OT: Somebody's critique of my story

[Starhawk]

Fyron what i mean by "coming in streight and level" is that the fighter would still HAVE to approach in a streight line like any other ship it can't be dancing about while it's just approaching it's target because it would take forever to get anywhere lol and since a capital ship's guns outrange a fighters by a significant margin the fighters would get pounded before they got into a range where the "Dodging" and whirling would become effective.

Actually as stated I do have Light Raiders of the Hunt class and Artemis class SM raiders designed for capital ship steals. However since mainly I've been focusing on the main battle fleets I didn't much focus on the Light Raiders who've been stealing a whole load of colony ships for me

Battlecruisers, I don't have the economy to support both a battle line and a patrol squadron and so I have chosen the primary battle line.

Convoys actually if you think about it would probobly have a dreadnought or superdreadnought escorting it depending on how big the convoy is and where it is headed

And yeah I have 2 battleship sized craft, one is a point defense craft the other is a fleet maintenance ship that has repair bays and the like.

I am not a firm beleiver in throwing in small ships just for pizazz effect since as said by Hunpecked there is no need to follow the modern ship design requirements.

Although yet another thing that never made sense ST wise, why does starfleet build so dang many classes of starship? I mean most modern navies build 1 or 2 class of ship per size grouping not 10 or more lol.
And why build such itty bitty ships when they clearly show that a Galaxy class (battleship) can juke and swing just as quick as a Defiant class (destroyer)

[El_Phil]

The cap ships main guns may outrange a fighters but such guns wouldn't have the fast tracking you'd need to hit a rapidly dodging fighter. Unless you've got some funky tech. of course. Besides a fighter should be a hell of alot faster than a cap ship, even when dodging and weaving, due to having a tiny fraction of the mass.

Frontline convoy maybe a ship of the line escort, but for anti-pirate duty it would be massive overkill, hence smaller ships. Also for a high speed convoy a DN would/could just slow things down. It depends upon the threat what escort is appropriate, so flexibility is good.

ST tends to keep ships around for decades so once something is built it stays. But you would build the newest design ship in your yards not a xx year old design, hence lots of different class ships that are similar sized.

Small ships for all the reasons above AND why build a BB sized science vessel? AND the Defiant was just guns no exploration role hence alot smaller.

[Starhawk]

El_Phil said:
The cap ships main guns may outrange a fighters but such guns wouldn't have the fast tracking you'd need to hit a rapidly dodging fighter. Unless you've got some funky tech. of course. Besides a fighter should be a hell of alot faster than a cap ship, even when dodging and weaving, due to having a tiny fraction of the mass.

Well as shown even in Babylon 5 (which btw I am a big fan of) a beam weapon just slices so you make a sweep with your beam cannons your bound to hurt a bunch of the fighters until they come within range of your PD cannons then they'll get torn up by those thus fighter=useless. Especially when (like me) you have at least two dedicated 24 PD cannon Point Defense ships in your fleets.

Frontline convoy maybe a ship of the line escort, but for anti-pirate duty it would be massive overkill, hence smaller ships. Also for a high speed convoy a DN would/could just slow things down. It depends upon the threat what escort is appropriate, so flexibility is good.

Well I've never mentioned non frontline convoys so that's a moot point, especailly since the only real convoys I have right now are transport fleets carrying State Security forces and those all have SD escorts for obvious reasons.

ST tends to keep ships around for decades so once something is built it stays. But you would build the newest design ship in your yards not a xx year old design, hence lots of different class ships that are similar sized.

Another thing that is illogical I wouldn't keep an 80 year old ship in my fleet if I have a state of the art 2-10 year old ship to replace it, especially since in Star Trek money has nothing to do with it.

Small ships for all the reasons above AND why build a BB sized science vessel? AND the Defiant was just guns no exploration role hence alot smaller.

Ah yes but in star trek there are "no pirates" out there except the Maquis who were alll butchered by Cardies and Jem'He'Dar.

The Enterprise E actually is smaller than the D which is funny considering it's newer and an "Advanced Explorer" which as we've all seen by her firepower in Starfleet "Advanced Explorer" means "Battleship" lol.

I find it funny however that the defiant apparently packs more firepower then a freakin galaxy and yet they didn't create any more Defiants or outfit capital ships with pulse phaser cannons which are apparently much more powerful then a standard beam phaser.

Anyway my point is when it comes to the story so far I've had no need to mention light raiders or raiders and no need to mention my handful of BCs that are still patrolling my frontier sysems (2 last I counted) so meh.

Although I was thinking of producing a few battleships to act as a rapid strike force

[El_Phil]

Meh!

Right what I was vaugely discussing wasn't something you'd use in the game, just a general suggestion for what would make a sparkly SEIV inspired battle.

As for keeping old ships in the fleet I know I do, even with a massive economy and loads of ship yards I still keep old BCs,etc knocking around. Now admitedly it's partly sentimental (How can you scrap a 'Legendary' ship? It's wrong I tell you! ) but partly because they work and are good enough because of either A. Better Tech B. Better design (no wasted PD, SSD, etc) or C. Loads of numbers.

Of course this only applies to playing the AI.

If an exploration ship still works, why scrap it? If your a peacefull group why build brand new warships? If your stupid enough to employ Janeway and then make her an Admiral your entire high command is clearly senile

[Starhawk]

Yeah in a non-game story I'd of course throw smaller ships into the mix other then DNs and SDs.

As far as keeping the old "legendary" ships knocking around, yeah I used to do that because it was "legendary" and had been through many battles, but it was also always a heart breaker when my Legendary 34th BC squadron got blown to hell by 6 SDs at a warp point battle.
In my newest game I have 1 of every old ship class in orbit of my homeworld in mothballs as a museum and put it as.
"Enterprise Museum" or so on so my most legendary ships (including Saber and Enterprise) are still around except that they are educating the youth of Icara and their names are carried on with honors by newer warships.

I do admit though my Yu Hing's have one critical flaw in their design, they all have only lvl IV multi-plex trackers and not Vs so hehe in that department I am outdated though so far I've had no problems because of it. Other then that all my ships have the latest technology and size so that I don't end up out of date when fighting.

Yeah if you make Jane the I got lost in the wrong bloody quadrent and gave up half a dozen chances to return home because "it wasn't moral" or whatever as an Admiral you know starfleet is desperate for flag officers lol.....though she made Admiral and Picard didn't BULL HOCK! what did she do that Picard didn't other then stupid stuff that Picard was too smart to do?

[El_Phil]

That's the problem clearly. He was too smart to be Admiral, these are the same people who made Riker an admiral and sacked Kirk from the job.

That's the only solution: There is a maximum IQ level for an admiral in ST. It would explain alot


Back to stock fighters I must admit my current favourite use for them: Mobile ablative armour. Vast screens of dirt cheap small fighters forming mobile armour around my cap ships. Ridiculoulsly impractical, almost pointless and it does require several systems building nothing but fighters. Still if you can't muck around in stock what can you do?

[Starhawk]

OMG He doesn't quit here's his last e-mail to me (and I say last because I blocked him after this one heh)

Hey [my name] I just read up some of the latest chapters and have to say though you improved a little I'm still not very impressed so continuing from where I left off.

24. Moving all your xeno's from planets to those sphereworlds of yours makes no sense do you have any clue how much time that would take no sane Empire would do that!

25. Uh still very stupid Admirals I mean Ross just took the chicken [censored] way out and ran away? Boy no wonder your offensive came to a hault.

26. A 17 year old Ruler of all Mankind LOL yeah great when his voice ain't squakin and he's not gushing over girls I guess he might make a good decision or two.

27. Why do your ships all have marines? sure I know it's "Tradition" but do you honestly think an SD of yours that is likely never to be borded will need Marines? I mean a fleet security team would be able to handle anything in regards to normal discipline.

28. Xenos=sub-human okay so now your guys are really starting to bug me as I read further and further into it, I mean your basically writing a story from the viewpoint of a bunch of racists and yet you portray these people as decent? And do you think after 500 years or so and your people "never" being racist against other humans-which btw is hard to beleive- they'd be racist against Extraterrestrials?

29. Sudden switcheroo? Now your 3rd fleet is on the run when before you were winning easily....gag.

30. Heh is it just me or do you throw in the occasional female admiral just to show you have women in uniform?

31. Okay Carriers....your enemies have them from what I've read, and yet....you haven't caught on?

32. I just LOVE those stormtrooper unit names, Deathwing lol what was that other one again? (okay is this a rag or is he actually complimenting me?)

33. I can still hear that star wars march playing everytime I read a your Praetor....."join the darkside luke." heh and what is up with the name change prior to Praetor he was just Rodrick, now he's Rodrick the 2nd what is he the freakin pope?

34. Last point to make for now (more like forever since i blocked your ***) the Icarans seem to view Andermanians like they do Xenos yet you haven't explained why....BIG screwup here.

Anyway I suppose I'll read some of your newer chapters and give you reviews as I go but for now..cya later.

Heh thank God for that lovely BLOCK button with hotmail right lol

And here is my reply for you guys (though I don't care if he happens to ever find these forums and posts a pissy remark or two hehe)

24. Apparently he hasn't grasped the concept of the fact that the ICARANS are both TERRIFIED of and LOATHFUL towards Xenos and thus would want them as concentrated and isolated as possible....makes them easier to elimate should the time come.

25. BUUUUUUUURP I'm sorry what I wasn't paying attention.....okay wait I got it, this ain't star Trek Ross ain't captain Sisko and he's not going to face down a vastly superior fleet yet pull a miracle out his wazooo and win.

26. Um it's happened before.....and at much younger ages and worked out fine. And besides by time your 17 you should be over the squacky, ?gushy wtf is gushy? phase I mean I stopped squacking at 13 (the gushing over girls I just don't know what that means lol)

27. Uh again this ain't star trek and the fleet security teams ARE MARINES lol.

28. Short answer yes long answer HELL YES they can be racist against xeno's after NOT being racist against humans considering most humans don't have bright yellow skin buldging eyes or 60% cybernetic bodies.....uh Phong Xiati respectively.
And yes just because you are "racist" doesn't by default make you a bad person as it is a matter of breeding/fear that makes you racists, and it is more accurate to say they are xenephobic and not racist they have nothing against aliens just because they are aliens they have something against them because of the threat they pose to mankind.

29. Doesn't this just restate the point about retarded admirals? Yeah okay obviously he doesn't realize that wars can change very very quickly.

30. No I throw them in for the great tail factor

31. Car...ee....ur? what?

32. Again is that an insult? or a compliment I got confused.

33. Yeah Palpatine with a squacky girl gushing voice? boy your confusing.

34. BECAUSE THEY GENETICALLY ENGINEER THEIR SOLDIERS AND I'VE STATED THAT!


Anyhoo as I said he's blocked now but that was just funny this time around, I mean those aren't constructive at all just rags about the fact I don't have uber admirals or star trek/star wars things. I think he should read/watch more sci-fi before he equates everything to Star Trek/Star Wars feh.

[Suicide Junkie]

Long range attacks are much harder IRL than in SE4.
1/r^2 effects are very very nasty, even if you neglect the time-to-target factor. The linear falloff in SE4 does match its 2D nature though.

If money is not an issue, why scrap old warships and then build new ones? Just build new ones and upgrade the old.
Having very long build times (how many years to build a galaxy class?) also means you do not want to throw anything out.
Warships are not like paper plates and plastic cutlery.
...
Unless you choose the "disposable society" culture in CBmod

[tesco samoa]

well if you want to get into writing get used to it. And this person is reading your chapters. As far as i can see here. the dudes comments made some sence to you so you posted it here looking for some support before you began attacking them. You attacked me for posting that you should take something positive out of the situation. Stories are about Conflict and Growth. As is writing.

[Starhawk]

tesco samoa said:
well if you want to get into writing get used to it. And this person is reading your chapters. As far as i can see here. the dudes comments made some sence to you so you posted it here looking for some support before you began attacking them. You attacked me for posting that you should take something positive out of the situation. Stories are about Conflict and Growth. As is writing.

First of all i didn't see "sense" in most of them I saw an insulting bunch of nitpicks that I was worried about because I was afraid maybe I had written my story wrong because I tend ot lack confidence in my non-school writing.

Secondly, I did not "seek support" I saught advice and when people stated that most of his comments were bull then I learned to lighten my attitude towards them a little and have fun at the expense of what was really hurting my feelings.

Third: I did listen to what the folks said was good points accept stated badly and you know what I've already stated I am going to fix what I can, but it will take a little bit of time for me to learn to "mature" my writing to the point I really can find satisfying.

Fourth: You stated nothing to actually help you basically just came in and said "Yeah he was rude and insulting but he was right." so you're the one who came across as attacking.
I just stated that for me it makes more sense to have people who have already watched the writing evolve and improve as time goes by and see what they think of the story as a whole and if they can find these problems.

Okay my story is over 200 PAGES WITHOUT the footnotes and excluding some of the chapters that I had to post directly to the net, and thus people who have read up to most of it are much more effective with seeking advice then someone who is going to have to start all the way from the beginning.

Now if you saw me stating these as attacks maybe your the one who's a little sensetive eh? I have no problem with constructive criticism but CONSTRUCTIVE means that you give a means or at least try to give advice about how to solve the problem you are criticizing it does NOT include simply stating
"I don't like the names
"I don't like this your admirals are retarded blah blah."
the reason I posted here seeking advice was because as someone who has read a lot of sci-fi and found a lot of names involved stupid sounding "Grgnr" I wondered if mine could fall into that catagory.

As well as the "traditionalist" approach to naming my regiments I wondered if other people shared his impression of "I don't get it" or just thought it was lame.

The rest as I said I was more worried about as this is the first Completely attack mode review anyone has ever given me, I've even had some of the folks here critique my work and you know what? That's fine because they try to help me work through what I did and actually tell me when I reached a good point or if it still needs polish so I actually learn something from the experience and yeah sometimes it hurts my feelings but in the end I realize that it will improve me in the end.