Author Topic: Evacuation of the Galatea  (Read 5894 times)

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Offline admiral_wolf

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Evacuation of the Galatea
Something struck me about this event at work today (entirely random given that I work at a railway station).  My namesake I believe made a very critical error.  The Comms. Officer issues this message:

"We are beginning the evacuation procedure, keep them away from the escape pods!"

But why only launch 4 Hermes!?  I cannot see why an Orion would only have 4 pods on board.  Also, why only skirmish 4 fighters when you're being attacked with no method of escape.  At the most, there are 9 fighters (and one of those is Alpha 1 in a Medusa...) covering both the escape of personnel and defending the striken craft.

To me, it would have made more sense to recall Alpha and Beta as soon as Eva went down, destroy the first attack wings, then launch two wings of fighters.  Then and only then launch the Hermes.  That way:

More assets i.e. fighters, and trained pilots will survive, given that they are off the destoryer

The escape pods have more chance of survival as they have more escort


I suppose one could say that the fighter bay became damaged in the firefight, but I didn't think this was canonically possible?

Anyway that's my mamma!
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Offline Snail

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
Probably most of the pilots had already been deployed throughout Deneb to attack other positions and were either occupied or already dead.

As for why they only launched 4 Hermes escape pods, it's likely because they're idiots. Canonically a Hermes only carries 20 people, so only 80 people would have escaped. Assuming that the Galatea was at full crew capacity (10,000), less than 1% of the crew escaped. :doubt:

 

Offline Commander Zane

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
Evacuate the "important" people and sod the rest? :P

It's FreeSpace, it wouldn't make sense to actually take the time to use a proper defense wing. ;)
Remember the almighty mission to destroy the Sathanas? Colossus, bomber wing, no escort. ;7

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
I agree that they should launch everything they had on Galatea, including fighters, bombers, personnel transports, everything.
Though I'm unsure how the engine would handle 500 Hermeses in those days (even now SCP isn't capable of that, it has ship limit of 400 per mission).

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
I often agonize over how possible it is for a GTVA destroyer to launch an alpha strike or what exactly would constitute a full deck strike for them. On one level, with 150 spacecraft, simply keeping 20 of them in action constantly is a major challenge. In WW2, until late 1944 a fleet carrier not engaged in a major action rarely had more than twenty aircraft in the air at any one time, and CAP/ASW patrol duties rotated between ships. Yet they proved capable of throwing a tremendous number of aircraft out at one time if called for; a single US carrier could throw a strike of 60 to 75 aircraft and still have fighters left for ship defense; a Japanese carrier could respond with 50 to 60. A Nimitz is capable of embarking about 105 aircraft in theory, but their air groups are smaller than that, 60 to 75. They rarely have more than 15 aloft at any one time, but at a "surge" operational tempo a Nimitz can keep 45 or 50 (at least) of its aircraft aloft at any one time, for up to two weeks.

GTVA destroyers, for whatever reason, do not seem able to do this kind of thing in the games. They can launch at up to three at a time at minimum, and we know of no functional time limit between launches to explain why they don't launch more fightercraft. Either everything they have is deployed, combat launches are extremely dangerous (let's face it, having an Ursa with a load of bombs detonate in the hanger from enemy fire is going to **** you up), or the computers FS was designed for weren't meant to handle such things and they make it terribly difficult for a single person to contribute. Or some combination of the three.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2009, 05:50:22 pm by NGTM-1R »
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Offline Spoon

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
Evacuate the "important" people and sod the rest? :P
Men and officers first!
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[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
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Offline Snail

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
I often agonize over how possible it is for a GTVA destroyer to launch an alpha strike or what exactly would constitute a full deck strike for them. On one level, with 150 spacecraft, simply keeping 20 of them in action constantly is a major challenge. In WW2, until late 1944 a fleet carrier not engaged in a major action rarely had more than twenty aircraft in the air at any one time, and CAP/ASW patrol duties rotated between ships. Yet they proved capable of throwing a tremendous number of aircraft out at one time if called for; a single US carrier could throw a strike of 60 to 75 aircraft and still have fighters left for ship defense; a Japanese carrier could respond with 50 to 60. A Nimitz is capable of embarking about 105 aircraft in theory, but their air groups are smaller than that, 60 to 75. They rarely have more than 15 aloft at any one time, but at a "surge" operational tempo a Nimitz can keep 45 or 50 (at least) of its aircraft aloft at any one time, for up to two weeks.

GTVA destroyers, for whatever reason, do not seem able to do this kind of thing in the games. They can launch at up to three at a time at minimum, and we know of no functional time limit between launches to explain why they don't launch more fightercraft. Either everything they have is deployed, combat launches are extremely dangerous (let's face it, having an Ursa with a load of bombs detonate in the hanger from enemy fire is going to **** you up), or the computers FS was designed for weren't meant to handle such things and they make it terribly difficult for a single person to contribute. Or some combination of the three.
I've always thought it had something to do with the logistics of launching more than a few fighters at once. These things are a lot more advanced than F-15s and such, they have infinitely recharging afterburners, multi-kiloton pea shooters, lasers, etc. Although a destroyer may be able to carry 150+ spacecraft at once, it might be incapable of actually deploying all of them at the same time.

Evacuate the "important" people and sod the rest? :P
Men and officers first!
Well, Admiral Wolf on that particular occasion stayed behind.

 

Offline Aardwolf

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
Hm yeah, I've always been disappointed that "scramble the fighters" really just means "launch 4-12 fighters and then promptly die or, if you're lucky, be rescued by a 21st century gamer who hasn't bothered to challenge themselves with the higher difficulty levels".

Edit: but what would fighters have been able to do for the Galatea, except maybe carry their pilots to another Destroyer? Or did you expect the pilots to try to deliberately place their fighters between the Shivan Super Lasers and their targets? I've actually tried to do it once, but it's basically impossible, and even if you could, you'd be dead and the AI wingmen won't be too keen on following suit. That and if you somehow managed to keep the Galatea from going down, you'd never be able to finish the mission without getting a desertion debrief.

Edit the Second: Maybe something sort of like that scene in BSG where

Spoiler:
the Pegasus launches every remaining ship that was fast enough to get out of the hangar as she charged full speed into the enemy basestar
« Last Edit: July 17, 2009, 08:05:08 pm by Aardwolf »

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
I've always thought it had something to do with the logistics of launching more than a few fighters at once. These things are a lot more advanced than F-15s and such, they have infinitely recharging afterburners, multi-kiloton pea shooters, lasers, etc. Although a destroyer may be able to carry 150+ spacecraft at once, it might be incapable of actually deploying all of them at the same time.

The problem with that is there's a certain formula to the logistics of it that makes having backup craft, beyond a certain number, a pointless exercise. In modern terms that number is pretty much nil; around WW2 it was 5 active for one backup or so. If the alternative is to believe GTVA logistics or ship design is horribly inefficent, I'm going to pass on that.

Hm yeah, I've always been disappointed that "scramble the fighters" really just means "launch 4-12 fighters and then promptly die or, if you're lucky, be rescued by a 21st century gamer who hasn't bothered to challenge themselves with the higher difficulty levels".

I think his point basically is that fighters are expensive, y'know, and so are pilots, and if you can save them both you're obligated to try in much the same way that in WW2 when an inbound air raid was detected, all aircraft able to fly were launched so they wouldn't be absolute sitting ducks.
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Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
The evacuation of the Galatea reminds me of the Aquitaine in Argonautica. I think there were less than ten escape pods on the Hecate, and each contained non-essential personnel.
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Offline Spoon

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
Evacuate the "important" people and sod the rest? :P
Men and officers first!
Well, Admiral Wolf on that particular occasion stayed behind.
With only space for 80, maybe he didn't had a choice  :p
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[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline TrashMan

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
Escape pods need a scale adjustment.

Well, that, or simply make a mission where several waves are launched one after another. Prefereably both.
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Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
Can escape pods be assigned into wings? :confused:
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Offline Dragon

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
Yes, in fact even capships can, but don't behave properly when there's more than one in wing.
There should be no problems with escape pods though.

 

Offline Snail

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
No, Escape Pods cannot be assigned to wings. They are some of the only craft that can't do so, along with sentry guns and jump nodes.

 

Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
What about cruisers?
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Offline Dragon

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
They can, but it may cause some problems with AI (it may start to act weird).
It's strange that escape pods cannot be in wings, but I see an easy workaround, just change their ship type from "Escape pod" to "Transport".
It should make grouping possible.

 
Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
I would say that it is largely a game-engine limitation.

There are many ways you could explain it away and still uphold the integrity of the mission.

-Orions go down rarely, especially those in the Galactic Terran fleet. When they do go down, they usually go down slowly. It is therefore possible that there may be few escape pods but several transports onboard, the escape pods may be very difficult to reach quickly, the crew could be badly drilled when it comes to escape pod discipline, etc.
-The escape pods or their launching mechanisms may have already been damaged.
-The "abandon ship" order may have been given too late.

As for the comparisons to WWII carriers to the craft of Freespace, look at the sheer size difference between a Hercules MK1 and a Grumman Wildcat. Seriously guys. They must eat fuel, be a ***** to maintain, be unweildy to get out of the hanger, be awkward to rearm, and a whole host of other limitations.

EDIT: And before the comparison of Orion vs WWII carrier size comes up, look at the flight deck, not the whole craft.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2009, 05:24:34 am by voidSkipper »

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
Quote
As for the comparisons to WWII carriers to the craft of Freespace, look at the sheer size difference between a Hercules MK1 and a Grumman Wildcat. Seriously guys. They must eat fuel, be a ***** to maintain, be unweildy to get out of the hanger, be awkward to rearm, and a whole host of other limitations.
Why do you assume that? It's how many years in the future? Why would they design and make horrible nightmares for the maintance crews like that? Besides, look how easy it is to rearm a craft in freespace. You just dock with a support ship and stuff is loaded in within the minute.
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[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline Commander Zane

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Re: Evacuation of the Galatea
And they have afterburner that recharges indefinately, why would they consume fuel?