[ns161]

I'm starting to write a story set in the Freespace universe, post Capella.  One thing I noticed was that some of the timelines in some campaigns seem woefully skewed to me.

I have serious doubts that the GTVA could have recovered so fully as to have entirely new ship-classes, large amounts of advanced destroyers, etc. within 20-25 years of Capella.  So what kind of timescale do you all think was appropriate?

I'm thinking of a fully recovered GTVA that has new ship classes, including a specific "Carrier" class that is also capable of doubling as a heavy destroyer (I guess "Battle Carrier" or "Battle Cruiser" might be a more appropriate name).  Something in the superdestroyer class, better than an orion/hecate but not near the level of a Sath or Colossus

I was thinking 40 years post-Capella at least for that kind of recovery and advancement.  Do you all think tha twould be appropriate?

[Bob-san]

I'm starting to write a story set in the Freespace universe, post Capella.  One thing I noticed was that some of the timelines in some campaigns seem woefully skewed to me.

I have serious doubts that the GTVA could have recovered so fully as to have entirely new ship-classes, large amounts of advanced destroyers, etc. within 20-25 years of Capella.  So what kind of timescale do you all think was appropriate?

I'm thinking of a fully recovered GTVA that has new ship classes, including a specific "Carrier" class that is also capable of doubling as a heavy destroyer (I guess "Battle Carrier" or "Battle Cruiser" might be a more appropriate name).  Something in the superdestroyer class, better than an orion/hecate but not near the level of a Sath or Colossus

I was thinking 40 years post-Capella at least for that kind of recovery and advancement.  Do you all think tha twould be appropriate?

No I don't. While Capella was a major loss, it was nowhere near as large a loss as our loss of contact with the Sol. Anyways--Sol had the majority of our mining and manufacturing operations, the social, economic, and political center of Terran culture, and a large portion of our military. With Capella and preceding incidents (NTF Rebellion and attacks on the Shivans), we probably lost more of our ships then we did losing contact with Sol. That being said, the vast majority of our infrastructure was still present in other systems. Our primary drive would be to replace as many of the lost ships as we possibly could--to preserve the GTVA's strength and Terran/Vasudan balance. Once we have enough ships, we'd have the firepower to put down major threats (probably within 2 years we build enough cruisers and had enough support from the Vasudans to do this).

I don't agree with the new ship classes. While we probably have 2-3 more classes (a formal Super Destroyer or Carrier, a Gunship, and probably a few more AWACS vessels), it won't be replacing all the current classes we have (Cruiser, Corvette, Destroyer, *Juggernaut*).

What I think the GTVA's priorities are...
1) Reinforce military
2) Deal with refugees
3) Rebuild lost assets
4) Develop new technology and elaborate on existing technology

[TrashMan]

20-25 years is a long time actually... the T-W war lasted for 14 years and a lot of advancements and changed were made, despite the drain the war was having.
The GTVA has lost a lot of warship, but except for that they are in pretty good shape. Capella was a newer colony so it's not as big of a loss as many think, and all the other planets and systems are in good shape - with the possible excpetion of the 3 NTF held systems.

Given that their industrial base is in tact (in fact, bolstered by the former NTF shipyards) and that they have a lot of new tech knowledge (captured shivan fighters, scans of shivan ships, maby even parts of the Sath - I can bet they took a few to study), a strong drive to build new and better ship seems like a logical step, especialyl considering they need to fill the ranks.
That said, the exact extent of the GTVA losses is left to speculation, as the phrase "we lost most of our fleet" can also refer to only the fleet in Capella, not the overall GTVA fleet.

20-25-30 years is a long enough period for many, many changes.

[NGTM-1R]

The GTVA has a number of issues facing them at that point in time.

Reduced naval strength, both literally (losses in Capella) and figuratively (obviously no longer believe themselves capable of handling a Shivan incursion).
Heavily industrialized/populated systems formerly controlled by the NTF: possibly in need of reconstruction (though the speed with which the NTF collapsed makes this somewhat unlikely) and with shaky loyalty.
Loss of Capella (physical resources)
Capellan and other refugees.

Of these, only one cuts to the core, threatening the survival of the GTVA and the Terran and Vasudan species. The losses they took in Capella can be rebuilt, so can factories. People can be resettled. Loyalties can be changed. Even new systems can be settled to replace Capella.

But the GTVA does not have the ability to confront the Sathanas fleet on anything within yelling distance of equal terms using the weapons and ships they have available. To build up to the force levels required just to face a significant fraction of the Sathanas fleet would take decades. It isn't just building the ships and training the crews, but building the infrastructure to support them, the shipyards and the factories and the academies. The GTVA's economy probably can't support the kind of effort needed to reach even that minimal capablity to deal with the juggernaut fleet, at least without restructuring. This would be the work of a half-century, easily.

And when numbers will not serve, something else must. Tactics, technology, quality. The GTVA can be expected to rush ships and weapons designed to deal with juggernauts out the door within seven years of Capella, probably even within five. There will be great emphasis on doing more with less. We must remember that the GTVA fleet we saw in FS2 was essentially the product of a peacetime military. The ships and fighters were designed before the NTF Rebellion. We are likely to see a great number of stripped-down designs surface, ships meant to do the same jobs just as well as the old ones, but do them at lesser cost using fewer people. The GTVA is likely to totally rethink their tactical and strategic doctrine.

[ns161]

Thanks for the input guys.  I wasn't aware that Capella was a new colony, I overestimated its importance from the storyline.  I thought it was a central hub.  It does make a big difference that it wasn't.  I figure 20 years then maybe.  For the record, my interpretation of the "Fleet" comment is this:

The "Fleet" referred to consists of the 3rd Fleet Capella and some re-enforcement ships (perhaps rising up to the level of an entire second fleet).  Given the realities of the size of the GTVA I simply cannot believe that they would send their entire space-faring fleet to deal with the situation.  It hadn't reached THAT level of desperation yet.  Besides, they would have wanted to continue the only alternative they had of destroying nodes, which couldn't be accomplished if the entire fleet was lost at Capella.

Besides, if they lose the entire fleet it makes my story much tougher to set up.  So I'm going with that.

[TrashMan]

I don't think they could have sent their whole fleet even if they wanted. The Sathanas fleet push happened pretty fast and GTVA space is pretty big. It takes time for capships to get from one end to another..days even.
And there had to be ships stationed at recently captures NTF systems, not to mention other important systems.


Capella was a newer colony, since it's not there in FS1 time and it's a bit far from Earth. Apparently, it was well developed for a new colony.


That said, it's difficult to judge how much time the GTVA would need to get it's strength up again. that depends what you consider under that terms.
Even one system holds enough resources to make a dozen huge fleet,s so resources wouldn't be a problem. Industry base can grow rather fast, even after great destruction - just look at how fast Germany and Japan recovered after WW2. GTVA was spared this time from any great destruction (infrastructure wise), so tehy shouldn't have too much trouble imporving and expanding what they have.

[Admiral_Stones]

I'm curious as to why the Sheevee's blasted Vasuda Prime into oblivion but let every other planet untouched
All the GTVA needs to do is equip Alpha 1 with a Colossus or other giant ship and everything hostile will be slaughtered.

Actually, yes, Germany and Japan recovered fast after WW2, but they also got support by the U.S.A. in forms of funds n' stuff. I don't think that's gonna happen this time.

[S-99]

I think they'll always be able to innovate stuff and pump out new ships. 20 systems or more of what they have in the gtva, with each system being ****ing huge. There's billions of people spread out among all of them. I'm sure the building ships and innovating idea's isn't a problem. Just that the thing that really sets back the gtva is major disasters. 1st and second shivan encounters were major conflicts and in turn really screws their galactic economy. In other words as long as the economy is still kicking, expect tons of ships possibly even new ones. Keep in mind in fs2 they were in the middle of phasing out fs1 era ships, so in fs2 it wasn't going around seeing only new ships. No a whole bunch of the time it was a good mixture of the two; you saw just as many old ships as you did new ones.

[ns161]

I plan on having a few FS1 era ships still in existence myself.  I know they SAID in FS2 they were going to phase out the Orions.  But COME ON, you don't phase out such a successful ship.  It is obviously upgradeable (FS1 to FS2) so there may be substantial retrofits, but I think of the Orion as the B-52 of the Freespace universe.  The B-52 is expected to see service until it is about 75 years old.  That's ludicrous, but it shows that you simple don't phase out something that successful.

I don't intend on having the Orion as the mainstay destroyer anymore (it will be replaced with something I haven't named yet) but I will still have them there pulling their weight.

[S-99]

Now you're just not thinking. Orions in fs2 were being replaced by the cheaper hecate class; orions are no longer being made. To upgrade all of them costs a lot of money, because orions are old technology. It's more expensive to do extensive upgrades than to just build a new ship. The costs for upgrading an orion over the long term just isn't worth it when you can keep having superior ship designs which would most likely have an easier time upgrading than an orion should you even need to upgrade on a newer ship. Part of building new classes of ships is better design, functionality, and implementation. Part of that superior functionality is easier upgrading. I mean think about it. Such as replacing an orion's blob turrets with subachs or kaysers would be like trying to pop a quad core processor into a 486 motherboard. It just gets really hard to upgrade old technology over the long term too, You'd get to the point where popping in one new thing in an old ship would require replacing or adding in a ton of new things.  Such as giving a 486 motherboard a quad core processor, just can't be done, you'd have to get a new motherboard, different kind of memory, and hope that all of this still fits inside of the old clunky 486 motherboard case where it all came out of. Now don't forget the costs of taylor making stuff.

Lets say that new motherboard won't fit in that old chassis where it just absolutely needs to go. Extra money gets spent on figuring out how to taylor that board to fit in a case it wont fit in because it must go in there.

Anyway, while the hecate may currently be underpowered compared to an orion, it is cheaper to make and is a current design that utilizes current technology. This makes the hecate the better deal in the end because upgrading it with new technology would be a lot cheaper than upgrading an orion. And you know they're going to upgrade the hecate and retrofit it to be more offensive in the near future.

On the other hand will orions still be in use as long as they're still around (like not all of them being destroyed), then yes i can see orions still in service  then if they haven't been mothballed.

[ns161]

That all depends on how technology changes post-Capella.  Sure then the U.S. Military had to upgrade all the computers on the old B-52's it cost a lot of money but they haven't had to do that again.  That's why those planes are still in service so many years later.

So let's assume that to retrofit the Orions between FS1 and FS2 took the kind of massive upgrading you're talking about (switching out computers etc.).  I would think that was mostly a result of the new technological advances resulting from the merger of Terran and Vasudan technology (the Orions were originally solely Terran in origin).

BUT if the computing technology has not changed that much, it might not be like replacing the motherboard, it might be like adding more RAM to an existing motherboard.  The underlying hardware might not have changed that much.

Here's the way I look at it:

Originally the systems on the Orions were Galactic Terran
Then they were updated to become Galactic Terran-Vasudan

That's a dynamic shift in technology, its basically like going from a Commodore 64 to a modern PC, its a geometric shift in technology, all aspects changed.

BUT I would think that the Orions (and other FS1 ships that might retain some usefulness) could be upgraded sequentially.

As I said, I'm not talking about having Orions as flagships or anything, but I still think that, even 20-25 years post FS2 they could form a strong secondary line with some of the newer ships I'm envisioning.

I have an idea for a replacement mainline destroyer (a SOLE destroyer without any kind of carrier ability), the Hecate's I see as going into their proper role of C&C ships (Command and Control) not necessarily "Destroyers" in a pure sense.

I also have a concept for a ship designated the Calliope BattleCarrier (might just call it a carrier) that fills in the gap between destroyers and superdestroyers/juggernauts. 

I don't see Orions as being able to go to toe to toe or any more having been built.  But I don't see the GTVA scrapping the ones that survived the second Great War.  It just doesn't make sense to retire an entire ship class.  If they are THAT obsolete you aren't going to use them for parts, so you might as well use them until they simply can't be maintained anymore.

We haven't built a B-52 since the mid-70's, but they still work just fine.  We're still using some of the ORIGINAL B-52's from the Korean War.

[Snail]

Chain of thought:

Orions are successful ---> Retire them!!

Huh?

[MT]

Chain of thought:

Orions are successful ---> Retire them!!

Huh?

Orions are successful but expensive. Their cost effectiveness is less compared to newer designs => replace them with newer designs.

[TrashMan]

And a Hecate isn't expensive?

Just where do the people come up with this "Orion is horrendously expensive" stuff? ALL destroyers are expensive and after the shivan BBQ, i don't think the GTVA will be in a hurry to scrap ship. In fact, I bet they'll be brining out ships out of the mothballs. Let's face it, they need every ship they can get their hands on - they won't be scraping their most powerfull anti-captial platform.
That said, I doubt they will start Orion production again. A new class to take over is probably in the works, but even when it comes out I still believs the remaining Orions will be in service, at least as backups.

[MT]

And a Hecate isn't expensive?

Just where do the people come up with this "Orion is horrendously expensive" stuff? ALL destroyers are expensive and after the shivan BBQ, i don't think the GTVA will be in a hurry to scrap ship. In fact, I bet they'll be brining out ships out of the mothballs. Let's face it, they need every ship they can get their hands on - they won't be scraping their most powerfull anti-captial platform.
That said, I doubt they will start Orion production again. A new class to take over is probably in the works, but even when it comes out I still believs the remaining Orions will be in service, at least as backups.

You missed the point. The older a machine in service, the more costly for it to be maintained (easier and easier to breakdown). This is true for civilian as well as military equipment. Things don't last forever.

In addition, the military has a tendency to develop equipment that are easier to maintain than the previous iteration, either by lesser parts or by reduced maintenance hours, unless it is a radically different technology. Of course this is not universally true, but it is an ideal that most military commanders would want.

[TrashMan]

You missed the point. The older a machine in service, the more costly for it to be maintained (easier and easier to breakdown). This is true for civilian as well as military equipment. Things don't last forever.

In addition, the military has a tendency to develop equipment that are easier to maintain than the previous iteration, either by lesser parts or by reduced maintenance hours, unless it is a radically different technology. Of course this is not universally true, but it is an ideal that most military commanders would want.

Things don't last forever, but they can last a VERY long time and can be upgraded easily if designed properly.
Just look at that new US-sub that is designed to be modular and can be upgraded with whole new SECTION easily. It reminded me of how how new memory modules are installed in your computer.

[Snail]

Remember that the Orion is very modular and can easily be modified. All Orions were easily outfitted with beam weaponry without the reactor failures that the Typhon suffered from.

[Hades]

Yea, just cause the Hecate is new doesn't mean it cost less to maintain, that Orion was a very easy to fix and refit destroyer, we don't know about the Hecate.
Who knows, the Hecate might be the Destroyer equivalent of Vista.

[AlphaOne]

Lol Hades Hecate equivalent of Vista! LOL !

I also believe that putting the Orion to retirement is just ridiculous. The Orion IS the PRIDE of the terrans it is the most powerfull anti-cap platform out there. It has a decent fighter capacity . sure its AAAF abilaties suck big time but that can be fixed. also a destroyer is not meant to go into a battle without fighter/bommber escort or some cruisers for escort at least.

That beeing said the Hecate has a worse kill/losses ration the the Orion. Hell even the Hattie wich saw less action against the NTF has a better kill/loss ratio. I think.

Also remember the phrase about the Orion's simple ppresence into a sistem make everyone feel safer ? Dont know wjere i saw that. Also the fact that an Orion is beeing deployed into a sistem usualy means a war is coming . This leads me to think that the Orion is still used as the main deterrant for anyone who thinks about starting trouble.


The Hecate is good but not that good. Give me aHecate after you upgrade them beam cannons a bit at least 3 more BG and il be happy.

Also I believe that the GTVA will go for a new destroyer class to replace the shoes left behind by the Orion perhaps something that is also more powerfull.


As for the timeline i believe the GTVA has the necesary infrasctructure to replace all the losses within 5 years time max. And at the end of the 5 year term i believe they will also pop out at least 2 new ship classes.

One of them would be the friggate class such as the Iceni i mean that ship is too good not to be built. Sure it will undergo some design changes to alow it to have a bit more aaaf firepower but keep those 3 BG.

Another one would be a new destroyer class something with at least the same load out in terms of beam cannons as the Orion or something a bit more powerfull perhaps the next gen of beam cannons.

After about 2 more years max I thin the GTVA will start manufacturing carrier classes and new cruiser classes ! This would mean at least 5 new ship classes entering testing periods and full blown production after another 2 years. The rate at which these ships will be built still remains to be decided.

8 years after capella some new fighters/bommber designs should be entering production .

10 years MAX. a knossos portal should be completed in order to link DS-Sol sistems.

This beeing said it should take the GTVA about 10 years give or take a year to become stronger and implement new ship designs into the fleet. Sure they might not be that many of them but they will be available.

If anyone thinks this is too short of a timeline i believe that the GTVA will complete theyr full restructuring resizement and redeployement of ships this incluedes both new techs and cap ships in a max time span of 20 years. By this time the GTVA should be booted in economy and strenght by both the Sol forces and the new trading partner as well as cmpletion of at least one more knossos.

[S-99]

Anyway, the normal topic was dodged. The normal topic was talking about orions still being manufactured well after fs2. It's quite obvious that during fs2 there's already **** loads of orions and that with the hecate already being next in line that orions have stopped on the assembly line in favor of being replaced with hecates.

Sure orions will still be in use, they're handy, but no more are being made. Very good discussion about the upgrading of them though