[The E]

That's what jump drives are for.

[Destiny]

Hahaha, that was a golden response.

Still, I believe they wouldn't have to resort to jump drives, since all the Flak and PDWs can...batter it to death like how the Aeolus kills warships with flak.

[The E]

If you are facing a target that you can't hit with your main weapons systems, then it is either time to jump out or start screaming for fighter cover.

Also, evading Hydras is really, really hard.

[MatthTheGeek]

The funny thing about beams is that target's size and speed doesn't really matter. As long as game decides that this beam hits its target, it will hit no matter how small and how fast the target is.

Hit ? Yes. But once it's firing, the beam doesn't move anymore. If your target is fast enough, it can get out of the trajectory before receiving all the damage.

Also, that's for direct-fire beams. A small target will receive a ****ton less of damage from a slashing beam than a big target.

Then again, the UEF doesn't use beams, so this is barely relevant.

[Fury]

Ships that are fast enough and small enough to evade beam's trajectory once it is firing during the beam's very short lifetime also have much less hitpoints. The end result is more often than not, smaller ship still dying faster than bigger one with more hitpoints.

Slashers work by getting two random points in ship's bounding box (I think), so regardless of target's size, the slasher will hit just as well. The only thing that matters here is target's speed, but slashers are unpredictable enough to negate this advantage. As a slasher sweeps in random direction, speed and heading of target might save it from brunt of the beam's impact or it might get hit even more than it would have if it had stayed still or gone the other direction.

I've never tested it, but I'd imagine sum of multiple test scenarios would result in averages where nothing but hitpoints would change survivability against beams. If test scenarios prove that wrong, that's fine, I stand corrected.

While UEF doesn't have beams, Shivans do. And I don't think Tevs would design and commission sufficient number of ships to combat UEF only. And don't forget that it was said that UEF has a ship of their own of same class. Last time I checked, Tevs had beams too.

[MatthTheGeek]

That's true. Still, the "let's do smaller, cheaper ships with less crew so since cruiser die so easily, we will lose less crew and monee" logic stands.

And speed can be an asset in other situations than beam avoiding. Moving to the attacked flank of a formation to cover it, for example.

[NGTM-1R]

That's true. Still, the "let's do smaller, cheaper ships with less crew so since cruiser die so easily, we will lose less crew and monee" logic stands.

Only to a point. If you misjudge the correct point at which your savings in size/cost/crew are outweighed by the fact that this ship is even less durable than a cruiser (and also smaller, so it probably can't support a cruiser's weapons suite), then you could easily end up with a ship that dies so easily any savings are illusory.

Let us remember that the only threats to craft transport-sized and up are not those of beams, but torpedos, bombs, heavy guns, and assault fighter/gunship attack. Most things smaller than a cruiser fold very rapidly in the face of a serious attack from any one of these.

EDIT: We're basically building the Littoral Combat Ship here. The LCS needs the protection of larger ships against any form of serious attack. I'm not sure there's a reasonable argument to be made that going smaller than a cruiser hullsize is a good idea without introducing some form of new technology to the equation that isn't present on existing cruisers.

[Darius]

Like cruiser shields (except that freighters and transports would most likely be shielded as well).

[Buckshee Rounds]

That's true. Still, the "let's do smaller, cheaper ships with less crew so since cruiser die so easily, we will lose less crew and monee" logic stands.

Stinks of PVF Anubis.

And is that a hint Darius? 

[Darius]

Nope. Nothing I say is indicative that anything is going to happen to anything.

[Qent]

I am skeptical of light cruisers too.

[General Battuta]

Light cruisers are quite excellent if employed properly, in situations where they belong. Heavy beams are obviously a big issue for them, but creating tactical dependencies between ship classes is always a good thing.

[Qent]

What if they encounter fighters with long-range missiles or Warhammers?

[General Battuta]

Depending on what's running them (AI or player), either pray they have a good screen and enough hit points, or pump flares and evade!

[Destiny]

Depending on what's running them (AI or player), either pray they have a good screen and enough hit points, or pump flares and evade!

Actually it'll be rather cool to see capital ships firing bursts of flares/chaff...(or cluster EMP missiles that targets bombs)

[NGTM-1R]

Light cruisers are quite excellent if employed properly, in situations where they belong. Heavy beams are obviously a big issue for them, but creating tactical dependencies between ship classes is always a good thing.

The problem with this is the assumption that killed the Hecate as a useful destroyer: you can engineer the situation to your advantage before contact. FS generally does not allow this because of the nature of subspace travel.

In fact the whole concept of the light cruiser is eerily similar in execution to the way the Hecate turned out in the first place; dismissal of the threat of heavily armed attack and belief in a need for improved capabilities in dealing with fightercraft. (On this it stacks a greater degree of fragility than existing ships that are already judged too fragile.) I really don't think people are going to need to learn this lesson twice in so short a time period, particularly not when their current doctrine goes out of its way to incorporate it.

[General Battuta]

Depending on what's running them (AI or player), either pray they have a good screen and enough hit points, or pump flares and evade!

Actually it'll be rather cool to see capital ships firing bursts of flares/chaff...(or cluster EMP missiles that targets bombs)

We can do that.

Light cruisers are quite excellent if employed properly, in situations where they belong. Heavy beams are obviously a big issue for them, but creating tactical dependencies between ship classes is always a good thing.

The problem with this is the assumption that killed the Hecate as a useful destroyer: you can engineer the situation to your advantage before contact. FS generally does not allow this because of the nature of subspace travel.

In fact the whole concept of the light cruiser is eerily similar in execution to the way the Hecate turned out in the first place; dismissal of the threat of heavily armed attack and belief in a need for improved capabilities in dealing with fightercraft. (On this it stacks a greater degree of fragility than existing ships that are already judged too fragile.) I really don't think people are going to need to learn this lesson twice in so short a time period, particularly not when their current doctrine goes out of its way to incorporate it.

The Cretheus and Custos are both used in very specific situations - as fire support and tactical anchors for fighter units in environments where light cruisers are basically the biggest things around. Think of them like river boats in Vietnam.

When it comes down to the heavy hitting, both those units have another role. The Cretheus serves as basically a flak screen generator, a role we know the GTVA could use - think of the Aeoluses in Clash of the Titans II. Park it next to a bigger unit or a convoy, and it'll swat down a good number of incoming bombs and make life difficult for fighters.

The Custos (the UEF counterpart) can, in a pinch, serve as a knife-range torpedo attacker, literally running circles around a target. It'll get ripped up by beams in short order, but it has good ECM which can prolong its survivability.

One of the tenets of BP tactical doctrine, on both sides, is that ships much smaller than a corvette (or Sanctus) have no place in main battle. But the light cruisers here work well in the missions they're deployed on, which are not always so conventional.

[MatthTheGeek]

The problem with this is the assumption that killed the Hecate as a useful destroyer

Sure, aside from the fact that desties are not expendable. Gunboats are. You can loose a couple of them in bad situations and have all the others perform well in the situations they were designed for. Also, better subspace agility means it's much easier to escape those bad situations unharmed if you're a tiny gunboat than when you're a huge Hecate.

And aside from those specific tactical situations Battuta talked about, gunboats are not gonna be the primary target of the enemy forces, only a minor annoyance that gets the job done without having a large strategic value. They will have a better survivability because they're low priority targets.

[General Battuta]

They are lower priority targets, but NGTM1R is right to worry a bit because they can also be killed with lower priority weapons - a bunch of Hornets from an assault wing can already give a cruiser trouble (ironically, probably more so than bombs).

So they've got to be tough enough to do their jobs and able to scoot when in trouble.

[PsychoLandlord]

This Cretheos sounds iffy to me, at least as deployed in the Sol Theater. Like has been stated, its far too easy for an intelligent enemy to engineer the battle to his advantage once you've committed, and a vessel like the Cretheos seems like it would simply be torn apart by the UEF armory.

However, it makes quite a bit of sense to deploy it against the Shivans, who seem to favor wasteful fighter swarms, and who also tend to shoot at the largest thing around, giving a light cruiser a greater chance to survive any engagement. I would even go so far as to deploy it in main engagements alongside Destroyer groups. So its a logical, and sound, assuming the pulses work (which they will) to develop a craft like this to fight the Shivans. But in the Sol theater? This thing doesn't have a chance.