GTC Aeolus

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File:Aeolus320X240.jpg
GTC Aeolus

The GTC Aeolus is a Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance cruiser. It boasts more turrets in total than any other canon cruiser in the GTVA arsenal. Both the GTVA and the Neo-Terran Front use several of these vessels in FreeSpace 2, and the FreeSpace 2 Demo places another in the hands of the GTVA. The FreeSpace 2 tech description states that production was discontinued two years prior to the Second Shivan Incursion, and only 24 were produced. However, the tech description was never made available to the player in the game, making its reliability debatable. In-game references warn of this ship's formidable anti-fighter weaponry.

Description:

FS2 Demo Tech Room Description

The biggest, baddest, and meanest cruiser EVER. The Aeolus will smack you up.

FS2 Tech Room Description

The GTC Aeolus is the first cruiser class ever produced by the RNI shipyards orbiting Laramis II. Only two dozen of these cruisers were put into service in GTVA fleets, with production ending in 2365. Allied Command assigns Aeolus-class ships primarily to guard slow-moving convoys against fighter and bomber wings, as these cruisers are severely out-gunned by most capital ships in service today. Their flak and AAA turrets serve as marvelous deterrents to smaller craft, however.

Developer Notes

None

Name Origin

Meaning: Unknown

Language: Latin

Alternate spellings: Unknown

In Greek mythology, Aeolus was the ruler of the nation of Aeolia, and had the power to control the winds. He was supposed to live in an island in Southern Italy, now called Lipari.

Performance:

Statistics

Type	Cruiser
Manufacturer	RNI Shipyards
Maneuverability	N/A
Yaw, Pitch, Roll	30.0 s
Max Velocity	N/A ms-1
Max Afterburner Velocity	N/A ms-1
Armor	38 000
Hitpoints	N/A
Shields	272
Length	{{{10}}} m

Armaments

• Turrets

FreeSpace 2
Turret Type	Amount
Terran Huge Turret	2
Standard Flak	6
Anti-Fighter Beam	2
Small Green Beam	2

Veteran Comments

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Look upon its armament, ye fighter pilots, and despair. The Aeolus is the second most effective cruiser in the game, thanks to its array of flak guns and AAA beams that make attacking it a daunting prospect. The Aeolus will make mincemeat out of an unprepared fighter wing, and going one-on-one with it at short range is a very effective method of commiting suicide. Its anti-capital capability is good for a cruiser with two SGreens; however, the mounting scheme, and the SGreen being the woefully inefficient piece of junk that it is, the Aeolus will make most warship kills by bathing them in flak fire. This is actually surprisingly effective.

It's pretty hard to overestimate the effectiveness of this cruiser... it has, by far, the best anti-fighter capability of any cruiser in the game, and nearly the best of any ship in the game. As far as I'm concerned only the Deimos really outdoes it in that respect. The Aeolus, however, is no super-warship; like all cruisers, it's really ineffective in an anti-capital respect, though superior to most other cruisers. The missions of FreeSpace 2 are cruel to the Aeolus and do not show its full potential. For example, in Clash of the Titans II all of the cruisers were severely damaged, even though at full strength Aeoli can fight off ~ 12 bomber wings and survive. In Their Finest Hour (which also causes many people to doubt the GTVA Colossus) many allied warships failed to have their beams armed, decreasing both their capital-ship weaponry and their anti-fighter defenses.

When an enemy Aeolus arrives in range, there's just one chance to survive: Blow it up, before it blows up you! This thing is horrible for any newcomer in FS and a great threat for anybody else. It has the best anti-fighter and bomber capability of all capital ships (I tested this!), so stay away from that ship, if you don't have a friendly capital ship or a volley of Cyclops torpedoes to deal with it.

While the Aeolus is feared by many as the most powerful anti-fighter cruiser in the game, I must say that it is not. Despite the fact that it has many flak guns (which other Terran cruisers have a complete lack of), the Aeolus has only two anti-fighter beams, while the GTC Leviathan has four. It is not flak that kills people, rather it makes the screen pulse red. This probably gives people the illusion that it is more dangerous than the Leviathan. It is not. Beams are what do the damage; the Leviathan is the triumphant anti-fighter cruiser.

The Aeolus is just about the only FS2 ship that can reliably take down a single fighter. That doesn't sound like much, but one competently-flown bomber can find and exploit a weak spot in almost every other ship. However, despite the Aeolus' fearsome reputation, it can be overwhelmed by a thought-out attack. If you go into FRED and do some testing, you'll notice that it only takes a wing or two of Medusas to kill this 'badass' ship. The exact number depends on the difficulty level, as the bombers' AI is better on higher difficulty.

The Aeolus is a highly effective ship. While the Leviathan does have more beams, beams aren't the whole equation. The Aeolus has virtually a 360 sphere of fire. The Leviathan's anti-fighter weaponry has a far more limited field of fire. Flak is a highly effective weapon. It will eventually bring you down, and is absolutely deadly to larger craft like Ursa which take the full brunt of the impacts.

In the FRED-ed battles I've run between this thing and other cruisers, I've noticed something very interesting: the SGreens have a tremendous field of fire. When I put an Aeolus up against a Rakshasa, the Aeolus continuously looped around the Rakshasa, main beams always managing to find their target unless it's directly underneath them. It took forever, but the Aeolus almost always came out of that battle victorious, usually with about 35% H.I. remaining. It would be more, but I put the ships far enough a part to let the Rakshasa get in one or two shots with its SReds. Otherwise, it would have been a slaughter.