[Killer Whale]

If you had to rebuild the GTVA fleets, what would you do? Would you continue mass producing the out-dated Colossus? Would you mass-produce Terran Maras (if that's possible? Would you build frigates, Carriers and Dreadnoughts, or Juggernauts? Would you build prototypes of heaps of differant ships getting better and better and never mass produce anything. Would you upgrade your present fleets before building newer ones? Would you continue refurbishing your fleet such as before capella? Would you make sure, once and for all, to quell any signs of that damn draining rebellion? Or would you sit back trying to get your hands on as much money as possible and hope the shivans have disappeared forever?
What would you do?




- What I think -
Personally. I think it would be smart to update the Colossus design a little to make it more modern, such as a Colossus DH, less slashers, more BGreens, a couple of beams the equal of a BFGreen or LRBGreen. A little faster, a differant rotation point and rapid-fire lasers such as Morning Stars rather than terran turrets. Mass produce that.
Build a heavy anti-capital ship destroyer, eg. Hatshepsut or better Raynor. A small but feisty warship, eg. Deimos or better Iceni. Build a few of them.
Build a long range, high powered beam with a few engines slapped on, eg. Apothess. Build a few of them.
Build a carrier class destroyer, eg. Miniature Warlock. Build a few of them.
For very important nodes or very threatened ones, slowly construct large, heavily armoured and armed instillations around them. Smaller than a Melia but similar.
Replace the great-war era Arcadias with beam armed instillations with instillations like the Arcas, except a little less powerful cause I think they fall under Inferno R1 syndrome.
Build a new transport such as that GTL Anemone to be able to withstand harder punishment.


For fighters, concentrate less on them, but building good fighters such as Terran Maras (if that's possible), Erinyes, Perseuses, rather than bothering with better and more advanced fighters.

Abandon cruiser construction as was already started by FS2
Abandon Hecates, they just are too badly designed to defend, are hard to be familiar with and are not great anti-capitally.
Abandon warships that fall under: all in one, one of a kind, uber-powerful, but quick to be destroyed by shivan warships.

[NGTM-1R]

Bring the Aeolus back, perhaps updated, or develop a cut-down cheaper version with similar capablities and fewer anticapital beams. Cruisers can be built and crewed more quickly than corvettes.
Halt the decommisioning of older destroyers and cruisers. Recommisioning and refit. (My own Leviathan Block 2 and Orion Block 3 classes are based on this concept.)
Development of modular ship classes to allow adaption for mission-specific roles with minimal effort if possible. (The modeled but never completed H-class corvettes and Mercury-class cruisers I have.)
Emphasis on further development of the ETAK project with a view towards its use as Signals Intelligence in the next war.
Compeletion of scheduled and already under construction Mentu and Hectate-class ships, prior to retooling for different designs; a keel-up modernized rebuild of the Orion would be a good start for the Hectate.
Development and deployment of a small, preferably fighter-deployable, weapon capable of collapsing a subspace node.
Tactical and strategic reemphasis; offensive operations must be stressed against the Shivans as the GTVA cannot fight them defensively and hope to win. If possible they must be located and fought well beyond the GTVA's borders.
Development and exploration of Knossos technology with an eye towards using it as a door-shutter on subspace nodes, if possible.
Massive military spending with an eye towards improving the GTVA's current military infrastructure and ability to mobilize as much of the populace as possible in case of need. (Note the "possible" as opposed to "reasonable"; leaving your civilian economy in ruins is acceptable. Extinction is not. Being able to mobilize one adult in three for military service should be the objective.)

[Killer Whale]

What's a hectate? Hecate or a user-made ship I haven't heard of?

PS. I'll be away for 10 days in case anyone's wondering why I haven't replied.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Build the GTC Boreas.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Something I think would be useful are "monitor"-vessels, like the Lilith. Imagine a Mentu with a BVas on the front. They could operate in groups and have a double subspace drive; imagine four/five of these jumping onto a Ravana, firing their beams and destroying it in a matter of seconds, then jump out again before the Shivans can send reinforcements.

The Hecate would do very well for a system-wide command vessel, dispatching fighters and bombers to anywhere needed. It would be escorted by some Deimos and/or Sobek corvettes.

The Hattie is very useful as an all-round heavy ship, combining the role of battleship and carrier. For heavy engagements, these would certainly come in handy. They're (fairly) well defended against fighters/bombers, it has quite some firepower and it can deliver fighters and bombers directly on the place of the battle.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I thought the Sobek was the Vasudans' monitor.

[Killer Whale]

Build the GTC Boreas.

Rapidfire BFGreen on a Cruiser?!! That's so unbalanced.

[Snail]

If we assume the Shivans are going to return with their Sath fleet, I'd build something for hit-and-run strikes. It's clear that there is little to no way you're going to be able to defend against the entire Shivan fleet, it's simply not viable as an option.

Large ships like the Colossus are absolutely useless really, they're far too big and not nearly versatile enough. They can only be in one place at one time, they're a huge target, the Shivans will obviously attack it and it's a hard ****er to defend. If I had a choice between having 10 Deimoses or 1 Colossus, despite the Deimoses being weaker in a one-on-one battle, I'd take them. They can do more things at once.

When the Shivans return with their Saths, what we have to think about is guerrilla warfare. Just think about it. The Shivans have 80 juggernauts - We don't have half a hope in hell of fighting that monstrous armada in a normal fight. If we fight a war of attrition and bog down the Shivans, we'll have much more of a chance driving them off and surviving.

Creating a fleet of small, versatile hit-and-run ships on a similar basis to the Ravana is the best way to go. But instead of sending these guys on suicidal missions and making them sitting ducks, we send them in to attack a target, and then have them retreat into an asteroid field or some such. Go where the Shivans aren't likely to follow.


A group of small ships with a lot of initial firepower is a lot more likely to survive than one hunking big target.

[Uchuujinsan]

I think it was intended that ONLY the Colosseus had the firepower do destroy a Sath completely, anyone else could only damage it.

I would build a lot of (updated) Aelous' and Sobeks, together with fighters - don't underestimate the cost of large ships. Hecate as pure carriers, scrap that anti-cap weapons on the ship. Or Orions, they were pretty good carriers.
If I would build a giant ship, I would concentrate on armor. If it looks dangerous, the enemy (the shivans) will concentrate their fire on it, it just needs to buy time for the rest of the fleet to obliterate the enemy.
As secondary ability either fighters/bombers or a single, heavy beam cannon for finishing blows, recharge time doesnt matter.
Well. but Sobek is a strong ship vs other caps, probably quite cheap and still decent anti-fighter capability, while Aeolous is the death to all fighters, so I would make them the backbone of the fleet - a lot of them.

[Knight Templar]

I would mass produce 80 new Colossus D.H.s (they're DH because they're black and have skulls on them and have all-beam cannons) and then fill them with 600 wings of terran maras each, all using kaysers and trebuchets. The Shivans and Vasudans wouldn't stand a chance.

[admiral_wolf]

Hang on, we've just lost our adopted home planet, lost many many members of the GTVA and civilians as well as lose a proportion of our active flight crew and ships...and there is the slight problem of the many thousands of refugees from Capella still in Deep Space.  I've said it before, rehoming these nomads is the GTVA's priority.  I feel the GTVA should instead of rebuilding the fleet for years to come, they should focus on the task of building an operational Knossos in Delta Serpentis.

The Shivans are supposedly locked in Capella, they are the least of our worries.

[Kie99]

If the Shivans want to kill you, you're not going to survive a fight.  The only realistic medium-long term solution is to place at least one decommisioned destroyer in every inhabited system, fill them with Meson bombs and fit them with subspace drives, and once Shivans are found coming out of a node, detonate the destroyer in the node.

[Snail]

I would mass produce 80 new Colossus D.H.s (they're DH because they're black and have skulls on them and have all-beam cannons) and then fill them with 600 wings of terran maras each, all using kaysers and trebuchets. The Shivans and Vasudans wouldn't stand a chance.

Oh come now, don't be a silly Billy.


But srs. I'd emphasize mobility and versatility. My super corvettes would probably have (albeit limited) fighter deployment facilities too (to increase its tactical and strategic ability).

[IronBeer]

If the Shivans want to kill you, you're not going to survive a fight.  The only realistic medium-long term solution is to place at least one decommisioned destroyer in every inhabited system, fill them with Meson bombs and fit them with subspace drives, and once Shivans are found coming out of a node, detonate the destroyer in the node.

That sentiment should be a good indicator of the fact that we were really in the Shivans' way during the events of FS2. But, yeah. Hit-and run ships. I personally think a large number of smaller capital ships built around oversized beam cannons would be our best bet- think Ion Cannon Frigates from Homeworld. We *need* a Colossus- type ship. Why? Inspiration, firstly, but also as something that can challenge a Juggernaut one-on-one. Perhaps build an oversized Ravana- something that can swoop in from the poorly-defended rear of a Sath, blast it, and scram before more hostiles show up. Hit-and-run juggernaut... I'm liking the idea more as I think about it.
Beam cannons changed the face of capital ship combat irreversibly. Fights are a LOT faster with beams in play, and strike craft carry far more potent weapons now. I say our best bet is to emulate our foe's tactics.

[louiswuenator]

How about getting some Vasudan engineers to optimize and supercharge the reactor they designed for the Deimos. Then replace it's 4 Tslash beams with Vslash beams and all AAAf's get replaced with ULTRAaaa's too.  Deimos Armada!

[colecampbell666]

Focus on more specialized ships
- Apothess type destroyers with two large, long range beams and redundant subspace drives. One to jump in, destroy a Juggernaut, and jump out instantly.
- Carriers-type ships, light-medium weaponry and many point-defense turrets
- Aeolus type cruisers with many anti-fighter weapons.
- More corvettes, all with small fighterbays, one design focusing on escort, the other on hit-and-run, a smaller Apothess.
- Complete integration of the Terran and Vasudan fleets.
- Massive colonization and exploration efforts.
- Research on ETAK.
- Ships focusing more on reactor power and survivability.
- Node fortification, with 360^o firing solutions on ships as they exit.
- A reliable way to quickly collapse nodes, present redundantly in every system.
- Knossos technology research.
- Decommissioning of older ships rather than upgrading, focusing on producing and achieving a majority of modular, uniform and easily upgradeable ships.
- More specialized fighters, super-fast interceptors, maneuverable yet powerful assault fighters, well-defended bombers.
- several well-designed, easily defensible super juggernauts, think SCa Shiamak; super powerful, massive fighter bays, and small-ship production facilities.
- better evacuation and colonization procedures and technologies, more defensible/defense-capable installations.

[Snail]

Why no upgrading?

[colecampbell666]

Older ships get more and more maintenance heavy, and are not as modular (from what we can see from the GTVA) I don't mean stop altogether, but once the amount of new ships is on par with the old, start phasing them out and recycling them.

[Blue Lion]

Do we even know why the Aeolus stopped production?

[Droid803]

I think it was stated that it was expensive, and that it was horribly outgunned or something (which isn't the case, it's the best-armed non-shivan cruiser, and it can even beat a Rakshasa.)