And despite it not having a beam atz all, the tech description says the Mentu should have one, guess it's a balancing reason, 'cause the Mentu with a beam cannon is...a beast.
And what are you trying to tell me Salty? The Hecate is crap, think we all agree that a Sobek can take it down, the heavy beam is usually the first thing to blow up, it's companion slasher following close by...and then? A slasher in the back...wow...
The Sobek it designed to be always on the attack, the Deimos is a multipurpose Corvette...
And still the Zods fared better in the second incursion and dealt with brushfire and other stuff after Capella.
Given the fact that the Zods now focus on node denial...what kind of capship would be good for that?
Long range artillery beams?
Well yeah, but the tech description for the Orion says it has dozens of turrets. It has something like 16.
The Deimos may be multipurpose, but the Sobek has enough field of fire and maneuverability to serve pretty well in most roles, too. The main difference is that the Deimos spreads its firepower out in both fields of fire and beam output, giving it a more flexible capability but less concentrated firepower. But in general, four TerSlash's definitely beat two VSlash's (consider the advantages in likelihood to take out subsystems and turrets, rate of fire, and greater difficulty in disarming beams due to having four spread out targets rather than two adjacent ones). The Sobek's main advantage is that it's smaller; at only slightly larger than a Sanctus, it's a better anti-ship combatant than a Deimos in most cases, with pretty good point defenses and durability, making it a well-rounded design that is more suited for anti-ship combat and offensive or interception action than the Deimos, which is better suited for anti-craft combat and all-around anti-ship combat. Frankly, the Deimos' only real flaw in its design is that its dorsal turrets are purely blob turrets; if one or two were STerPulse's, or even just flaks of some kind (balanced out by swapping one or two of the under-turrets with blobs, perhaps), it would be an extremely well rounded vessel. Honestly, the Deimos/Sobek pair is my favorite ship combo; the only one that comes close is perhaps the Chimera/Diomedes. They are both excellent ships that are flexible and versatile while covering each other's slight shortcomings in major areas perfectly. The Sobek is exactly the right kind of ship needed to complement the Deimos's in WiH--while the Deimos's are excellent general combatants and have the essential strength in point defense against UEF craft and warheads, they have trouble bringing the kind of firepower needed for quickly grinding a frigate down with slash beams, which is where the Sobek excels. And since the Sobek is itself pretty good in the point defense department, on top of being offensively oriented, small, and relatively nimble, it's a more fearsome pair than the dreaded Chimera/Bellerophon (mainly due to the fact that you could have three Deimos/Sobek pairs for every Chimera/Bellerophon pair, and the beams on the latter are very vulnerable to defanging attacks).
The Hecate's absurdly large and fragile emitters are the bigger problem, not their output. Not great for a destroyer, yes, but considering the Hecate is more of a fleet carrier, it is somewhat forgivable. The Hatshepsut's hangar capacity is about as much as a Raynor's (size-wize), where the Hecate has something like double that.
I thought the Terrans were the ones dealing with brushfire wars and stuff after Capella? And they handled them quite well, if the tech entries for the Pegasus, Hecate, and Perseus are any indication.
As for the Hecate versus a Sobek scenario...look, if the BGreen gets even a single shot off on the Sobek, that corvette is in deep trouble. Add in a few hits from TerSlash's, and it's down a big chunk of its health in the opening salvo. The real game-changer, though, is when the Hecate sorties four wings of bombers and blows the crap out of the corvette in under a minute. To put it one way, a missile destroyer would generally not fare well against a supercarrier because the supercarrier could sortie several wings of strike craft to drive off or destroy the missile destroyer well before said destroyer got in range (or could get enough missiles past the point defenses of the supercarrier and its escorts).
The Hecate isn't meant to operate alone; Severanti's blunder in Post Meridian was that he had a pitifully small escort group and then sent his only corvette out to charge two Karunas and several wings of fighters with minimal support. Had the Meridian had another two or three Deimos corvettes in that screen, and kept his fleet together and made a single, collected stand, he would either have escaped with minor damage to his ships or driven off the UEF attack. Sending his strike craft out to attack the UEF strike force piecemeal was also a big mistake.
The Hecate bombed the crap out of Luna. LUNA. One of humanity's biggest colonies, right on the doorstep of Earth, and heavily guarded by Home Fleet. With strikecraft alone, no less, showing the sheer power of the Hecate--where Severanti's Deimos escorts beyond the Juarez were during Post Meridian is a good question; they were essential in covering his destroyer's main weakness.
