OT: Somebody's critique of my story

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flaw in their design, they all have only lvl IV multi-plex trackers and not Vs so hehe in that department I am outdated though so far I've had no problems because of it. Other then that all my ships have the latest technology and size so that I don't end up out of date when fighting.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

[Starhawk]

Well actually apparently a Galaxy can be built in one year considering some sources state that during the dominion war 23 were built per year....some place the number higher up but 23 seems reasonable considering that's 23,000 people and that's excluding the "destroyers, frigates" and other smaller ships that starfleet seems to like building.

CBmod? what's that?

[Hunpecked]

Starhawk writes:

[re: "Starship Troopers"] "AND I HATED CARMEN GAWD I wanted her to be the one to die not Diz..."

Carmen was a bit over the top, but I did like two things about her...

[Puke]

4. Your characters contradict your Empire, they are all relatively good people yet they are at the same time bloodthirsty conquerers? Figure out which way you want to go and go there don't keep pulling it around like that either make them "Bloodthirsty conquerers' or make them "good guys" don't have it both ways.

i think this one cuts to the heart of things. there are no 'bad guys' in the world. people do things that they think will benefit them, either directly or indirectly. and they all think they are right. good people do bad things. bad people do good things. in reality, there is no good and bad.

some people cant understand this, and just want a clean cut 'good vs bad' story. i wouldnt pay any attention to them, if i were you.

I dont know about his other comments, since i have not read the whole story. but i think number 4 above disqualifies him from being anyone i would consider able to write inteligent criticism of complex ideas.

[Hunpecked]

Imperator Fyron writes about scifi "fighters":

"You can quite easily face your target and fire at it while moving in any direction."

And future weapons systems may not even require that the vehicle face the target. On the other hand, stock SE IV uses non-Newtonian movement (constant speed vs accel/decel), which might require both "fighters" and DNs to "face" the direction of movement at all times.

"The difference between tiny craft, such as fighters, and gigantic craft, such as dreadnoughts, is that the tiny craft do not have much mass to whip about, combined with being rather small."

Actually not entirely mass; more like thrust-to-mass ratio. In WW II, for example, not only did aircraft operate in a different medium (air vs. water), but they also had a ferocious power-to-mass advantage (TBF Avenger vs Iowa BB, ballpark estimate: the plane has about a 60-fold power-to-mass advantage for a 6-fold speed edge).

As for maneuverability, that depends on your fictional universe. In SEIV Gold stock even dreadnoughts can reverse on a dime, at least at the scale of the battle map. Perhaps DNs are clumsier on a smaller scale (don't fighters get a defense bonus?), but the non-Newtonian movement system may impose similar micro-maneuverability on both.

Actually, since "space fighters" are basically just miniature capships, I'd say a better analogy is the WW II era PT boat. Compared to its big brothers, the PT boat was much smaller (50-odd tons), more maneuverable, and maybe 2X faster (tops). The PT boat was perhaps harder to hit with WW II weapon systems than the SE IV "fighter", but given future computer fire control, scifi beam weapons (light speed or a significant fraction thereof) and the vacuum environment (e.g. kinetic kill via ball bearings scattered in the fighter's path), one can rationalize the effectiveness of SE IV anti-fighter fire.

[Starhawk]

Good point Puke, I mean almost no one is pure good or pure evil they do what they feel is necessary either to benefit themselves or preserve their people from what they see as the "bad guys". There are of course evil bastards among the Icarans but for the most part they aren't that much different then modern day people in that they are a mix of good qualities and bad.