Admiral Tolwyn's Court Martial

I remember dying this heroic way in StarLancer a lot - but mostly not intentional :).

But on Midway's armour - doesn't the WCP manual tell us that the Midway's shields are strong but the armour rather weak?
 
I remember dying this heroic way in StarLancer a lot - but mostly not intentional :).

But on Midway's armour - doesn't the WCP manual tell us that the Midway's shields are strong but the armour rather weak?

Yeah you would think that after the Vesuvius, most carriers would have the armor plating? Or was it some kind of rare/expensive alloy that they didn't have in abundance?
 
Yeah you would think that after the Vesuvius, most carriers would have the armor plating? Or was it some kind of rare/expensive alloy that they didn't have in abundance?

I guess they thought "Hey, we already gave it the meatiest shields we have, no need to put all that armour onto it.", especially if they were only expeting to fight pirates. Those were peace times after all.


Sadly, I recall dying that way in Starlancer a lot too...on my own torpedo :eek:

Really? As far as I remember, there's only a single mission in SL where you launch torpedoes yourself, in the captured Kamov. :confused:

No, I mostly died from enemy torpedoes flying towards an allied ship. I either flew into it because I veered away from the last torpedo I just destroyed but the next one was already there or I died from the explosion when I shot the torpedo down, as I was too close.
 
I guess they thought "Hey, we already gave it the meatiest shields we have, no need to put all that armour onto it.", especially if they were only expeting to fight pirates. Those were peace times after all.

I never found peace time as an excuse to skimp on defenses, if your not going to build up your military for force projection that's on you, but at least make your assets as strong as they can possibly be, that way you don't get so overwhelmed if an enemy attacks. During the early engagements, the Midway was damaged and on the run because they were caught off guard.
 
I never found peace time as an excuse to skimp on defenses, if your not going to build up your military for force projection that's on you, but at least make your assets as strong as they can possibly be, that way you don't get so overwhelmed if an enemy attacks. During the early engagements, the Midway was damaged and on the run because they were caught off guard.
Well, during the period up until the end of Secret Ops, we do see the Nephilim destroy a Vesuvius-class carrier - and we do not see them destroy a Midway-class carrier. So, really, which of them has better armour? :p

Anyway, yes, Waypoint! does mention the Midway not having especially heavy armour. But if we see the bugs destroy a Vesuvius before they manage to destroy a Midway, then surely, the Midway's design philosophy can't be that bad?

Besides that, I think you really have to move away from the idea that "more is better". It's easy to say that the Midway should have had better armour, not to mention at least a dozen PTCs, yadda yadda yadda. But every ship is designed with a specific mission in mind, and anything that doesn't help it gets its job done is just money wasted.

Here's what it comes down to - why should the Midway be as heavily armoured as the Vesuvius? One of them is a floating naval base to be used for peacetime patrols, the other is an offensive carrier to be used for wartime operations. Yes, the Midway did wind up taking part in wartime operations against the Nephilim, but let's be fair - who in their right mind would throw more armour on a ship just because you never know when a previously-unknown alien race might jump into our space at random? :) I don't seem to hear about the US Navy placing special anti-UFO defences on their carriers, nor do I hear you criticising them for it...
 
To be slightly fair to the Mt. Saint Helens, unlike the Midway it was caught without a significant fighter presence in space already.

(Only slightly fair, though. Peace or war, you should always have something in space, for when Murphy [the law, not the destroyer] rears its ugly head. :p )
 
To be slightly fair to the Mt. Saint Helens, unlike the Midway it was caught without a significant fighter presence in space already.

And added to that, the St. Helens was effectively hijacked from the SRA during it's first shakedown cruise, after being rushed out of drydock, so we don't even know if all her weapons were in place and operating effectively. In fact, both her and the Vesuvius were rushed out of production (remember, from the time Blair sees both of them under construction to the time he makes his way back to Earth is less than two weeks), so it's likely some of her armor plating or internal systems were improperly installed.

I do recall the WC4 novel elaborating more on why the flashpack didn't work on the outside of the Vesuvius' armor; not just because the armor was super-heavy/thick, but because it was insulated against such a weapon. It would be a logical conclusion that the people who were in charge of "The Plan" would make sure their shiny new flagships would be protected against their own secret weapon.

For anyone who has a copy of Waypoint!, I seem to recall there a explanation of why the Midway has multiple independent launch and landing bays. Was there not some mention that it was a reaction to Kilrathi being able to disable a carrier with one fighter?
 
For anyone who has a copy of Waypoint!, I seem to recall there a explanation of why the Midway has multiple independent launch and landing bays. Was there not some mention that it was a reaction to Kilrathi being able to disable a carrier with one fighter?
That's correct, it was mentioned that this happened repeatedly during the war. You can read about it in the online version of Waypoint! at Wedge's website.

I was gonna point that out as another advantage of the Midway-class, but given that the launchers broke down at at least one point in Prophecy, I figured the system ain't quite proven reliable yet ;).
 
And added to that, the St. Helens was effectively hijacked from the SRA during it's first shakedown cruise, after being rushed out of drydock, so we don't even know if all her weapons were in place and operating effectively. In fact, both her and the Vesuvius were rushed out of production (remember, from the time Blair sees both of them under construction to the time he makes his way back to Earth is less than two weeks), so it's likely some of her armor plating or internal systems were improperly installed.

I disagree... after that conflict they most likely put the ship back in Dry dock to finish her shakedown and system installs. I seriously doubt they would have had her put to space again if she were in that bad of shape to affect her defensive systems. My take is, that why she had superior armor, her shields were probably thinner, and she did still have the flight deck flaw. Since we don't actually see how that ship gets blasted, I think its logical to assume that the Nephilim exploited the same weakness the UBW had.

That's correct, it was mentioned that this happened repeatedly during the war. You can read about it in the online version of Waypoint! at Wedge's website.

I was gonna point that out as another advantage of the Midway-class, but given that the launchers broke down at at least one point in Prophecy, I figured the system ain't quite proven reliable yet ;).

Which begs the question why a ship can't do a manual launch from the landing bay like off the older carriers that do not have dedicated launchers.
 
I disagree... after that conflict they most likely put the ship back in Dry dock to finish her shakedown and system installs.

I didn't say that this didn't happen. Sorry for the confusion, but I was speaking about the action that we saw during the end of WC4. I thought that was what Death was referring to.

Since we don't actually see how that ship gets blasted, I think its logical to assume that the Nephilim exploited the same weakness the UBW had.

I disagree. A carrier's shielding covers the entire ship, including the bay. The only reason Blair was able to plant the flashpack inside the ship was because he was flying a Dragon, which the Vesuvius thought was one of their own, and allowed the ship to pass through its shields into the bay. The Nephilim didn't have a weapon similar to the flashpack, and since they would have already had to take down the shields to get into the bay, it would be far easier to take out the ship the traditional way (swarming it with fighters and bombers, as the Nephilim are known to do), rather than send in a few fighters/bombers to eat the ship from the inside out. Don't forget that Eisen provided the Intrepid with a boatload of schematics, so the UBW fighters had an idea where the ship's weakpoints were. The Bugs didn't.

Which begs the question why a ship can't do a manual launch from the landing bay like off the older carriers that do not have dedicated launchers.

I can't really remember that particular scenario happening, but I haven't played Prophecy in ages. Manual launching is a hectic job, especially if you only have a bay that runs the length of the ship, since any fighter leaving needed the necessary velocity, independent of the carrier, long enough to move out of the way of the carrier it just left. (It seems contradictory to Newton's First Law of Motion, but I recall that, at least in the WC4 novel, it being made a big deal of. SciFi Physics, go fig...) The Midway could have, of course, simply "pushed" fighters out of the rear landing bays, but it would be a time-consuming process, taking a long time to launch a squadron.

And I don't know which "older carriers" you're referring to.
 
I disagree. A carrier's shielding covers the entire ship, including the bay. The only reason Blair was able to plant the flashpack inside the ship was because he was flying a Dragon, which the Vesuvius thought was one of their own, and allowed the ship to pass through its shields into the bay. The Nephilim didn't have a weapon similar to the flashpack, and since they would have already had to take down the shields to get into the bay, it would be far easier to take out the ship the traditional way (swarming it with fighters and bombers, as the Nephilim are known to do), rather than send in a few fighters/bombers to eat the ship from the inside out. Don't forget that Eisen provided the Intrepid with a boatload of schematics, so the UBW fighters had an idea where the ship's weakpoints were. The Bugs didn't.
.

But the Kilrathi weren't flying confed fighters when they did it... Plus thats only one side, you can destroy the ship without using a flash pack if you blast it up enough with conventional weapons. Plus an enclosed flight deck I would think would be an obvious weak point... it was to the Kilrathi, so i don't think the Nephilim needed schematics to put 2 and 2 together and let us not forget that they had been studying humans for some time at this point. Its reasonable to believe they had some knowledge about Terran vessel designs... or at least some history.

I can't really remember that particular scenario happening, but I haven't played Prophecy in ages. Manual launching is a hectic job, especially if you only have a bay that runs the length of the ship, since any fighter leaving needed the necessary velocity, independent of the carrier, long enough to move out of the way of the carrier it just left. (It seems contradictory to Newton's First Law of Motion, but I recall that, at least in the WC4 novel, it being made a big deal of. SciFi Physics, go fig...) The Midway could have, of course, simply "pushed" fighters out of the rear landing bays, but it would be a time-consuming process, taking a long time to launch a squadron.

And I don't know which "older carriers" you're referring to.

I don't think they'd have to worry about the velocity as they'd have the carrier going in the opposite direction. Have it lift off, fly out the back, and drop downward. BAM flight operations still running without launchers!

Victory, Lexington, Intrepid...
 
The Nephilim don't strike me as the type that would exploit any kind of design weakness. They're more the brute force & sheer numbers kind of folk.
 
But the Kilrathi weren't flying confed fighters when they did it...

When they did what? Kilrathi were known on a few occasions to take out a carrier's flight capabilities, but I've never heard of that taking out an entire ship. And we don't know WHEN the Kilrathi did it - it could have been when carrier shielding was relatively weak/pre-phase. Sure, the launch/landing bay is an obvious target, but you'd need a skilled pilot to maneuver a fast-moving ship into another fast-moving ship and be able to shoot weapons/fire missiles quick enough and accurate enough - it's not a good strategy. The Kilrathi that destroyed fighter bays did so in a kamikaze effort, and Blair dropped the flashpack while zooming through the interior.

Plus thats only one side, you can destroy the ship without using a flash pack if you blast it up enough with conventional weapons.

If you have enough conventional weapons to reduce a carrier's shields, why not use those same weapons to destroy the carrier in the first place? And in the case of the Midway, I think Blair of all people would be smart enough to design the hull to be resistant to such a weapon, doubly so since the Vesuvius class had the same protection.

I don't think they'd have to worry about the velocity as they'd have the carrier going in the opposite direction. Have it lift off, fly out the back, and drop downward. BAM flight operations still running without launchers!

Yeah, that's what I said. I also pointed some of the problems with that kind of operation.

Victory, Lexington, Intrepid...

I hope someone can elaborate on this a bit, because I know what you're talking about, Plebe. Aside from the fact that the Intrepid wasn't a conventional carrier, the ships you mentioned did have launch catapults, but I think you just don't experience them in-game due to limitations inherent in the game engine. (Loaf, or anyone else with good knowledge on such restrictions, am I anywhere close here?)

Quarto said:
The Nephilim don't strike me as the type that would exploit any kind of design weakness. They're more the brute force & sheer numbers kind of folk.

Totally.
 
Anyway, yes, Waypoint! does mention the Midway not having especially heavy armour. But if we see the bugs destroy a Vesuvius before they manage to destroy a Midway, then surely, the Midway's design philosophy can't be that bad?

And the actual reference is heavy armor for a ship its size. The full quote is "It’s not heavily armored for a ship of its size, but its shield generators are the equal of those found on most wartime top-security permanent installations, making the Midway a literal flying fortress." That's not really the type of thing that should inspire a discussion about the ship's weak defenses.
 
When they did what? Kilrathi were known on a few occasions to take out a carrier's flight capabilities, but I've never heard of that taking out an entire ship. And we don't know WHEN the Kilrathi did it - it could have been when carrier shielding was relatively weak/pre-phase. Sure, the launch/landing bay is an obvious target, but you'd need a skilled pilot to maneuver a fast-moving ship into another fast-moving ship and be able to shoot weapons/fire missiles quick enough and accurate enough - it's not a good strategy. The Kilrathi that destroyed fighter bays did so in a kamikaze effort, and Blair dropped the flashpack while zooming through the interior.

We don't know that they were all kamikaze strikes. We only have a few points of reference for it.

Blair also disabled the Lexington in TPOF by prematurely exploding a torpedo so as to knock out its flight ops capability. So it's not a ridiculous proposition that other pilots could also do it without resorting to literally flying into the bay.
 
We don't know that they were all kamikaze strikes. We only have a few points of reference for it.

Blair also disabled the Lexington in TPOF by prematurely exploding a torpedo so as to knock out its flight ops capability. So it's not a ridiculous proposition that other pilots could also do it without resorting to literally flying into the bay.

Didn't Rachel mention this in her Blurb in the Prophecy Gold manual? I could have sworn she mentioned that all a Kilrathi pilot would have to do for glory is fly into the hangar and knock out flight opps.
 
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