The escorts report their names: Gettysburg, Nicholson, Stout, Klakring 86ef63b

“GUIDED-MISSILE CRUISER” was never going to cut it. The four escorts of the battle group now sail under their own names — chosen from the ships that actually shepherded the Big E through her mid-90s:

1. USS Gettysburg (CG-64) — Ticonderoga-class Aegis cruiser, holding the van 2,400 yards ahead. Gettysburg rode shotgun on the carrier’s 1996 return to sea after the long refuelling, and kept the station for years.
2. USS Nicholson (DD-982) — Spruance-class destroyer on the port beam. Another repeat consort, from the ’96 cruise through Desert Fox.
3. USS Stout (DDG-55) — Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer to starboard, named for Rear Admiral Stout and present in the ’98 group.
4. USS Klakring (FFG-42) — Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate as the astern picket, parked well clear of the approach so your final stays sacred.
5. The sourcing: the November 1998 Navy Wire battle-group list for Enterprise reads Gettysburg, Stout, Nicholson, Klakring almost verbatim — the closest real formation to our 1994, when the Big E herself was finishing her refuelling overhaul. Alternate history, accurate consorts.
6. Where you’ll see them: the tactical map (N) labels each hull by name, the radar paints them as steel-grey triangles, and J spectates them too — the banner reads the name back at you, as in the shot above.

The Big E never sails alone: battle-group escorts and bay traffic 67a2c7f

The Enterprise is the flagship of a carrier battle group, and now she sails like one. Four escorts hold a picket ring around her at all times: a guided-missile cruiser 2.4 km ahead, two destroyers 1.5 km out on each beam, and a frigate 2.8 km astern (far enough back to keep your final approach clean). Each escort is a proper station-keeper with its own helm — when the Big E reaches the end of her patrol leg and puts the rudder over, the ring swings with her, the outside ships sprinting to their new stations before settling back to formation speed. All five ships are procedural low-poly builds in the game's flat-shaded style, with wakes that trail astern and running lights that come on at night.

The bay is alive now too. Two container ships loop a shipping lane between the Pacific and the central bay, passing under the Golden Gate twice per circuit (inbound lane north, outbound lane south, like real traffic keeping right). Fishing boats work the grounds off the Marin coast, the waterfront and Richardson Bay, while sailboats and a little motor cruiser crisscross the bay between the city front, Alcatraz and Angel Island. Every route was validated against the game's own ground-truth terrain — the first draft beached two sailboats on Telegraph Hill, which is how the bay pilots learned their charts. Twelve ships total, all steaming day and night.