[FreeSpaceFreak]

What did bug me was that Capella and Gamma Draconis were still referred to as such. Yeah, I know, had to do that so that we players would know where in the galaxy we were, but when the Ancients call other star systems by radically different names it sounds strange. Ditto with them calling themselves "Ancients" and calling the Shivans "Shivans". TBQH, that broke my sense of immersion far more than the presence of giant space shuriken.

Take another look at the intro cutscene You're seeing the Ancient-Shivan War through the eyes of a Vasudan, who looks through the eyes of Ancients. That's why some things, like species or star systems, have familiar names.

[MatthTheGeek]

I'm scratching my head over why the Shivans aren't using beams

Tell me a single good reason for why they should have.

[Commander Zane]

Appearance of being technologically superior.

Don't even need beams anyway with the Shivan Uber Laser that kills an Attis in two shots.

[SF-Junky]

Tell me a single good reason for why they should have.

Isn't it so that [V] initially wanted the Shivans to have beam weaponry in FS1 but didn't realize it just because of time pressure? So if the Shivans were supposed to have beams in 2335, then it would've been no problem at all if they had 8,000 years prior.

It is rather clear anyway that the Shivans do not have any technical evolution to speak about at all - at least not for the past 8,000 years or so.

[MatthTheGeek]

Isn't it so that [V] initially wanted the Shivans to have beam weaponry in FS1 but didn't realize it just because of time pressure? So if the Shivans were supposed to have beams in 2335, then it would've been no problem at all if they had 8,000 years prior.

It is rather clear anyway that the Shivans do not have any technical evolution to speak about at all - at least not for the past 8,000 years or so.

Again this is nothing but speculation. Not that I have something against your point of vue (thats mostly how I think how the Shivans should be too) but you can't say that's the explanation of how the Shivans are, because there is nothing that proves it in canon.

And please, we don't need another Shivan argue in this thread, there is already plenty of them in General Discussion

[-Norbert-]

Perhaps the Shivans first send in their "light" troops crush light resistance and only bring in the "heavy" stuff once the enemy prooved too resilient for the lighter stuff.
In other words maybe the ASW team reserved beams for act 2. Or course this is just pure speculation on my part.

[Solatar]

Meh, same reason there weren't any beams in FS1.  We can go all we want on tangents about how the developers wanted beams (which I do seem to recall they did), but the fact remains that there weren't beams.

I would speculate that the Shivans, having been fairly successful up to this point at destroying civilizations, would probably just throw a bunch of crap at the Ancients. If the contingent that was hanging around that part of the galaxy happened to not be armed with the latest weapons, so be it (it'd be like sending a regiment armed with bolt actions against some natives of some place - then coming back with M-16's once you realize the "natives" have guns).

That analogy has very little to do with any actual timeline of real world events....

[MatthTheGeek]

Solatar's theory sounds fairly good. However the theory "no beams before Capella" is as defensible from canon, so let's let ASW choose their path

[Dragon]

Shivans had beams in FS1, but only Lucifer used them.
The fleet that attacked in FS1 might have been consisting of outdated versions of Shivan ships, which lacked beams.
This fleet might had been around since destruction of the Ancients, perhaps searching for surviviors (though 8000 years may seem a bit long for that, but have you ever lost a key? ).
When Terrans and Vasudans destroyed the fleet, Shivans might have thought that this was the work of Ancient surviviors (which may be partially true, considering the teories that Vasudans were descendants of the Ancients) and decided to sent the fleet that was up to date to deal with them. They might have not excepted them to develop new technology.
In ASW, Lucifer's fleet was up to date and on ordinary assignment.

[Galemp]

"No shields, no flak guns, no beam cannons." With the sole exception of the Lucifer.

[MatthTheGeek]

Yeah, excepted for the flak gun part

[TrashMan]

A good campaign, altough two things really struck me here.

1) SOTS sound effects and music. The Ancients speech pattern often resembles that of the Liir

2) "Maybe they thought we are not a terrestrial species..." etc. the ancient briefing that a direct copy of the Ancient Monologue. It's cringe-worthy. Doesn't feel natural.

[MatthTheGeek]

Tends to agree with 2) too. It felt good at the beginning, but as it becomes a pattern it becomes artificial.

[Retsof]

I'm on the batle of Adesh...whatever and I have a problem with the skybox.  The bottom bit works, but the sky is pure white.  I was able to open he textures in GIMP, after which they showed up in pcs, but still no luck ingame.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Retsof: That could be a graphics card issue, the map is 4096x1024 pixels. That's the only place it should happen though.

And hell, the Ancient texts were first translated to Vasudan, and then to Terran by auto-translators. No wonder they sound artificial

[Retsof]

So how do I fix it, just extrat it and resize it?

[General Battuta]

Downloaded. Can't wait.

[Droid803]

So how do I fix it, just extrat it and resize it?

yeah. it'd probably hurt quality though.

[Commander Zane]

Another music track is from Battlezone (The first non-Arcade one with the USA Vs. Soviet Russia war).

Clarification, the animated glowmaps are for the Aeshdarians and few Shivan ships that did not have animated glowmaps added yet, or are any of the Ancient ships supposed to have any, it looks like the electric texture thing or the light blue glow would pulse.

Also why'd the Freighter thing end up backwards opposed to other mods?

[Droid803]

The freighter is the way it is because that is how INFSCP gave it to us.