Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
The battleships in Action Stations and the Supercruisers in the movie are two attempts, wholly independent and almost certainly ignorant of each other, to put World War II style battleships in space.
CONFLEET in the timeline...
- Thread starter Dragon1
- Start date
Dragon1
Rear Admiral
Ok, I understand that.
How would you guys mesh them together into one universe? Would it be too much to suppose that they did carry separate roles? If not, then was it just the terminology that changed in the Universe? Perhaps it became politically expedient after the McAuliffe Ambush to call BBs Super Cruisers? Would the AMGs on the Super Cruiser be similar in striking power to those found on the BBs of Action Stations?
How long did the Concordia class Super Cruiser serve? Were there any in service as late as 2669 or later?
How would you guys mesh them together into one universe? Would it be too much to suppose that they did carry separate roles? If not, then was it just the terminology that changed in the Universe? Perhaps it became politically expedient after the McAuliffe Ambush to call BBs Super Cruisers? Would the AMGs on the Super Cruiser be similar in striking power to those found on the BBs of Action Stations?
How long did the Concordia class Super Cruiser serve? Were there any in service as late as 2669 or later?
Bob McDob
Better Health Through Less Flavor
Dragon1 said:
Read what I said again: late-era battleships and battlecruisers are in many ways the same thing. There's a reason the Royal Navy sent the Hood against the Bismarck that isn't desperation: she was the largest capital ship in the Royal Navy, and in many ways the best - heavier armament then the much newer King George V, and faster then the Nelsons and Queen Elizabeth. The real problem was that she was twenty years old and her horizontal protection had been neglected (not to mention her fire control); if she had been, the outcome of the Denmark Straits could have been very different.
Dragon1
Rear Admiral
YOU KEEP REFERENCING HISTORY THAT I AM WELL AWARE OF!
I am asking about fictional space ships. Perhaps more to the point, about the origin of the terminology. What initially was cause to create a Super Cruiser and a Battleship classification if they both did the same damn thing? Down the line in 2654 or so the missions may have been identical. What caused Confed in 2644/2645 to classify the Concordia class a super Cruiser instead of a Battleship?
I am asking about fictional space ships. Perhaps more to the point, about the origin of the terminology. What initially was cause to create a Super Cruiser and a Battleship classification if they both did the same damn thing? Down the line in 2654 or so the missions may have been identical. What caused Confed in 2644/2645 to classify the Concordia class a super Cruiser instead of a Battleship?
Haesslich
Spaceman
Dragon1 said:
We don't know why they called one a battleship and the other a supercruiser - we don't have enough data on the battleship classes of Action Stations to make any judgements regarding their speeds and armaments, outside of the heavy plasma guns and bombardment capabilties. Thus, we don't know how fast or how heavily armed a battleship really is - the only ship we DO have stats for is the supercruiser Concordia, which had torpedoes and possibly less armor than a battleship like the Yorkshire or North Carolina.
At this point, there's no way to make more than a few informed guesses as to why one ship was called a supercruiser and the other called a battleship. We do know cruisers tend to be fast and fairly heavily armed, and the Concordia qualifies as that. Whether it would've had the same level of armor and shielding that a battleship would have is another question entirely, especially as speed and maneuverabilty did not seem to be a battleship's primary considerations - it was designed to carry as many generators as possible for guns and shields, thus allowing it to slug it out with other ships and overwhelm THEIR phase shields due to the sheer energy drain required to maintain them under heavy fire.
We do know that the Concordia had to be either decomissioned or destroyed before WC2, in 2665-2666, but whether other ships of her class served on till the end of the War is another question which remains unanswered.
Bob McDob
Better Health Through Less Flavor
Dragon1 said:
Sorry, I'm a bit coarse :\ My guess is that it's simply a name change after the battleship had been so thoroughly discredited at McAuliffeThe Supercruiser masses half again as much as the battleship ten years earlier (73,000 tonnes vs. 50,000), so I'm guessing it's not because it's a watered down battleship.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
In 2654 they'd be more like those found in Wing Commander II.
Dragon1
Rear Admiral
Cool, thanks Quatro.
Just trying to do the math, I know the Fralthra has between 600-700 cm of armor. How many hits with the WC2 AMG does it take to kill the Fralthra (I am pretty sure it is less than 20 although I could be wrong).
I am more interested to see what the ingame balance was with regards to the destructive power of the AMG, than the official damage rating.
Just trying to do the math, I know the Fralthra has between 600-700 cm of armor. How many hits with the WC2 AMG does it take to kill the Fralthra (I am pretty sure it is less than 20 although I could be wrong).
I am more interested to see what the ingame balance was with regards to the destructive power of the AMG, than the official damage rating.
Bob McDob
Better Health Through Less Flavor
Another sign that Confed seems to have abandoned the battleship rate is in Fleet Action; when Hunter and Paladin find the Hakaga fleet, there's a bunch of "cruiser type vessels that were bigger than the old Concordia-battleships he could only guess would be the word for them, drawing the term out of ancient nautical history" (138).
Of course, later in the novel there's Project Omega, which is described as a "battlewagon" though - it's interesting how Forstchen tends to use that name instead when referring to confed BBs.
Of course, later in the novel there's Project Omega, which is described as a "battlewagon" though - it's interesting how Forstchen tends to use that name instead when referring to confed BBs.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Seems a lot of people are misspelling it lately, so I'll just point out that the "r" goes before the "t"Dragon1 said:
.Well, what you have to consider is that the in-game stats for the capships are vastly different than the official stats in the manual. The Fralthra, for example, has 85cm of armour all around instead of the hundreds of centimetres in the manual. Similarly, the Concordia has 77.5/77.5/67.5 cm of armour.
How this change in armour could be explained is pretty optional - we can either pretend that the discrepancy doesn't exist, or we can suppose that the stats presented in the manual are for ships that have had their armour upgraded, while all the ships we encounter in-game are still un-upgraded. This would make some sense (because we know that at some point between WC2 and WC3, capships were indeed upgraded), but it would really beg the question why all the capships we encounter, even as late as 2667, are still un-upgraded.
In any case, you asked about how many shots you need to kill a Fralthra. The answer is, if you're always aiming at the same section of the ship, you will need at least 4 AMG shots (at least four - because we don't know how much damage a capship can take once its armour is gone). So, for example, if the Concordia fires all of its seven AMG cannons, plus its PTC cannon (120cm), it will usually kill the Fralthra in one volley (the PTC pretty much settles it... the rest of the AMGs fire in such a spread that it's impossible for even half of them to hit simultaneously). On the other hand, if the Fralthra felt like killing the Concordia, it would have to fire at least two salvoes, because its two AMGs only deal a total of 60cm damage, and the bullet spread will usually prevent both AMGs from hitting the same capship.
Dragon1
Rear Admiral
This really helps out Quarto!
We can now see a bridge in the stats between WC1 and WC3. My feelings now on the 2664 Jane's ship guide is that it was designed to show the ships after a general refit that may not have actually commenced until 2668.
The WC3 ship stats are higher than those found in the Jane's Ship Guide of 2664 and of ships found in WC4, for reasons previously discussed.
For an in-universe explanation though; perhaps only key front-line units were refit to the WC3 stats, while most of the fleet got upgraded shields, but retained their 2668 armor specs, even unitil as late as 2673.
We can now see a bridge in the stats between WC1 and WC3. My feelings now on the 2664 Jane's ship guide is that it was designed to show the ships after a general refit that may not have actually commenced until 2668.
The WC3 ship stats are higher than those found in the Jane's Ship Guide of 2664 and of ships found in WC4, for reasons previously discussed.
For an in-universe explanation though; perhaps only key front-line units were refit to the WC3 stats, while most of the fleet got upgraded shields, but retained their 2668 armor specs, even unitil as late as 2673.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Sure, no problem. I've also got similar files for WC1 and Armada if anyone's interested (though I'm not 100% certain about some of the stuff in the Armada file - it may be that the editor I used to find out the in-game stats doesn't work perfectly, because all the Y/P/R values for all ships are 2/2/2). Finally, there's also a file for WC2 guns and missiles (though the missile values are 95% incomplete).
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I'd certainly like to see the weapons values.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Here they are.
Note: looking at these files, I realised that not only is the WC2 missile data overwhelmingly incomplete, but that I don't even remember what any of this stuff means. The gun and missile data for WC2 comes straight from the EXE - I literally copied out the hexadecimal values from the EXE, and guessed what they mean by comparing them with the manual stats. For the guns, this was an easy process, and the values I ended up with are definitely the right ones. For the missiles, on the other hand, I never got too far figuring them out, so this file is really just a bunch of stuff I noted down. Feel free to suggest what some of the values might mean.
Note: looking at these files, I realised that not only is the WC2 missile data overwhelmingly incomplete, but that I don't even remember what any of this stuff means. The gun and missile data for WC2 comes straight from the EXE - I literally copied out the hexadecimal values from the EXE, and guessed what they mean by comparing them with the manual stats. For the guns, this was an easy process, and the values I ended up with are definitely the right ones. For the missiles, on the other hand, I never got too far figuring them out, so this file is really just a bunch of stuff I noted down. Feel free to suggest what some of the values might mean.