ngtm1r - I've just made mission with me on Mentu with 35m/s vs Rakshasa 4000m in front of me and tested it three times. I had from 35% to 60% and dodged pretty well before I got to 1500m range. When Mentu gets close enough, Shivan fighters will be forced to engage GTVA (unless they want to be shot down by AAAs
).
AlphaOne - yeah yeah, techroom says Typhoon has got reactor failutes because it had the biggest problems with it, but using little logic you can conclude that Orion is already close to that. Why? Typhon and Orion are warships in similar age. Assumption that Typhon powergrid, reactors and so on aren't compatible with beams is right. But as you can see Orion has got little bigger firepower than Hatshepsut, brand new destroyer. The only driffence beetwen these two is AF coverage (Orion's AF is virtually nonexistant, Hatshepsut has got quite good one, still AF weapons takes less place&energy than beams) and hull. That means Orion must be quite close to problems Typhon had. That's why Typhon has got only two BVas'es.
About your vision of Orion MKII you describe universal desing = easy target for fleet of specialised ships. We had discussion on freespace.pl and came to conclusion that only corvettes can be universal, cruisers can hold little weapons and are either crap (Leviathan) or expensive (Aeolus) while making universal destroyer is complete waste. Look at Hecate. Average AC, average AF and average fighterbay (or at least similar, AC is smaller than AF and fighter capability). AC is sufficient for corvettes and cruisers, but destroyer will beat it. Fighter capability is enough to flood universal destroyers like Ravana or Demon, but what if it encounters carriers with bigger fighter capability? It'll encounter situation 150 vs 300 fighters and the only option will be to withdraw. Your Orion is just like Hecate, but more advanced and with smaller fighterbay. Don't you think making destoryer with two froward LRBGreens able to take down destroyer in two salovs remaining untouched plus some AF cruisers as escort would be better? If you don't belive me, we can do wargames on ICQ/MSN.
About Deimos it doesn't need changed configuration. Deimos and Sobek are just two diffrent corvettes for two diffrent tasks. Deimos is escort corvette with better AF and larger number of weaker beams while Sobek is assault one with worse AF but all AC firepower in two VSlashes. If it can have much more powerful weaponary due to better reactor then why we don't see Deimos with two BGreens anywhere in campaign? Also Deimos and Sobek are warships from the same generation. Take a look at Aeolus comparing to Leviathan. Better hull, better top speed, better weaponary. The same could go to Deimos&Sobek vs. older corvettes (in theory because they don't exist). That kind of jump you're talking about (two BGreens instead of four TerSlashes) is impossible to be maintained. True, in theory Deimos could turn off two TerSlashes, increase reactor power and turn created reserve to froward beams changing them into BGreens, however it would be able to give only one salvo and then one-minute break before another BGreen fire or change into normal else it'd overload powergrid, everything has limitations (four TerSlashes deal 46200 damage per 30 seconds, two BGreens 52800, 6600 damage isn't much, but take a note that all 52800 comes from only two cannons while standard 46200 from four, that means front cannons' powergrid would be seriously overloaded if another 52800 would come after 30 seconds only).
About another few next lines a) read note to ngtm1r b) destroyers wouldn't be in serious trouble because Leviathan with one fighter wing would have to counter destroyer with 20 fighter wings c) Ravana destroyed Deimos (whenever I play Acidum escapes) because it overloaded its four beam cannons to BFReds (I wouldn't be suprised if it waited three minutes until its powergrid and reactors stabilised) d) GTVA could take down Shivan counterpart eaisly, imagine destroyer with no fighterbay, small AF coverage and two/three LRBGreens hitting Demon/Ravana from 8000m distance, if Shivans would get out alive then in very bad shape.
About few last ones I don't think future of GTVA will be large capships. I think their future are fighters and carriers. Look at Capella. Fighters handled themselves quite well while warships dropped down like flies. However basing completly on fighters and carriers isn't good idea so I think some capships are needed, mostly cruisers and corvettes, but also larger ones, including my proposition of destroyer with two/three long range beams. I just think universal capships (excluding corvettes) are for everything, but for nothing. Also fleet made of specialised capships requires TEAMWORK, not situations like "single X attacked by Shivan X and destroyed". So if you'd attack my AC destroyer with bomber, you'd have to face corvette with Trebuchets plus some escort fighters.
About beams I don't think GTVA beams are much weaker than Shivan ones (they're weaker, but not that much). Look closer at Shivan desings. Moloch has got weaker beams than Deimos/Sobek because of fighterbay, Liliths are rarely encountered (probably because Shivans have got very few of them), Rakshasa is powerful in AC, but it's AC desing, not universal like Aeolus/Leviathan, if GTVA would have AC cruiser, it'd be little weaker than it (maybe next-generation one would be stronger), the same goes to Ravana and Demon, they've got weak AF and smaller fighterbays than GTVA counterpart, that's why they've got superior firepower. About your last line I don't agree with you. Subspace changes war rules completly from static war (where defence counts more) to manevuer war (where it counts less and the best defence is assault). I think next-generation GTVA desings should have multiple jump drives (two for regular warships, three for carriers and assault desings). That'd allow GTVA warships to quickly change positions. Now defence doesn't count that much because AC warships can simply emerge in front of enemy battlegroup, destroy it with powerful front weaponary and escape. Side AC weaponary would be limited to small beams (on escort corvettes and large AC desings) and Stiletto II (on everything). Of course as I said before there'd be lots, lots of fighters, but in that case giving too many side AC weaponary is impractical and unnessesery because they limit assault abilities.
BTW little note on Colossus vs Sathanas. As you might've seen Colossus has got 240 fighters in its fighterbay. I think that's reason why it's seriously outclassed by Sathanas in AC firepower. Colossus with LRBGreens (overloaded) deals 400000 damage per 30 seconds, Sathanas with normal weaponary (4 BFReds) deals 1200000 per 30 seconds. Now let's take fighterbay from Colossus and half of AF weaponary. I've calculated that would increase Col's firepower by 3. Now it's 1200000 vs 1200000. Still Sathanas ouclasses Colossus because it's still got fighterbay (probably something around 80 fighters) and better AF weaponary.
