[mjn.mixael]

Sure, but this is what you need if you're emerging from a fixed point into a prepared and distributed enemy, and moving among them as you engage.

I kinda want to see a Colossus do that... MISSION IDEA!

[MatthTheGeek]

Besides, the simple truth is that the Colossus is a linebreaker and the task in Sol is a system control job. Jamming the square peg in the round hole.

I would have to disagree there, Sath and Ravana are line breakers, their firepower is concentrated up front so they can hit the blockade hard as soon as they arrive.  Colly is more distributed and better suited as a general purpose destroyer killer

Ahem. If you put your blockade right in front of the exit vector, you're doing it awfully wrong.

The colossus is definitely more of a blockade breaker mainly because it can fire in nearly all directions and hence can engage the blockade fleet wherever it is positioned. It also has enough health to just tank the firepower of multiple destroyers long enough to secure the beachhead.

The colossus is clearly a destroyer killer, as its armament is unsuited for fighting juggernaught-grade ships, but how often would the Colossus engage multiple destroyers at the same time ? Only blockades would gather this kind and amount of ships.

As for the BP tangent, be honest. We already know you can't just trade green beams for blue beams. Which means a Raynor easily outguns your Coly. The only thing the Coly has for itself is it's amount of HP. Which, again, is ideal for blockade runs. Which don't happen in the Sol theater.

[headdie]

and yet in Kings gambit the Typhon is deployed in the front to the right of the arriving ships, in the sweet spot if I remember right  for the ravana and possibly sath, and is the only one meaning a good chunk of the colly's potential fire power is wasted in the multi destroyer scenario.

Where the spread fire power comes into play is as a deterrent to counter-attack while your colly is pinned in place killing the target destroyer, personally i think the colly was designed for more sustainable prolonged engagements rather than depending on hit and run which blockade runs seem to rely on

[Polpolion]

As for the BP tangent, be honest. We already know you can't just trade green beams for blue beams. Which means a Raynor easily outguns your Coly. The only thing the Coly has for itself is it's amount of HP. Which, again, is ideal for blockade runs. Which don't happen in the Sol theater.

Why on Earth would the GTVA develop a technology that's completely incompatible with its biggest, most powerful warship, not to mention the entire ****ing fleet? I could understand if the rest of the fleet was being planned to be phased out (ie you don't send it to war one last time in Sol), but it wasn't. And we're talking, as far as I know, if the Colossus survived Freespace 2, not just magically reappeared before BP. This doesn't affect whatever assumptions people had about the UEF who had no knowledge of the Colossus at the time, but it most certainly would affect post-war GTVA strategy and naval development.

[General Battuta]

I thought we were gonna take the BP derail off where it belongs

Why on Earth would the GTVA develop a technology that's completely incompatible with its biggest, most powerful warship, not to mention the entire ****ing fleet?

The Threat Exigency Initiative next-generation beam systems from the Aurora Wake onward rely on dedicated meson reactor systems that are incompatible on numerous levels with existing power grids. Refitting existing combatants with these new beam systems would have required labor-intensive, keel-up rebuilds -- at an unacceptable cost in fleet readiness. (Consider these toothing problems analogous to those suffered by the beam-refit Typhons.) They're also extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming to produce and a significant burden on the struggling postwar economy, so the available production runs were slated for new hulls rather than any notional rebuild projects.

[BengalTiger]

I'd say it would be cheaper to make an "ugly" out of a Deimos and a blue beam Mjolnir than building Raynors...

And the Colossus had an insane volume which implies lots of room for remodeling, or even making some simple upgrades to allow its BGreens to work as LRBGreens for extended periods of time.

[General Battuta]

I'd say it would be cheaper to make an "ugly" out of a Deimos and a blue beam Mjolnir than building Raynors...

With a limited supply of blue beams available, would you rather slap them on ineffective uglies and risk another Typhon debacle, or use them on brand new spaceframes with the jump drives needed to enact the GTVA's new shock-jump tactical doctrine? Well it doesn't matter what you'd rather, because the GTVA had a pretty strong preference! 

And the Colossus had an insane volume which implies lots of room for remodeling, or even making some simple upgrades to allow its BGreens to work as LRBGreens for extended periods of time.

Tearing a ship's entire reactor and power system out is an enormous undertaking. Beam overloads with improved heatsinks are a much better solution (and one that was actually implemented in BP for all the ships still using the older Crypt Hammer series beams.)

This is all besides the point because the Colossus is not a useful ship against the Shivans.

[Polpolion]

Why on Earth would the GTVA develop a technology that's completely incompatible with its biggest, most powerful warship, not to mention the entire ****ing fleet?

The Threat Exigency Initiative next-generation beam systems from the Aurora Wake onward rely on dedicated meson reactor systems that are incompatible on numerous levels with existing power grids. Refitting existing combatants with these new beam systems would have required labor-intensive, keel-up rebuilds -- at an unacceptable cost in fleet readiness. (Consider these toothing problems analogous to those suffered by the beam-refit Typhons.) They're also extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming to produce and a significant burden on the struggling postwar economy, so the available production runs were slated for new hulls rather than any notional rebuild projects.

And you doubt they would've cared if they couldn't use it in the Colossus? How long after FS2 does BP take place, anyway?

[headdie]

I'd say it would be cheaper to make an "ugly" out of a Deimos and a blue beam Mjolnir than building Raynors...

With a limited supply of blue beams available, would you rather slap them on ineffective uglies and risk another Typhon debacle, or use them on brand new spaceframes with the jump drives needed to enact the GTVA's new shock-jump tactical doctrine? Well it doesn't matter what you'd rather, because the GTVA had a pretty strong preference! 

And the Colossus had an insane volume which implies lots of room for remodeling, or even making some simple upgrades to allow its BGreens to work as LRBGreens for extended periods of time.

Tearing a ship's entire reactor and power system out is an enormous undertaking. Beam overloads with improved heatsinks are a much better solution (and one that was actually implemented in BP for all the ships still using the older Crypt Hammer series beams.)

This is all besides the point because the Colossus is not a useful ship against the Shivans.

I am guessing you guys at BP figured replacing a FS ship reactor would involve similar steps as is needed to replace the reactor of a nuclear carrier today and basically mean cutting a massive hole through the ship to pull the reactor out of because the core is a single unit so cant be dismantled and too big to transport through the ships corridors.  Then you will need to replace every power cable/conduit and distribution device to handle the increase in power and possible change in power type, at which point you have gutted out the entire ship and put one or more (depending on the number of reactors and their location) structural weak point(s) in the ship where you have cut through structural girders and re-welding them is never quite as strong as the solid original. 

I agree that designing a fresh line of ships would be best course of action strategically and economically.

[General Battuta]

Why on Earth would the GTVA develop a technology that's completely incompatible with its biggest, most powerful warship, not to mention the entire ****ing fleet?

The Threat Exigency Initiative next-generation beam systems from the Aurora Wake onward rely on dedicated meson reactor systems that are incompatible on numerous levels with existing power grids. Refitting existing combatants with these new beam systems would have required labor-intensive, keel-up rebuilds -- at an unacceptable cost in fleet readiness. (Consider these toothing problems analogous to those suffered by the beam-refit Typhons.) They're also extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming to produce and a significant burden on the struggling postwar economy, so the available production runs were slated for new hulls rather than any notional rebuild projects.

And you doubt they would've cared if they couldn't use it in the Colossus? How long after FS2 does BP take place, anyway?

I didn't make any assertion about the Colossus, I was just responding to your remark about incompatibility with the rest of the fleet.

AoA is set 18 years after FS2.

headdie: Yeah, that was pretty much the reasoning. We always try to keep in mind how fantastically ****ing huge FreeSpace ships are compared to their real-world counterparts, too.

[Cyborg17]

You know, though, the one thing about the colossus that is only possible with the colossus is to construct things within its "massive" fighter bay, which is probably the size of a couple aircraft carriers itself. So technically, you wouldn't have to make the reactor outside the ship first, just get it to where it needs to go through the ship, and the outside.  And it's only one ship to upgrade, so only this ship would have to be redone.

I'm not saying that it's a good idea, it's just not quite as difficult.  But it would probably be really inefficient to try anyway.

[crizza]

As far as we know, the Colossus could have huge maintenance shafts, so moving huge things inside of the ship shouldn't be much of an issue.
Funny thing: No ship has the abilty to eject its reactors into space if they go nuts...

[headdie]

As far as we know, the Colossus could have huge maintenance shafts, so moving huge things inside of the ship shouldn't be much of an issue.
Funny thing: No ship has the abilty to eject its reactors into space if they go nuts...

I believe the reactors in FS are fusion based which are reliant on exact conditions to be maintained within the chamber otherwise the fusion process just collapses and shuts down by itself and all you have is a bit of relatively mild radioactive particles floating around so ejection is useless feature, the only way to cause an explosion with one is if you gradually build up the amount of fusion material to the point the containment systems fail, this would require either human intervention, probably overridden by safeties, or a bug in the management systems. either way just physical kill switch the power to the systems maintaining fusion reaction and it just shuts down.  meh overload is possible but extremely unlikely

[qwadtep]

Doesn't the Raynor have a dedicated reactor for its main beam anyway? I'm sure something like that could be compartmentalized into its own power grid and retrofit onto a ship the size of the Collie here or there, though the GTVA would probably want keep it on defense while newer ships handle the frontline.

[redsniper]

You can write it however you want. BP has its own logic and internal consistency, which everyone is free to follow or ignore as they choose.

[crizza]

Yeah, even if the Colossus would've survived the second incusion, in what shape would she be?
Damaged enough to justify a complete overhaul, certainly not.
But intersting how every theme seems to drift towards blue planet^^

[General Battuta]

I wish it wouldn't. BP is just one fan product, there a billion other ways to go.

[headdie]

But intersting how every theme seems to drift towards blue planet^^

Its because BP is the hot post Capella mod atm, it used to be Inferno back when that was popular.  It helps that BP has a carefully considered back story with in depth material leading into it which is credible to the average fan which makes it a good point of comparison where fanon is usable.

[General Battuta]

Inferno is doing well internally and I hope to see everyone talking about it just like this in a year.

[headdie]

Inferno is doing well internally and I hope to see everyone talking about it just like this in a year.

fingers crossed