[Aesaar]

There's nothing that prevents you personally from replacing the Anemoi with the Hemera if you want to.  It'll make Forced Entry and Aristeia a little easier, and The Plunder a little harder, but that's about it.  This isn't adding heavy beam cannons or anything.

[Mars]

Why not just make a Trebuchet#bomb?

[-Norbert-]

This fragmentation is both the GTVA's strenght and weakness. By "strenght", obviously they learned not to place "all eggs in the same basket" and enter in a tactical fragmentation and modulation.

And you think building a destroyer-scale freighter that houses almost all the logistics of a battlegroup in one single place is not putting all eggs in the same basket?
I think it's pretty much the opposite. They put the eggs in one basket, but try to hide the basket very well. But once discovered a battlegroup can be severely weakened by the loss of that single ship. Not exactly crippled, but it will hurt really bad.

It works good enough against the UEF, but I can't help but wonder if the Shivans might not turn this "strength" into a weakness, with their already mentioned uncanny ability to find enemy ships no matter how well hidden they are.

Unless the ships in BP carry just as many supplys as the Capella era ships had on board and the logistics vessels are there on top of that.

[The E]

TEI vessels have enough internal storage capacity to operate independently for normal patrol purposes. Anemois simply reduce the need for fixed home ports for these ships, thus enabling the GTVA to keep their vessels out in the field for longer.

[Luis Dias]

This fragmentation is both the GTVA's strenght and weakness. By "strenght", obviously they learned not to place "all eggs in the same basket" and enter in a tactical fragmentation and modulation.

And you think building a destroyer-scale freighter that houses almost all the logistics of a battlegroup in one single place is not putting all eggs in the same basket?
I think it's pretty much the opposite. They put the eggs in one basket, but try to hide the basket very well. But once discovered a battlegroup can be severely weakened by the loss of that single ship. Not exactly crippled, but it will hurt really bad.

There's that, which is a very good point, but I was referring to have, for instance, a Destroyer which doubles as a carrier, as a hospital facility, ammo freighter and so on and so on (hi Solaris). My point about having all the eggs in one place referred to this (Although your counter-point is spot on).

GTVA's strategy is more like a modular architecture of sorts, much more streamlined, making every ship more maneuverable, faster, smaller, more powerful and cheaper.

Running the risk of making a really bad analogy here (I am no programmer), it's like the difference between repeating the same code ad nauseam and having subroutines all over the place. If you "hit" the subroutines, all your program goes to hell (which is your point), but at the mean time you saved a lot of work, trouble and resources.

It works good enough against the UEF, but I can't help but wonder if the Shivans might not turn this "strength" into a weakness, with their already mentioned uncanny ability to find enemy ships no matter how well hidden they are.

Which is curious, since the Tev's new fleet was designed to counter Shivan tactics (and not UEF's). So it probably goes down to a choice they had to take: either not streamline and have fewer "carryall" ships with way less firepower (for the same resources), or a modular strategy where they can build more ships, each ship costing less, more maneuverable, more powerful (single purpose ships).

They simply chose the latter.

TEI vessels have enough internal storage capacity to operate independently for normal patrol purposes. Anemois simply reduce the need for fixed home ports for these ships, thus enabling the GTVA to keep their vessels out in the field for longer.

Or that. 

[StarSlayer]

Military organizations have a long and storied tradition of trial and error, not to mention outright fail.  Expecting that every ship should be some epic masterclass is not realistic.  There are going to be more than a few duds out there, actually having ships that are less than great at their role, or who's intended role proves irrelevant makes for a more realistic universe.

[An4ximandros]

 Except in space you could make a super ship that has combat capabilities, factories, food growth facilities and fuel processing/storage, etc. because of the lack of the "weight" limit on the air or sea.
 Granted, it makes it less interesting but it's not unrealistic!
 Realistically, it's estimated we could one day build ships the size of the Moon if we distribute resources adequately.

[The E]

No weight limit? How do you figure that?

(You're wrong, btw. Greater Mass -> Bigger engines needed -> More fuel needed -> Diminishing returns regarding accel rate and maneuverability.)

The only things you don't have to care about in space are aerodynamics and hydrodynamics.

[crizza]

What kind of fuel needs a ship powered by those meson reactors?
No joke intended, this is a honest question.

[headdie]

the meson mass is fuel for the reactors, just as deuterium is for the reactors of FS2 and earlier era ships.  also depending on how much mass is remaining after the reaction you might need a dedicated mass to eject out of the engines to propel the ship.

[An4ximandros]

Just had a brilliant idea! UEF ships with anti-matter warhead machine guns for propulsion!

[Mars]

I suspect what they already have is more efficient. Remember that these ships weigh millions of tons.

[Klaustrophobia]

we need a sarcasm sign smiley.

[An4ximandros]

No joke here my good chap! Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)

[Nohiki]

Look at the freespace Lore. the reason why you didn't have the antimatter helios all the time is because even in 2370ies, antimatter is too damn expensive to produce, so unless a superdestroyer shows up, you're stuck with cyclops. Now think how much money you would need just to power one ship...

[General Battuta]

Look at the freespace Lore. the reason why you didn't have the antimatter helios all the time is because even in 2370ies, antimatter is too damn expensive to produce, so unless a superdestroyer shows up, you're stuck with cyclops. Now think how much money you would need just to power one ship...

The UEF has loads of antimatter, though.

[Mars]

The GTM-13 Helios is the product of an entire generation of high-energy physics research, based primarily at the GTVA particle accelerator complex near Antares. The most powerful warhead in the fleet's arsenal, the Helios generates a massive shockwave from the cataclysmic annihilation of matter and anti-matter, triggered upon impact with its target. Each bank of Helios warheads can fire only once every 30 seconds. The Helios is prohibitively expensive to produce, thus its deployment is severely restricted.

The bomb itself is expensive to produce

Intelligent tracking similar to GTA targeting system - prior to launch, communicates with ship computer, gathering data about enemy target types and whereabouts - slow, low maneuverability - antimatter warhead (500 tonne3 mass-to-energy conversion) - due to instability of antimatter, no more than 10 may be carried on board a GTA bomber at any given time, unless pilot is granted a special permit by an appropriate governing body.

The Tsunami has now become the standard Terran bomb used to take out large targets. It's short life requires that you get within 1500 meters of the target before sending it off, and since it needs a lock to be fired, it takes a brave pilot to fly straight enough for long enough to let one of these fly. A few Tsunami's will take out almost any ship, barring a destroyer. The antimatter warhead also washes over shields a little, so as long as it isn't too close to the center of the blast, a fighter or bomber has a good chance of surviving detonation.

There 250 tons of antimatter is weirdly "the standard Terran bomb."

EDIT: that's pretty supportive of Sol being the primary producer.

[-Norbert-]

I'm pretty sure antimatter has non-military uses as well, just like nuclear power and dynamite.

[Col.Hornet]

wow, I didn't expect that one little post will initiate such a brainstorm xD. that was quite interesting.

[Killer Whale]

The final, worst case contingency for a third shivan incursion is mass exodus. With the firepower, adaptability, supplies and size of the Hemera, it could serve as a high end refugee transport. It could supplement freighter/transport/medi-frigate convoys with warship escorts in a fine manner by supplying, repairing, serving as a mini-carrier and absorbing a lot more punishment than something like an argo.
Just a thought.