[Trivial Psychic]

So.... back on topic, any new detailed shots of this Corvette?  The ventral looked a little bland in those images.

[boewolf]

So.... back on topic, any new detailed shots of this Corvette?  The ventral looked a little bland in those images.

This is as it stands at the moment.  I have all the Lods done with only a few more debrees to go.  However I can try a fre things with the veltral sections.

[Trivial Psychic]

Is that a radar dish between the engines?

[boewolf]

Is that a radar dish between the engines?

yes.

[Trivial Psychic]

Have you given any thought to what texture layout you're gonna use on this baby?

[boewolf]

Have you given any thought to what texture layout you're gonna use on this baby?

I was thinking about trying a couple of the Orion and Instalation textures in more of a grey scale.  But I won't garentee that I will do a good job of it.  Ill also try and get freespace working so I can scale and test it myself.

[Taristin]

FS Textures will kill this model.

[StratComm]

Do something now and save yourself much pain later.  All of those faces with convex edges (basically all the big, flat ones) need to be split up into smaller faces sooner rather than later.  If the edges stay like that, you'll get all sorts of unpredictable results when you convert it.

I also agree with Raa on this one.  This thing is begging for custom maps.

[karajorma]

The main issue that troubles me in this is that you are saying very clearly that bombers didnt destroy capships before FS1 era.

I think that's pretty likely to be the case. There's certainly very little evidence that a bomber wing on its own ever destroyed a capship. It's like saying that bombers sunk the Bismark. They didn't they put it out of commission, yes but the Bismark only sank cause the crew skuttled it.

And you seem to leave no possibilities for pure small craft assaults (bombers and their escort fighters) being able to destroy any capships in pre-FS1 era.

I don't doubt that they killed cruisers now and again. Maybe even quite often. They may have killed capships at the start of the war too but I simply don't see it as very likely that any bomber could take out an Orion.

Even though we know practically nothing about the pre-FS1 era equipment, weapons, bombers, or fighters. Im not sure if you meant it in that way but it sounds awfully lot like it.

I'm not stating it as fact but I am saying that it fits the evidence better than having bombers able to kill capships. If bombers could kill caps why was the Taranis seen as a threat? Couple of wings of vasudan bombers could have dealt with it surely? In addition to that it also makes a nice progression. You can see why the GTA built great big destroyers in the first place (only things that could kill other ships their size) instead of going down other routes.  Furthermore if you have to park up next to an enemy destroyer and bombard it with your guns for such a long time to kill it, it explains why the war was such a stalemate.

[Luigi30]

I never got that. The Terrans and Vasudans were at war for 10 years and never thought of lock-on missiles?

[WeatherOp]

I think that's pretty likely to be the case. There's certainly very little evidence that a bomber wing on its own ever destroyed a capship. It's like saying that bombers sunk the Bismark. They didn't they put it out of commission, yes but the Bismark only sank cause the crew skuttled it.

Bombers did sink the Tirpitz however. Allthough it did take many, many tries.

12 November 1944: Attacked by 32 Lancaster. Shortly after 0940, the Tirpitz is hit by two "Tallboy" bombs on the port side amidships. Four other bombs near-miss the battleship. At 0952 the ship capsizes at 69º 36' north, 18º 59' east. 971 dead.

[Wanderer]

Perhaps:
Destroyers would have been needed to carry the fighters and bombers from system to system.. And to carry large numbers of small crafts and to proveide quaters for all the required crew it had to big. Big ships is a valuable target and had to be protected against any kinda of an assault...

On the other hand cruisers make long duration patrols or escort missions possible unlike with fighters where the crew and the ship actually have to be docked, repaired or given some maintenance from time to time... So there is a place for those too even if they need fighter escorts to assist them.

And the lenght of the war can not be explained by prolonged gunfights (14 years). Im guessing that as there were no good and viable ways of destroying hostile capship with a single attack (no beams and fragile bombers) the direct and all out shooting war degenerated into a different war.. Deep strikes against enemy supplies.. Protection of friendly convoys.. And suprise assaults against capships after long 'antifighter' campaings used to reduce the number of escorting fighters... But i dont know.. I just dont wont to say yes or no in any absolute manner,

IMHO there are many places where the canon material is full of contradictions. I too have wondered that Taranis thing. Especially when there are also data that bombers were capable of taking dwon destroyers.

WeatherOp:
Japanese didnt need many attempts to sink the Prince of Wales (by then a modern battleship with improved AA guns) and Repulse...

[karajorma]

And the lenght of the war can not be explained by prolonged gunfights (14 years). Im guessing that as there were no good and viable ways of destroying hostile capship with a single attack (no beams and fragile bombers) the direct and all out shooting war degenerated into a different war.

I wasn't saying that destroyers had to hammer away for 14 years to kill each other I was basically saying what you were. That because there was no easy way to kill an enemy destroyer one side or the other would usually jump away long before the battle was decided. With no subspace tracking either there wouldn't be any way to find them once they did escape so ships could spend days or months hunting each other only for one of them to escape if the battle went badly and begin the cycle again.

IMHO there are many places where the canon material is full of contradictions. I too have wondered that Taranis thing. Especially when there are also data that bombers were capable of taking dwon destroyers.

I suspect it was a mixture of their inability to do any serious damage to capship together with a fear of shivan fighters. They only really decided to do something about it once they had shielded fighters.

[Wanderer]

I wasn't saying that destroyers had to hammer away for 14 years to kill each other

Oops, my output didnt quite match the thought behind it.. Yeah, probably not 14 year gunfights.. 

I suspect it was a mixture of their inability to do any serious damage to capship together with a fear of shivan fighters. They only really decided to do something about it once they had shielded fighters.

That is perhaps the best explanation i have heard for that incident.

[CaptJosh]

More like they never thought that aspect seeking missile were necessary. After all, none of them had any kind of low observabilty tech, so fire and forget was fine, and also cheap.

[WeatherOp]

I think most of the 14 year T-V war was mostly a Cold war. And not much real fighting was done, until around the time of Operation Thresher. I think that could have been the first big strike.

[karajorma]

I don't think it was a cold war. They do talk about ships being destroyed after all. But much of the war consisted of skirmishes most likely.

[TrashMan]

Perhaps:
Destroyers would have been needed to carry the fighters and bombers from system to system.. And to carry large numbers of small crafts and to proveide quaters for all the required crew it had to big. Big ships is a valuable target and had to be protected against any kinda of an assault...

On the other hand cruisers make long duration patrols or escort missions possible unlike with fighters where the crew and the ship actually have to be docked, repaired or given some maintenance from time to time... So there is a place for those too even if they need fighter escorts to assist them.

And the lenght of the war can not be explained by prolonged gunfights (14 years). Im guessing that as there were no good and viable ways of destroying hostile capship with a single attack (no beams and fragile bombers) the direct and all out shooting war degenerated into a different war.. Deep strikes against enemy supplies.. Protection of friendly convoys.. And suprise assaults against capships after long 'antifighter' campaings used to reduce the number of escorting fighters... But i dont know.. I just dont wont to say yes or no in any absolute manner,

IMHO there are many places where the canon material is full of contradictions. I too have wondered that Taranis thing. Especially when there are also data that bombers were capable of taking dwon destroyers.

WeatherOp:
Japanese didnt need many attempts to sink the Prince of Wales (by then a modern battleship with improved AA guns) and Repulse...

there's one more reason why the war lasted 14 years - node blockades.
Remeber that tehre were probably along periods of waiting and scouting, of gathering forces to attempt a breaktrough.

If both sides are deeply entrenched then no wonder the war laster 14 years..even with beam cannons and the like it would have taken ages - jsut look at the NTF rebellion - the GTVA couldn't break trough into their systems.

EDIT:T hey might have sunk the prince of Whales, but they sent hunderds of airplanes and it still took them a long time.

[aldo_14]

I think most of the 14 year T-V war was mostly a Cold war. And not much real fighting was done, until around the time of Operation Thresher. I think that could have been the first big strike.

I always felt it had bogged down into a WW1 type scenario, with infrequent and usually suicidal assaults upon node blockades resembling trench warfare in effect.  I'd also think that the loss of an Orion being a huge defeat reflects that; namely that an Orion would be either the primary defensive vessel or the leader of an attack, and it's destruction would spell doom for the rest of the attacking/defending force - especially the fighter and bomber pilots.  I can imagine Thresher as an attack upon the Vasudan Anatres blockade, where the lead destroyer (or destroyers; there were 504 pilots killed) was either destroyed or forced to retreat.  The 'missing, presumed dead' could refer to the possibility of pilots, now cut off from their fighterbays, being forced to try to surrender to the Vasudans or somehow ditch their craft on a planet (incredibly risky and also likely to lead to starvation or suffocaton in the long run).

[Prophet]

...the loss of an Orion being a huge defeat...

Thats what I like in FS1. Every ship and crew is valued. And there aint many of them. But in FS2 there is just endless supply of cruisers, corvettes and even destroyers they bring out to be destroyed.
All hostile capships are destroyed with few exeptions. And I cant honestly tell if there are more destroyed terran warships than surviving ones in the missions. Actually, is there even one mission where something big doesn't blow up? I find that funny, in a sad way. That is one of the reasons why FS1 campaign has allways been better than FS2.