It's not, but I have a question for the lore buffs of the community. Something that doesn't quite fit right with the SP campaign.
The nomads were "awaken" 2 months prior to the events of the SP campaign, meaning they've had that time to infiltrate the Rheinland government and begin their buildup and aggression against the other houses. However, based on it's economic collapse, Rheinland was reduced to just one battleship - Westfalen. However, in the SP campaign, there's numerous battleships shown on screen.
Does this imply that there were a dozen+ battleships built within a 2 month span? I'm thinking this is a mere oversight by the rushed development of the game but I'm hoping somebody has a nugget of information to help fill that gap.
It ain't about what you are capable of, it's about what you're willing to do.
(11-15-2025, 04:40 PM)Stewgar Wrote: I'm thinking this is a mere oversight by the rushed development of the game but I'm hoping somebody has a nugget of information to help fill that gap.
As far as the vanilla game goes, yeah, that's pretty much it. The common consensus is that the setting writing and campaign writing saw little if any coordination, which is why the campaign is full of such plotholes when you compare it to the state of the open world. Another good example are the Nomads themselves, where the campaign implies they've been around for just a few months, but there's various worldbuilding elements (most notably around Malta) that instead suggest they've been active for centuries already.
As for how Discovery resolved it, I'm not sure myself. I'm yet to have a proper dive into the reworked Rheinland timeline.
(11-15-2025, 04:56 PM)TheSauron Wrote: As for how Discovery resolved it, I'm not sure myself. I'm yet to have a proper dive into the reworked Rheinland timeline.
I'd assume by now, for Discovery, that 35 years is more than enough time to build a healthy amount of battleships for it's navy.
Thanks for the info. Why has this magnificent game been plagued by being rushed and incompleted!!!
It ain't about what you are capable of, it's about what you're willing to do.
Quote:Although Rheinland went through a period of radical military buildup under Nomad influence, the nation has recovered to its ante-bellum levels, which weren't all that stellar to begin with. However, the economy seems to have tapered out, waiting until the government can strike the right balance to revive the nation into the powerhouse it once was and could realistically become again.
Keep in mind, the vanilla Rheinland is an industrial powerhouse and has (IMHO) surely the needed resources to build the 20 battleships from the campaign even in a short amount oft time.
@rwx My problem with the building of those battleships in 2 months is the scale of that undertaking. Assuming the 2 months equates to 60 days, + - 1 day, that equates to a battleship every 3 days. I'm not sure that's feasible even to Freelancer's lore. Rheinland was a powerhouse, but that was before the 80 years war with GMG. After that embarrassment, Rheinland dipped into a recession. To prevent a total collapse, Rheinland sold resource rights and other assets to Liberty. The year leading up to the SP campaign, Rheinland was still in an economic depression with much of it's ship building capabilities swept away by the Unioners strike.
@LuckyOne I think that's what it boiled down to. I really want to see if there's some kind of other lore nugged to prevent this "mcguffin" Rheinland fleet.
It ain't about what you are capable of, it's about what you're willing to do.
In Discovery, we did have representation of this through Valhalla Shipyard. Rheinland's fabrication style for a long time was "Cheap, sturdy, easy to build", and the massively powerful shipyards like Valhalla and The Ring/Oder Shipyard, and later Schatten, Alster (post-buffing) and Sommerda were legitimate Fleet Printers™ for the industrialist Rheinland Military.
Valhalla, along with the Thuringia system, are not vanilla, but here's the infocard as it exists ingame today.
Valhalla Shipyard Wreck Infocard Wrote:During the 80-Years War, Rheinland’s Imperial Navy aimed to limit political criticism by concealing the scale of the war's casualties. Valhalla was constructed in 588 AS to provide discrete repair and shipbreaking capabilities for damaged capital ships. Valhalla was abandoned following the economic collapse at the end of the war and remained derelict until 798 AS. Restored as a part of Chancellor Niemann’s remilitarization program, Valhalla was used to produce the mysterious Cloaking Devices retrofitted to many Rheinland ships during the Colony Wars.
Following Niemann’s disappearance, the Rheinland Northern Fleet retreated from Kusari to moorings at Valhalla. When Thuringia came under joint attack by The Order and the newly formed MND in 802 AS, much of the fleet fled, stripping and then scuttling the shipyard behind them. Valhalla was most recently rebuilt as a service yard in 817 AS, owing to increased demand from the Hudson War. In 823 AS, the MND quarantined the station, claiming an industrial accident had contaminated the facility. Wild attacks would become increasingly common across Thuringia thereafter.
In early 834 AS, the Rheinland Battleship Kolleda was towed to the perimeter of the Salzungenebel quarantine zone. The battleship’s presence provoked an immediate response from Wild patrols, with the MND and Rheinland Military devoting significant resources to the Kolleda’s protection. After several days of brutal fighting, Valhalla was abruptly reduced to wreckage by a powerful energy blast. Similar readings were detected near the Kolleda, which exploded shortly after.
I believe, in the current political undercurrents, the only thing stopping Rheinland from printing an absolutely massive fleet is resources; they simply don't have the raw materials to do so. Which this waystation that the Core are trying to set up in Sigma-17 could change heavily, as a lawful encampment that compliments the trade of both Iridium and Xeno Relics/Artifacts from the Omicrons. DHC and Core were close allies in the past, one having a base directly over the other's planet, so we may yet see the Rheinland Military Industrial Machine in action, absolutely spamming Bismarks and Donaus.
I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.
"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"
