PTC damage

I was hit by th PTC once. All that remained of me was a small little cloud of space dust. I never got between the Concordia and an enemy capship after that event
 
t.c.cgi said:
Destroying the enemy in a single, quick stroke is poor strategy? As opposed to taking your sweet time in waging a war of attrition that costs both sides more for the same results?

And they didn't rely on it... the Concordia had AMGs, Sabers and Broadswords. The PTC was Tolwyn's Alt-Delete for when the game got too tough.
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Well, it's more like the point is that while you should use the PTC if you can, you should not make your plans with the assumption that no second shot will be necessary, since not allowing for less-than-ideal damage from your strike is a sure way to FUBAR your own plan.
 
Ijuin said:
Well, it's more like the point is that while you should use the PTC if you can, you should not make your plans with the assumption that no second shot will be necessary, since not allowing for less-than-ideal damage from your strike is a sure way to FUBAR your own plan.
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There are no guarantees in war, or games. Broadswords and AMGs are just as fallable as a PTC. Holding back on using a weapon just because it might miss or hit the armored prow of a Fralthra (or overload the thermo-fusion-phased-dynamo-widgets) is defeatism. Even so, the PTC is not a single-shot weapon, nor is it the only weapon at the Concordia's disposal, and most importantly it's never central to any of the mission plans anyway.
 
It's all an odd criticism, since we have no idea what was going on in that scene (much like Angel). Maybe the Concordia had all her strike craft out there already, maybe her flight deck was disabled, maybe she was trying to make a jump and didn't want to leave anyone behind... all we see is the few seconds where they make the decision to fire the PTC.
 
Ijuin said:
Well, it's more like the point is that while you should use the PTC if you can, you should not make your plans with the assumption that no second shot will be necessary, since not allowing for less-than-ideal damage from your strike is a sure way to FUBAR your own plan.
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Honestly, a second shot shouldn't be necessary though. I don't care the size of the capship, one shot from the PTC should kill a cap ship. If on the off chance it doesn't, you still have AM cannons, each with the equivalent stopping power of a torpedo, so use those as a type of "clean-up" hit.
 
t.c.cgi said:
There are no guarantees in war, or games. Broadswords and AMGs are just as fallable as a PTC. Holding back on using a weapon just because it might miss or hit the armored prow of a Fralthra (or overload the thermo-fusion-phased-dynamo-widgets) is defeatism. Even so, the PTC is not a single-shot weapon, nor is it the only weapon at the Concordia's disposal, and most importantly it's never central to any of the mission plans anyway.
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A little risk analysis is also important. If you're in a situation where using the PTC does risk the ship, you still do have to consider your other options first, especially if they don't cost you as much. Absent extreme context, a PTC shot that risks the Concordia and its fighter wings for a Ralatha is an extremely poor choice, at least if the AMGs are still online or if Concordia can put any torpedo planes in the air. The Kilrathi have always outnumbered Confed, so any time you risk trading the Concordia for a lesser ship in combat, you may be sacrificing a Queen to kill a Knight, at best. Or something. There'd better be a good strategic or tactical reason that makes the risk worthwhile. A Ralatha bearing down on a Terran shipyard? Sure, that's a reason. But a lone cruiser in deep space? Maybe not so much, depending.
 
Toast said:
A little risk analysis is also important.
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This isn't a situation that's in a vacuum. While Maverick is busy killing Jazz without anyone pulling the morality card on him, the Kilrathi have destroyed an entire battlefleet and have set the Concordia in a full retreat. For all we know, all of their Broadswords are out of action, and the Concordia is damaged to the point of where 60% power capacity is all she has, and she's about a quarter of a torpedo from going up in a fireball anyway - which is a situation not uncommon to the Concordia.
 
t.c.cgi said:
This isn't a situation that's in a vacuum. While Maverick is busy killing Jazz without anyone pulling the morality card on him, the Kilrathi have destroyed an entire battlefleet and have set the Concordia in a full retreat. For all we know, all of their Broadswords are out of action, and the Concordia is damaged to the point of where 60% power capacity is all she has, and she's about a quarter of a torpedo from going up in a fireball anyway - which is a situation not uncommon to the Concordia.
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Nothing I said is inconsistent with that.
 
"The PTC was Tolwyn's Alt-Delete for when the game got too tough."

~~~ great! I can just see him at the keyboard hitting all those keys at once.
 
A little risk analysis is also important. If you're in a situation where using the PTC does risk the ship, you still do have to consider your other options first, especially if they don't cost you as much. Absent extreme context, a PTC shot that risks the Concordia and its fighter wings for a Ralatha is an extremely poor choice, at least if the AMGs are still online or if Concordia can put any torpedo planes in the air. The Kilrathi have always outnumbered Confed, so any time you risk trading the Concordia for a lesser ship in combat, you may be sacrificing a Queen to kill a Knight, at best. Or something. There'd better be a good strategic or tactical reason that makes the risk worthwhile. A Ralatha bearing down on a Terran shipyard? Sure, that's a reason. But a lone cruiser in deep space? Maybe not so much, depending.
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This assumes an inordinate amount of foreknowledge and incorrectly assigns all control over the battle to the Concordia. The battles we see between the Concordia and various Fralthra earlier in the game are often (if not always) the result of the faster cruisers hunting down the dreadnaught rather than some planned offensive. Beyond that - what is this particular cruiser doing? Sitting in deep space for no reason? That seems unlikely - if it isn't gunning for Concordia herself then it must be involved in some other objective. Does attacking the cruiser now stop it from bombing a planet? Striking a convoy? Blocking a necessary jump line? You also seem to assume that the Concordia has a choice - destroy the Fralthra or go on its way. Battles rarely work that way. It's very, very hard to criticize Tolwyn's decision to fire at it without at least some of that information.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
This assumes an inordinate amount of foreknowledge and incorrectly assigns all control over the battle to the Concordia. The battles we see between the Concordia and various Fralthra earlier in the game are often (if not always) the result of the faster cruisers hunting down the dreadnaught rather than some planned offensive. Beyond that - what is this particular cruiser doing? Sitting in deep space for no reason? That seems unlikely - if it isn't gunning for Concordia herself then it must be involved in some other objective. Does attacking the cruiser now stop it from bombing a planet? Striking a convoy? Blocking a necessary jump line? You also seem to assume that the Concordia has a choice - destroy the Fralthra or go on its way. Battles rarely work that way. It's very, very hard to criticize Tolwyn's decision to fire at it without at least some of that information.
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Sorry, LOAF, I was speaking generally, not criticizing Tolwyn's decision to fire in that particular circumstance. Context matters, that's all I was trying to say.
 
Toast said:
Sorry, LOAF, I was speaking generally, not criticizing Tolwyn's decision to fire in that particular circumstance. Context matters, that's all I was trying to say.
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Oh, yeah - but in other situations we don't know that firing the PTC would endanger the carrier.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Oh, yeah - but in other situations we don't know that firing the PTC would endanger the carrier.
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I didn't suggest that, and I wouldn't either after you pointed out to me in another thread that Angel's concern was situational (and that we still don't exactly know under what exact circumstances it's dangerous to fire, other than that low power is at least one part of the problem). I was responding to the implication that there wasn't ever a reason not to fire it, risk or no risk. I think perhaps I was unclear, sorry about that.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
This assumes an inordinate amount of foreknowledge and incorrectly assigns all control over the battle to the Concordia. The battles we see between the Concordia and various Fralthra earlier in the game are often (if not always) the result of the faster cruisers hunting down the dreadnaught rather than some planned offensive. Beyond that - what is this particular cruiser doing? Sitting in deep space for no reason? That seems unlikely - if it isn't gunning for Concordia herself then it must be involved in some other objective. Does attacking the cruiser now stop it from bombing a planet? Striking a convoy? Blocking a necessary jump line? You also seem to assume that the Concordia has a choice - destroy the Fralthra or go on its way. Battles rarely work that way. It's very, very hard to criticize Tolwyn's decision to fire at it without at least some of that information.
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I dunno Loaf, if you take a look at the PTC hit, the Fralthra is blasted Starboard-side aft. Meaning that she was coming around for another attack run which is inconsistent with what we know about Kilrathi cap-ship design. As stated in WC1, the armor is thinnest near the engines. Also, tactically, you don't want to show your heals when the enemy ship is coming at you head on. Thus, at least in my opinion, the Fralthra was in retreat.

Also, does it not seem somewhat unusual that a dreadnought's armor is 300cm thinner then a cuiser? I always thought that the dreadnoughts and carriers would've had the thickest shell. It seems that even the Ralatha has better armor! The Concordia is begining to remind me more and more of the HMS Hood; rather famous on both sides, a moral booster, strong weapons, top notch crew... paper thin armor!
 
Bandit LOAF said:
It's all an odd criticism, since we have no idea what was going on in that scene (much like Angel). Maybe the Concordia had all her strike craft out there already, maybe her flight deck was disabled, maybe she was trying to make a jump and didn't want to leave anyone behind... all we see is the few seconds where they make the decision to fire the PTC.
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If you think about the engagement early on in WCII, that's exactly the scenario... the Concordia's flight deck is down and she can't get any fighters out...and you're flying a ferret :p
 
Yeah the Connie's deck does down quite a few times during your time aboard her. Even Bear makes note of this in ER, when he sees the Tarawa and its one flight deck. He mentions the problems the Concordia had as well as Confed developing new carriers with 3 and even 4 flight decks.
 
I dunno Loaf, if you take a look at the PTC hit, the Fralthra is blasted Starboard-side aft. Meaning that she was coming around for another attack run which is inconsistent with what we know about Kilrathi cap-ship design. As stated in WC1, the armor is thinnest near the engines. Also, tactically, you don't want to show your heals when the enemy ship is coming at you head on. Thus, at least in my opinion, the Fralthra was in retreat.
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To be clear, your argument is that because Kilrathi ships in Wing Commander I have less armor in the rear that the Fralthra must be retreating? And this is in spite of the fact that we know the *Fralthra* doesn't have less rear armor *and* the fact that we're directly told that the ship is "making its attack approach now"? That's... certainly a bold argument.

(The Fralthra seems to be attempting to cross the Concordia's T, a superior tactical situation for a warship...)
 
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