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Topic: Human role in the Great War (Read 6734 times)
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Ceo
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After watching the 3D0 intro and ending it led me to think about the potential role of the Humans in the Great War. I think almost everyone agree's that the Heavy Cruiser isnt really that fantastic.
Its strengths include:
Heavy warheads, these do a fair amount of damage.
Homing Torpeado's, they are rather usefull, they are second in accuracy to the Eluders missile.
Extreme range, I think it is in fact possibly one of the longest reaching weapons except for the Kohr-Ah.
Immunity to Ur-Quan fighters due to Point Defence
Average crew capacity, these things aint small, and hold enough to withstand a fair amount of punishment.
Weaknesses:
Speed... or lack off in this case, likewise their manueverability is greatly impared. Even the Ur-Quan can close the distance with a Heavy Cruiser.
Small battery capacity, this is in the middle. Its bigger than
some, but the torpedo's do use up alot of energy, and additional 4 bars of energy would null this weakness, allowing 3 torps to be launched in one salvo.
Thats it really... all said and done I pitted a small fleet of 5 Heavy Cruisers against a patrol of 4 Kzer-Za Dreads on normal AI intelligence {assuming a standard Patrol Commanders experience}. The HC's just came out on top only when I used the available gravity wells to keep my distance.
I did the above experiment 3 times, and each time I had at least 1 HC left after the battle.
It would leave me to believe that battles conducted near gravity wells would be in the humans favour, those conducted in deep space would still hurt the Ur-Quan, but the human fleets would be the eventual losers due to attrition.
With those sort of results, I believe that the Earthlings would have played a crucial role in the Great War. More so the Broodhomes and X-Formers, or even Yehat.
Its already been said that the Chenjesu and Mmmrnmmr primarily took the brunt of the Ilwrath fleets. The Yehat and Shofixti would have primarily fought the Vux and Mycon's looking at their sphere's. No mention was ever made at the contribution of the Humans... so I wonder if that meant they were considered valuable members who faught at every front? Or they were considered weaker members and therefore relegated to less demanding positions? Personally, I'd say that as the cost of the Earthling HC's was so little, they would have been valuable members.
Opinions?
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« Last Edit: April 18, 2003, 08:39:03 am by Ceo »
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Kohr-Ah_Primat
*Smell* controller
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Lady Marauder
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Oye, Banana Man.
Your treatise reads like a Military Combat Analysis Report.
18 crew seems like a lot, but considering it's pathetic speed, it's not really. Most comparatively slow ships either have much more crew or a means to obtain more crew.
When you consider that the nuclear missile is the pinnacle of human destructive technology, it's kind of sad that they are only an average weapon in terms of damage. And yes, I'm aware that they are 'tactical' nukes.
Most 'newbie' pilots don't know how to use gravity wells effectively enough to be a challenge to take on Quans. Certainly, you're going to lose most of the 'veteran' pilots in manuevers like that, if it costs you a bloody veteran pilots' life each time you take down a single Quan ship.
My opinion is that they were probably thrown up against the VUX to be utilized the most effectively, but Hayes does mention that he personally was involved in combat against the Ilwrath, so I imagine that the typical military intelligence (oxymoron)sent most of the cruisers against the Ilwrath.
And the Yehat have never lost a battle. They would have relatively torn apart the Quans in combat compared to the other races--- except they never fought the Quans. The Queen ordered them to surrender immediately. The Shofixti to be honest probably did rather poorly in battle, but made a tremendous contribution nonetheless.
As for Earthlings making valuable members, the background story states they were considered quite valuable for the purposes of production; Earth had a ton of factories that would probably have been configured to produce spare parts for Cruisers, X-Form fighters, Terminators, and Broodhomes.
One thing I don't get is references to the Alliance losing the battle in the intro, and Hayes' commentry that they were slowly being beaten all through the second half of the war, versus the information you get in game that the Alliance would've probably won if not for the Sa-Matra being brought into play.
It sounds like two conflicting stories--and before you say that the Sa-Matra is the reason the Alliance actually lost the war, consider the fact that Hayes barely heard of a rumor of a Ur-Quan super weapon, so it seems dubious that such a weapon was used except perhaps suddenly at the last moments of the war. And that wouldn't have been soon enough to contribute to the years and years of losing war that Hayes talks about.
Maybe Hayes was kept in the dark about the Sa Matra the whole time, to shelter troop morale against a doomsday device used against them.
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We are the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah.
Our nature, the fulfillment of our fate requires your destruction.
You are filth. It is now your time to be cleansed.
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Shiver
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That comparison is flawed because you were controlling the cruiser while the AI was in charge of the dreadnought. The AI, even at awesome, makes a lot of stupid mistakes. The gravity whip won you the skirmish, but story-wise the Ur-Quan would be smart enough to come around the opposite way to intercept you or gravity whip themselves to catch up. Also keep in mind that every Ur-Quan has years of combat experience while Earthlings are new to space combat. I tested 6 cruisers vs. 2 dreadnoughts, which had a very close point value with the earthling side at a slight advantage. Both sides had the awesome AI. The cruisers were trashed completely, but just barely downed a dreadnought. To get an idea what the human role in the old war was, try pitting them against different battle thralls with even point values. Even against the Mycon, a battle I thought they'd win easily, the Earthlings got stomped. But to be fair, I should mention that one cruiser blew up three Umgah drones and only got nicked once.
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« Last Edit: April 18, 2003, 10:29:47 am by Shiver »
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ScreamingTemporalDoom
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The Earthling Cruiser also seems to do excellently against the Druuge Mauler. In my tests, AI vs AI on Awsome, the EC have a 4:1 kill ratio advantage on the Druuge Mauler on average. This is even higher if a human is commanding the Cruiser.
I always carry two Cruisers with me when I go to retrieve the Utwig Bomb device. They are able to thrash the Druuge there something fierce. Indeed, I think only the Kohr-Ah do as well against the Druuge. This likely has to do with the long range of their weapons.
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AnonomouSpathi
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Spathi? What spathi? You're imagining, hunam.
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I doubt humanity had much of a major role in the great war.
Specifically, while a cruiser does OK against a dreadnaught if you've got an experienced captain, that won't always be the case. And I doubt the bulk of the ur-quan armada was sent to destroy humanity.
According to Hayes, most of the fighting took place between all forces at the Mira/Indi systems, so local spheres of influence aren't that big a concern. Looking over the combat thralls....well, humanity isn't in good shape. The ilwrath pretty much trash cruisers. The spathi are a bit easier, but still can be a problem. Mycon podships are some trouble, since the PD lasers won't completely stop a plasmoid. VUX win or lose depending on where they come out of hyperspace. Umgah could be bad news, since that plasma cone makes nukes near useless, but AI captains use it poorly. And the androsynth simply shred human cruisers.
Even under my most optimistic assessment, humanity is in bad shape. Roughly even with the Kzer-za, VUX, mycon, and spathi, but in very bad shape against Ilwrath, and just flat out annihilated by androsynth. As far as I can tell, the only of the thralls they have a big advantage against is the umgah, who are the ur-quan equivalent of a showfixti, very cheap. Not a good situation.
EDIT: Just ran a small series of tests, AI vs. AI, to see how the human cruiser fared. Roughly equal RP cost in the fleets.
6 vs 2 Kzer Za - The humans won, a single ship remaining. This matchup favored the humans in RU's slightly, and if I favored the ur-quan, the UQ would've won instead. Roughly a push, depends heavily on how well the human can keep their distance.
4 vs 3 Mycon - The phrase "extremely boring" describes this battle well. But, unfortunately, "Crushing defeat for humanity" also describes it, as the Mycon wiped out the human fleet without losing a single ship - and due to the regenerating abilities of the mycon, the mycon ship was at full crew after dispatching the last cruiser.
3 vs. 3 Ilwrath - Another slow paced, crushing defeat. 3 cruisers lost with no Avengers down, though 1 was damaged, at least. Nukes are useless against cloaked ships - and by the time the cruiser can see the ilwrath, it's too late. Worse, if you happen to guess where it is it uncloaks long enough to scorch your nuke, then recloaks.
3 vs. 2 androsynth - A faster paced crushing defeat. No Guardians destroyed, though the first was fairly damaged. That blazer form rips Cruisers up. In all due fairness though, it also shreds Broodhomes and X-forms. I suspect the androsynth didn't appear in SC2's story mode simply because an early encounter with them would've done the same to your command ship.
4 vs. 6 Umgah - The umgah actually won this one, suprisingly enough, with 2 ships remaining. They do have the nasty habit of backing up into nukes, or ignoring easily blocked inbound missiles though. The cruiser is faster, but if the drone gets within distance, the cruiser dies quickly. Good fight.
4 vs. 4 VUX - The only other fight the Humans won, but they won it overwhelmingly, with 4 intruders destroyed to 1 cruiser. Unless the VUX manages to either coat the cruiser with limpets or destroy it on the first pass, the cruiser will blow it apart from a distance.
3 vs. 2 Spathi - The Spathi won this one, with 1 ship lost and the other fairly intact, though it's an interesting fight. The Eluder is fast enough to evade nukes if it tries, but the cruiser's PDLs keep BUTTs from being a viable option. Typically, the Eluder avoids nukes, then closes and blasts the human with it's main gun, then regenerates energy. Since the spathi seriously outcrews the human, the spathi win, though it's not exactly crushing.
End results: 5 losses vs Battle Thralls, and 2 victories. 1 crushing victory, 2 crushing defeats, and one complete humiliation.
Final Analysis: The cruiser just isn't a backbone ship. It fares OK vs Kzer-za, and darned well against the VUX, with marginal results against the Umgah and Spathi. However, since the androsynth and the ilwrath both thoroughly thrash it, and since 4 cruisers weren't enough to so much as put a dent into a single podship, it's far from an excellent starship.
Against a combined Hierarchy force, it has more bad matchups then good. If were considered Spheres of Influence relevant, it would seem the humans are in bad shape again. Ilwrath on one side, spathi to the top. VUX closeby on the right, but getting there involves going through androsynth space, which would be disastorous.
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« Last Edit: April 18, 2003, 07:20:33 pm by AnonomouSpathi »
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Nic.
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Given that, according to the story, there wouldn't have been any Androsynth to fight had humanity not acted poorly in its past, and that the VUX very well could have been Alliance members were it not for humanity's mistakes early in the conflict, I'd venture a guess that humanity's role in the Great War was quite influential -- we screwed the situation up so badly that the Hierarchy could have considered us honourary members. (not that they would have had to, the "real deal" was bestowed on Earth within a few years  )
But from what I'm reading, the question was more along the lines of beans-and-bullets, tactical deployment and stategic role in battles, rather than a "what was it all for?" type of thing. Oh well.
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AnonomouSpathi
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Spathi? What spathi? You're imagining, hunam.
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The androsynth were human creations, and humanity kept them as slaves for several decades before the war. Eventually they rebelled and left, and were enslaved by Ur-quan before being eaten by space ghosts.
If you blow up enough VUX, and apoligize to them for the insult every single time, eventually they spill the beans that they didn't care one bit about the insult. It's was just a useful excuse for the VUX to attack us without feeling bad that the real reason was so small and petty.
But now you have forced us to reveal our REAL reason for hating you humans
an embarrassing reason with no acceptable justification, but nonetheless undeniable!
Human! You are SOOO ugly, SOOO hideous to us that we will NEVER be able to find peace with your species!
Whenever we see your kind, we just want to kick you!... stomp on you!... squish you!...
...vaporize your ugly faces from the entire universe!
We know its unreasonable! We know that you had no choice about how you look!
We know that it is cruel fate that the Creator made you appear like putrid excretion
but WE JUST CAN'T HANDLE IT!
Why right now, because of your insufferable wretchedness
I am faced with a grotesque choice: keep talking to you and regurgitate uncontrollably
or break off communication and attack your vessel
(urp!) or both!
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Shiver
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*BURP*
Androsynth? Where? I don't see any Androsynth. Stop asking about them, god damn it.
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Nic.
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But the Hierarchy had a member race that looked just like us -- the Androsynth -- and the VUX seemed to do OK with them, one can assume because the Ur-Quan didn't send them out as first-contact emmisaries (among other reasons).
My point is, if humans had let one of the other races do the recruiting, say the Yehat, the VUX might have joined on the side of the Alliance instead, so it's humanity's fault simply because their reach exceeded their grasp.
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MisterFrosty
Zebranky food
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I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
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I dunno, the humans did the right thing in the end, which is more than you can say for the VUX, the Yehat, or the Androsynth. I can't see the VUX siding with the Alliance anyway, given their general xenophobia.
Maybe the Androsynth's slick hair and easy smile made them more palatable?
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However great it is is debatable in my mind.
Leave that to the Chenjesu.