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Posted by: voknaar
« on: March 14, 2011, 12:32:43 PM »

Losing that many human lives is something I'd consider impossible to cover up for the Soviets. I wonder how NATO will take to the rumors and Espionage Intel gathered. Even if NATO assumes it to be propaganda it'll be hard to discount the massive losses to Soviet shipping, human lives & State Owned Military ships and commercial ships. They might also assume the Soviets will try and blame them for the events. But that of course is assuming information gathered with regards to the invaders leaks to them..

But it leads to a difficult political situation for all involved.  :) Looking forward to how Mother Russia solves this debacle.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: March 14, 2011, 11:32:31 AM »

You seriously have a problem with creativity, steve. Maybe you should paint a bit to vent it.  ;D

LOL! I already have too many hobbies and not enough time :)

Steve
Posted by: UnLimiTeD
« on: March 14, 2011, 11:16:17 AM »

You seriously have a problem with creativity, steve. Maybe you should paint a bit to vent it.  ;D
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: March 14, 2011, 03:14:31 AM »

Hope you'll still be continuing this even with the new patch.  :)

Yes, I am working on Part 15 atm. This is the longest campaign since Trans-Newtonian and it has a lot of life in it yet. I just need to make sure my enthusiasm for this campaign remains greater than that for any new campaign ideas, of which I have quite a few :)

Steve
Posted by: Vulcanphsyco
« on: March 13, 2011, 06:42:43 AM »

Hope you'll still be continuing this even with the new patch.  :)
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: March 12, 2011, 01:00:52 AM »

Really great stuff, Steve.  I just read all 14 parts in the last couple of days and learned a lot.

BTW, you make the very common mistake of using "succession" when you mean "secession".


A very good point. Thanks for spotting that. I'll find and replace in the original Word document and update the affected posts.

Steve
Posted by: Ziusudra
« on: March 12, 2011, 12:04:42 AM »

Really great stuff, Steve.  I just read all 14 parts in the last couple of days and learned a lot.

BTW, you make the very common mistake of using "succession" when you mean "secession".
Posted by: Brian Neumann
« on: March 03, 2011, 05:48:34 AM »

This is an interesting idea, although one has to assume that if you have another group of fighters capable of overwhelming enemy missile defence with their missile swarm, then why not just bring twice as many of those fighters? At that point the beam-armed fighters are pretty much surplus to requirements.  Except for, as you say, extra PD and jump point defence.
The point of using the submunitios is that your standard fighter is probably going to have launchers in the size 3-6 range.  If you make a bus that is nothing but a housing for the submunitions then you can get 3-6 size 1 missiles with a speed of 2x that of your fighters, a 1 point warhead and enough fuel to be fired from behind the beam fighters.  While they will tend to absorb all of the defensive pd, they will do very little damage themselves.  If you are high enough tech to fit more into that size missile then armor them up.  Even a little armor will make killing them noticably harder and eat up a lot more pd missiles.

Brian
Posted by: Narmio
« on: March 02, 2011, 09:20:29 PM »

Quote from: Brian link=topic=3282. msg31707#msg31707 date=1299119270
If you plan on using the beam armed fighters as an offensive force in system then the trick is going to be getting them in close without being shot to pieces on the approach.   One way to do this is to have another set of fighters fire mirved missiles at the targets.   Lots of small targets will eat up the fleet point defense missiles, and might even run them out of ammo.   The fighters are slower than missile, however they are still fast enough to require a point defense style beam fire control to target them.   Most ships are not going to have to many of those, so in close each ship is only going to kill a few fighters at a time.   Enough fighters will swarm the defenses, and chew up the ships.   A lot of this comes more into the realm of tactics.
This is an interesting idea, although one has to assume that if you have another group of fighters capable of overwhelming enemy missile defence with their missile swarm, then why not just bring twice as many of those fighters? At that point the beam-armed fighters are pretty much surplus to requirements.  Except for, as you say, extra PD and jump point defence.

I'm currently considering 500-750t FACs that are still fast enough to use unturreted beam weapons as PD.  Their speed plus using their weapons in Final Fire mode should help them against anti-ship weapons while closing, then the hope would be that they're significantly tougher than fighters and would hold up under AMM fire.  The loss of fighter-only fire controls hurts a bit.   Maybe there could be FAC-only fire controls that have double, rather than quadruple, tracking speed?
Posted by: Brian Neumann
« on: March 02, 2011, 08:27:50 PM »

Does this mean that offensively fighters are pretty much only viable as, essentially, recoverable MIRV first stages? I had hoped to use miniaturised gauss cannon fighters as an offensive platform, but it doesn't seem viable.
They are an excellent platform for defending a gate, or thickening up a task force's point defense.  Depending on the relative tech they may even be a danger to the ships if they have any tech advantage at all.  Also arming a fighter with a 10cm meson while it is a big fighter can be devestating.  It doesn't take many hits from these guys to leave a smaller ship a mess.  Even big ships wory about being mobbed under those circumstances. 
If you plan on using the beam armed fighters as an offensive force in system then the trick is going to be getting them in close without being shot to pieces on the approach.  One way to do this is to have another set of fighters fire mirved missiles at the targets.  Lots of small targets will eat up the fleet point defense missiles, and might even run them out of ammo.  The fighters are slower than missile, however they are still fast enough to require a point defense style beam fire control to target them.  Most ships are not going to have to many of those, so in close each ship is only going to kill a few fighters at a time.  Enough fighters will swarm the defenses, and chew up the ships.  A lot of this comes more into the realm of tactics.
Good luck

Brian
Posted by: Narmio
« on: March 02, 2011, 07:37:59 PM »

Quote from: Deutschbag link=topic=3282. msg31700#msg31700 date=1299110249
Unless the Soviets use their anti-missile guns and missiles to take them out before their electronics recover. . .
I'd imagine the idea would be for the fighters to burn away from the jump-in as fast as possible, and try to get out of enemy AMM range quickly.   Although at 10k/s, assuming Soviet AMM range is over 1mkm, that's a long time under fire.   

Which does raise the question of how effective fighters are in close.   It seems like even very light fighters like Steve's Gauss-armed interceptors in this campaign are pretty much toast against any kind of comparable-tech missile defence.  It might take two or three AMMs to down a fighter, but intercept chances are going to be pretty good. 

Does this mean that offensively fighters are pretty much only viable as, essentially, recoverable MIRV first stages? I had hoped to use miniaturised gauss cannon fighters as an offensive platform, but it doesn't seem viable.
Posted by: Deutschbag
« on: March 02, 2011, 05:57:29 PM »

There is a jump gate so they could easily just mass transit the fighters and leave the carriers back.
Unless the Soviets use their anti-missile guns and missiles to take them out before their electronics recover...
Posted by: vergeraiders
« on: March 02, 2011, 05:53:52 PM »

There is a jump gate so they could easily just mass transit the fighters and leave the carriers back.

Wow that turns a WP assault form the worst possible environment for carriers to very near the best.
Posted by: Beersatron
« on: March 02, 2011, 04:12:16 PM »

There is a jump gate so they could easily just mass transit the fighters and leave the carriers back.
Posted by: Deutschbag
« on: March 02, 2011, 02:33:56 PM »

Uh oh. Is the USSR gonna take advantage of NATO's newfound weakness? I can see them blockading the Epsilon Eridani jump point to bottle up the Eridani ships, and then going to town on NATO and Free Mars. The Soviets could camp on the jump point, easily popping any fragile carriers that jump through, and giving the cruisers one hell of a fight.