaging the ship and overloading heatsinks

Inconclusive. Colossuss took damage before that and in that battle. They overloaded the power grid. Reactors can go down from that you know. Desings were made 20 years ago, and the type and age of reacotrs is allso unknown. It takes more than 1 ship to make a acceptable sample.

5/ Armour decreases speed and maneuverability (see Fenris Vs Leviathan; the newer, heavier ship is slower by a substantial amount)

True. But to what point it's not clearly established. Nor the formula for that - is hte faloww linera? exponential? Besides, the Fenris and Leviathan are old ships with old engines. Command briefings mentioned advances in fusion drive technology...look at the Deimos - bigger and heavier than the Leviathan, but a lot faster.

6/Every example you've given of this sort of 'painless' upgrade with magic new technology has been rather rubbish.  Such as the Lev/Fenris, the Orion/Hecate, and the Iceni/Hecate comparisons.  There is no canonical evidence that any FS2 technology is without penalty.

What painless upgrades?
Any comparison I made stay. Especially the last two.

[karajorma]

Irrelavant what it was used for - what it could do is what matters. You claimed that that ammount of powerfull weapons culdn't be mounted on a small frame or that there wouldn't be enough power for htem. And yet, a 800m ship holds more firepower than the hecate. Scale it up to destroyer size and you get a BB.
So it IS possible withing the FS universe to build one... touche!

The Iceni is actually the most top of the range ship in FS2. I've always attributed that to the fact that the Iceni was Bosch's command and he spared no expense on it. I've always further thought that command wouldn't build Iceni class frigates for the GTVA because they were quite simply too expensive like the Aeolus.
 I've always said that you can't simply scale up the Iceni because the resulting ship would also be too expensive. That results in destroyers using cheaper heatsinks and engines etc that can't take the strain as well.
 On the other hand you say that it's possible to scale up the Iceni and cost be damned. I don't believe it but fine. Lets see where that argument takes us. Lets start scaling up.

The Iceni does pack a fair bit of power into its hull. So a BB using Iceni tech would be quite formidible. More than a match for the humble Orion or Hecate. But wait. We seem to have fallen into your favourite pitfall yet again. Where is the destroyer based on Iceni tech? Cause the Hecate sure as **** isn't it. Yep. It's gotten missed out again and you're pitting an uber BB (although this time based on canon info at least) against a bog standard destroyer.

Once you scale up the destroyer too using the same rules you used for the BB you end up in the same situation. The BB has only a little bit more power than the equivalent destroyer. Nowhere near enough to make it as superior to the destroyer as you claim.

[aldo_14]

It may just as well have 20 mroe. Those are mostly flak and terran turrets. BGreens use more power than slashers, and the Orion has more beams overall. And if your'e triyng to tell me that several flak guns, 3 AAF's and laser turrets use more power than a BGreen, then you need your head examined.

Not just power for the weapon though, is it?  It's power for moving the turret, linking it to the hull and ship systems, etc.  In any case, the two have the same reactor power.  90 and 90.  Look at the tables. 

Note; all beams have the same power consumption of 0.3 (in turn the same as terran turrets), so it's a lifetime issue; not to mention the AAAf has a faster refire rate, so it will have fired several times in the time it takes to refire a 'main' beam.

And as we all know, slashers are utterly useless. Teh Iceni would rape the Hecate in a 1vs1 battle.
PDF weapons can't take up much power, as a fighter reactor can easily supply several  Kayers, which is more powerfull than any PDF weapon mounted on a capship.
And of course, the BB would be bigger....

Firstly, the Iceni and Hecate would only fight 1-on-1 if the Hecate completely screwed up - otherwise it'd be fighters plus the Hecate, and it'd be a short fight.  That's why destroyers are the kings of Freespace capships.

And why aren't Kaysers mounted on capships already, then, if it's so easy?  Need I point out that all the Terran Turrets - despite having greater damage - use a tenth of the energy of a Kayser?  That kind of implies switching them would kill the reactors, given the Colossus vs the Sathanas (and yes, it does ask the question why the reactors are so pish; probably because it's calculated on the same linear scale as fighters or something).

why do they do that now?

They don't.  Cite evidence they do.

Are you telling me a destroyer would sustain such damage better? That it's armor would prevent the mess hall or bunks from getting trashed?
And do yo uthink it's better to survive a battle, but spend the next 3 months in drydock, or to lose the ship completely?

Makes very little difference in a war against the likes of the Shivans.  Point being is that a destroyer is designed to avoid being in a position to incur that damage; the S.O.P. is (what is this, the 5th time I've said this?) to operate beyond weapons range using bombers.  It's not designed to absorb damage, but avoid it.  How many times in FS2 does the Aquitane have to RTB for repairs?

Running away from something you cant't handel is hte only sane tactics.. Or are you saing a destroyer would stay if 500 bombers jumped in beside it?

If the BB has heavy armor, good PDF and several interceptors, than it can defend itself more than adequatly against bomber attacks...unless of course they are mass attacks, but then again, no ship can survive mass attacks.

A destroyer would of course run, but a destroyer has a ranged point defence of fighter patrols to prevent that happening.  A BS has nothing - any substantial attack will overwhelm what scant fighters it can commit, and open it up to long range bombing.  FS1 and 2 pretty clearly show that the only effective bomber defense is escort fighters; even the Sathanas was ultimately killed by them.  With the trebuchet, it's even easier to strip down a capship ready for the kill.

And the Ravana isn't getting away, since if it did, you wouldn't be able to finish the mission. The game isn't fun if there's no big explosions ..Gameplay before logic and realism, remeber?

Then presumably you'd be more than happy to have every ship from Fenris to Mentu to Hatshepsut armed with BFGreens on every turret?  Or is that a tacit admission your logic is not actually logical here?

Few fighters/bombers equipped with such drives - surely not enough to overpower the interceptors from the BB's and the DD AND the PDF of the ships as well (as they would be parked right next ot hte node)
And destroyer entering the system will be fired upon by the 2 BB's and and quickly destroyed. Given that they can only launch 1 fighter wing at a time - and at a very slow pace if what we've seen in game is any evidence, destroiyer entering with little or no fightercover are toast. Plain and simple.

Firstly, another assumption as to the numbers of inter-system drives.  Secondly, another massive assumption that BS' can quickly destroy a destroyer - based on your hypothetical uberbeams with no reactor requirements, I presume.  Of course, in any blockade the defender will have the advantage; although you've not cited any advantage for a BS class not more than adequately covered by a few corvettes and cruiser (or even RBCs).  So it'd be a bit of a waste of resources for any BS class when you have cheaper alternatives.

On this we agree. With the full fightter complement of hte DD's in air, ANY attcking ships, unless they enter in force or escorted with a lot of specialized DPF cruisers will bet quickly overrun.
However, if a BB does get away, it will pull enemy fighters/bombers after it to chase it, thus reducing some of hte pressure from the other two ships. If it jumps close to an enemy installation or something, it can live long enough ot do some serious damage before going down..Teh attacker would stil llose though.p.

That applies to any escaping vessel.  However, the size and armour of a BB would mean it is the least mobile vessel and thus easiest for bombers to track down at leisure; ever notice that the majority of ships running blockades are smaller and nimbler capships like the Deimos and (IIRC) Fenris?  In any case, the deployment of bombers would not be enough to erode space superiority at the node, due to a >2:1 advantage for the defenders.  And with the enmy destroyer exposed in this way, and hence it's fighter cover lost, the BS' would be easy pickings for bomber raids. 

for resons stated above, the defender will win. Defenders typicly have the advantage sinvce they can wield more fighters/bombers at the start, while the attackers can start deploying them onyl after tehy jumped in, with only minimal fighter protection while it's deploying. Of course, if the attacker manages to survive long enough to depoly a adequate fightercover, the battle can turn either way.
However, looking at the possible losses in these scenarios, it's better for hte defender to have BB's, as with them any enemy capship clearing the node would be destroyed faster - and thus would be able to dish out less damage to the defender.

Again, you're assuming that a BS can somehow inflict damage at a greater rate than a bomber wing from a destroyer.  Simple logic - the amount of mountable turrets on any ship is limited to a certain feasible limit (as can be determined by looking at GTVA ships), and those turrets have neither the range nor power (based on FS2 weaponry) to reach or destroy vessel launching bomber wings before said bombers can intercept and destroy the vessel.  The BS' only advantage over the destroyer is thus likely to be short range firepower, the sort of thing the destroyers' tactical operations are designed to negate.

Furthermore, the BS is more vulnerable than a pair of, for example, corvettes in this example as the attacker can focus their efforts and  firepower on that single ship rather than multiple maneuvering and possibly flanking vessels.

[aldo_14]

1/ Absolutely no evidence to justify that.  You've cited a battleship the strength and armament of the Colossus, that is half the size - that's a fairly ludicrous concept in it's own; why do you think the Colossus was 5-6km  long?  To give the contractor ****s n' giggles?  Hell, there's not even any evidence you can-crucially - fit a reactor of that power level into a destroyer sized vessel.

There is cannonical evidence.. the Iceni for one. And Like I said, you don't know the limitation of most FS2 tech, so you can't scream "impossible".. Especialyl since I have nowhere stated that it would have 14 beam cannons or the like. I belive I said 4 cannons(and I havn't even stated which type) and heavy plasma turrets (weaker than beamz) OR, if you insist on no THT's beam cannons and TREB launchers.

Plasma turrets - don't exist.  It's purely hypothetical technology you've invented to support your ideas. If you want treb launchers, you need to handle ammunition storage issues.

2/Absolutely no canonical evidence to support that is even possible (in fact, it's more contradicted by what we see in FS2)

I would like to see that evidence that stops ships from jumping out once the enemy has arrived.
And following CANON evidence of bomber speed, the distance tehy arrive from the target, the lock time and release range and hte bomb flight speed, it takes quite some time for the bomb to actualyl reach the warships hull.
Here, make a test if you don't belive me - set up a bomber wing to arrive some distance fro mthe warship (standard distance is usually 2000 meters), arm them wit hstandard bombs and order them to attack. Time how long it taakes for hte bomb to actualyl reach the warship...

Name me one good reason why crippled - not disabled - Shivan vessels hang around to be destroyed?  Why doesn't the Repulse flee the Colossus?  It's pretty obvious it's not simply a case of flicking a switch for a destroyer to jump.

Oh, it takes 65 seconds for an Orion (Uhuru) to recharge and jump, 60 seconds for an Aeolus (Liberty), 90 for a Deimos (Pax), and 70 for a Leviathan (Liberty).  that's from the Kings Gambit, where it is explicitly stated the NTF ships are only staying long enough to re-energize their drives and jump to a rally point.

3/Enemy does not have to engage in weapons range.  In fact, if we accept 2, it never will!

It will if it has to or if you come to him. It's not like ambushes or node blockades or X other possible scenarios never happened in FS2.

2 excludes this; it's a contradiction.  If we allow rapid escapes, we remove effective ambushes.

1/ Destroyers have far greater force projection range than any 'pure' capital ship thanks to numerous fighter and bomber wings

True. That's a destroyers greatest asset. But it's not too much of a use if the enemy can calculate your position based on the bombers jumpin in or find you with long-range sensors and hten come and take the fight to you.

Likewise for the BS; it can be engaged at will by bombers.  If it moves to attack, then that would mean the destroyer can just jump away.  Not to mention the assumption bombers will always jump directly to-and-from their base... if we assume what you say is true and they can be tracked back, they'll do the opposite and stage jumps ahead of enemy capships.

2/ Bombers are the most effective form of anti-capship attack, especially now we have the Helios and Trebuchet bombs.  The latter allows operation outside AAAf beam range.

Effective? Varries depending on the target.
The speed with which they can destroy targets? Generally not very good.

Just look at the game - take, for example, attacking the Sath (decimated a blockade, and then crippled by one bomber pilot). A wing of bombers can carry enough Helios torpedos to destroy pretty much anything (you'd send more than one to hit a large target, of course).   A fighter alone can destroy a cruiser - with primaries.

3/ Indications of comparative corvette and destroyer crew numbers indicate that fighterbays have a comparatively minimal impact on crew numbers

Depends what you coinsider minimal.. 3000-4000 people ain't small

Less than double the number of people (6000 vs 10,000) on a ship that's almost a kilometer and a half longer? (Sobek vs Orion - and the Sobek is actually newer, too).  That's not even the same linear increase as with the Colossus.

4/ The Colossus reactors could not power weaponry above it's standard loadout without damaging the ship and overloading heatsinks

Inconclusive. Colossuss took damage before that and in that battle. They overloaded the power grid. Reactors can go down from that you know. Desings were made 20 years ago, and the type and age of reacotrs is allso unknown. It takes more than 1 ship to make a acceptable sample.

See previously quoted in-mission comments.  The Colossus had to shut down other systems to maintain fire.

5/ Armour decreases speed and maneuverability (see Fenris Vs Leviathan; the newer, heavier ship is slower by a substantial amount)

True. But to what point it's not clearly established. Nor the formula for that - is hte faloww linera? exponential? Besides, the Fenris and Leviathan are old ships with old engines. Command briefings mentioned advances in fusion drive technology...look at the Deimos - bigger and heavier than the Leviathan, but a lot faster.

Except you can't just invent technology improvements and stay 'in' the universe.  Because the Hecate is just as new as the Deimos.

6/Every example you've given of this sort of 'painless' upgrade with magic new technology has been rather rubbish.  Such as the Lev/Fenris, the Orion/Hecate, and the Iceni/Hecate comparisons.  There is no canonical evidence that any FS2 technology is without penalty.

What painless upgrades?
Any comparison I made stay. Especially the last two.

You said the Orion had more reactor power - it doesn't.  You said it was better armed than the Hecate - it isn't (just a different flavour).  You said the Iceni was better armed than the Hecate; again, it has less turrets and bugger all anti-fighter weaponry. The Iceni being a very good example as you wanted to scale it up, and it's probably the only capship in the game build solely to run away from enemies rather than actually fight.

[Herra Tohtori]

...Firstly, the Iceni and Hecate would only fight 1-on-1 if the Hecate completely screwed up - otherwise it'd be fighters plus the Hecate, and it'd be a short fight.  That's why destroyers are the kings of Freespace capships.

Yeah, well... That's quite canon, isn't it? Meaning the Command screwing things up... I think that fight would be like this in FS2:

§Briefing§

Alpha Wing, you're out for a standard patrol. Your loadout has been optimized for this kind of mission (**** yeah...). You'll be relieved by Epsilon Wing. Questions?

...

§Mission§

-5 mins of patrolling and wingmen hitting the Hecate

Command: We're detecting a huge subspace rupture! It's the 3xScaled Iceni class Battleship, NTBB Kompressor! Defend us, Pilots!
Command: Our fighter bays are malfunctioning! It'll take 20 minutes to get anything to your support! Do your job, Alpha! Destroy the beam turrets of that battle ship!
Command: Our Beam cannons have been sabotaged! We cant return the fire! Destroy the battleship with your dual Subachs, pilots!



Freespace canon: Anything can happen, and it usually does. Superior ships are being destroyed by inferior, beam cannons are useless when you need them, fighter bays cannot be used when mission balance demands and it fits the campaign; Colossus doesn't realize that the Sathanas doesn't have anything to give back and melts its heat sinks for no reason other than story-telling related ones....

[NGTM-1R]

The problem is that your battleship would arrive first. Then what does it do? Soak up the punishment from the destroyers fighter support until the attackers have managed to get it far enough away from the node that they can dare to send in a destroyer? During this time it's completely vulnerable to attack from fighters or bombers armed with trebs and maxims. If it starts to lumber towards any particular destroyer that destroyer can move faster than it can and continually stay out of its range. All the while launching more fighters and bombers. Once the BB has recharged its engines it can jump out but the fighters can instantly follow it and disable and destroy it where ever it does choose to pop up.

If you are making an attack against a node you need fighters out there as quickly as possible in order to support your ships.

During that point in time the battleship is engaging enemy heavy assets in the area. You need beam emitters for an effective blockade, bombs just don't deliever the damage as reliably and rapidly as beams. Beam cannon mean capital craft, and capital craft are what a battleship is meant to engage.

Yes it will be a damage sponge. Bombs will be expended, beams will have to recharge. You don't mount an assault with a single ship. Others will follow. In this case its being a damage sponge is a useful function. It will draw fire off the ships that follow, allowing them to engage the enemy more effectively. (Or, in the case of a destroyer, conduct flight operations with much lesser problems then if they were the focus of attention.) This becomes more important when you consider the velocity of a ship exiting subspace appears to be related to its mass; a battleship, which has much less empty space inside then a destroyer, and hence greater mass, will exit subspace faster; one would be able to send in a follow-on ship more quickly. (It is also possible it would be notably faster then a destroyer. If the Colossus can get up to 25m/s then surely the GTVA can build a battleship-type able to do so as well.)

You're standing here trying to pretend a battleship has absolutely no use; we both know, and we both have acknowledged (I'll dig out the topic if you insist.), that's not true. They are uniquely suited to the role of breaching a hostile blockade, in much the same manner as the Colossus was. They can deliever massive firepower instantly and with 100% reliablity against an enemy capital craft, unlike multiple bomber wings. They are also not viable replacements for the destroyer type, but I have never argued that they were.

Although the success of blockades is somewhat linked to the players achievements elsewhere in several missions; the very first sees the Sirius and Alpha Centauri blockades fail if the player loses both Iota transports.

This sounds like mission designer hyperbole to me...considering there is no way that Iota, carrying civilian refugees and being cast adrift empty after the Psamtik recovered them, could have that kind of influence.

The Kings Gambit also mentions NTF forces sucessfully running a number of blockades (and IIRC shows how a blockade operates, although I don't really remember the mission), and at least one cruiser ran the Knossos blockade.  So it's far from impossible; it seems that the standard tactics are to arrive, and then jump to rally before coming back and attacking the enemy.

This is a conclusion unsupported by evidence. The actions of the NTF ships in The King's Gambit and The Scilian Defense (and previously) should not be taken to represent the tactics used for assaulting a node blockade, because the NTF wasn't doing that. As you say, they were running the blockades. No attempt was made to take and hold any of the nodes. No attempt was made to establish a supply chain. They had the sole purpose of getting through the Knossos.

And the problem I have with the BS class is that it isn't designed to be fast or agile in that sense; it's a sponge to soak up turret fire (because there's no real way to make a capship invulnerable to bombers without sacrificing it's use for offensive purposes).  And with FS capship weaponries, it's easily possible to sit back out of range and hit via bombers - in fact, it seems standard practice.  So all the primary advantages the BS class is suposed to bring over a destroyer are pretty much neutralized by standard blockade tactics; FS2 shows that any blockade can be breached, but that one key aspect is hunting down those ships.  Now, a destroyer has the fighter and bomber firepower to cover (pretty much) that system; a BS doesn't.

Ah. This is where the problem comes. The only successful invasion breaches of blockades that occurred in FS2 were things Alpha 1 wasn't present for: the NTF's breaching of the Sirius-Epsilon Pegausi blockade, and the GTVA Colossus' breach of the NTF blockade going the opposite way. (It isn't known whether the NTF made a serious, or even any, attempt to blockade Regulus against the Colossus. They may well not have.) In both cases they came to stay, and logistics would demand they seize and hold the node. Jumping further insystem (where, as The Scilian Defense illustrates, they can be attacked by previously uncommited, and therefore undamaged, defense units before they can recover) does not gain them anything that it does not also give the enemy.

Thus a true assault would be fought at the node, to smash or drive off the defenders and secure the attacker's lines of supply. Someone has to lead it, and for this role, a battleship type of craft would be ideal. A destroyer could serve the purpose (and probably did, for the NTF), but this has risks that make it less attractive: primarily the possible loss of the destroyer, and all those fightercraft you're fighting to get into the battle, also the problems posed by conducting flight ops under heavy fire.