Author Topic: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA  (Read 24676 times)

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Offline General Battuta

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
Unless the simulators are ungodly expensive.

As usual, it's all speculation, and you can basically come up with whatever answers you want.

  

Offline Mobius

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
Simulators are a standard issue.

Also, they can't be more expensive than fuel, missiles, fighters, cruisers and so on. You need to blow stuff up in training missions, and it's expensive. It happens in Real Life as well - pilots do test their skills by using weapons.

It may be speculation, but you need damn good proof to prove that wrong. How can a simulator be less convenient than actual field training? If it's not convenient, what's the point in having a simulator in the first place? :wtf:
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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
Pilots do have there own airplanes as shown here:- http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=70267 look below the cockpit and you will see the pilots name and rank

This is a common misconception. Though the names are painted on the planes, the planes remain interchangeable (as they should be). It is actually a rare flight when the average pilot flies the plane with his name on it.
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Offline Blue Lion

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
In FS2 I can pick from a number of ships. Do I have one of each of those with my name on it? I doubt it.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
Simulators are a standard issue.

Also, they can't be more expensive than fuel, missiles, fighters, cruisers and so on. You need to blow stuff up in training missions, and it's expensive. It happens in Real Life as well - pilots do test their skills by using weapons.

It may be speculation, but you need damn good proof to prove that wrong. How can a simulator be less convenient than actual field training? If it's not convenient, what's the point in having a simulator in the first place? :wtf:


I, personally, agree that good simulators would make flight training easier and cheaper, but the Tevs probably do as much live flight training as we do (for much the same reasons), and in any case, if you want expensive pilots for your campaign, it seems justifiable as well.

 

Offline Killer Whale

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
I remember hereing something somewhere where they spend millions of dollars transporting old aircraft around, fitting them with expensive remote control technology, moving them around some more, before finally sending all those millions and millions of dollars worth of an aircraft to the US where it is blown up by a pilot in training.

 

Offline Mobius

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
I, personally, agree that good simulators would make flight training easier and cheaper, but the Tevs probably do as much live flight training as we do (for much the same reasons), and in any case, if you want expensive pilots for your campaign, it seems justifiable as well.

Yet again, you're throwing in stuff like "your campaign" even if we're discussing canon here.

Back on topic, there definitely are field training missions at the time of FS2, but probably not that many. Advanced simulators can, in fact, simulate whatever it's needed to get sufficiently close to reality.

Imagine how devastating an interception mission can be without a simulator.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
I, personally, agree that good simulators would make flight training easier and cheaper, but the Tevs probably do as much live flight training as we do (for much the same reasons), and in any case, if you want expensive pilots for your campaign, it seems justifiable as well.

Yet again, you're throwing in stuff like "your campaign" even if we're discussing canon here.

Back on topic, there definitely are field training missions at the time of FS2, but probably not that many. Advanced simulators can, in fact, simulate whatever it's needed to get sufficiently close to reality.


My point is that you can interpret canon however you want for your campaign, and if that includes pointing out that pilots are expensive and rare, then go for it.

Here, case in point. Let's take your assertion that simulators are realistic. Well, can they simulate G-forces realistically? You could say 'yes, sure, the GTVA has artificial gravity.' Or, 'no, the artificial gravity units are too large for an individual simulator system.'

So here's a case where you could make arguments both for and against the need for in-cockpit training.

Quote
Imagine how devastating an interception mission can be without a simulator.

What?


 

Offline Mobius

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
You don't need artificial gravity to simulate G-forces. Even now it's possible to simulate them (in a somewhat limited way).
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
You don't need artificial gravity to simulate G-forces. Even now it's possible to simulate them (in a somewhat limited way).

You can, but it's not easy and it's not responsive, and it's not done in most simulators.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
Here, case in point. Let's take your assertion that simulators are realistic. Well, can they simulate G-forces realistically? You could say 'yes, sure, the GTVA has artificial gravity.' Or, 'no, the artificial gravity units are too large for an individual simulator system.'

Because the GTVA has no gravitic weapons, I tend to think their form of artificial gravity is under technical limitations that would render this impractical.

However, I think Mobius is operating under a false conception here. The training missions you undertake in FS2 are shipboard simulator because they take place under very different circumstances from those in FS1.

FS1's training missions took a place in a system that was more or less secured, and the situation was not urgent. The GTA had just taken terrible pilot losses and the Galatea was probably integrating a lot of rookies into her fightercraft complement, and a lot of new fightercraft too, so they were taking their time and had a lot of factory-new fighters that needed to be checked out and a lot of new pilots who needed to be checked out on them, as well as a group of veterans who needed a chance to gain confidence in their new wingmen. Simulators cannot impart confidence the way actual flight can, and Galatea's large group of rookies needed that confidence...and possibly extra live-flight training considering the 14 years of war tends to wreck the pre-line-assignment training schedule.

FS2's training missions take place in a situation of some urgency; the Aquitaine is on its way to lead a GTVA counterattack against the NTF. The destroyer has not been commited to combat recently and has a rate of pilot turnover more approximating peacetime; few rookies, mainly career pilots. The need of the moment is to fill out the small gaps in the aerospace group roster, not to integrate it; it already is integrated. The war has been going on for eighteen months, which means that even if training programs were accelerated the day it started Alpha 1 would still only be the graduate of the first or second class of accelerated training, and the need for further in-the-field training is not yet fully appreciated. Live flight training was thus both impractical and (thought to be?) unnecessary.

The GTVA, like any military organization since even crude simulation flying was possible, doubtless prefers real flight time to simulation. It simply wasn't going to happen in FS2 because of exterior factors.
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Offline Mobius

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
I know that FS1's training was actual field training and I also know that before starting any training simulation in FS2 the briefing states that sims aren't intended to replace field training.

Yet still, claiming that training pilots at the time of FS2 is so expensive compared to the rest is a bit bogus as assumption. Remember that we have factions building kilometers-long ships.
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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
Yet still, claiming that training pilots at the time of FS2 is so expensive compared to the rest is a bit bogus as assumption. Remember that we have factions building kilometers-long ships.

Which is terribly easy to do since the assembly is being done in zero gravity and these ships live in zero gravity. Not a meaningful comparison.
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Offline Lucika

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
Well, one thing is sure. There aren't ever any actual field training missions with a supernova.
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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
To answer the debate on number of pilots vs fighter craft. I have always felt, and something the History Channel has confirmed, that both pilots and fighters present on a ship have reserves. Because of the need to maintain combat effectiveness it is common for spare pilots and fighters to be kept onboard a ship for purposes of re-constituting a fighting force after a fierce battle. If the battle never comes then they may be transferred to where they are needed, but in the case of the GTVA I can't see them doing this too much in FS1 as they never had a dedicated frontline to hold. They were constantly on the move backward. In either case I would imagine a GTVA ship fresh out of dry dock with a full compliment of crew, pilots, and fighter craft being equivalent to 1.5 times the full compliment this means you have your full compliment of pilots and craft and a 50% reserve of both in case the bantha poo hits the fan. The 50% reserve regardless is vitally important if a ship, say the GVD Psamtik, got into a intense battle and had no reserves then after the fight was over she'd be without the means to defend herself with fighter and bomber craft this means her flak guns better be auto hitting because she gonna go down without the support. It also means if the Psamtik during the fight was to suffer a unforseen tactical maneuver on the part of the enemy she'd be without bombers and fighters to cover so she'd be one slow, big fast ass waiting to be destroyed... Obviously the cost to produce one Hatshepsut class destroyer far outweights it's compliment of fighters and bombers. Both crew and vessel wise. So I think the GTVA would be very happy to keep reserves on hand for those.... "In case sith happens" times.

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
But if you have 50% reserves for both pilots and craft.... Isn't that exactly the same as having a 50% larger fighter complement?  Really, what battle is going to be so fierce that they lost all their fighters, but not fierce enough to scramble the reserves?

 

Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
A battle with the Shivans, probably, and if Command deems it as a total washout, they probably won't order any reserve fighters to be sortied for all battles.
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Offline eliex

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
But if you have 50% reserves for both pilots and craft.... Isn't that exactly the same as having a 50% larger fighter complement?  Really, what battle is going to be so fierce that they lost all their fighters, but not fierce enough to scramble the reserves?

Kinda depends on the scale, but in any case I'd have to say harassment raids against minor targets. Effective in the long term plan but if all fighters were neutralized by escort, it wouldn't be worth deploying more reinforcements.
I doubt that Command would deploy all their reserve fighters immediately unless for a really important reason . . . similar to what AE said.  :nod:

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
Anyone whose undertaken any kind of Defence Force sponsored/run Leadership training will know that one thing they stress to you is the importance of using your reserves as reserves, rather than as a compliment to your fighting force, I see it as extremely unlikely forces on "Reserve duty" would be deployed regularly, after all we don't know if active squadrons are rotated to reserve squadrons to give them a rest during the war.

 

Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: Total strength of GTA, PVE and GTVA
I think each squadron has enough pilots to conduct rotations within each squadron itself. However, if a squadron has too few pilots, it is probably put into reserve, and only when it has sufficient numbers of skilled pilots is it brought out of reserve.
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