[Polpolion]

You know, these stats aren't everything. Especially considering this isn't a combat vessel. 

So what does matter? What paint job it has? Whether it's pink and furry?

Let's make a list:

Subspace drive capabilities (How quick engines recharge)
Crew size (How many extra salaries you have to pay)
Internal cargo bay size (How much you can ship without a container)
External carrying capacity (How much you ship with a container)
Cost (How much you need to pay for it)
Efficiency with fuel (How much fuel you need to buy to use it)

Unless I'm mistaken, none of these are actually measured in the tables. Just taking into account speed, armor, and armament when measuring quality of a freighter is like saying the more times the letter "z" appears in a book, the better the book.

[colecampbell666]

I'd say Triton, it has a big-ass cargo pod, looks cooler, and I could hide fighters in the cargo, and it has 2 guns.

[Snail]

Unless I'm mistaken, none of these are actually measured in the tables. Just taking into account speed, armor, and armament when measuring quality of a freighter is like saying the more times the letter "z" appears in a book, the better the book.

Interesting comparison.

[NGTM-1R]

Unless I'm mistaken, none of these are actually measured in the tables. Just taking into account speed, armor, and armament when measuring quality of a freighter is like saying the more times the letter "z" appears in a book, the better the book.

Except it's not, because we're talking about vessels in military use, and survivablity (best represented by speed, armor, and armament) is at a premium. Hell, even for a civilian ship your analogy is totally invalid depending upon the environment it operates in. And since that environment is FS, survivablity is once again at a premium. Sure, it might carry more cargo or be cheaper to operate, but crew doesn't come cheap (and high losses make them yet more expensive since you need to pay them more just to get them to stay on) and neither does shipyard capacity.

[Polpolion]

Except it's not, because we're talking about vessels in military use, and survivablity (best represented by speed, armor, and armament) is at a premium. Hell, even for a civilian ship your analogy is totally invalid depending upon the environment it operates in. And since that environment is FS, survivablity is once again at a premium. Sure, it might carry more cargo or be cheaper to operate, but crew doesn't come cheap (and high losses make them yet more expensive since you need to pay them more just to get them to stay on) and neither does shipyard capacity.

Just what the hell are we doing with these freighters? Sending them on assault missions? Jesus Christ, Most convoys in Freespace don't get attacked. Not even every convoy at the front lines get attacked, I'm willing to bet. Normal speed doesn't matter in Freespace (unless it's fighters) because the ships don't actually go anywhere with them, and the freighters are large enough that you're not going to have trouble hitting them unless they're going at 500 m/s. Armor matters, but to a lesser extent. Sure the Chronos doubles the Triton's HP, but doubling 5,000 still sucks. If you get a wing of determined people in fighters, that freighter's going down. I could understand why armament could be useful for deterring fighter attacks, but the Chronos' armament is so pitiful that it's practically not there. The Triton is a fair amount better because of the addition of a flak turret, but people can still easily find gaps in the firing solutions. The only thing these turrets can do easily is intercept bombs, which they wouldn't need to because it's generally not worth wasting bombs on ships that could be taken down easily by a wing of fighters.

[ShadowGorrath]

Speed is needed for freighters and transports. Remember the 2 Vasudan transports in "Surrender, Belisarius!" ? In the briefing it says that they don't have jump drives, and have fled from planet Cygnus Prime. 3 of them were lost. So in this case, the Chronos is a better thing to be on-board.

[Snail]

If you're in a convoy near a jump node speed most certainly does matter.

[Polpolion]

If you're in a convoy near a jump node speed most certainly does matter.

Yes, because all convoys definitely jump in ~10km from the node. No way they would just jump into the node and camp until their drives charged. No way they would jump in at an appropriate distance to the node so the exact moment they arrived, their drives would be charged with no time lost.

Speed is needed for freighters and transports. Remember the 2 Vasudan transports in "Surrender, Belisarius!" ? In the briefing it says that they don't have jump drives, and have fled from planet Cygnus Prime. 3 of them were lost. So in this case, the Chronos is a better thing to be on-board.

Speed is not necessary for them because they're ****ed no matter what they do without a jump drive. Even if they flew at 2000 m/s they wouldn't be getting anywhere quickly.

[Snail]

Yes, because all convoys definitely jump in ~10km from the node. No way they would just jump into the node and camp until their drives charged. No way they would jump in at an appropriate distance to the node so the exact moment they arrived, their drives would be charged with no time lost.

Yeah, and they didn't do that in all the escort missions why?

[colecampbell666]

Mainly for safety, they don't want to jump onto a ship.

[Droid803]

Mainly for safety, they don't want to jump onto a ship.

Doesn't stop them from getting hit by ships coming out from the node, though (like in Transcend wit the Gas Miner).

[Snail]

There was nothing coming IN during Exodus, Hammer and the Anvil or Paving the Way.

[colecampbell666]

Mainly for safety, they don't want to jump onto a ship.

Doesn't stop them from getting hit by ships coming out from the node, though (like in Transcend wit the Gas Miner).

Yes, but when they recharge as they're flying in, they are more out of the way of node traffic, they're only vulnerable for a few seconds when near the node.

[Herra Tohtori]

This argument is about as irrelevant as is comparing Hercules C-130 to an Airbus A-380 cargo plane and deciding which is "better" only based on some of their stats.

Chronos was and is supposed to be a frontline freighter, designed and used during war time. Triton is newer, was designed, built and used by civvies after the Great War had ended, and Chronos freighters were most likely being phased out and replaced in military use by the Argo, which is pretty big, offers more protection for cargo - you can't blow out the container when the cargo is inside the ship. Bigger cargo still requires containers and stuff, but I would think big and expensive stuff like entire Ursas would be transported by destroyers anyway...

For civilian use, Triton wins. For frontline use, the Chronos is better as long as you require exposed cargo containers, but for most military purposes, a transport ship like Argo is better than any freighter, so... I'd say as a freighter, Triton wins because "freight" is inherently civilian term. For transporting payload or military cargo in a hostile environment, Chronos is better.

[Polpolion]

Yes, because all convoys definitely jump in ~10km from the node. No way they would just jump into the node and camp until their drives charged. No way they would jump in at an appropriate distance to the node so the exact moment they arrived, their drives would be charged with no time lost.

Yeah, and they didn't do that in all the escort missions why?

Good question. Do you have an answer (gameplay aside) as to why they did? They could have easily bypassed  those sentry guns and stuff. And if they, did, they would've had that deimos to help protect them while their drives charged.

[Snail]

Good question. Do you have an answer (gameplay aside) as to why they did? They could have easily bypassed  those sentry guns and stuff. And if they, did, they would've had that deimos to help protect them while their drives charged.

The common theory that Jump Nodes disrupt the subspace around them, really.

Chronos was and is supposed to be a frontline freighter, designed and used during war time.

Nope, the Chronos is a civilian freighter:

The Chronos is a freighter of civilian design. As the Terran Vasudan war dragged on, more and more of these vessels were commissioned by the GTA for use in military operations. These vessels are slow but strong.

[Herra Tohtori]

Interesting, though not all the tech descriptions make much sense (like Artemis DH having better performance than standard Artemis) but I guess they are the best source for information anyway...

I'd like to pose a question though - was the Chronos designed prior to TV-war or during the early years of it? Also, entering the realm of speculation it's entirely probable that the GTA fitted it with additional armour for military ops.

Rest of my message is still valid, if not quite as strong for my initial point about the relevance of the debate.

[colecampbell666]

Well it appears in TVWP, while it's not canon, it's semi-canon. Also, the Chronos has been in service for "20 years" according to the tech description. (I think)

The freighter in TVWP is not the Chronos, rather the previous version.

[Snail]

Well it appears in TVWP, while it's not canon, it's semi-canon. Also, the Chronos has been in service for "20 years" according to the tech description. (I think)

How the **** is TVWP semi-canon?

[colecampbell666]

Semi, as it is well done, is true to the style of , is the only well done pre-FS mod...