[Centrixo]

Well someone is on thier high horse and does'nt want to know, blah blah blah snail what ever your going to say to me because i won't here it .

making the Iceni frigate into a GTVA warship and expiding its mass deployment would be a good idea, atleast that way this ship is used more often instead of being abandoned like the Hades destroyer. and as someone said itsa blockade runner making it a versitle weapon for critical strikes.

[AlphaOne]

Well it could be just that a strike warship or a fully fledged warship ! Whichever you want. But i believe that due to its 3 BG it would prove to be a very heavy hitter for its size and a superb adition to fleets bot as a strike warship and as a node defensive ship or blocade ship.

[General Battuta]

I don't think the Iceni would ever be mass-produced.  It's specialized as a blockade runner and command ship - there's no way it would be risked in main battle or even in risky strike operations.  The vessel's just too expensive. 

Note that a large part of its success in FS2 is due to good coordination and Bosch's tactical genius - he never gives the GTVA a solid target to hit. 

I can see the GTVA applying its design principles to a new ship, however.

[AlphaOne]

You seem to forget that other then its etak and its laboratories as well as advanced sensors arrays that ship used pretty much tech that is also available to the GTVA! If you want to go and say the ship would be too expensive because of its tech then go take a look at the Deimos which is top of the line warship. I believe to be imposble to mount 4 beam cannons on a ship that size yet have that much hp aaaf defences and have such high top speed. The Iceni wouldnt be too expensive it would just be more expensive then a corvette but cheaper thena destroyer.

Also i believe with some minor tweaks to it it could be a very useful stryke warship or even a prelonged battle warship. Altough with those beams on it I can not imagine any battle would be that long.

[Snail]

Well someone is on thier high horse and does'nt want to know, blah blah blah snail what ever your going to say to me because i won't here it .

I give up I can't be bothered to pursue the fact that Iceni was built specifically for ETAK, not a warship.

[S-99]

The argument isn't about this one ended etak thing. It's shifted to the deployment of rather any type of frigate, besides etak, the iceni proved wells in other areas. The gtva wouldn't have to reduplicate the iceni's exact design, but rather make an actual different frigate would be useful. Everyone is talking about other areas that the iceni was awesome in besides etak. Yes the iceni was soley made for etak, but in the process it also excels in other areas that would make it an awesome ship to have for war purposes also.

The gtva would most likely consider a different design for a frigate, but then that certain frigate would be for a different purpose. Fast ship, blockade runner, and a few powerful beams to hold it's own against capships. The iceni has many areas that would be intelligent to incorporate into designs and upgrades. A frigate as a strike vessel seems to be the most useful thing if you're just going to reproduce the iceni design. If you make a new frigate, definitely retaining the elusiveness, speed, and firepower would be recommended to keeping such a ship effective in strikes. After that, i was thinking about the icenis lack of antifighter weaponry. In all of fs2, you're really close to the ship twice. When it breaks away from the asteroid, and when it runs the knossos blockade. Has it needed antifighter weaponry in any of those situations to keep alpha one off it's ass. No, it always keeps the jump drive hot and ready to jump anywhere at it's own convenience, as soon as it's far away from attack (such as close to a node in an insystem jump), it's fast speed can generally take the ship to a node faster than other capships can and it gets out of the system. After that the iceni got really lucky the colossus didn't blast it. With the colossus parallel to the node and the iceni passing by, i doubt the iceni's top speed would be able to traverse past the colossuses length to get to the node in time before it got destroyed.

[Black Wolf]

Well someone is on thier high horse and does'nt want to know, blah blah blah snail what ever your going to say to me because i won't here it .

I give up I can't be bothered to pursue the fact that Iceni was built specifically for ETAK, not a warship.

What makes you think ETAK was in any way a part of the Iceni? I beleive it was referred to a few times as a device, but there's nothing saying it couldn't just be plugged into any existing communications system.

The most important thing to remember about the Iceni is that it was not built by the NTF. It was built by the GTVA (admittedly under the direction ofAdmiral Bosch) at the Freedom Shipyards in Polaris. It was stolen by Bosch right at the beginning of the NTF rebellion, but it was paid for and approved by the alliance. Which means, in turn, that the GTVA have all the plans and technology to rebuild it if they so chose. Moreover, the GTVA obviously had a purpose in mind for the Iceni, and I think it's safe to assume that that purpose wasn't leading a rebellion (and while yes, that may have been Bosch's idea all along, he would have had to have presented a tactical situation in which the Iceni would be a useful warship for the GTVA in order to get the GTVA to fund it).

I think it's very likely that the GTVA would rebuild the Iceni. It's a proven, very dangerous, very high tech warship which was created to fill a specific niche in the GTVA arsenal that, since it was stolen and destroyed, we must assume remains unfilled.

[S-99]

Good mention on the etak thing. Etak as huge box that does it all is unlikely. It could have been as simple as modifying the communications array to emit quantum pulses. Quite literally it probably was like that, etak itself is probably just information on how to create quantum pulses with known communications technology and software. Etak is better referred to as a method for creating quantum pulses. After that a laboratory for etak onboard still makes sense too (that's the top secret location where they study and work on etak to perfect, and possibly could have also been the room from where bosch sent messages to the shivans (only bosches immediate subbordinates knew anything if little knowledge about etak, after etak laboratory is usually referred to as being off limits with only bosch having and a couple of other people having admittance to it's information, so a restricted area on ship used to type up messages for the shivans is like a no brainer, after that the rest of the iceni crew can't decipher the quantum pulses coming from it's own ship (only bosches immediate subordinates had knowledge of etak)). Keep in mind the rephaim was able to send transmissions to gtva vessels, which suggests that etak worked through the iceni's existing communications array to send transmissions to shivan vessels, and even suggests that etak was not as crude as sending quantum pulses over dead space, but rather using a standard transmission, just making sure that shivans hear quantum pulses coming out of the transmission when they receive it on their end.

The way etak is described by freespace isn't really good. The iceni itself sending out quantum pulses into dead space sounds extremely crude. I mean it's proven that shivans can send gtva ships transmissions, that means ships can send shivan vessels transmissions too. It's just that the shivans possibly don't understand the words coming out of your mouth, as much as we don't understand quantum pulses. You don't have to send quantum pulses over space itself, you just need to send a standard transmission to a shivan vessel, and make sure that what they hear coming out of the message is quantum pulses. Judging by a species that lives in a vacuum they don't hear sound, they probably don't have ears, also why speaking in quantum pulses is necessary when in space for the shivans. So capturing a shivan communications array was probably vital for etak. Humans have some type of a transceiver with a speaker and a microphone (at it's most basic thinking) so you can receive messages hear them, and talk back. So what the hell is the shivans version of a boombox speaker to them? Let alone how a shivan computer interprets data transmissions and quantum pulse transmissions. In order for etak to work, is understanding of how shivans receive quantum pulses on the other end of a message being sent to their ship is like a no brainer for necessity, so that means scientists at gti were studying a shivan communications array.
In essence, etak is probably software which is an in the works english to shivan translation matrix, and then the other half of etak (if not the whole) is sending the correct kind of transmission that a shivan will "hear" coming loud and clear from the inship quantum pulse speaker (of course a shivan speaker probably doesn't output sound, but rather only quantum pulses).
Shivans can receive transmissions from gtva ships and send them back, it's whether or not you're sending a standard transmission that comes out as quantum pulses on the other end that matters.
Keep in mind quantum pulses are to shivans as sound waves are to humans (shivans live in space with no atmosphere, that means no sound, don't try to think that shivans have ears that recieve sound waves, or else they'd most likely decipher english during the great war, and have just plain old blown up the iceni even when the iceni is talking to them..shivans do find communication interesting i just doubt they can interpret sound as language as we do since they live in a vacuum), like i said, scientists probably had in no doubt to study a shivan communications array and computer systems.

[AlphaOne]

Forgot about the fact that Bosch stole a GTVA vessel and made it his comand and control center. Also that raises an interesting question or rather a couple of them:

Since the Iceni has such formidable AC weaponry yet very few poin defence turrets what was the role it was suposed to fill within the GTVA arsenal?

Also since the Iceni was the first of its kind could we asume it was more of a prototipe built for trials work out the bugs and see where the ship needs improvement and then start mass production of the Iceni class ??

Mi take on this is that the Iceni was built with 90% of the general desingn specs of the future coming frigate class of warships wich would of left only about 10 % of its design to be modified and altered for better usage ! One are where i believe the Iceni mass produced version would of suffered modifications would of been in its poin defence sistems which are so few and weak in number. I believe the GTVA wanted indeed to keep its high speed strong hull and masive ac firepower but with an average aaaf defence on it at best since we can clearely see the Iceni would start to run out of space for any seriously powerfull aaaf weaponry on it.

Perhaps a few more point defence turrets 5 or 6 of them added on for aditional fighter supresion . some flack and 2 aaaf beams.

Edit: Well to me it seems rather clear that the Iceni was designed to work toghether with the Deimos class corvette another formidable warship most natably for its overwhealming aaaf firepower. That thing can chew up and spit out bommbers and fighters faster then you can get a lock on them.

[aldo_14]

Well someone is on thier high horse and does'nt want to know, blah blah blah snail what ever your going to say to me because i won't here it .

I give up I can't be bothered to pursue the fact that Iceni was built specifically for ETAK, not a warship.

What makes you think ETAK was in any way a part of the Iceni? I beleive it was referred to a few times as a device, but there's nothing saying it couldn't just be plugged into any existing communications system.

The most important thing to remember about the Iceni is that it was not built by the NTF. It was built by the GTVA (admittedly under the direction ofAdmiral Bosch) at the Freedom Shipyards in Polaris. It was stolen by Bosch right at the beginning of the NTF rebellion, but it was paid for and approved by the alliance. Which means, in turn, that the GTVA have all the plans and technology to rebuild it if they so chose. Moreover, the GTVA obviously had a purpose in mind for the Iceni, and I think it's safe to assume that that purpose wasn't leading a rebellion (and while yes, that may have been Bosch's idea all along, he would have had to have presented a tactical situation in which the Iceni would be a useful warship for the GTVA in order to get the GTVA to fund it).

I think it's very likely that the GTVA would rebuild the Iceni. It's a proven, very dangerous, very high tech warship which was created to fill a specific niche in the GTVA arsenal that, since it was stolen and destroyed, we must assume remains unfilled.

Nitpick;
"The Iceni is the NTF command frigate, built under Admiral Bosch's direction at the Freedom shipyards in Polaris, captured by the Neo-Terran Front at the start of their rebellion."

To me that implies the Iceni was build at the the Freedom shipyards, and that the shipyards were captured by the NTF; not that the Iceni was built and then captured.  There's no intimation that the ship was funded for, or planned by the GTVA - I'd say the absence of any information indicating it's anything other than Boschs' personal design implies it's a purely NTF design (as does the ability to hide it in a fake asteroid).

 I would note that the absence of significant AAAf beams and Flak turrets on the Iceni indicates you'd need significant changes to support proper AAAf weaponry to engage in active combat (rather than the hide-and-run tactics intended to burst through blockades which the ship is clearly designed for - armour to absorb the attacks before it can jump out, and beams to distress enemy capships in the same time period); I'm pretty sure that if you upgraded it to the level where it'd be an effective warship for engaging targets like the Shivans, you'd be turning it into little more than a slightly bigger Deimos.

In any case, re-reading the command briefs - I don't think I can find a single instance where the Iceni is described as engaging GTVA forces - only evading or slipping past them.  It may be effective as a command ship (albeit, better than a Hecate?), but it shows very little indication of being a significant front-line warship.  So why rebuild a Ferrari to run as a 4x4 ATV when you can just make a new Landrover?

[Snail]

To me this seems like a completely pointless discussion. Carry on. Ignore me.

[Centrixo]

The NTF Iceni was built specifically under the direction of Adimral Bosch at Polaris, the shipyard was captured at the start of the NTF Rebellion.

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/NTF_Iceni - i don't need to say anymore on the Iceni.

[S-99]

Hey snail stopped flaming That's because we proved him wrong

[Centrixo]

on ETAK: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/ETAK.

but i still vote Zod 

[Black Wolf]

Well someone is on thier high horse and does'nt want to know, blah blah blah snail what ever your going to say to me because i won't here it .

I give up I can't be bothered to pursue the fact that Iceni was built specifically for ETAK, not a warship.

What makes you think ETAK was in any way a part of the Iceni? I beleive it was referred to a few times as a device, but there's nothing saying it couldn't just be plugged into any existing communications system.

The most important thing to remember about the Iceni is that it was not built by the NTF. It was built by the GTVA (admittedly under the direction ofAdmiral Bosch) at the Freedom Shipyards in Polaris. It was stolen by Bosch right at the beginning of the NTF rebellion, but it was paid for and approved by the alliance. Which means, in turn, that the GTVA have all the plans and technology to rebuild it if they so chose. Moreover, the GTVA obviously had a purpose in mind for the Iceni, and I think it's safe to assume that that purpose wasn't leading a rebellion (and while yes, that may have been Bosch's idea all along, he would have had to have presented a tactical situation in which the Iceni would be a useful warship for the GTVA in order to get the GTVA to fund it).

I think it's very likely that the GTVA would rebuild the Iceni. It's a proven, very dangerous, very high tech warship which was created to fill a specific niche in the GTVA arsenal that, since it was stolen and destroyed, we must assume remains unfilled.

Nitpick;
"The Iceni is the NTF command frigate, built under Admiral Bosch's direction at the Freedom shipyards in Polaris, captured by the Neo-Terran Front at the start of their rebellion."

To me that implies the Iceni was build at the the Freedom shipyards, and that the shipyards were captured by the NTF; not that the Iceni was built and then captured.  There's no intimation that the ship was funded for, or planned by the GTVA - I'd say the absence of any information indicating it's anything other than Boschs' personal design implies it's a purely NTF design (as does the ability to hide it in a fake asteroid).

 I would note that the absence of significant AAAf beams and Flak turrets on the Iceni indicates you'd need significant changes to support proper AAAf weaponry to engage in active combat (rather than the hide-and-run tactics intended to burst through blockades which the ship is clearly designed for - armour to absorb the attacks before it can jump out, and beams to distress enemy capships in the same time period); I'm pretty sure that if you upgraded it to the level where it'd be an effective warship for engaging targets like the Shivans, you'd be turning it into little more than a slightly bigger Deimos.

In any case, re-reading the command briefs - I don't think I can find a single instance where the Iceni is described as engaging GTVA forces - only evading or slipping past them.  It may be effective as a command ship (albeit, better than a Hecate?), but it shows very little indication of being a significant front-line warship.  So why rebuild a Ferrari to run as a 4x4 ATV when you can just make a new Landrover?

I can't accept that the GTVA would allow a civillian shipyard to build a 1 kilometre long warship with enough firepower to blow corvettes and destroyers out of the sky for anyone other than themselves, and I'm even more sceptical that anyone, even the local fleet admiral, would be able to keep it hidden so that they wouldn't know about it. They may, may have been able to build the spaceframe without requiring GTVA approval, but they'd probably not be able to obtain the (presumably) military spec reactors, and they'd certainly not be able to get the (definitely) military spec beam weapons. Bosch might have been able to approve the requests or whatever, but he'd not be able to personally afford them - As a modern example, wikipedia tells me that an Arleigh Burke class destroyer (the closest thing I could find to what the Iceni is supposed to be) costs 800 million dollars, not including R+D (the new destroyers the yanks are building is costing 3 billion to cover R+D). There's simply nobody around except a government who can afford to buy (and crew) a warship, and I see no reason as to why that'd change in FS times. He'd need to requisition the alliance for money, plus there are oversight committees, inspections, random visits, repairs for other local ships, and the problem of keeping the workers (and the contractors, and the suppliers) all quiet. Inevitably, there'd be a leak.

In a modern context, it'd be like a fleet admiral building a nuclear submarine without the defence minister knowing about it (or, if you wangt to put a different spin on it, the equivalent of a defence contractor beinghired to produce a nuclear submarine for a private buyer and the government not knowing about it). Just couldn't be done. And you can be dead certain that when the GTVA did find out Bosch had been building a secret ship, then they'd A) want the plans for it and B) want to know what it was for (before they demoted Bosch back to ensign and stuck him in a cell for twenty years, of course). It's far, far simpler to just assume that the Freedom Shipyards were a military operation, servicing the GTVA (much like Northrop Grumman or General Dynamics today) and that the GTVA were financing the ship for a specific purpose. Now, I'm not saying that Bosch didn't have running blockades in mind when he proposed it, but the GTVA would not need a ship to do that, so he must have packaged it as something else for the sake of the funding and defence commitees, who must have seen a need for it.

Personally, I think the Iceni might have been pitched as a semi replacement for the Orions. The Terrans already had the Hecates replacing the Orions in terms of the role of fighter carrier, but it had nothing that really maintined the Orion's raw hitting power. While the Iceni lacks the three slash beams of the Orion, it does still have the three BGreens. I can see a solid tactical relationship forming between an Iceni and a Hecate - both jump into a system, the Hecate holds the node while the Iceni chases down any large ships in the System. The hecate launches fighters, which jump through subspace to protect the Iceni (thereby freeing up the Iceni from needing a fighterbay of its own, and releiving the Iceni of the primary need for Slash beams, which is taking out enemy turrets), while the Iceni serves as the raw hitting power to take down enemy ships. Moreover, the hecate is armed enough that it can cover its own arse if attacked, but only  long enough for its companion Iceni to jump in and take out the attacker from behind.

It's a solid tactical relationship that would still make sense after the NTF rebellion. Admittedly, it's plan better suited to Demons than Ravanas (I don't have access to FS2 to test it, but I'd say a ravana could probably defeat a lone Iceni pretty handily), but it's still not a bad setup.

[AlphaOne]

Agreed. building such a powerfull warship would of been imposible without the GTVA knowing about it especialy since such a monster would of taken a lot of time to buil as it is trhe first of its kind. So you design issues to sort out research to be done etc. before you even get to the main framework.

[Snail]

You did not prove me wrong. I just can't be bothered to continue, it's a waste of my time so there, I'll just go and say the Iceni could be modified to fit GTVA needs. Like they did in Derelict. But whatever. You know. Yeah.

[Agent_Koopa]

Keep in mind that the Iceni has NTF connotations. Anything built that resembles it likely will have a disadvantage when being chosen for a new ship class.

[Mars]

Like the German military launching the Bismark II

[aldo_14]

I can't accept that the GTVA would allow a civillian shipyard to build a 1 kilometre long warship with enough firepower to blow corvettes and destroyers out of the sky for anyone other than themselves, and I'm even more sceptical that anyone, even the local fleet admiral, would be able to keep it hidden so that they wouldn't know about it. They may, may have been able to build the spaceframe without requiring GTVA approval, but they'd probably not be able to obtain the (presumably) military spec reactors, and they'd certainly not be able to get the (definitely) military spec beam weapons. Bosch might have been able to approve the requests or whatever, but he'd not be able to personally afford them - As a modern example, wikipedia tells me that an Arleigh Burke class destroyer (the closest thing I could find to what the Iceni is supposed to be) costs 800 million dollars, not including R+D (the new destroyers the yanks are building is costing 3 billion to cover R+D). There's simply nobody around except a government who can afford to buy (and crew) a warship, and I see no reason as to why that'd change in FS times. He'd need to requisition the alliance for money, plus there are oversight committees, inspections, random visits, repairs for other local ships, and the problem of keeping the workers (and the contractors, and the suppliers) all quiet. Inevitably, there'd be a leak.

In a modern context, it'd be like a fleet admiral building a nuclear submarine without the defence minister knowing about it (or, if you wangt to put a different spin on it, the equivalent of a defence contractor beinghired to produce a nuclear submarine for a private buyer and the government not knowing about it). Just couldn't be done. And you can be dead certain that when the GTVA did find out Bosch had been building a secret ship, then they'd A) want the plans for it and B) want to know what it was for (before they demoted Bosch back to ensign and stuck him in a cell for twenty years, of course). It's far, far simpler to just assume that the Freedom Shipyards were a military operation, servicing the GTVA (much like Northrop Grumman or General Dynamics today) and that the GTVA were financing the ship for a specific purpose. Now, I'm not saying that Bosch didn't have running blockades in mind when he proposed it, but the GTVA would not need a ship to do that, so he must have packaged it as something else for the sake of the funding and defence commitees, who must have seen a need for it.

Personally, I think the Iceni might have been pitched as a semi replacement for the Orions. The Terrans already had the Hecates replacing the Orions in terms of the role of fighter carrier, but it had nothing that really maintined the Orion's raw hitting power. While the Iceni lacks the three slash beams of the Orion, it does still have the three BGreens. I can see a solid tactical relationship forming between an Iceni and a Hecate - both jump into a system, the Hecate holds the node while the Iceni chases down any large ships in the System. The hecate launches fighters, which jump through subspace to protect the Iceni (thereby freeing up the Iceni from needing a fighterbay of its own, and releiving the Iceni of the primary need for Slash beams, which is taking out enemy turrets), while the Iceni serves as the raw hitting power to take down enemy ships. Moreover, the hecate is armed enough that it can cover its own arse if attacked, but only  long enough for its companion Iceni to jump in and take out the attacker from behind.

It's a solid tactical relationship that would still make sense after the NTF rebellion. Admittedly, it's plan better suited to Demons than Ravanas (I don't have access to FS2 to test it, but I'd say a ravana could probably defeat a lone Iceni pretty handily), but it's still not a bad setup.

I don't understand; you seem to have missed my point.

What makes you think that Freedom Shipyards was a civillian shipyard, anyways?  And what makes you think it was building the Iceni before the rebellion started and the shipyard was captured (bearing in mind it's in Polaris, the first system to defect to the NTF)?

To be honest, I see a 'pack' of Deimos being the replacement for the Orion in the way that you're talking about the Iceni; possibly with reconfigured variants sacrificing some other weapons for larger beams, but not necessarily.