[Mobius]

Mobius, the creator names the created.  When you make a model, you can call it whatever you want.

Got it...afterall, Jackal is pretty much like Scarab so it should work

I know...Anubis is one of the coolest Egyptian Gods...the problem is that the name "Jackal" itself doesn't fit well for a Vasudan ship.

Well, there's Scarab....the scarab was a very important animal back then...but it's a support ship...I don't know if a fighter could have a name that is just connected to ancient Egypt and nothing more.

Scarab gives precedence for non-diety names. Whether it's a support ship or not is irrelevant. Jackal has significance in Ancient Egypt too, not really good significance, since the one website I found the Jackals ravaged graves of the deceased. He could always name it "Domesticated Cat" but that would be goofy.


Back on topic. Only thing with the Jackal concept though, is if the Vasudans have a drone fighter, why do they carry out suicide attacks with the Anubis instead of the Jackal? Or is the assumption that all Jackals were converted to the Anubis?

The importance of a ship is somewhat connected to its name. The Watchdog is nothing but a sentry gun...nobody would have liked a GTF Watchdog(or Hound, for that matter).

Maybe the Vasudans found out that drones are easy to hijack and light subsystem damage inflicted to a drone can turn a kamikaze run into a failure...

[Snail]

The Vasudans easily reprogrammed a few sentry guns in Tenderizer which can sometimes take out a few of your wingmen if they're too close.

(though the explosion from an exploding fighter takes out all the other sentry guns)

[Mobius]

The Terrans could have been able to reprogram the drones...imagine a capship battle...a Typhon launches several wings of Jackal drones programmed to perform a kamikaze run on an Orion...the Terrans reprogram the Jackals...they change their target and point to the Typhon...

Such an accident should be enough to justify the presence of kamikaze pilots...

[Snail]

I believe this is the reason that upgraded Amazons aren't used in real battles.

[Mobius]

By generalizing we can say that this is the reason why no one in FreeSpace relies on drones...

[Polpolion]

The Terrans could have been able to reprogram the drones...imagine a capship battle...a Typhon launches several wings of Jackal drones programmed to perform a kamikaze run on an Orion...the Terrans reprogram the Jackals...they change their target and point to the Typhon...

Such an accident should be enough to justify the presence of kamikaze pilots...

How exactly would a terran destroyer during combat manage to reprogram several wings of fighter craft that are likely protected from hacking by some means?

[Aardwolf]

The Terrans could have been able to reprogram the drones...imagine a capship battle...a Typhon launches several wings of Jackal drones programmed to perform a kamikaze run on an Orion...the Terrans reprogram the Jackals...they change their target and point to the Typhon...

Such an accident should be enough to justify the presence of kamikaze pilots...

How exactly would a terran destroyer during combat manage to reprogram several wings of fighter craft that are likely protected from hacking by some means?

Yeah, it probably wouldn't be that easy... but if the Terrans had been working on it for several months, they might be able to come up with a working signal or whatever to override the security stuffs remotely... it might be a good move in a surprise situation, especially if you could somehow get the Vasudans to devote more resources to building them beforehand

[Mobius]

Expert crew aboard the ship using the multiple relay to send a tranmission able to compromise the drones' effectiveness in combat by turning the Jackals against the Typhon? And what if the drones can be hacked all at once since their orders can be changed all on the same frequency?

There are 10,000 people aboard an Orion. 5-10 of them should have enough spare time to do that.

[Snail]

10,000 people is a lot of crew. Considering the Star Trek creators could get away with having 5 people maintaining an entire ship, I don't see why 10,000 people being able to reprogram a few drones or sentry guns such a hard thing to believe.

[Mobius]

...especially if the Vasudans had the misfortune of facing a GTI Orion...

[Droid803]

Well, I doubt they'd be hacked the firts time, but eventually, especially if one were captured, hacking them would be quite possible.

[Mobius]

Maybe not the first time...and you know, a trap doesn't work two times with a wolf...

[Snail]

Second time you just pull out the nukes.

[Polpolion]

Well, I doubt they'd be hacked the firts time, but eventually, especially if one were captured, hacking them would be quite possible.

If they get captured, then I doubt that the zods would be stupid enough leave the same security features on the ships that weren't captured. And I doubt any would be captured ever, because the zods would probably just self destruct them when they got into the hanger bay, or there would probably be some fallback security routine for it to self destruct when the drone is crippled enough to be captured.

Reprogramming stuff isn't as simple as people would like to make it seem. If a Typhon jumps in and starts launching Jackals at an Orion, I'd guess that the people on the Orion have about 5 minutes tops before fighters start impacting their hull. Why do you think they don't reprogram bomb's guidance systems? Why would the zods need to put a difference in between a bomb's guidance system and a kamikaze drone's guidance system?

[Spicious]

Since they're being used specifically for kamikaze, why not just have no external communications?

[Trivial Psychic]

If they get captured, then I doubt that the zods would be stupid enough leave the same security features on the ships that weren't captured. And I doubt any would be captured ever, because the zods would probably just self destruct them when they got into the hanger bay, or there would probably be some fallback security routine for it to self destruct when the drone is crippled enough to be captured.

Three letters: E.M.P.  An EMP hit would overload and knock out all systems, preventing any communications to trigger a self destruct.  You could however, say "well they could just shield them from EMP", but ships even in the FS2 era are still susceptible to EMP, so that idea's gone.  I could perhaps see there being a firmware reboot system in place, but there'd be a window of opportunity to capture one and interrupt the reboot system.

[Spicious]

How would you interrupt the reboot?
I expect it wouldn't be too hard to implement a sort of dead man's switch if avoiding capture is that important.

Of course, the no communication method doesn't really have any problems with captured drones.

[Mars]

Uh... isn't an EMP burst akin to getting struck by lightening for circuits? In freespace these circuits are repaired over time (presumably by nanomachinery) but a "firmware reboot" doesn't work if the hardware itself has been effectively fried.

[Polpolion]

If they get captured, then I doubt that the zods would be stupid enough leave the same security features on the ships that weren't captured. And I doubt any would be captured ever, because the zods would probably just self destruct them when they got into the hanger bay, or there would probably be some fallback security routine for it to self destruct when the drone is crippled enough to be captured.

Three letters: E.M.P.  An EMP hit would overload and knock out all systems, preventing any communications to trigger a self destruct.  You could however, say "well they could just shield them from EMP", but ships even in the FS2 era are still susceptible to EMP, so that idea's gone.  I could perhaps see there being a firmware reboot system in place, but there'd be a window of opportunity to capture one and interrupt the reboot system.

Any EMP that is powerful enough to knock out the functional capabilities of a ship is liable to corrupt and destroy any useful information. And any nanomachinery that would possibly repair the equipment would be destroyed as well. The ship would still be intact, but it wouldn't be able to operate.

If this isn't the case, then given what happens in game: The disable time isn't long enough to disable the self-destruct saftey, and it would just self destruct when it reboots if physically attempted to be hauled away via a freighter or something.

[General Battuta]

How are drones any different from manned fighters when it comes to vulnerability to hacking or EMP?

They're both controlled completely electronically.