[TrashMan]

I always thought that number seemed quite excessive when compared to the destroyers, which are maybe ten times as large, carry fighters and generally serve as command hubs (while the corvettes are warships more than anything else), but still have only 10000.

Well, if you look at modern warships there's actually a tendency for gun turrets to use more crew than the equivalent are for fighters on a carrier.

No, that's flat out wrong...the other way around.

FS2 numbers are somewhat screwy in that regard. There's little logical sense between the crew numbers of various warships. Of course, the question has to be asked how accurate those numbers are - is it a typo or a mistake in the debrief section? Or did they just typed in a random number? Or did they actually have a those numbers planned?
Personally, I take those numbers with a grain of salt.

[aldo_14]

I always thought that number seemed quite excessive when compared to the destroyers, which are maybe ten times as large, carry fighters and generally serve as command hubs (while the corvettes are warships more than anything else), but still have only 10000.

Well, if you look at modern warships there's actually a tendency for gun turrets to use more crew than the equivalent are for fighters on a carrier.

No, that's flat out wrong...the other way around.

FS2 numbers are somewhat screwy in that regard. There's little logical sense between the crew numbers of various warships. Of course, the question has to be asked how accurate those numbers are - is it a typo or a mistake in the debrief section? Or did they just typed in a random number? Or did they actually have a those numbers planned?
Personally, I take those numbers with a grain of salt.

The Iowa class warships' main turrets took a minimum of 77 people to man.  We've been over this before, I believe.  And you can't wiggle your way out of it in an FS context by questioning the numbers as making 'little logical sense' just because they don't mesh with what you desire.

[StratComm]

Trashman, you certainly have a knack for finding these threads.  I don't know whether you still believe that I had the last one locked down (I didn't) but you're vastly outnumbered here.  Please drop it.

[Mars]

The old rules don't nessesarily apply, I figure in that day and age they could have Colossus sized warships controled by one person, on some planet, controling three others, and mabye a squadron of fighters with no one controling them

[SuperCoolAl]

I find it hard to actually imagine 6000 Vasudans squeezing into the hull of a Sobek. I mean, look how many fighters could fit inside one. 15?

[aldo_14]

The old rules don't nessesarily apply, I figure in that day and age they could have Colossus sized warships controled by one person, on some planet, controling three others, and mabye a squadron of fighters with no one controling them

But they don't.  C'est la vie.

[karajorma]

I find it hard to actually imagine 6000 Vasudans squeezing into the hull of a Sobek. I mean, look how many fighters could fit inside one. 15?

Worth noting that the Sobek is comfotably larger than any warship built to date.

[Mars]

Nimitz class carrier:
     Length- 333M
     Crew Compliment- 5,680
Sobek class corvette
     Length- 608M
     Crew Compliment- 6,000
Considering the Vasudans origenate from a desert, they probobly consume fewer calories and water, and water can be recycled, I actually wonder why these ships are so empty, each and every one of them, then again, Orions have a bar, so I guess an olympic swimming pool isn't a big leap. I suppose computers run most of the ships, but you have to wonder, what do the people do? You could have a few in combat engineering, a couple hundred in the flight deck, 5 cleaning toilets, and a couple hundred keeping the ship going (from a computer).

And a correction, the Fenris is 1.4X the length of a Ticonderoga.

[CP5670]

The 10000 crew count for destroyers (at least Terran ones) is backed up by several references throughout the game. It's the 6000 number that seems strange to me in comparison, just going by the enormous differences in volume.

One of my missions needs the right number of crewmen on the Sobek for the story angle. I'm not sure whether to use the canon number and make it seem somewhat unbelievable, as most players aren't even going to know about it and will only be aware of the 10000 for destroyers, or just shrug it off as a game inconsistency (they do exist in FS2) and use something much lower, maybe 1000.

[Mars]

I'd say that 6,000 makes plenty of sense, if not higher. Destroyers are so empty I'd say 20,000+ would be an appropriate number.

[CP5670]

That's probably true, but if we assume that the destroyers have 10000, then 6000 seems far too high for corvettes IMO, especially the rather thin Sobek.

[Mars]

Um... this is probably a stupid question, but... why not just change the destroyer numbers and not the Corvette numbers? TBMs make your life easier.

[CP5670]

I guess the 10000 destroyer number is much more well established. There are at least five places I can think of where 10000 is mentioned, some of which are in story-critical command briefings. The 6000 only appears in a single failure debriefing stage that nobody is likely to ever see unless they open up the mission file. If you have to decide which one is "stricter" canon, the 10000 seems to be the obvious choice.

[aldo_14]

That's probably true, but if we assume that the destroyers have 10000, then 6000 seems far too high for corvettes IMO, especially the rather thin Sobek.

But why?  I mean, one thing that springs to mind is that corvettes operate closer to the enemy than destroyer/carriers, so you'd probably have a crew under greater and constant stress and hence might need more shifts.

[CP5670]

The volume difference is enough to counterbalance that though. The Orion looks like it has at least 20 times the volume of the Sobek. If the crew spaces on the Sobek are over half as large, then it raises the issue of how they can pack everything else into it (or alternatively, what all the extra space is used for on the Orion).

Actually, the Colossus is a better example. We know about how big the crew spaces are and their volume is easily more than five times that of the Sobek, and that's assuming all the space in the Sobek is used for the crew areas.

I think it's possible to explain this thing, but it still remains both counterintuitive and obscure and is going to look weird to most people who play that mission, who won't be aware that the 6000 is official.

[aldo_14]

The volume difference is enough to counterbalance that though. The Orion looks like it has at least 20 times the volume of the Sobek. If the crew spaces on the Sobek are over half as large, then it raises the issue of how they can pack everything else into it (or alternatively, what all the extra space is used for on the Orion).

Actually, the Colossus is a better example. We know about how big the crew spaces are and their volume is easily more than five times that of the Sobek, and that's assuming all the space in the Sobek is used for the crew areas.

I think it's possible to explain this thing, but it still remains both counterintuitive and obscure and is going to look weird to most people who play that mission, who won't be aware that the 6000 is official.

Well, for one thing the Sobek (and ignoring for the moment possibile inter-species differences) could simply have a shorter deployment time.  I think the FSRefBible puts the Orion at having 2-3 year tours of duty, and if that's significantly longer than the 'small' capships, then you could expect a great deal more internal volume put down for use as both R&R locations and supplies storage.

[Eightball]

The Orion in FS2 is retrofitted for beam weaponry - probably less effecient than the Vasudan-designed Sobek, designed to be a beam-using corvette from the start.  Perhaps the Orions need larger energy/weapons space to operate...

[Prophet]

Not to forget that Orions need space to maintain and store all those fighters and bombers. Not to mention a huuge amounts of ordanance and spare parts for them.

[aldo_14]

Not to forget that Orions need space to maintain and store all those fighters and bombers. Not to mention a huuge amounts of ordanance and spare parts for them.

Except we don't know how much space those fighters/bombers etc take vis-a-vis the requirements for energy weapons; a fighter as of itself has very little requirements in terms of energy demands upon the carrying ship, whereas a mounted beam weapon has issues of supplying that energy, generating it, isolating those 2, and also dissipating the heat generated both from firing and running what are presumably very high-voltage energy supplies.

(NB: forgive me if voltage isn't the right term for it)

[Mars]

High-power