Concordia (Confederation Dreadnought) sister ships?

in which case a yard which can produce the 80,000 tonne Bengal-class Tiger's Claw can probably also produce a 73,000 tonne Terran Confederation-class ship.

Maybe not relevant to this case, but it's interesting to note that the technology of yard matters to what it can or can’t produce. After all, Prince Thrakkath set back the Stealth Fighter programs years back by destroying the Ghorah Khar shipyards.
 
Delance said:
Maybe not relevant to this case, but it's interesting to note that the technology of yard matters to what it can or can’t produce. After all, Prince Thrakkath set back the Stealth Fighter programs years back by destroying the Ghorah Khar shipyards.

That's a unique circumstance. More than just the facilities where the stealth fighters were being produced, Ghorah Khar was where the experimental fighters were being researched and developed. If you destroy the facility where new technology is being developed, it will have a profoundly different impact than if you destroyed the future facility where the developed technology is manufactured. So not only is your note maybe not relevant, it's not really accurate or descriptive of the situation. :)

Dragon1 said:
Here is a thought. Confed takes the Nephilip plasma weapon off of the TCS Midway, then scales the down the firepower moderately.

Confed then designs a heavy carrier that can mount the new gun. This heavy carrier is then armed with cruiser grade weaponry (probably tachyon guns as opposed to AMGs).

We now have a new dreadnought. Something like a Terran Confederation II-class.

It's completely unnecessary to concoct an elaborate Nephilim scenarios to do this. Kilrathi and Confed both have superweapons that easily rival the Nephilim's plasma weapon long before the time of the Midway. If Confed felt a need to make another new ship with an ultramegacannon in the middle, then they'd do it. I see no benefit to storytelling by taking the roundabout method of asserting it's a "scaled down Nephilim plasma weapon." And think about why you're doing this, it's the storytelling. Sure, the Concordia with its big gun exists in Wing Commander, but it's always balanced by the Bonnie Heather, Tarawa, Victory or what have you. This is why the Concordia's big gun is said to have risk associated with it in the first place! This is why the Midway's volatile Nephilim gun isn't just a built-in Confed thing to begin with. It's really cheap if you can just go around blasting entire fleets at will.

There's an old Star Trek quote that might help people thinking about this issue. I believe someone asked Gene Roddenberry shortly after TNG premiered if the new replicator technology seen on the show could be used to simply replicate entire prefabricated ships. The answer was something like, "If you had the power to create ships at the push of a button, then you wouldn't ever need to." If you understand the meaning behind that, I think you'll forget about the focus on this "Confederation II Dreadnought" business. Look at the incredible Wing Commander novels. Look at the huge adventures that the crews of transports, corvettes and cruisers go on. You don't need a new dreadnought.
 
ChrisReid, I believe what you are saying is true in the context of a video game (a great game at that). All I am saying is that if the technology and capability existed for the USN to have a single weapon that could wipe out an entire fleet (say a 1 megaton gravity bomb) they would have it (and they do). If Confed were a real governmental institution that had access to technology that could wipe out an entire fleet, you know they would capitalize on it.

You are 100% right when you say that the super-weapon concept is lame for storytelling. I never really liked the whole one hit-one kill weapons like the phase-transit cannon or Nephilim plasma weapon. I always thought it was a convinient way to cheaply progress the story or to create drama when the super-weapon failed (which was most of the time).

The only strategic weapons I really liked in the Wing Commander games were the Capital Ship missiles. These gave a real threat level to the mission, while still giving you as the player the capability to shoot them down. This allowed the player to still be able to change the outcome of the mission.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
* Was there another functional CDN between 2662-2665? If there was one, but there is no historical data for a name, I'll just leave it out. If there was one, or several, a brief summary of operations would be more than enough.
For instance: The TCS Austerlitz sounds interesting. Are there some more details available?
Yes, that period is largely unspecified. We know that the TCS Terran Confederation (possibly CVS-14) would be in service, along with as many as four other ships (unnamed).
* And: Is there the possibility for an unfinished CDN hull (or even a *gasp* surviving ship) still hanging about in 2673-2681?
No.
Thanks. I'll grumble a bit, but as you say yourself: "Basing fanfic around incredibly remote possibilities like this is one of the things that's wrong with fanfic."

So I'll try to do something historically correct with the data I have now.

Dragon1 said:
I never really liked the whole one hit-one kill weapons like the phase-transit cannon or Nephilim plasma weapon. I always thought it was a convinient way to cheaply progress the story or to create drama when the super-weapon failed (which was most of the time).
That sounds a bit like a fantasy author talking to a frontier western author: "Your guns just cut short a conflict that would be much more dramatic if swords would be employed"
Fact is: WC is a fighter jock story, strategic weapons just spoil the fun. But as in any other story focussed on individual conflict, the possibility of using a mass destruction weapon which just obliterates personal skills, is always a tension factor. Think about the Ring in Lord of the Rings, or all those ticking timebombs in James Bond movies. The stories don't revolve around using the weapons, but around controlling them.
In that case, WC dreadnoughts can't be a strategic, mass produced line of ships - it just spoils the story. But it can be a recurring motif, that jumps up again and again.
 
Dragon1 said:
ChrisReid, I believe what you are saying is true in the context of a video game (a great game at that). All I am saying is that if the technology and capability existed for the USN to have a single weapon that could wipe out an entire fleet (say a 1 megaton gravity bomb) they would have it (and they do). If Confed were a real governmental institution that had access to technology that could wipe out an entire fleet, you know they would capitalize on it.

You are 100% right when you say that the super-weapon concept is lame for storytelling. I never really liked the whole one hit-one kill weapons like the phase-transit cannon or Nephilim plasma weapon. I always thought it was a convinient way to cheaply progress the story or to create drama when the super-weapon failed (which was most of the time).

The only strategic weapons I really liked in the Wing Commander games were the Capital Ship missiles. These gave a real threat level to the mission, while still giving you as the player the capability to shoot them down. This allowed the player to still be able to change the outcome of the mission.

Part of the problem here is the time and capital resource investment going into one of these ships - it'd be hideous. Confed already has some pretty decent weapons stored away, and the technology to create planet-killers... but that technology is almost never seen deployed, because it's either not needed, or it's horrifically expensive to do so. Nuclear missiles and torpedoes are NOT standard issue on every USN warship right now, even though it would be possible to make them fit on all cruisers, destroyers, and frigates in order to give even the smallest ships battle-group killing capability; ditto superweapons on Confed fleet carriers and cruisers.

Another part is, as noted, the storytelling aspect - if Confed did deploy superships and planet-killers everywhere, then the story either becomes fairly boring, or ridiculously overpowered in order to balance it out. Imagine if Prophecy had fleets on both sides shooting planet-killers at one another's planets or ships; there wouldnt' be much left of either side, when the war was finished, assuming there were any survivors.

One more thing to note is that this Wing Commander, not Battleship Commander or Fleet Commander - superweapons that aren't prohibitively expensive if lost or that could destroy whole armadas means pilots are no longer relevant to combat - it's Star Trek all over again, with massivec apital ships deciding the fate of whole star systems and sectors. I suppose you could get around the 'losing the whole fleet' idea by deploying massive numbers of single-pilot craft, but either they can't deploy the weapon themselves, or else space combat would consist of firing a superweapon in the general direction of the enemy and hoping you shot first.

Honestly, if Confed could afford and had the technology to deploy superships and fleet-killing weapons everywhere, then they would probably have better things to deploy than JUST fleet carriers, cruisers, and the like - if such things are trivial, then they've probably got star-system killing weapons waiting in the wings for when things get REALLY tough.
 
The WCP Nephilim weapon didn't make too much sense anyway. Plasma would tend to disperse over a greater distance and loose its effect. I can see taking out a single ship, but a whole fleet or Confed HQ? Even in the 27th century that sounds a little far fetched.
 
Dragon1 said:
The WCP Nephilim weapon didn't make too much sense anyway. Plasma would tend to disperse over a greater distance and loose its effect. I can see taking out a single ship, but a whole fleet or Confed HQ? Even in the 27th century that sounds a little far fetched.
Agreed. Orange balls of laser are certainly far more plausible. And of course, the sonic accelerators used by the Kilrathi are the most plausible of all.

In other words - huh? Far fetched? :p
 
Dragon1 said:
When did the Kilrathi use sonic accelerators?

Armada. 2 SAs and 2 matter disruptors comprise the gun armament of the Shok'lar (not counting Armada's code implementation of the cloaking device as a gun).
 
Mind you, in-game the Shok'lar has two neutrons and two mass drivers instead... I tried giving it its proper armament once, but quickly found out why they changed it - having barely enough energy for two volleys is not my idea of a good time.
 
Dragon1 said:
The WCP Nephilim weapon didn't make too much sense anyway. Plasma would tend to disperse over a greater distance and loose its effect. I can see taking out a single ship, but a whole fleet or Confed HQ? Even in the 27th century that sounds a little far fetched.

What the hell? None of this makes any sense. You have no basis from which to make any of your deductions. AND WE SEE THE PLASMA WEAPON TAKE OUT WHOLE FLEETS AND CONFED HQ IN PROPHECY.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I'm not sure I've ever heard this reference before -- I don't remember the Phase Transit Cannon ever being mentioned in the novels. (Feel free to point it out -- but it would certainly be odd for a novel to generate a reference like this.)
Hmm, I guess I dreamed it. I went back to the passage I thought it resided (when Bear sees the Vukar Tag battle group - before he hops the Sabre to go to the meeting - and goes on about the Concordia's damage), but no mention of it. For some reason, I specifically remember the phrase "repeated firing of her main gun" and something about the damage it caused. Anyway, if you haven't heard of it, its probably a figment of my imagination :).

Bandit LOAF said:
My understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that for all practical purposes ships are generally measured by mass rather than by length... in which case a yard which can produce the 80,000 tonne Bengal-class Tiger's Claw can probably also produce a 73,000 tonne Terran Confederation-class ship.
I have no idea how current or WC-future dockyards figure out what ships they build where, but I would imagine there is an upper limit to the size (length and width) of vessel that can be built at a certain dock.

Bandit LOAF said:
Based on your own low guess for number of Terran Confederation-class dreadnaughts, there's a 1 in 55 chance (1 in 15 by my estimate) that the TCS Austerlitz could be one at all -- ignoring that it's the one that we *know* is in drydock and that it doesn't fit the name scheme of the two known ships. Then there's only another 1 in 4 chance that it survives the battle at all. Basing fanfic around incredibly remote possibilities like this is one of the things that's wrong with fanfic..
Bandit LOAF said:
The 'six' is the lower limit - it's entirely possible that there were ten yards or fifteen yards or a million yards. The issue is that whatever the number produced, they can't be around in 2669. If there were a hundred of them, then a hundred of them must have been destroyed in the mid sixties.

Well, since every other number used in the computation hangs on your assumptions for carriers built, I would guess to be accurate you’d need to use your 6 CDN number. Its hard to quote actual numbers though when we all admittedly have no idea exactly how many Confederation DN’s were built.
For the 1/15 number to be true, one has to assume that the Concordia-class kept the same number of dockyard slots for the past 30 years (something I find increasingly more problematic if you want to believe a new design can instantly replace an old one), that the Jutland was the Bengal’s replacement and began production runs in 2657, and that the CDN took over the Bengals dockyard slots and production schedule. The problem I see is, even with the 1/15 number and ¼ chance in surviving the BoT (I prefer 2/5, thanks to the Wolfhound. The chances increase to 50-50 if the Gettysburg "carrier" which is also in a repair yard of sorts at this time is considered), that number is still greater than zero. There is a possibility.

Lets just stay on the subject of long shots for a second. We have the Ark Royal, which is assumed to be the same carrier we see in Action Stations. To survive 34 years of war, the Ark Royal must carry on when 64 (using LOAFs list and excluding Bengal losses) carriers have been lost around it. I think if you do the math, the chance that the Austerlitz is a CDN and survived the BoT and the chance that the Ark Royal would survive for 34 years is almost even money :). Basing the continued use of the Ark Royal on the name in FA alone holds about the same amount of water (percentage-wise) as the Austerlitz being a CDN (per LOAF’s numbers).


criticalmass said:
And: Is there the possibility for an unfinished CDN hull (or even a *gasp* surviving ship) still hanging about in 2673-2681?
Bandit LOAF said:
We know the Austerlitz is being repaired somewhere, as well as the other carriers, per the statement that it will take 60 days to bring them all back online in FA. I’m also pretty sure that no Kilrathi War "larger" carrier class ever stuck with its naming convention (speaking of which, what could be the CDN’s naming convention? Confederation and Concordia doesn’t exactly create a link in my mind, unless the Sesame Street-ish "words that start with the letter C" counts as a naming convention :D). The Tarawa-type CVE's seem to be the exception. We know 3 carriers were hit in a drydock. I don’t see how that translates into a definite that the Austerlitz (being whatever carrier type it is) or Viking (being whatever carrier type it is) took one of the falls.

No matter how the math works on whatever side, the one answer you can’t give to criticalmass is “No”. Put whatever caveat you want to on the response, but it is possible a CDN is around post-BoT.

C-ya
 
Agreed. Orange balls of laser are certainly far more plausible. And of course, the sonic accelerators used by the Kilrathi are the most plausible of all

I was remarking more on the concept of the weapon than the fictional specifics of the weapon. In reality, a laser weapon would trave at 1c and would be invisible to the naked eye. So barring the actual physics of the fictional video game guns, the concept of a fleet-kill plasma weapon just seems like the game designers were stretching to make the Nephilim appear to be ultra-advanced and sinister. I think a better approach would have been to make the Nephilim capships smaller and faster than their Confed counterparts with triple the firepower. As opposed to the typical destroyer, cruiser, carrier, dreadnought classifications, the Nephilim could have had large hive ships that grew (organic or semi-organic technology) raiders and fleet attack ships (frigate or destroyer sized ships that would have large fighter contingents).
 
Viper61 said:
No matter how the math works on whatever side, the one answer you can’t give to criticalmass is “No”. Put whatever caveat you want to on the response, but it is possible a CDN is around post-BoT.

LOAF's entire point is that it's an extremely low possibility. The whole implication that all nonzero possibilities are equally valid is absurd.

Dragon1 said:
I was remarking more on the concept of the weapon than the fictional specifics of the weapon. In reality, a laser weapon would trave at 1c and would be invisible to the naked eye. So barring the actual physics of the fictional video game guns, the concept of a fleet-kill plasma weapon just seems like the game designers were stretching to make the Nephilim appear to be ultra-advanced and sinister. I think a better approach would have been to make the Nephilim capships smaller and faster than their Confed counterparts with triple the firepower. As opposed to the typical destroyer, cruiser, carrier, dreadnought classifications, the Nephilim could have had large hive ships that grew (organic or semi-organic technology) raiders and fleet attack ships (frigate or destroyer sized ships that would have large fighter contingents).

It kind of sounds like you're just making this all up as the discussion goes along. Nephilim ships are both smaller and larger than the Confed capital ships, and they generally have more firepower. I don't see how your "raiders and fleet attack ships" would change anything. Once again, as I've said to you before, you're overanalyzing the technology here.
 
Hmm, I guess I dreamed it. I went back to the passage I thought it resided (when Bear sees the Vukar Tag battle group - before he hops the Sabre to go to the meeting - and goes on about the Concordia's damage), but no mention of it. For some reason, I specifically remember the phrase "repeated firing of her main gun" and something about the damage it caused. Anyway, if you haven't heard of it, its probably a figment of my imagination.

I ask the usual suspects about it last night, no one knew what you were referring to. I don't think the Phase Transit Cannon is referenced outside of Wing Commander 2's errata (which, of course, was the goal of 'removing' it from the continuity in the first place).

I have no idea how current or WC-future dockyards figure out what ships they build where, but I would imagine there is an upper limit to the size (length and width) of vessel that can be built at a certain dock.

If they're anything like the 'space' yards we see in Wing Commander IV, then they seem pretty standardized; if they're like the fully contained "drydocks" in Action Stations then it stands to reason they'd be built with the ability to repair all sorts of {large} ships (rather than narrowly focused on a single class).

Also, your earlier observation that the Concordia was 'bulkier' than the Tiger's Claw was incorrect: based on their silhouettes, the Terran Confederation-class is only ~20 meters wider than the Bengal-class.

Well, since every other number used in the computation hangs on your assumptions for carriers built, I would guess to be accurate you’d need to use your 6 CDN number. Its hard to quote actual numbers though when we all admittedly have no idea exactly how many Confederation DN’s were built.

For the 1/15 number to be true, one has to assume that the Concordia-class kept the same number of dockyard slots for the past 30 years (something I find increasingly more problematic if you want to believe a new design can instantly replace an old one), that the Jutland was the Bengal’s replacement and began production runs in 2657, and that the CDN took over the Bengals dockyard slots and production schedule. The problem I see is, even with the 1/15 number and ¼ chance in surviving the BoT (I prefer 2/5, thanks to the Wolfhound. The chances increase to 50-50 if the Gettysburg "carrier" which is also in a repair yard of sorts at this time is considered), that number is still greater than zero. There is a possibility.

Lets just stay on the subject of long shots for a second. We have the Ark Royal, which is assumed to be the same carrier we see in Action Stations. To survive 34 years of war, the Ark Royal must carry on when 64 (using LOAFs list and excluding Bengal losses) carriers have been lost around it. I think if you do the math, the chance that the Austerlitz is a CDN and survived the BoT and the chance that the Ark Royal would survive for 34 years is almost even money . Basing the continued use of the Ark Royal on the name in FA alone holds about the same amount of water (percentage-wise) as the Austerlitz being a CDN (per LOAF’s numbers).

I find it hard to believe that you "find increasingly more problematic", given that you've just gone on about how you think yards are built for specific classes of ships (despite any conclusive or even suggestive evidence to support this idea).

(In terms of the Concordia-class ships, I generally attempt to go by the same ship list on which Origin has referred for Secret Ops. This is, of course, not really canon -- but it's one of those things that it's perhaps better to abide than not. I would throw it out the minute it's contradicted in the future, of course, but that doesn't seem likely to happen in the immediate future. Of course, it calls the Austerlitz Concordia-class, too...)

The Ark Royal remains the same Concordia-class ship simply because that was the stated intention from the author back when Action Stations was published. Whether that's likely or not (the Victory survived a similar amount of war) is up to you - fan projects looking to invent shiney new carriers can ruin that history if they like, I suppose. That said, I don't see how one carrier surviving 34 years of war makes it probable that another carrier more likely to survive compared to its contemporaries. The Ark Royal doesn't have a giant space magnet that increases the probability that the Austerlitz as opposed to fifty eight other carriers survives for longer. (Or that makes the Austerlitz Terran Confederation-class to begin with...)). To put it another way - it's improbable (perhaps) that the Ark Royal survives however many battles its in -- but that doesn't make it *more* probable that any other specific carrier would survive (because you can apply the same logic to the Viper or the Washington or any of the other field of ships). I'm no mathamagician, but I'm pretty sure probability doesn't work that way at all. Flipping heads ten times in a row doesn't affect the fact that I have a 50% chance of getting it the eleventh time.

We know the Austerlitz is being repaired somewhere, as well as the other carriers, per the statement that it will take 60 days to bring them all back online in FA. I’m also pretty sure that no Kilrathi War "larger" carrier class ever stuck with its naming convention (speaking of which, what could be the CDN’s naming convention? Confederation and Concordia doesn’t exactly create a link in my mind, unless the Sesame Street-ish "words that start with the letter C" counts as a naming convention ). The Tarawa-type CVE's seem to be the exception. We know 3 carriers were hit in a drydock. I don’t see how that translates into a definite that the Austerlitz (being whatever carrier type it is) or Viking (being whatever carrier type it is) took one of the falls.

No matter how the math works on whatever side, the one answer you can’t give to criticalmass is “No”. Put whatever caveat you want to on the response, but it is possible a CDN is around post-BoT.

I disagree.

First, read what you've quoted: criticalmass didn't ask about "post-BoT"; he asked about "2673-2681" (post-war). There's yet another layer of improbability here -- that Confed is keeping their faulty, crippled dreadnaught around while scrapping large portions of the fleet.

Had criticalmass asked your question, I would still say no. Anything is *possible* if you go through ridiculous lengths to make it true - if you want to have a Terran Confederation dreadnaught in Wing Commander III you can make up an elaborate story. Yes, the Confederation could secretly build more dreadnaughts without us ever hearing a reference to them... they can even have an amazing fixed gun that we've never heard of! Hell, our story can involve time travel if you want -- we can cite some Privateer 2 references for that.

That said, it is incredibly improbable (as demonstrated) that the TCS Austerlitz is a Terran Confederation-class dreadnaught -- similarly, it goes against the spirit of removing the ships from the continuity in the first place and the very spirit of Wing Commander III itself (the Confederation is losing the war and now relying on older carriers because ships like the Concordia have been lost).

Hard ons for the superships do not justify reintroducing them just because you want to show off a 3D model or have your Mary Sue be captain of a giant space gun.

(Ooh, oooh, no, we'll do The Final Countdown in the Wing Commander universe. The TCS Concordia will travel back in time to Space Pearl Harbor and fight the Kilrathi.)

(Finally - Concordia and Confederation are both words which mean alliances or unions. If I had to name others, I'd give them names like Alliance and Union... or perhaps more specific names, honoring particular present-day unions -- 'TCS Firekkan Alliance' and the like.)
 
As interesting as it is to see salvos fired back and forth as to why it is or isn't possible for a Confederation-class vessel to have survived until after the war, I think Loaf just touched on precisely why the point is entirely moot.
Bandit LOAF said:
There's yet another layer of improbability here -- that Confed is keeping their faulty, crippled dreadnaught around while scrapping large portions of the fleet.
The Confederation-class is, simply put, a bad design. It's built around technology that doesn't work, it's insufficiently armed to operate as a true battleship, and it's prone to crippling damage to its flight deck. Even on the off chance that one survived to the end of the war, it would no doubt be one of the first ships decommissioned.

Frankly, I'm starting to almost feel ashamed to be working on a model of one. >.>;
 
Frankly, I'm starting to almost feel ashamed to be working on a model of one

For all their faults, the TCS Concordia from WC2 was a badass ship. I don't know why you would feel ashamed to be modeling her.
 
The Confederation-class is, simply put, a bad design. It's built around technology that doesn't work, it's insufficiently armed to operate as a true battleship, and it's prone to crippling damage to its flight deck

Hmmm, well with 8 fully functional AMG's and the ability to withstand up to 3 torpedo-hits (fleet action) it seems that the confederation class could very well operate as a true battleship.

And the problem with the flight deck is shared by all carriers of the kilrathi war, at least she has two flight decks. (Making her half as vulnerably to flight deck failures than her concordia,ranger, escort carrier - counterparts)

Seems to be a superior design even with a faulty PTC :D
 
Hmmm, well with 8 fully functional AMG's and the ability to withstand up to 3 torpedo-hits (fleet action) it seems that the confederation class could very well operate as a true battleship

Or at least a solid cruiser. Just the stats alone, the Confederation easily puts down heavy cruisers like the Waterloo or even supercruisers like the original Concordia or Gettysburg. With a complement of 120 fighters, the Confederation-class could easily go toe-to-toe with a Kilrathi carrier group.
 
Dragon1 said:
I think a better approach would have been to make the Nephilim capships smaller and faster than their Confed counterparts with triple the firepower.
Well, that's your opinion, and I won't argue with it :). But keep in mind, this is a game where you fly a space fighter. The advantage of super-powerful fleet killing weaponry is that it doesn't hurt the player - it's just a plot device. On the other hand, giving the enemy real firepower would cause no end of trouble, because at the end of the day, you still want the player to be able to kill an enemy capship single-handedly, and you want the player to be able to fend off fifty thousand enemy fighters attacking his own carrier - so you inevitably end up with friendly ships being more powerful than the enemy. This is the case in every single WC game, with Armada being an exception only because you play on both sides (the only other, and rather arguable, exception is WC4 - where you also play both sides).

As opposed to the typical destroyer, cruiser, carrier, dreadnought classifications, the Nephilim could have had large hive ships that grew (organic or semi-organic technology) raiders and fleet attack ships (frigate or destroyer sized ships that would have large fighter contingents).
For some reason, I never get tired of pointing out that plastic is organic :). Although it is likely that Origin did indeed want 'organic' to suggest something that's biologically grown and such, we cannot assume this - the info we have about the Nephilim does not allow us to determine whether they fly weird spacefish creatures or simply build their ships out of plastic.
 
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