Redesign the Galactica

[Crossroads Inc.]

I think A big question we are all missing here is: whatr are we redesigning Galactica FOR?

It was meant as a Battle Carrier, and in that function, in preformmed remarkably well. I think a problem is some of us out there, after seeing the show, have the sense of the Galatica/Battlestar as a ship that can take on or stand up to anything... Sure, in the SHOW it was by itself and alone...

But we never get a sense of what how a Battlestar works ina fleet... We don't know what support ships it may have.. Pickkets, corvettes? destroyers? Anti-missilie ships, etc...

For me, I would focus on improving existing design eliments, rather then trying to make it into something its not.

[Darth Onasi]

I know the concept of the Gunstar destroyer type escort has been popular in the fandom since the original series, but I don't know if there's any canon basis for that.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Is there ANY canon referances to support ships? It simply wouldn't make sense for a military fleet to be made up of All Battlestars and nothing else.

[StarshipTitanic]

In Razor you can see and hear about escort ships in passing. I think Adama was set to have served on one, but I'm not sure.

[Genii Lodus]

The Galactica is part of Battlestar Group 75 - a carrier group in a modern navy is a carrier with a bunch of support craft so given a lot of naval terminology is used nBSG it would imply that a battlestar group is a battlestar with a bunch of support craft. Admittedly the other possibility exists of a battlestar group being a group of the things but that suggests a scary number of them.

[NecronLord]

Is there ANY canon referances to support ships? It simply wouldn't make sense for a military fleet to be made up of All Battlestars and nothing else.

You see something that looks a lot like one in the pilot, when looking up from the caprica doctor's office (Along with a firefly class transport).

[Vanas]

Not a great watcher of the series, but I do browse the wiki because I like the ships. Razor shows us this ship in the Shipyards (above Pegasus). Looks like some kind of support ship?

[Anguirus]

Adama makes explicit reference to smaller vessels he's commanded in Daybreak Pt. 1.

[Phantasee]

What's in the 'eyes' of the ships? Vanas's example also has it, in the bow section.

[Zor]

As a crew feature (i remembered that Tigh saying this was general proceedure during pilot) is to have the crew (or at least part of the crew) be in spacesuits during battle. The Spacesuits that i saw were not big or really cumbersome things and it only makes sense that they should wear them (why this was not the case is most likely the budget reasons and thr cost of producing said suits).

Zor

[Uraniun235]

Is there ANY canon referances to support ships? It simply wouldn't make sense for a military fleet to be made up of All Battlestars and nothing else.

This isn't canon, but I think Ron Moore said in his blog that he thought it was almost certain that there would be destroyers and other smaller ships in the Colonial fleet.

[NecronLord]

As mentioned, there's a support ship in Razor.

As a note, it's based upon a fan design.

[Zor]

I would have liked to see a fleet action between the Cylons and the Colonials, with escorts and such in action. One thing which i always figured (pure speculation here BTW) was that the escort ships were more in line with conventional warships, carrying missiles/heavy guns instead of being fighter dependant.

Zor

[Crossroads Inc.]

One thing to consider is most warships are built to counter something...

Battlestars seem to be the main heavy warship of the fleet, and they carry Lots of small fighters... One would imagine fighters are such a large part of the fleet is because the Cylons ALSO have tons and tons of fighters... If the cylons didnt have swarms of fighters, one would imagine the Colonials wouldn't either...

One would think..because of this.. That must ships in the fleet would carry some form of fighter escort, or lots of antifighter turrets..

For an example, the Pegasus was the closest we see to a dedicated "modern" battleship for the colonials.. You would think if it was a battleship it would be all guns, but it has even more fighter space then the Galactica.

[Stark]

Can we strip off all/most the 'miss a lot' flash and blast guns and improve the hangar facilities for defence while buffing armour and heavy weapons to destroy the paper-thin basestars?

Oh wait, Vympel's right, that's the Pegasus. Whoops. Turns out the 'awesome' corridor of '99.999% missing' flak blasts is totally retarded. Keep a few for missile point defence (involving actually aiming and not 'blow up this huge volume of space for no reason') and use fighters to keep enemy fighters away while destroying enemy carriers in single volleys with improved primary batteries.

Just like Pegasus.

[Coalition]

As a crew feature (i remembered that Tigh saying this was general proceedure during pilot) is to have the crew (or at least part of the crew) be in spacesuits during battle. The Spacesuits that i saw were not big or really cumbersome things and it only makes sense that they should wear them (why this was not the case is most likely the budget reasons and thr cost of producing said suits).

Zor

Given how loose the spacesuits are, wouldn't they become human-shaped balloons when the atmosphere was lost?


My modification would be to add a door at the outside rear of the flight pods. You can retract the pod, but leave the door open for the last stragglers to land. The door gets slammed shut, and the ship can jump. It isn't good for landing lots of fighters, but for the last half dozen or so it could be useful. Make the door semi-expendable and easy to replace, and you don't hav to worry too much about damage to it (you design the door so it takes most of the jump stress).

[Havok]

Wait... question. Why do Battlestars have support groups? I was under the impression that they are for defense of the 12 Colonies.

Carrier groups on Earth have support ships because they run out of shit and operate far from home in international and sometimes hostile waters. Do Battlestars go anywhere besides the vicinity of the 12 Colonies? There are no other inhabited planets or other races to interact with besides the Cylons, which also came from the 12 Colonies. They have FTL which gets them basically, instantly where they want to be, but where do they want to be besides the 12 planets that they occupy that are all friendly?

I could see the roll of some missleships or gunships, but actual resupply ships? That doesn't seem like a necessity.

[tim31]

Can we strip off all/most the 'miss a lot' flash and blast guns and improve the hangar facilities for defence while buffing armour and heavy weapons to destroy the paper-thin basestars?

Oh wait, Vympel's right, that's the Pegasus. Whoops. Turns out the 'awesome' corridor of '99.999% missing' flak blasts is totally retarded. Keep a few for missile point defence (involving actually aiming and not 'blow up this huge volume of space for no reason') and use fighters to keep enemy fighters away while destroying enemy carriers in single volleys with improved primary batteries.

Just like Pegasus.

And right there we have the reason this thread was doomed to succeed.

[Gandalf]

Wait... question. Why do Battlestars have support groups? I was under the impression that they are for defence of the 12 Colonies.

Carrier groups on Earth have support ships because they run out of shit and operate far from home in international and sometimes hostile waters. Do Battlestars go anywhere besides the vicinity of the 12 Colonies? There are no other inhabited planets or other races to interact with besides the Cylons, which also came from the 12 Colonies. They have FTL which gets them basically, instantly where they want to be, but where do they want to be besides the 12 planets that they occupy that are all friendly?

I could see the roll of some missleships or gunships, but actual resupply ships? That doesn't seem like a necessity.

Perhaps they planned to expand beyond the existing colonies at some point, or knew that one day they might have to invade Cylon territory?

[tim31]

From the snippets we know of recent Colonial history, it wouldn't be too far out to say that Colonial Fleet assets were used to keep the wild west elements(like Saggitaron) in line.

[Jade Owl]

From the snippets we know of recent Colonial history, it wouldn't be too far out to say that Colonial Fleet assets were used to keep the wild west elements(like Saggitaron) in line.

I think it was the Tauron's who were the cowboys. IIRC, the cover story that Adama told Roslyn for the Valkyrie's mission was that there're some Taurons conduction illegal mining on a moon too close to the Armistice line, and that the Taurons "pushed their luck with the admiralty every chance they got." Also, it seems from the spoilers for Caprica Spoiler

that they have a big organized crime situation.

The problem with the Sagittarons on the other hand, I think had more to do with terrorism against the Federal Colonial Government. And then ther's the drug smugglers like Kat. Policing for those must've required a large number of smaller ships, rather than Battlestars.

[Skylon]

As a crew feature (i remembered that Tigh saying this was general proceedure during pilot) is to have the crew (or at least part of the crew) be in spacesuits during battle. The Spacesuits that i saw were not big or really cumbersome things and it only makes sense that they should wear them (why this was not the case is most likely the budget reasons and thr cost of producing said suits).

Zor

I took that line to be in reference to the crews fighting the fires that broke out after Galactica got hit by a nuke. They would have to be prepared for the chance that the area with a fire would be vented by CiC.

[Knife]

Wait... question. Why do Battlestars have support groups? I was under the impression that they are for defense of the 12 Colonies.

Carrier groups on Earth have support ships because they run out of shit and operate far from home in international and sometimes hostile waters. Do Battlestars go anywhere besides the vicinity of the 12 Colonies? There are no other inhabited planets or other races to interact with besides the Cylons, which also came from the 12 Colonies. They have FTL which gets them basically, instantly where they want to be, but where do they want to be besides the 12 planets that they occupy that are all friendly?

I could see the roll of some missleships or gunships, but actual resupply ships? That doesn't seem like a necessity.

Crossroads has been asking this very question for a page now.

What are we designing Galactica FOR?

[phongn]

Crossroads has been asking this very question for a page now.

What are we designing Galactica FOR?

To generalize even more - as Stuart might ask, what do you want to do? What are the goals? What are the aims of the Twelve Colonies, and then from there, how does the Colonial Fleet implement a means for said goals? It's a bit ass-backwards to go "well, I want a battlestar to have X, Y and Z" without going over the mission first.

[Starglider]

It's a bit ass-backwards to go "well, I want a battlestar to have X, Y and Z" without going over the mission first.

Hey, it works for the US Navy, since the start of the 21st century at least.