[manwiththemachinegun]

You don't just slap reverse engineered weapons on ships for no reason, you'd have to shift your tactics and everything.

The GTVA has had time to study Shivan tech, Earth hasn't.

[Ypoknons]

Reverse engineering isn't easy, especially after 30-40 years of divergence. Even if the technology was easily understood by UEF engineers, are the resources (chemicals, materials whatever...) needed to build beam cannons in obtainable Sol? In what kind of quantities? What kind of R&D and capital investments are required to mass produce beam cannons, and are they possible or desirable in wartime?

Spoiler:

Especially since the UEF has lost Jupiter and lost half their earth/moon infrastructure and looks set to lose the war in another 6 months?

How long would it take, given that the war has been only 18-months long? And as the manwiththemachinegun said, would it be effective to intergrate these systems with exsisting UEF systems and personnel? And that's just the suspension of disbelief issues, not the actual desirability of it story-wise.

[Snail]

Spoiler:

I really don't see how the UEF can win the war at this point, at least through conventional military means. Too many losses taken and not enough damage done, and now with the Vasudans also entering the war. I do wonder what the good admiral's secret project is, it may end up turning the tide.

Spoiler:

I don't think Byrne and the Elders' secret project is some kind of superjuggernaut. At least I hope not. I'm sure the BP guys are more awesome than that.

[Kosh]

Spoiler:

I really don't see how the UEF can win the war at this point, at least through conventional military means. Too many losses taken and not enough damage done, and now with the Vasudans also entering the war. I do wonder what the good admiral's secret project is, it may end up turning the tide.

Spoiler:

I don't think Byrne and the Elders' secret project is some kind of superjuggernaut. At least I hope not. I'm sure the BP guys are more awesome than that.

Spoiler:

Never said it was, but I've got the vibe it is something big and important. There's more ways to win a war than one uber ship of doom.

[Jellyfish]

Whatever Byrne is up to, it is obviously related to

Spoiler:

the Beis and Project NAGARI

Perhaps he's trying to

Spoiler:

summon the Vishnans?

[Dilmah G]

You don't just slap reverse engineered weapons on ships for no reason, you'd have to shift your tactics and everything.

This.

If the UEF were to adopt beams, they would have to change their entire Fighter-Frigate Operations handbook. It would have to be a much looser system of joint-arms operations and that would give up their main advantage, which is the ability to for fighters and frigates to work side by side.

The spontaneous fire of beams and the lack of warning pilots are given means that their existing combined arms methods would be ineffectual and would result in higher friendly casualties influenced by blue-on-blue beam fire. You simply cannot fly *that* close to a ship whose beams may just go 'BOOM', and with it, your fighter.

[Snail]

Actually I see comparatively little friendly beam fire. Sure there would be a few casualties but weighing it up you wouldn't need to completely revise your tactical approach.

I agree with your point but you'll have to do better than that.

[Dilmah G]

Well it really depends on what you're using the beams for.

If you're going to use them as point defence systems, you'd have to reduce their range or effectiveness to make them viable options, in my opinion. UEF fighters typically work in close proximity to their frigates, in a combined arms approach. When you have a weapon like a beam cannon, that fires without warning and has the potential to inflict great damage on its target, you really have to exercise caution. And especially if you're using them as point defence weapons, you'd need to have a few of them, and that wall of beam fire is potentially dangerous to friendly pilots, in particular, its range. With a weapon like a flak cannon, at least if you miss the target it has a shorter range and won't potentially strike a friendly frigate or ship a kilometre away.

Since the UEF like having potent anti-fighter armament, a decent number of beams to fulfill the role of point defence is probably likely.

Anyway, perhaps you wouldn't need a complete revision of tactics, but I think it's definetely going to affect the way UEF fighters and frigs to business.

[Ypoknons]

In that case an artillery or arsenal beam UEF ship would be more viable, keep the frigates in the field and have the beam-ships jump in when required. Or a Titan/Ravana/Hecate strategy, again keep the frigates in the field but have the beam-vessel providing fighter support for the battle group, and again jump-in when beams are required. But yes, it's completely true that it wouldn't simply be 'put beams on every UEF ship' and just follow GTVA tactics...

[Herra Tohtori]

Spoiler:

Hate this campaign because of story and that hippie  pseudo psychological teleogicall bull*** - Chater is anoying, ppl in this universe talk like spooks they insideout theyselves  in words too much like closest friends not like the military soldiers in wartime. Characters are simmiliar to this  in books by Paulo Cohelo and i hate this hard.  
Technicaly campagin is very good executed and gameplay is also strong point of BP
Too bad that story and character development ruin pleasant feeling towards  WiH as whole.

Also i have troubble to enter in to comm menu in mission near Saturn.

I found easteregg

Spoiler:

Sathanas emerge from subspace and hug me awesome.

I am glad that you enjoyed the gameplay and mission design, but I find your interpretation of the storyline elements somewhat lacking, especially with regards to the offending elements you mentioned.

Saying you dislike the campaign because of the story is ok, but you don't really specify many elements of the actual storyline that you disliked, so I can not really help there.

With regards to "hippie" elements of the background and story line, I can say that you are first of all wrong - the UEF are not exactly hippies, as should be obvious if you read between the lines. They can actually be quite ruthless to fulfill their goals. Not just flowers and sunshine all the time.

 The Ubuntu philosophy does prefer peaceful resolutions (as should all sensible sentient beings), but you'll notice they are ready and willing to defend themselves and theirs. Also, the Ubuntu philosophy has different influences depending on region. Some of the individuals do have serious difficulty fitting violent acts of war to their personal philosophies. However, there are very valid in-universe reasons to why the UEF culture developed (was guided to develope, really) as it did. Many of those are exposed in the WiH prose on the web pages, but some of the reasons have not been revealed yet. If the reason to "hippyness"as you called it were unclear, I hope this will help to clarify them. If you just plain dislike it, then I suppose I can not help you because the existence of Ubuntu philosophy and its influence on UEF was one of the primary reasons for GTVA to start the war in the first place.

None of Blue Planet series would exist in its current form if there were no reason for the war to begin with...

As far as "pseudo-psychological teleological bull****" goes, I am hesistant to ask if you are aware of what these terms actually mean, so I'm going to have to assume what you actually mean to say.

If you mean to question the value of seemingly "supernatural" elements of the storyline, I can only say that there are no supernatural elements in Blue Planet. Everything that happens is natural. There are phenomena with unknown explanation, but that doesn't make them "supernatural", just unknown - so far. I am hesitant to further extrapolate on this tangent; I can just re-iterate my suggestion to read through the background material as thoroughly as you can.

What comes to annoying chatter, there is no excuse for that. There is simply too much of it - to appear as just text. Voice-acted, this problem would not really exist as you would hear each message spoken in real-time.

However, as far as the content of the messages goes, I find your argument a bit off the mark. I don't know of you have any military experience, but front line units usually are pretty close-knit crews. From the Wargods crew, there's pretty much just Simms, Ng'Mei and Olefumi as the "old guard", rest are replacements that they are going through at rapid pace. Laporte has a very close relationship with Simms (what kind of depends on your character interpretation). They are close friends as much as soldiers in war time. In the first part of the campaign, Brie and Kassim are Laporte's relatives, so their familiarity is explained there.

It is true that combat communications should usually be as short, coherent and informative as possible, but that sort of utilitarian approach makes for a bad way of telling the story with FreeSpace missions. We have tried to include miltiary-style language as much as possible, but that's really to just give a semi-professional impression to what the pilots are doing.

If you look atthe retail FreeSpace campaigns, that's the way it was done there too.

I hope you'll be able to enjoy the next parts of Blue Planet despite the things you disliked.

[IvKir]

I guess there is nothing wrong with all this chatter in brief moment of war. Remember, guy's, they are not in real fight with anyone after destruction of Lucifer! So i find it normal.

And besides - i can't image fight group of 4-6 soldier, that do not have any kind of relationship, simply becouse it's a something, that psychology called "small group".

[IvKir]

BTW, BP-team, i can't still get it, why human community in GTVA space don't get troubled about this war? I mean, if i was there, i probably shouted: "What the hell guy's?! Are you gone crazy? This IS Earth, how the hell there can be illegal goverment?? Thats a bull****"

And i think that i'm not alone in this, i guess.

[Snail]

BTW, BP-team, i can't still get it, why human community in GTVA space don't get troubled about this war? I mean, if i was there, i probably shouted: "What the hell guy's?! Are you gone crazy? This IS Earth, how the hell there can be illegal goverment?? Thats a bull****"

And i think that i'm not alone in this, i guess.

If you were overseas and subsequently found out that the government of your home country got overthrown by a bunch of personality cult dictator pricks, would you not favor their removal and the re-institution of the previous government?

[Dilmah G]

Well there most likely is that going on.

But remember that as the only foreign body in the Sol system, the GTVA has some means of making sure the public knows 'Only what it's supposed to', and/or bastardizing the UEF in any kind of public announcements or forums.

In other words, the GTVA will probably spare no effort in painting the Federation as 'the bad guys', and themselves as the ones fighting for justice in an effort to get the population on their side (essential for the success of any war back home). Also, remember why Severanti was relieved. The Alliance wants Sol finished, and fast. One of the reasons most likely being that the Alliance don't want the general populace to start turning into a Vietnam-esque body of opposition toward the war, and allow it the time to do that.

EDIT: And what Snail said too.

[NGTM-1R]

Going from a democractically elected government to a semireligious autocratic wtf that doesn't even register as a government to most people is usually regarded as a step backward.

[Snail]

Yeah. Citizens of Ubuntu might be willing to submit to a bunch of old guys sitting around a table claiming to hear whispers from the flying Spaghetti Monsters that run the universe, but not us...

[The E]

BTW, BP-team, i can't still get it, why human community in GTVA space don't get troubled about this war? I mean, if i was there, i probably shouted: "What the hell guy's?! Are you gone crazy? This IS Earth, how the hell there can be illegal goverment?? Thats a bull****"

And i think that i'm not alone in this, i guess.

The problem is that the GTVA has absolute control over the news that come out of Sol. There is no Internet to carry "unbiased" reporting out of Sol.
At any rate, the official reason for this war is that Sol has been taken over by a pacifistic, religiously motivated party that has been busy performing experiments on Terra's population. This jeopardizes Earth's chances of survival against a new Shivan assault, and since Earth is the largest, most highly developed economy in terran space, it endangers all of humanity.
Now, are there other opinions in the GTVA, pundits arguing against this war? Yes, certainly. However, in the context of the campaign, those aren't mentioned because they're not important. Let's just say that this war has an approval rating slightly below that of America's entry into WW2.

[-Norbert-]

But if the war drags on much longer, the GTVA will have to change their line.
That they were able to hold out against a superiour enemy for over two years shows that the UEF aren't completely pacifistic and incapable of defending themselfs as the GTVA claims them to be. Now add the Tevs high fighter losses into the mix (that many death can't be hidden for long, no matter how good their information controll and propaganda is) and surely some people "back home"  will start to question the GTVAs motives and/or their validity.
Which would of course explain why the GTVA gave Steele the freedoms he seems to have in commanding the Sol invasion forces. They run out of time and thus are willing to take greater risks both with the vasudans and on matters of moral (like nuclear bombing of civilian areas on Luna or calling the "total war clause" of the BETAC into effect).

[Dilmah G]

About the fighter losses,

Keep in mind that historically, a side will unavoidably overclaim its share of kills. That, and that listing the figures of the pilots who ejected safely sounds a lot more friendly than "fifty fighter losses today!"

And then at the end of the sausage factory, you have something like 300 Federal Fighter Losses vs. 60 GTVA Pilots Recovered Today. But yeah, there are ways to hide the amount of fighter losses.

[IvKir]

If you were overseas and subsequently found out that the government of your home country got overthrown by a bunch of personality cult dictator pricks, would you not favor their removal and the re-institution of the previous government?

Don't think so. And in any case don't favor returning to homeworld via heavy armor and weapon. Nuked Moon, Mars and averybody in GTVA think's it's okey... i don't think it's right.