[Fang_Taichou]

Both the Lucifer + its fighter escorts lost shielding in subspace.  That would mean they both have the same configuration, just that the Lucifer has 5 big reactors to power its.  If the Lucifer's shielding was made up differently, then I'd expect subspace to either not affect it, or have some different effect than total shield loss.

[Hades]

You would think so, but Fs1 had so many loopholes, and such.

[AlphaOne]

The fact that the Lucifer class SD loses shielding in subspace just as any other small spacecraft is proof enough they are the same tipe of shields the only diference beeing in the maive strenght of the shields on the Lucifer when compared to those of the smaller spacecrafts! Hell those huge blob turrets that are used in FS1 as capital ship weaponry are rather useless against the shields of a heavy fighter!

[NGTM-1R]

Its a complete unknown whether beams could take down the Lucifer's shields or not.  Anything you have to say is mere guesswork.

I call bull****.

On the lot of you, in fact, who believe in the Lucy's continued invinciblity. :V: specifically stated that the Lucifer's shield systems would not hold up against FS2-era weaponry.

[Vip]

Its a complete unknown whether beams could take down the Lucifer's shields or not.  Anything you have to say is mere guesswork.

I call bull****.

On the lot of you, in fact, who believe in the Lucy's continued invinciblity. :V: specifically stated that the Lucifer's shield systems would not hold up against FS2-era weaponry.

Bah, and what's FS2-era weaponry ? B-e-a-m-s. I bet you an upgraded Hecate that weapons of fighter class (AKA Subachs, Prometheus, Kaysers) would never get past Lucy's shield. And most of the capship weapons are FS1-era ones - blob turrets anybody ? Flak is relatively new, however the explosions themselves don't seem so powerful, and the sharpnels have proly just as much kinetic energy as a Morning Star. So, BEAMZ...

You would think so, but Fs1 had so many loopholes, and such.

If we use such arguments, then we can call most of the discussions here bull****, because either we have no evidence or there are simply loopholes. Come on, the fun about it is to speculate basing on what we have

I have no problems with FS on Medium; I have no problems with playing BtRL on Hard. But I ust can't seem do the same with Inferno. Hell, I stoped at the first mission with the... SD Diabolli (or whatever it was called). The beams are just so uberpowerful and the ships have so ubermany HPs, I can't beat it even on Very Easy, not to mention harder settings... There's something fishy going on here...

How's this possible? Inferno is tough, but you seem not to have problems with FS and BtRL...

I had to replay the second/third mission (the one where Independence attacks the this upgraded Arcadia) at least ten times. In the end, I could barely keep the Independence at 10% of hull integrity. Somebody seriously screwed up the power of the beams - I don't want to know how powerful are the beams on the bigger ships... And later, in the first Diaboli mission - at first try, I managed to do everything alright, however there was some bug (can't remember what happened) and I had to restart again. From there on, I always loose mission critical capship, usually due to bombers. With the weapons settings a bit screwed up (they're not always symetrical, and sometimes way off the main axis of the ship) targeting is a pain in the ass, and, as mentioned, too uberpowerful beamz.

FS gets easier on harder levels, because a)friendly ships don't die so easily b) your weapons do more damage (only on Medium and above I'm capable of taking out all the Sathanas guns; on easy and very easy, two Helios aren't enough to take down one gun). In Inferno, on anything better than Easy, the beams eat capships like the Sathanas annihilated the Phoenicia. It's frustrating the crap out of me. I need some INF vets to enlighten me obviously.
 

[AlphaOne]

Actualy managed to finish Inferno! Then agin i was damned lucky on a couple of missions! Also those beams are out of this world !

Also forgot about the statement from about the Lucifers shields!

[Gamma_Draconis]

What statement? I don't recall any bit of information regarding beams being capable of penetrating the Lucifer's shields.

[Snail]

Mobius, Inferno is not canon, Inferno Ancient ships are not canon so they have no juggernauts. However, what IS canon, is that the Ancients are only slightly more superior to the T/Vs.

In addition, even if Inferno was canon, the Ancient fleet encountered in Gateways or R3 is an improved fleet 8,000 years later. The Ancients finally evolved.

I will put it like this:
The T/Vs are at "Level 3" power.
If the Ancients are at "Level 3.5" power.
How could the Ancients defeat hundreds of "Level 3" type species in months if they are only at "Level 3.5?"
I think the Ancients, at "Level 3.5," defeated hundreds of species at "Level 0.5" in months.

[Vip]

I will put it like this:
The T/Vs are at "Level 3" power.
If the Ancients are at "Level 3.5" power.
How could the Ancients defeat hundreds of "Level 3" type species in months if they are only at "Level 3.5?"
I think the Ancients, at "Level 3.5," defeated hundreds of species at "Level 0.5" in months.

Well, I would rather go for Level 1.0 or 1.5, but still, it makes more sense than Ancients being uberpowerful. If they were uberpowerful, how could they be destroyed so easily ? The Shivans would need to be also quite powerful, and so T/V wouldn't stand a chance against them. Unless of course we assume that all we ever met was barely a patrol, and the Sathanas Armada was only a standard battlegroup...

[Fang_Taichou]

Mobius, Inferno is not canon, Inferno Ancient ships are not canon so they have no juggernauts. However, what IS canon, is that the Ancients are only slightly more superior to the T/Vs.

In addition, even if Inferno was canon, the Ancient fleet encountered in Gateways or R3 is an improved fleet 8,000 years later. The Ancients finally evolved.

I will put it like this:
The T/Vs are at "Level 3" power.
If the Ancients are at "Level 3.5" power.
How could the Ancients defeat hundreds of "Level 3" type species in months if they are only at "Level 3.5?"
I think the Ancients, at "Level 3.5," defeated hundreds of species at "Level 0.5" in months.

Well put, the Shivans were probably tech level 5 or 6, except they had massive numbers.  In FS2 the GTVA would probably be level 4 or 4.5, but they still can't handle the Shivans because of their numbers (the Lucifer's group was probably a scout force and the Juggernaut armada was probably just one of their many fleets  )

[Mobius]

Mobius, Inferno is not canon, Inferno Ancient ships are not canon so they have no juggernauts. However, what IS canon, is that the Ancients are only slightly more superior to the T/Vs.

I know, Inferno isn't canon. The Ancients should have Superjuggernauts and Hives. And the tech level has nothing to do with the capability of building warships.

The Terran species was capable of building superdestroyers...they didn't proceed just because they considered superdestroyers an useless line of warships.

And what does it take to build up a Juggernaut? The GTVA built a Juggernaut in the Reconstruction period...and it was a supersecret project, too. This leads me to think that the Ancients were able to build ships of this size and above(they had thousands of years to do it, and billions of slaves to use). Remember that they were cocky and overconfident.

[Snail]

I know, Inferno isn't canon. The Ancients should have Superjuggernauts and Hives. And the tech level has nothing to do with the capability of building warships.

Really? Why didn't the GTA build the Icanus in 2321 and wipe out the Vasudans in an instant. The Ancients DO NOT have Supperjuggernauts, which is proven wrong already by canon. They DO NOT have Hives, which is also contradicted by fully-canon sources.

If they had survived the 8,000 years, then yes, I think they would have SJs and Hives, but at the time they were wiped out, they had only destroyers and maybe a few superdestroyers.

[Hades]

For all we know, they may have had just regular blobs as weapons.
That may have been why they could not hurt them.

[Vip]

The point is, Mobius, that before the Shivans, the Ancients presumably didn't need anything bigger than a destroyer. Let's even assume that they built a Juggernaut, as powerful as a Colossus, just for pride. One ship can't be in a few places at once, and it can be destroyed if swarmed by smaller, but more numerous opponent. And Shivans love to send waves after waves of ships. Their tactics look like:
1. Send in a task force.
2. If the task force fails, send in a bigger one. Repeat.

Nobody's negating that the Ancients were capable of building juggernauts. But without a good reason, they wouldn't construct a whole armada of them, and one ship just won't stop a race such as the Shivans. We have no idea how much time did the extermination of the Ancients take, but seeing how Knossos portals (which were pressumably the only thing making the node usable) are still intact, it was fast. So fast, that the Ancients didn't managed to cut off Shivans. This means that they probably didn't have the time to construct a whole new Fleet. Even for such a wealthy race, construction of a Collie class ship would take months. The Shivans wouldn't give them enough time to accomplish this.

[Snail]

It's 100% canon that the Ancients were only a bit far ahead of the T/Vs. You cannot refute that without contradicting canon.

[Fang_Taichou]

Listen to Vip and Snail, they make valid points about both the Shivans and the Ancients.

Ah, and tech level has a lot to do with ship-building, it determines such things as:

-whether the ship has beam weaponry
-subsystem complexity
-subspace capabilities (Ancients were very good at this, though probably not at Shivan level)
-ship hull composition (make it out of ordinary materials or superdense molybednum/depleted uranium)
-speed you build a ship (automated or do you use manpower to assemble it)

There's probably more factors related to technology and ship-building, don't have time right now to try and list them...

[Fearless Leader]

  ok, let me jump in....

I think of the Ancients military like the US Army, they have advanced weapons and equipment, but it takes time to upgrade existing units and change tactics.

Example, I have a piece of equipment that was made in the 90s, it works as well as the new '07 model, but is much larger and less effective because it gets in the way. I dont have the new equipment yet because its not a priority, even if  I were I would have to wait for everyone else that is higher priority to get one.

So even if the Ancients had everything they needed to defeat the shivans they might not have been able to get the right things to the right places at the right time.

It is harder for large military forces to adapt to new and changing situations that were not planned for.

[Mobius]

Really? Why didn't the GTA build the Icanus in 2321 and wipe out the Vasudans in an instant. The Ancients DO NOT have Supperjuggernauts, which is proven wrong already by canon. They DO NOT have Hives, which is also contradicted by fully-canon sources.

If they had survived the 8,000 years, then yes, I think they would have SJs and Hives, but at the time they were wiped out, they had only destroyers and maybe a few superdestroyers.

Stop behaving like a ********!!!

The Terrans considered superdestroyers useless, that's why they didn't build them!

Ah, according to you...the Ancients might have had 1325796119716714267256421466642742616 cruisers, corvettes and destroyers and not even a single juggernaut? It is a fact that the Ancients had a massive fleet. I simply can't believe that they didn't have bigger warships.

The point is, Mobius, that before the Shivans, the Ancients presumably didn't need anything bigger than a destroyer. Let's even assume that they built a Juggernaut, as powerful as a Colossus, just for pride. One ship can't be in a few places at once, and it can be destroyed if swarmed by smaller, but more numerous opponent. And Shivans love to send waves after waves of ships. Their tactics look like:
1. Send in a task force.
2. If the task force fails, send in a bigger one. Repeat.

The Shivans were their last opponents. And I'm refering to all the species they fought. Both Terrans and Vasudans, who have been colonizing systems for a few hundred years, came out with a Juggernaut. The Ancients have been doing it for thousands and thousands of years, dammit. What's the point in having billions of destroyers and not even a Juggernaut? Come on...

They also had an immense Empire. Who can ensure us that there have never been rebellions? In case of rebellions, there's something as much as advanced as you to face. The GTVA realized how important a ship like the Colossus is, when there's a rebellion. And the Ancients were aggressive and militaristic.

Just use your imagination, don't let some canon informations limit you. The Ancients must have been strong, damn strong. Canon infos about Ancient technology don't force us to think that they have never had Juggernauts or even bigger warships. The GTA met the PVN. The FreeSpace Universe appears to be full of advanced species. Ok, some of the species got defeated by the Ancients were primitive, but there must have been powerful ones.

Nobody's negating that the Ancients were capable of building juggernauts. But without a good reason, they wouldn't construct a whole armada of them, and one ship just won't stop a race such as the Shivans. We have no idea how much time did the extermination of the Ancients take, but seeing how Knossos portals (which were pressumably the only thing making the node usable) are still intact, it was fast. So fast, that the Ancients didn't managed to cut off Shivans. This means that they probably didn't have the time to construct a whole new Fleet. Even for such a wealthy race, construction of a Collie class ship would take months. The Shivans wouldn't give them enough time to accomplish this.

I think you're continuously negating their capability of building Juggernauts. Internal rebellions? The fact that Juggernauts are powerful? These are valid reasons.

The Ancients colonized systems for thousands of years, and they had a massive fleet. This is a fact.

So, they put up one hell of a defense line. They got defeated, but they put up a good fight. The Shivans must have needed years to gain control of all Ancient systems(did they want to exterminate the Ancients? They can't let them survive). Just look at the time the Shivans needed to penetrate in GTA/PVE space(without considering the Lucifer, which was invincible).

The Knossos portals were constructed by the Ancients...in thousands of years, subspace certainly started to be something the Ancients loved. It might have had an important part in their religion(in thousands of years, religions change).

]Your concept of Ancient civilization is limited because you see nothing but FS1 related infos. Try to imagine the Ancient civilization...and do it with the FS2 Universe in mind. That's what I do, that's why I imagine the Ancients as a powerful civilization. Ego Liber Spiritus Sum.

It's 100% canon that the Ancients were only a bit far ahead of the T/Vs. You cannot refute that without contradicting canon.

So? Don't be stupid! A few decades could mean 50 years. That's enough to compare them to Inferno GTVA, EA and SCP. And that's enough to justify the presence of uberwarships.

[Snail]

THE FACT THAT THE ANCIENTS WERE ONLY SLIGHTLY SUPERIOR TO THE T/VS IN 2335 IS CANON AND CANNOT BE CONTRADICTED

[Mobius]

[size=9]
SO? 'A FEW DECADES' COULD MEAN 50 YEARS. THE GTVA CAME UP WITH THE COLOSSUS.[/size][/glow][/b]