[General Battuta]

The question you asked me in PM was more interesting than that!

[CT27]

Should I make a separate thread about that?

[General Battuta]

Sure, I think that'd be a good idea - put a spoiler warning on it!

[CT27]

Should that thread serve as the continuation of this thread and this thread die (i.e. it becomes a "GTVA strategy pt. 2" thread)?

[CT27]

So since it sounds like Steel's up a bit of a creek, what should he do now?

[General Battuta]

So since it sounds like Steel's up a bit of a creek, what should he do now?

Where are you getting that impression?

[manwiththemachinegun]

From the campaign, it seemed like that Steele,

Spoiler:

while under pressure from losing the Carthage, still has the momentum in the campaign. Afterall, Cassandra's projections haven't changed a day, Steele is still hitting Earth in a little more than a week. Plus he's being given a few extra destroyers for the final push, and the loss of the Carthage was blamed on his subordinate not following orders.

[Ryuseiken]

If the last scene of the game was any indication, I don't think losing the Carthage was much of a setback. The real question becomes where is that Hecate battlegroup going?

[Aesaar]

The Carthage battlegroup was a hairsbreadth away from being completely combat ineffective.  The air wing was gone and they had only two corvettes which were really fit for battle (and those got away).  So what was lost, really?  An old Orion, which would probably have been retired or mothballed after the war anyway.

[crizza]

I killed the two Deimos^^

[MatthTheGeek]

You can capture 3 Deimoses, 4 gas miners full of gas and 2 AWACS in this mission if you play it with those goals in mind. Probably a lot of transports full of skilled Tev personnel too.

Aside from that, do not underestimate the loss of Neptune station. That's one less logistics staging point for Steele, which may become problematic very soon, especially given the amount of reinforcements he received after the loss of the Carthage. And, just as importantly, that's one more logistics point for the UEF, who is critically needing it.

[Ryuseiken]

I killed the two Deimos^^

As did I.

I liked the little touch of having Laporte go "That's for Captain Genady!" when the ship he(she?) was fighting in Delenda Est blew up.

[Aesaar]

Hmm, yes I failed to consider that you could disable their engines.  Still, 2 Deimoses isn't much.

Matth: Neptune isn't much of a loss either.  It could probably have been defended if Steele had decided he needed it.  Still, the failure to destroy it was probably a bigger loss than the Carthage was.

[crizza]

I didn't disable their engines, after disabling the Carthage I simply ordered my strikecraft to destroy them and they didn't manage to jump out.

[CT27]

So since it sounds like Steel's up a bit of a creek, what should he do now?

Where are you getting that impression?

From reading spoilers/threads:

-lost the Carthage
-lost a logistics station
-UEF hasn't lost any of its destroyers


To use another expression, it looks like Steele's in a bit of a pickle now. 

The question is:  how should Steele/GTVA proceed from here?

[General Battuta]

I don't think you're right that Steele's in a pickle, or in a weaker position than he was at the end of Act 2.

[Ravenholme]

You're all acting as if Steele didn't intend to absorb those losses, whereas if you actually read the briefing, you'll find that CASSANDRA's best prediction is that he fully accepted that he might get those losses, and that they wouldn't substantially affect his ORBAT.

Heck, if you look at the post-mission briefing, the battle actually strengthened Steele's position - He's basically now telling the Security Council what to do about the Sol Theatre, as the massive redeployment of Destroyer battlegroups to Sol shows. (I suspect this may be in error when the Shivans/Vishnans show up)

[Ypoknons]

Haven't reached that point in the game yet, although the number of destroyers must still be constrained by the node and logistics bottlenecks.

[CT27]

I don't think you're right that Steele's in a pickle, or in a weaker position than he was at the end of Act 2.

I could have worded that better.  I didn't really mean Steele's command authority was threatened; I was referring to the overall GTVA war effort...that seems to be in a pickle because of some of the points I made last post.

[Useful Dave]

Haven't reached that point in the game yet, although the number of destroyers must still be constrained by the node and logistics bottlenecks.

Act-3 spoilies below.

Spoiler:

It will be, however Steele was already intending to lose the station, as things are he just lost an extra destroyer and some assets with it, while the UEF gained a logistics outpost, which wasn't intended. However, now he hasn't just gained in assets, but fresh ones from out of the theatre whom have likely benefited from the schooling of pilots taken off the line during the war. The Carthage wasn't even subspace-worthy enough for the node, yet instead Steele has received four times the class-weight of firepower and that's only looking at the Destroyers leading the groups.

With the currently projected plan, Steele doesn't need to operate for months, he's aiming for less than a fortnight before springing the big trap, now I can't say that I'm overly aware of how many days supply a vessel carries, but considering that a modern nuclear submarine tends to operate for ninety days, might we consider that the supplies aboard a starship could last a month?  This isn't including the biggest likely constraint in a high-intensity situation which is ammunition however.