[The E]

My other SSM idea: have them only functioning with an AWACS in theater, and be fredded to appear flakey even then. Then it's like "hey! let's put subspace drives in these torpedos and warp them in! Cool! oh wait, that doesn't work so well." Fiddling with +offest is on my to-do list.

SSMs in WiH always, ALWAYS need an AWACS-enabled ship near the target. You will note that, in every mission where SSMs appear, there's either a Charybdis or three or a wing of Auroras present.

And I do think that SSMs are a REALLY new tech, nowhere near ready to be deployed even in an experimental way in a timeframe close to Capella.

[bfobar]

OK thats fine. How about precision jumping with AWACS to help? I had a mission idea involving the player flying around an enemy cruiser formation to the optimum attack vector and then calling in reinforcements and having a capital ship arrive at that spot a short time later.

[Phantom Hoover]

Really really early prototyping might be justified? Precision jumps, for instance, which are one of the tactical cornerstones of the TEI anyway. So instead of SSMs you call in a wing of Ares for a Maxim or Treb strike.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

My other SSM idea: have them only functioning with an AWACS in theater, and be fredded to appear flakey even then. Then it's like "hey! let's put subspace drives in these torpedos and warp them in! Cool! oh wait, that doesn't work so well." Fiddling with +offest is on my to-do list.

SSMs in WiH always, ALWAYS need an AWACS-enabled ship near the target. You will note that, in every mission where SSMs appear, there's either a Charybdis or three or a wing of Auroras present.

And I do think that SSMs are a REALLY new tech, nowhere near ready to be deployed even in an experimental way in a timeframe close to Capella.

Remind me to make a feature request to be more easily able to enable/disable specific SSM strike in-mission. Or to try and write that myself one day (although given the size of my TODO list, that day is probably a bit far away).

[MatthTheGeek]

Remind me to make a feature request to be more easily able to enable/disable specific SSM strike in-mission. Or to try and write that myself one day (although given the size of my TODO list, that day is probably a bit far away).

What do you mean ? SSM strikes seem fairly easy to manipulate already as-it-is.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

SEXP-based strikes are super easy to manipulate, but I'd just like to be able to render inoperative all TAG-C with a single SEXP. I know it's already doable, I can think of a few way to do something like that already. I just think it would be prettier to have an ON/OFF switch .

Anyway, as I said, if I ever get the courage to dive into the source code, I would probably write a small patch myself (if that's still on my mind then), which may or may not be accepted in that distant future anyway.

EDIT - actually, there's a few more thing I'd like to be able to do with SSM, like being able to set a mximum number of active strikes, a general cooldown system (independant from an individual fighter's TAG cooldown), messages to be played if a SSM strike can't be fired. Part of all this can probably be done through scripting, but Fred and table-based solutions might be more handy, especially to newcomers.

EDIT 2 - but I think we are getting off topic here, and this might not be the best place to discuss all this :s.

[bfobar]

OK next question: What do you think the fighter/bomber complement of the Diomedes would be? I was guessing 3 wings of fighters and a wing of light or medium bombers, with crew to get 16 ships in the air at one time, and a few spares, giving maybe 24 ships total or so. Does this seem reasonable, to high, or too low?

[MatthTheGeek]

Try to look at what was launched in Darkest Hour and Aristeia, that should give you an idea.

[bfobar]

I remember in Astride about 6 interceptors circling the thing. Is that it? I won't be able to look at the missions until tonight.

[Aesaar]

It also launches a wing of Herc-IIs on Hard and a wing of Artemis bombers on Insane.  I'd say no more than four wings (16 fighters) standard, and a little extra space for shuttles, resupply ships, and fighters or escape pods recovered in an emergency.

This is assuming the Medea may not have been able to recover all its strikecraft before it jumped.

[bfobar]

OK so that sounds about right. I'll check fred when I get home to be sure. I was also thinking four wings with a spare ship or so per wing for repairs, a supply or two, and a couple of pods, etc. At any rate, I don't think it should able to deal with more than two squadrons at absolute maximum logistical ability.

Also on those missions, we can't assume from just what was given in campaign that the 12 ships it launches in Aristeia is its maximum complement. Some ships may have been damaged or even deployed elsewhere at that time. It isn't like the Hood tossed out its full 120 fighter compliment either and it was sitting there waiting for the engagement.

[General Battuta]

I wouldn't put more than 12 fighters on there.

[bfobar]

So one squadron plus support as a normal complement? It's a convenient squad base that way.

[SaltyWaffles]

It's a far more versatile ship than the Chimera/Bellerophon classes which are rather specialized and shouldn't really be mass produced.

....huh?

The Chimera is in most ways a next-gen Deimos. Extremely good point defenses, good speed, good anti-ship firepower (in the Chimera's case, impressive firepower for a corvette), decent enough durability, and not too much larger than a Deimos to make mass production raise a few questions. A Diomedes is much larger, probably more expensive (if four TerSlashBlue's and a sizable hanger bay and fighter maintenance facility is cheaper than 3 MBlue's and a tad more point defenses, why not just outfit Chimeras with 3 TerSlashBlue's instead of MBlue's?), and isn't a full package in itself like a Deimos, as it requires a craft complement to operate as intended. The FS2-era Deimos is still around and will be for years to come because it's so cheap to build and cost-efficient for its size/class. Its capabilities are largely anemic compared to a Chimera, but it has a great role already as a super-versatile, low-medium size general combatant.

It also launches a wing of Herc-IIs on Hard and a wing of Artemis bombers on Insane.  I'd say no more than four wings (16 fighters) standard, and a little extra space for shuttles, resupply ships, and fighters or escape pods recovered in an emergency.

This is assuming the Medea may not have been able to recover all its strikecraft before it jumped.

Given the size of the Diomedes, 16 fighters sounds a bit low for an upper limit. I'd lean more towards 20, with standard support craft (like the 16 estimate). Maybe 12 fighters and 4-8 bombers, capable of operating as a single unit for unpredictable, mid-sized strikes. Kind of like a Karuna pair, but you'd only need to add an Aeolus or Hyperion to complete the unit.

[General Battuta]

Tactically speaking the Diomedes is much closer to a next-gen Deimos than the Chimera. Chimeras and Bellerophons are intended to serve as shock jump units.

[SaltyWaffles]

Tactically speaking the Diomedes is much closer to a next-gen Deimos than the Chimera. Chimeras and Bellerophons are intended to serve as shock jump units.

Interesting. The size and capabilities of the Diomedes makes it feel more like a pocket-destroyer (kind of like the Iceni?) than a Deimos-like combatant. A Chimera has many of the same qualities of the Deimos taken to a higher level; the main difference is its heavy beam cannons being all forward-oriented instead of spread out. If a Chimera need only turn to face the general direction of the target to kill it, isn't it much more efficient than having a TerSlashBlue or two immediately available, but little more to actually use against the target? If three MBlue's don't take it out in a salvo (or nearly kill it), chances are the Shivan ship has the firepower to gut the Chimera OR Diomedes before much can be done.

[An4ximandros]

Maybe the Diomedes could be best described as a GTVA Moloch MK II? It seems to fare quite well on that task. (Or that might be my tiredness talking, your pick.)

Anyway off to sleep, the sacred time of imagination and dreaming of being on the bridge of a Dio fighting two Shivan corvettes at a time.

[bfobar]

Maybe the Diomedes could be best described as a GTVA Moloch MK II? It seems to fare quite well on that task. (Or that might be my tiredness talking, your pick.)

Anyway off to sleep, the sacred time of imagination and dreaming of being on the bridge of a Dio fighting two Shivan corvettes at a time.

Two Molochs at the same time? F****ng A.

I may make that happen if I can get this little campaign off the ground. One Moloch isn't really a challenge.

Also, I was thinking of the Chimera and Bellerphon as, in addition to shock jumpers, node blockaders. It seems to me that if the GTVA knows that the Shivans have at least a hundred Sathani ready to go, and if they believe that a third incursion is inevitable, then you would want to be able to rapidly deploy a whole armada of capital ships with all firepower firing out the front to whatever node the Shivans finally end up trying to come into GTVA space through. Basically, you would want enough Chimeras etc to be able to one shot a Sathanas and rotate out whichever ships took a beam hit before they killed the Juggernaut (another good use for shock jumping there. Have two fleets of juggernaut killers and have them pop in on the blind side each time a Sathanas comes through a node, and rotate them out).

[NGTM-1R]

If three MBlue's don't take it out in a salvo (or nearly kill it), chances are the Shivan ship has the firepower to gut the Chimera OR Diomedes before much can be done.

Depends entirely on how they're targeted. Three MBlues could significantly **** up the weapons, targeting, or power system of nearly anything short of a Sathanas. Maybe that too if you try hard enough.

[bfobar]

First time posting pics... lets see if this works.


I reskinned her to try to look more like Hecate Armor themes. Thank you Aesaar for the .psd file.