[darkdaej]

To top it, the Herc 2 was made by different companies in the FS2Demo and FS2. Ares continues the line by being made by a 3rd company.

There is an unmanned spaceship known as Cygnus which has been making cargo runs to the International Space Station since 2013.  It was originally designed and manufactured by Orbital Sciences Corporation.  This company was bought by ATK Technologies in 2014, and ATK was itself bought by Northrup Grumman in 2018.  So in the span of six years it was made by three different companies.

One could therefore speculate that Han-Ronald Corporation, the makers of the Herc I, was bought by RNI Systems, the makers of the Herc II.  Han-Ronald is the manufacturer of a large number of FS1-era ships, but no FS2-era ships*.  Meanwhile RNI Systems does not appear at all in the FS1 ships.tbl, but appears many times in the FS2 ships.tbl.

* With the single, annoying exception of the GTB Artemis.  A campaign designer could handwave that somehow, or ignore it, or retcon it by changing ships.tbl.

Well, maybe Han was bought out by Ronald who then renamed the company RNI (with the R standing for Ronald)

It's possible


Is "Velocity in the FS2 ships or weapons tbl?  Because it's apparently owned by Han-Ronald.  If that's the case maybe they just reformed into Velocity for all ship-building operations and have other subsidiaries outside of the military

[Nightmare]

It seems to be one of the many Colossus contractors, but it's barely identifiable in the video.

[Colt]

One could therefore speculate that Han-Ronald Corporation, the makers of the Herc I, was bought by RNI Systems, the makers of the Herc II.  Han-Ronald is the manufacturer of a large number of FS1-era ships, but no FS2-era ships*.  Meanwhile RNI Systems does not appear at all in the FS1 ships.tbl, but appears many times in the FS2 ships.tbl.

* With the single, annoying exception of the GTB Artemis.  A campaign designer could handwave that somehow, or ignore it, or retcon it by changing ships.tbl.

Hmm. I could be wrong, but there's no indication of what year these craft were introduced. Perhaps in this scenario the Artemis was produced before RNI's acquisition of H-RC, and then the Herc 2 came after?

[darkdaej]

One could therefore speculate that Han-Ronald Corporation, the makers of the Herc I, was bought by RNI Systems, the makers of the Herc II.  Han-Ronald is the manufacturer of a large number of FS1-era ships, but no FS2-era ships*.  Meanwhile RNI Systems does not appear at all in the FS1 ships.tbl, but appears many times in the FS2 ships.tbl.

* With the single, annoying exception of the GTB Artemis.  A campaign designer could handwave that somehow, or ignore it, or retcon it by changing ships.tbl.

Hmm. I could be wrong, but there's no indication of what year these craft were introduced. Perhaps in this scenario the Artemis was produced before RNI's acquisition of H-RC, and then the Herc 2 came after?

Could be a nice explanation, if only we didn't have this quote from Petrarch in the command briefing from "The King's Gambit"

"The Aquitaine has just received four wings of the new GTB Artemis, the Alliance's next-generation light bomber"

So it seems to be a brand-new type of bomber that was recently introduced.

[Colt]

Could be a nice explanation, if only we didn't have this quote from Petrarch in the command briefing from "The King's Gambit"

"The Aquitaine has just received four wings of the new GTB Artemis, the Alliance's next-generation light bomber"

So it seems to be a brand-new type of bomber that was recently introduced.

That's a good point. The player is introduced to the Herc 2 long before the Artemis after all, and the NTF have access to a number of Herc 2's which may had been acquired at the start of the rebellion.

[0rph3u5]

One could therefore speculate that Han-Ronald Corporation, the makers of the Herc I, was bought by RNI Systems, the makers of the Herc II.  Han-Ronald is the manufacturer of a large number of FS1-era ships, but no FS2-era ships*.  Meanwhile RNI Systems does not appear at all in the FS1 ships.tbl, but appears many times in the FS2 ships.tbl.

* With the single, annoying exception of the GTB Artemis.  A campaign designer could handwave that somehow, or ignore it, or retcon it by changing ships.tbl.

Hmm. I could be wrong, but there's no indication of what year these craft were introduced. Perhaps in this scenario the Artemis was produced before RNI's acquisition of H-RC, and then the Herc 2 came after?

Possible solution:
Han-Roland's assets were mostly located in Sol - esspecially stuff that you don't need redundant capacities of, like R&D; Sol is cut off, assets are lost and the company takes a long time to recover its position as supplier because it needs to rebuild against stronger competitors, lack of investor confidence, having to fullfill previous obligations and/or having to reorganize existing assets for modern use.

RNI by contrast, having it primary assets outside Sol and less previous obligations, would be a highly agile competitor - propably enjoying much more confidence from investors as a result. And therefor being able to recruit top of the field staff and win more important contracts.
(EDIT:side note: that could make the R in RNI stand for Regulus as company origin/HQ - which would also help explain why the "homefront" NTF units in loop 1 seem to be better equipped than the rest)

[Nightmare]

The only mentioned RNI ship yard was in Laramis though.