[Mobius]

Well, I wouldn't take to the letter the beam range limit we see ingame: beams are the way too powerful to dissipate in 10 kms. We know what the Lucifer did to Vasuda Prime and we also know what the Hades was about to do...

Light beams on the surface may hit ships orbiting the planet unless it's proven that gravity reduces their range.

[General Battuta]

I haven't seen any evidence of rock throwing in FS, just glassing.

There are rocks.

There is gravity.

There is rock throwing.

Well, I wouldn't take to the letter the beam range limit we see ingame: beams are the way too powerful to dissipate in 10 kms. We know what the Lucifer did to Vasuda Prime and we also know what the Hades was about to do...

Light beams on the surface may hit ships orbiting the planet unless it's proven that gravity reduces their range.

It doesn't matter. They're at the bottom of the gravity well. They will be RKVed or KKVed from well outside their own effective range.

[Droid803]

Remember that thrusters in freespace have a maximum speed (below the hundreds of m/s at that).
You're not getting anywhere near relativistic velocities. Otherwise we'd see warships doing the same.

In real life, sure, but I don't see RKVs or KKVs in FS, they're not "freespacy".

Freespace is not realistic. Realistic orbital siege tactics need not apply. Basically, I feel you could do whatever makes for good storytelling. Rocks fall everyone dies doesn't really do that...

Why else would the NTF send in transports in "Rebel Intercept" before orbital control was secured?
Why didn't they just throw rocks? They wanted to kill the zods anyway.
Cause asteroid intercept is boring, and RKV intercept is...

Eh, whatever, its hazy, do what you want.

[Snail]

The NTF aren't exactly smart.

[Mobius]

Uhm, has the maximum beam range been boosted by the SCP in the past few months? I'd really like to use small, SGreen/AAAf-like beams to represent planetary defenses. The last time I attempted something like that was... uh... 4 years ago...

[General Battuta]

Remember that thrusters in freespace have a maximum speed (below the hundreds of m/s at that).
You're not getting anywhere near relativistic velocities. Otherwise we'd see warships doing the same.

If you invoke the 'realistic' beam ranges you invoke 'realistic' velocities. Mixing and matching is just insane.

In real life, sure, but I don't see RKVs or KKVs in FS, they're not "freespacy".

Neither are non-Lucifer-mounted long range beams, then.

Uhm, has the maximum beam range been boosted by the SCP in the past few months? I'd really like to use small, SGreen/AAAf-like beams to represent planetary defenses. The last time I attempted something like that was... uh... 4 years ago...

Just fire the beams from points on the skybox. Not all that hard.

[Droid803]

Beam range maximum by default is 30km.
And by range I mean effective range. Combat range (ie. targeting, is 4-8km)
You can extend it...however much you want through a weapons.tbl field

The NTF aren't exactly smart.

Tru dat.

Remember that thrusters in freespace have a maximum speed (below the hundreds of m/s at that).
You're not getting anywhere near relativistic velocities. Otherwise we'd see warships doing the same.

If you invoke the 'realistic' beam ranges you invoke 'realistic' velocities. Mixing and matching is just insane.

In real life, sure, but I don't see RKVs or KKVs in FS, they're not "freespacy".

Neither are non-Lucifer-mounted long range beams, then.

Well, yes...
Let's go with neither?

Now I'm lost XD

EDIT: Right, it's still secure orbit, drop some bombs (helios, harbingers, whatever) on anything that'd try to shoot the transports, land.

[Mobius]

Same procedure as before, then: WCSaga-like invisible ships fire beams 30kms away from the transports.

[General Battuta]

Same procedure as before, then: WCSaga-like invisible ships fire beams 30kms away from the transports.

Axem has a beam firepoint model in Vassago's Dirge you can use.

[Axem]

It's just a Watchdog with an invisible texture and custom table. Hardly anything special.

[Droid803]

Yeah sentry guns are great for that

[Dilmah G]

The NTF aren't exactly smart.

Bosch didn't need them to use advanced battlefield tactics such as baited ambushes or anything, he just needed them as a smoke-screen. And as long as they existed and made an ass out of themselves, that was good enough.

[NGTM-1R]

Bosch didn't need them to use advanced battlefield tactics such as baited ambushes or anything, he just needed them as a smoke-screen. And as long as they existed and made an ass out of themselves, that was good enough.

Sure he did. They had to meet at least an 18-month definition of success. For that matter, he likely didn't know that he would only need 18 months and probably thought he'd need them longer than that.

[Droid803]

He didn't need them to be smart, he just needed them to be smart enough to be a lasting distraction.

[General Battuta]

The NTF were fine and hardly stupid. Their military successes evince this.

[Dilmah G]

Sure he did. They had to meet at least an 18-month definition of success. For that matter, he likely didn't know that he would only need 18 months and probably thought he'd need them longer than that.

He didn't need them to be smart, he just needed them to be smart enough to be a lasting distraction.

Yeah, what he said. They were quite a dogmatic bunch however. Their local battlefield tactics didn't seem to be so sophisticated, however on a larger scale, they seemed to be fairly competent. Obviously they must have had a good bunch lying around somewhere, because Petrarch says they splash around 200 of our ships at the beginning of the campaign.

[Snail]

Actually what I think is that towards the end of the 18 months, Bosch had no further use for the large majority of the Neo-Terran Front which explains how they start dying off rather quickly. He already had all the information he needed for ETAK, so to him they were acceptable losses. Some people around here seem to think thart Bosch isn't all that of a bad guy because of the monologues and all, but to me he seems like he's fully willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of lives for some remote fantasy. The NTF were willing to die for Bosch, but Bosch didn't give half a damn about them "stupid cattle".

Sooo, the NTF aren't really stupid, but their fanatic willingness to die for Neo-Terra in conjunction with the fact that their leader is fully willing to sacrifice their lives is what caused their eventual defeat (in addition to other stuff liek teh deployment of teh Kolosus). IMO.


More relevant to the topic, to Bosch, the battle for Sirius III was utterly pointless since it was in the opposite direction to which he wanted to go (Gamma Draconis), which is probably why he didn't give a toss about any of the ships in Rebel Intercept and let them all die for nothing.

[Dilmah G]

It's not that he wasn't that bad, he was obviously a tremendous c*nt, but he was a lot smarter than that.

I agree, the NTF's dogmatic following of Bosch, his cult of personality, was ultimately their demise as a military force. He was a real exploitative wanker wasn't he? In that way, he's a bit like a cult leader, except possessing more of a brain than most modern day wankers running around conning people out of their money.

In that way, I feel almost sorry for the boys and girls of the NTF, who went down fighting and thinking they were doing the right thing. Bosch was almost a Hitler figure, these masses of dogmatic young men and women probably weren't bad people, but they were victims of probably the most charismatic man of that time.

[Snail]

No denying Bosch was smart. He was simply an enormously manipulative basterd.

[Dilmah G]

Yes, indeed.