[General Battuta]

Hastily adapted, I think we said.

Putting a new fighter design into service, especially if it was already past the prototype stage, will take less time than getting a new Corvette design approved, built, crewed, and deployed. This isn't WW2, and a Diomedes, which by itself is nearly a kilometer in length, is probably a more significant investment than a Cruiser or Destroyer was back then.

I understand your objections to the idea, but essentially, what I was trying to say is that it really depends on the effort. The allegory I made to the P-51 is still pretty accurate. After the Chimera and Bellerophon, the engineers had experience with the technology already, and they probably had a laundry list of requirements from the GTVA high command, after evaluating feedback from commanders in the field. It's also possible the hull design was for a different project already in the works, but got re-purposed to meet the needs of the new contract. We humans are capable of frightening levels of ingenuity when we're up against the wall.

OT: I love the new design, it actually reminds me a bit of certain variants of the Tengu from EVE Online. I'm looking forward to...staying the heck away from this thing in WIH2.

The Nyx was apparently built ground up as a gunship killer which supports fast turnaround in at least some cases.

[Scotty]

Eh, I can see it being originally designed to hunt down and murder shivan bombers, so it's not like it would be a complete ground up rebuild.

[qwadtep]

The Nyx is also prohibitively expensive. It's possible that the Tevs rushed it into production before its engineers could optimize it--Nyx Mk.II anyone? 

[General Battuta]

Eh, I can see it being originally designed to hunt down and murder shivan bombers, so it's not like it would be a complete ground up rebuild.

Fresh from the drawing board, the advanced GTF Nyx is one of the newest GTVA heavy fighters. It was commissioned in 2385 as a response to increasing fighter losses to superior UEF fighter designs. A dedicated gunship killer, with heavy armour and firepower, this fighter has become the bane of many a UEF pilot. It marries the Erinyes' eight gun banks with the agility and versatility of the Perseus interceptor, producing a sterling design that has become a pilot favorite. Extraordinary cost, however, has slowed its planned deployment.

The TEI Wave 1 ships were the 'oh ****, let's just get fighters out there to shoot down Shivan bombers, lots of fighters, kulases, auroras, whatever the **** it takes'

[-Norbert-]

On the last point I have to disagree. With all the complex and expansive sensor equipment the Aurora carries, I highy doubt the GTVA would just throw droves of them against the Shivans.
Not to mention the rather poor manouverbility.
It's more suited to be a mini-AWACS or maybe a command ship than a front line brawler.

[CT27]

The TEI Wave 1 ships were the 'oh ****, let's just get fighters out there to shoot down Shivan bombers, lots of fighters, kulases, auroras, whatever the **** it takes'

What definition would you give to Wave 2 (and Wave 3 though I'm not sure if there was one, I can't remember one way or the other)?

[qwadtep]

On the last point I have to disagree. With all the complex and expansive sensor equipment the Aurora carries, I highy doubt the GTVA would just throw droves of them against the Shivans.
Not to mention the rather poor manouverbility.
It's more suited to be a mini-AWACS or maybe a command ship than a front line brawler.

It's a Myrmidon without the gigantic SHOOT ME design, I don't think I'd mind gunning up Shivans with it. The GTVA would probably field a few on most missions for SSM support as well.

[MatthTheGeek]

I would assume the amount and type of electronic warfare/sensor suite gear embarked on an Aurora can vary a great deal between each individual fighter and for each mission. The Aurora was probably designed to be produced or deployed with very few expensive hardware in cases where you'd only need guns in space.

[Commander Zane]

The TEI Wave 1 ships were the 'oh ****, let's just get fighters out there to shoot down Shivan bombers, lots of fighters, kulases, auroras, whatever the **** it takes'

What definition would you give to Wave 2 (and Wave 3 though I'm not sure if there was one, I can't remember one way or the other)?

I'd imagine the definition would be relatively the same, replacing Shivan with UEF and the fighter names as needed.

[Buckshee Rounds]

On the last point I have to disagree. With all the complex and expansive sensor equipment the Aurora carries, I highy doubt the GTVA would just throw droves of them against the Shivans.
Not to mention the rather poor manouverbility.
It's more suited to be a mini-AWACS or maybe a command ship than a front line brawler.

It's fairly fast and you can stick Balors in the 4 gun bank for really high ROF. I'd say it's close to what the Apollo used to be: you can use it for quite a few things, but there's always a better ship (except for the sensor suite).

Also; getting a new model from a discussion thread = awesome.

The TEI Wave 1 ships were the 'oh ****, let's just get fighters out there to shoot down Shivan bombers, lots of fighters, kulases, auroras, whatever the **** it takes'

What definition would you give to Wave 2 (and Wave 3 though I'm not sure if there was one, I can't remember one way or the other)?

I'd imagine the definition would be relatively the same, replacing Shivan with UEF and the fighter names as needed.

'oh ****, let's just get fighters out there to shoot down Shivan bombers Uriels, lots of fighters, kulases Nyxes, auroras Atalantas, whatever the **** it takes'

[MatthTheGeek]

To sum up, fighters like the Kulas were designed to be cheap, expendable, very easily mass-produceable fighters to get more guns in space shooting at bombs, bombers and beam emitters. A perfectly logical way to counter the numerous but slow Shivan bombers and their numerous but weak fighter escort. That strategy is absolutely inadequate against the advanced and trained fighter corps of the UEF, and the sheer amount of anti-fighter firepower their capital ships can deploy. Wave 2 fighters were (more or less hastily) redesigned with that in mind, but they were originally, much like wave 1, designed with Shivan fighters and bombers in mind. Wave 2 fighters were kind of supposed to be to Wave 1 what the Seth or the Horus were to the Anubis.

For example, the Atalanta was (at least that's what I deduce from the tech description) originally supposed to be the interceptor class the Tevs have lacked of since the decommissioning of the Valk, a ship fast enough to close the distance with incoming bombers, and with enough firepower to kill them fast. It was then modified so it could be agile enough to deal with UEF fighters, making it more like a Perseus MkII (it is ironical that both the Perseus and the Atalanta were designed as interceptors but ended up in the space superiority role).

[Mars]

For example, the Atalanta was (at least that's what I deduce from the tech description) originally supposed to be the interceptor class the Tevs have lacked of since the decommissioning of the Valk...

Matt. . . meet the Draco XD

[Mars]

{Epicness}

I honestly don't like the lower spire on the front, but that's literally my only gripe. Kudos to you sir, you've done the GTVA a great service XD.

[General Battuta]

By the way if you ever want to make fun of some ridiculous BP fluff just check out the BFRed tech description 

I'll give a meaningless round of applause to the first person to work out the kilotons-TNT yield of one BFRed shot. science fiction writers indeed have no sense of scale 

[General Battuta]

hhhhhhahahahaha the relativistic kinetic energy of a BFRed discharge is higher than the pure annihilation energy of the matter in the discharge

[Mars]

Assuming that "kilotons of plasma" means, specifically 2 kilotons, or 2,000 long tons then the BFRed will have a yield of  21,817 gigatons, very roughly, better just to call it 22,000.

I think, though I could be wrong, that this is more than enough to totally vape a planet.

[General Battuta]

Show me your math! I want to make sure the relativity all worked out.

Taking your number as gospel though let's do some math:

5 gigatons on the Harbinger = 3200 damage.

22000 on the BFRed = 80850 damage

There seems to be a slight disparity here wherein each gigaton on the Harbinger gets you 640 points of damage but each gigaton of yield on the BFRed gets you 3 

Might be a good place to pull a bit of the ol' retcon, these crazy yield numbers were always a bit goofy.

[LordPomposity]

Professorttuta!

Taking the conservative estimate that "kilotons" means "two kilotons", I get just under 4.5E24 joules.

For comparison, 5.5E24 joules of energy from the sun reach Earth each year (source: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#boom. We're a couple orders of magnitude north of wiping out the dinosaurs, here, but well short of actually blowing up a planet.)

EDIT:

2kton=2000tons=2000000kg.

((2000000kg)*(299732499.5m/s)^2)/(2*SQRT(1-(.9998^2/1^2)))=4.5E24J

[Mars]

Show me your math! I want to make sure the relativity all worked out.

I honestly just used an online calculator - I cannot use calculus. I am disappoint self

[LordPomposity]

Show me your math! I want to make sure the relativity all worked out.

I honestly just used an online calculator - I cannot use calculus. I am disappoint self

The question doesn't require calculus.