[TrashMan]

The GTVA has learned enough from the Shivans to know that overspecialisation is not the right answer to creating a strong fleet.

Bollocks.
I ****ing hate this simple mentality. The Orion and Ravana difference is in weapon placement and numbers.


Firstly, there's absolutely NO sensible reason whatsoever to have ONLY non-specialized or overspecialized ships in the fleet. Why not have both?

Secondly, specialized ships can be very, very deadly, if used right. That compensates for their increased vulenrabilities.

Thirdly, if the enemy can jump in after you, you can jump out to get away. And he has to find you first. So technicly, such a thing as battle lines exists - fights occur near points of interest.

[BengalTiger]

Well the 'carrier' variant of the destroyer would need some form of anti-capship defense and some armor. Something like a Hecate with a second fighterbay instead of the beams on it's nose to give it a total capacity of 200-250 spacecraft- about the amount the Big 'C' had (and I know it would probably look ugly  ).

The 'battleship' variant would obviously use a small hangar. My idea is a slow Iceni with 2 BGreens (3 of these would have the combined BGreen firepower of a Big 'C') and a hangar for 20-30 ships in case the carrier's fighters are unavailable.


BTW- didn't the Ravana sink a few GTVA ships before being hunted down?

[IronBeer]

BTW- didn't the Ravana sink a few GTVA ships before being hunted down?[/color]

I think the first one nuked at least a Deimos or two...

[Droid803]

BTW- didn't the Ravana sink a few GTVA ships before being hunted down?[/color]

I think the first one nuked at least a Deimos or two...

It also got a destroyer, the Delacroix.

[Aardwolf]

BTW- didn't the Ravana sink a few GTVA ships before being hunted down?[/color]

You sank my battleship!

[TrashMan]

Well the 'carrier' variant of the destroyer would need some form of anti-capship defense and some armor. Something like a Hecate with a second fighterbay instead of the beams on it's nose to give it a total capacity of 200-250 spacecraft- about the amount the Big 'C' had (and I know it would probably look ugly  ).

The 'battleship' variant would obviously use a small hangar. My idea is a slow Iceni with 2 BGreens (3 of these would have the combined BGreen firepower of a Big 'C') and a hangar for 20-30 ships in case the carrier's fighters are unavailable.

I concur.

A "battleship" would either carry no fighters, or would only have a minimal fighterbay, for 1-2 wings. Interceptors and scouts.

A "carrier" would have SOME minimal anti-cap armament. After all, even todays sea carriers have some missiles and guns on them. Emphasis would be on fighter space.


Regarding armor and speed - you can play around with those. A battleship would have more armor, sure - but a carrier need not necessarily have paper-thin armor. Altough usually you'd build a carrier with speed in mind - that way he can keep out of the beam cannon range. After all, enemy ships don't always jump in weapons range.
Then again, things like "fast battleship" existed, and a battleship could be pretty fast itself. Depends on many thing.

[SypheDMar]

Back to the original topic:

The Alliance mourns the loss of the GTC Monitor. Thousands of courageous officers and crew sacrificed their lives for the GTVA.

The Alliance mourns the loss of the GTC Fortune. Thousands of courageous officers and crew sacrificed their lives for the GTVA.

The GTC Orff was destroyed during your watch. Dozens of lives were lost due to your poor performance.

[Droid803]

The Monitor is a Deimos corvette no?

[Timerlane]

The briefing calls it the GTA Monitor(and I don't think they'd send an AWACS to hold off an attack ), so it sounds like they hadn't completely decided what it was going to be, until the mission was already finished.

In light of that, I'd wonder if those two lines, being also identical, were more or less placeholders, whether they were actually correct numbers for a cruiser or not. Not that I'd dismiss it outright, but I'd take it as a secondary priority to any other sources.

The fact that the Orff is only crewed with 'dozens' seems kind of hilarious, though(technically correct, as long as there are more than 23 people on board).

[Dilmah G]

Well, I'd imagine the crew size changes depending on the ship's assignment.

[karajorma]

* karajorma is confused.

* karajorma is sure he won the argument against Trashman's idea of a battleship/carrier combo over 5 years ago.

For those of you coming in late, compare the GVA Orion against the GTVA Orion. The limiting factor on the number of beams a destroyer can mount is NOT internal space since they upgraded the Orion from no beams to its current state without having to reduce armour or fighter complement.

[QuantumDelta]

Fenris/Leviathan/Cain/Lilith/Aten are good examples of that too Kara.

[TrashMan]

* karajorma is confused.

* karajorma is sure he won the argument against Trashman's idea of a battleship/carrier combo over 5 years ago.

You never won any such argument.
You just proclaimed yourself the winner.

For those of you coming in late, compare the GVA Orion against the GTVA Orion. The limiting factor on the number of beams a destroyer can mount is NOT internal space since they upgraded the Orion from no beams to its current state without having to reduce armour or fighter complement.

Well, we don't really know what the internal changes are. Beam cannons ain't small and who knows what was sacrificed. Smaller storage rooms? More cramped hangar (you can still have the same number of craft). We just don't know.

[karajorma]

Fenris/Leviathan/Cain/Lilith/Aten are good examples of that too Kara.

I tend to think that the Iceni (where no cost would have been spared) is good proof that the limiting factor is simply money and resources. You can build destroyers with more weaponry than current GTVA ones but it quickly reaches the point where it is more cost effective to have two average destroyers than one super one.

[SypheDMar]

The fact that the Orff is only crewed with 'dozens' seems kind of hilarious, though(technically correct, as long as there are more than 23 people on board).

I talked about this on IRC several months while ago, and I think we assume that the Orff is carrying a skeleton crew because it was in need of repairs, and all nonessential personnels are at risk from the Vasudans.

[BlueFlames]

For those of you coming in late, compare the GVA Orion against the GTVA Orion. The limiting factor on the number of beams a destroyer can mount is NOT internal space since they upgraded the Orion from no beams to its current state without having to reduce armour or fighter complement.

There was also thirty-five years of technological development between the all-blob Orion and the beam-heavy Orion.  In that span of time, blobs could have been made more efficient and other systems made more compact to provide the necessary energy and space for the beam cannons, their power supply, and targeting systems.  You cannot fully discount the possibility that energy and internal space are limiting factors based on the one observation you've provided.

You should have used the Iceni as your example, which changes loadouts radically from nearly-all-blob to more-BGreens-than-beads-at-Mardi-Gras from mission to mission. 

[Marcov]

Back to the original topic:

The GTC Orff was destroyed during your watch. Dozens of lives were lost due to your poor performance.

It's kind of retarded to think that there were only below 100 crew in a cruiser. I mean, hell, you could fit FIVE WWII battleships in a Fenris' massive hull. The Bismarck itself, much more streamlined (but as long) than the Fenris, had outright 2,000 crew.
So maybe 1,000 - 2,000 could be a rough estimate for a Fenris, regarding that in the future computers/electronic devices are more widely used than humans to control a ship.

[Droid803]

83+ dozens is dozens technically, of cource.

[Scourge of Ages]

I'm still wondering what those hundreds or thousands of people on a cruiser or corvette would be doing. Not counting damage control, what is there that couldn't be handled much more efficiently by sufficiently advanced computers and robots?

Take whatever roles you know must exist, and multiply it by three to cover enough shifts to run 24/7 and what do you get?

[SpardaSon21]

What about redundancy?  What if a computer has a short and needs fixing, or something goes screwy and the computers are less-than optimal?  What about battle damage to a computer or robot, causing it to malfunction so a human is needed to take over?  I would say a couple hundred may be there in case the **** hits the fan and the computers go wonky.