[BlasterNT]

Just me wondering aloud...

With the number of instances in WiH where comms are jammed (with the Agincourt, with the Vasudan vessel, with the Carthage), it surprises me that fighters or whatever don't jump away more often to give Command situation updates. 

For example, the Carthage could have easily been warned of the trap had a single fighter jumped out to warn her of it. 

Or, is it an issue with subspace vectoring and not wanting to give your position away? 

[Klaustrophobia]

Seems to me to be an issue of we-need-them-not-to-do-that-so-the-story-works.  So yeah, fluff it up however works best for you until canon says otherwise.

[NGTM-1R]

Or, is it an issue with subspace vectoring and not wanting to give your position away?

Probably not that, you just have to jump out of jamming range and send the message, not take it directly to the ship in question.

[The E]

For example, the Carthage could have easily been warned of the trap had a single fighter jumped out to warn her of it.

Except that in that particular mission, great emphasis is placed on the fact that a) all fighters need to be destroyed, and b) all capital ships need to be disabled.

Given that jumping out requires the jumping fighter to slow down and travel along a fixed path, doing so when there are enemy gunships around is not a good move.

Also, and this is from a game design perspective, if we had done that, that mission would have been unbelieveably frustrating.

[LordPomposity]

For example, the Carthage could have easily been warned of the trap had a single fighter jumped out to warn her of it. 

This is one of the many reasons that the Carthage story arc makes a lot more sense if we say that Steele has briefed Lopez on what's going on instead of trusting her to screw things up in precisely the way he needs her to.

[Klaustrophobia]

if we're going to go that route, why would the UEF ever plan such a huge operation that could be ruined by something so simple as a fighter jumping out? 

[Dragon]

Note, they didn't exactly had too many better options. Considering the benefits it could bring, they had to take that chance. Also, preventing any fighters from jumping out isn't as difficult as it sounds, especially with ECM interference and missile spam UEF specialize in.

[LordPomposity]

if we're going to go that route, why would the UEF ever plan such a huge operation that could be ruined by something so simple as a fighter jumping out? 

If a fighter escapes, Lopez finds out it's a trap. From what they have of her profile, the UEF might expect that she'll commit the Carthage anyways. If she doesn't, the UEF scoops up or destroys the disabled warships, then pulls out. The risk of Lopez being warned doesn't expose the UEF force to excessive risk -- as far as the Wargods know, the UEF is in a position to keep any additional assets that Lopez could ask for from intervening -- so there's no reason not to give it a shot. Worst case, they get to capture or blow up an Aeolus and a Deimos.

[QuakeIV]

If I recall they didn't make it evident that it was a trap capable of taking the Carthage down until all of the fighters were annihilated.

[BlasterNT]

 Ah, yeah.  I assumed that it was ultimately down to gameplay reasons.  I just wanted to nitpick  .

Actually, better example:  in the second mission with the Akula and Ranvir, UEF command had no idea what was going on until the AWACs was destroyed, and as a result, the Navajas came in totally unprepared for the mission. 

But yeah, I understand the gameplay standpoint. 

[SaltyWaffles]

It's important to remember the timing; even intrasystem subspace jumps aren't instantaneous. Simms states that a jump from Mars to Jupiter is roughly 5 minutes. So, assuming you do send a courrier, the message won't even be received until several minutes after the courier has departed. By the time reinforcements/assets arrive, you're looking at roughly 10 minutes (maybe longer) before any kind of help arrives. And when that help does arrive, their knowledge of the situation as at least 10 minutes out of date, and if they can't jump out of there quickly, they could become victims themselves.

And really, she didn't even need it. If she wasn't just serving as high-level bait for a grand trap/gambit, she could have won (or averted defeat, at least) by holding all of her forces in reserve until the full UEF strikeforce jumps in, and then sortie most of the air wing to flash/shock-jump and gank the Hanuman (which the Deimos corvettes could help with significantly themselves, with their slash beams/overdriven slash beams). With that done, the entire battlegroup unleashes its overdriven beams (including the Carthage's!), focus-firing on one ship at a time, while the air wings engage the Uriel gunships from both in front and behind, with their own capships providing fire support/protection as well.

As for how to truly defeat/nullify the Uriels? Those Aeolus cruisers--uber flak spam. Deimos corvettes add in their own AAAf's/flaks, and the fun begins.

It would still be--at best--a close fight, but it would make the battle attritive, not decisive, and losing most of the Wargod strike force would be an unacceptable price to pay for anything short of killing the Carthage...and BFGreens are nothing to sneeze at, especially when supplamented with SGreens, TerSlash's, ungodly amounts of flak fire, and lots of torpedo and Maxim strikes. And for every ship the Wargods lose before really going in for the kill on the Carthage is a significant chunk of firepower lost--meaning that taking down the Carthage will be a longer, costlier, and more difficult task.

That said, the Carthage and her battlegroup definitely had time to send a detailed report/distress call when the group jumped to Saturn (before the Indus, let alone the Hanuman, showed up). And if a single Chimera was unaccounted for, or could be spared from the other engagements, then things would get really ugly, really fast.

[LordPomposity]

It's important to remember the timing; even intrasystem subspace jumps aren't instantaneous. Simms states that a jump from Mars to Jupiter is roughly 5 minutes. So, assuming you do send a courrier, the message won't even be received until several minutes after the courier has departed.

Remember that the courier doesn't need to jump all the way to the ship it's sending a message to -- it just needs to jump out of jamming range. Also, I don't recall where the five minutes figure showed up -- did it refer to a capital ship? Because we see strikecraft jump from Mars to the Kuiper belt in a matter of seconds twice in War in Heaven (Laporte and Simms in "The Intervention" and various assets from the Eris in "Aristeia").

Otherwise, good analysis.

[BlasterNT]

Also, I don't recall where the five minutes figure showed up -- did it refer to a capital ship?

It's in the briefing for the Big Op

Now, as those of you who got through Tactical know, the $r Agincourt is just as close as Jupiter - five minutes away by subspace.

It's also stated that a rapid response fighter team takes 2 minutes from the Solaris to reach wherever Xinny and Zero were fighting, though that probably includes launch and realspace transit times. 

[MatthTheGeek]

Rememer that planets move. Which means that, at least in term of real distance, planets are not always as far from each other. That also means that the whole gravity map changes a lot too, which is going to mess up with subspace.

In other words : the transit times you see here can and will change a lot.