Author Topic: How they might destroy the Gargant  (Read 41629 times)

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Offline Qwer

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Well Corvettes were turned into space junk by heat wave, then destroyed by shockwave. I don't think Gargant could survive it. :p
If in your opinion there's no difference beetwen "Master Game" and "Game Master", I can only feel for you.

 
Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
umm, practically EVERYTHING gets wiped out by the deadly shockwave of a supernova.  Plus, the heat created for making a nova afterwords would over-heat
EVERY SINGLE SYSTEM
[/color]onboard ANY ship

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"Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be since I've found Serenity. But you can't take the sky from me." - Ballad of Serenity

 

Offline mr.WHO

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Hmm... Our sun surface heat is couple millons dergee. Lets say it have overall energy E, in area of sun (lets say V ),
When star went nova the same amount of energy is blow away to much larger area of cold space (battle for Capella was somewhere at outer rim of system because shockwave first destroyed few planets and the after few moments arrived to area of battle. I can guess that area from center of the star to battlefield is a size of at least 1000 V, this means that the heat should be around 10 000-100 000 dergee. Note:
- shivans do nova at fresh star
 while
natural nova is started by exchaused stars that can't support fussion any longer
but
are much larger than sun looking Capella

I guess that shockwave was around 100 000 to 1 million degree.

Now second matter: Photon beam cannons are simple high energy/heat beams that have to burn a military grade anti-beam hull. To do this fast I think that puny SGreen have a few million dergee heat, so don't know how many more zeros I have to add to present the power of USilver.

What is the point? I think that supernowa heat isn't a thread to any post capella military Ship, especially Gargant.

Note two: All the time I'm talking about FS2 outro first orange/red shockwave, the second, white-blue shockwave that dematerialized Deimos wreack was a shivan created some kind of mega subspace disturbtion shockwave that have nothing to do with real nova.


Still it would be fun to hear from GTVA... or should I say Allied (GTVA/EA) command that we will blow up Gargant with nova charges, but you have to escort transport that will stick them to Gargant hull while swarm of shivan fighters try to stop you (ohh and there is a hitch, you won't get back because, nova charge disturb local subspace so if you jump you will die in subspace and if you won't jump...barbecue :D

Nova charge- new type of meson warhead, that is few hundred times more powerful (still not so powerful as normal nova, but it sounds cool, and if you stick those charges directly to Gargant hull they would work)

Guesing that we advanced from atom bomb to hydrogen bombs in less than 30 years, such weapon is doable to GTVA (hell they have best scientist from two races/whole galaxy and since they have evil aliens on their necks they have unlimited fund to military research) :D


 
Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Photon Beam cannons do not have to be anywhere near that hot to melt their way through metal. I don't know any exact temperatures at which metals melt, but I'm willing to bet that none can withstand more than ten-thousand degree (Farenheit scale) heat, which would be all the beam cannons would therefore have to get up to. Also, beam cannons are focused light, not all spread out like most light is. Focused light is generally stronger by default than unfocused. Example: 500 degree heat will melt most rocks, but if you focused light at a heat of, say, 400 degree heat, it would still be able to melt through because it is more focused.

The second part is theoretical of course, since we have no way of focusing lasers like that (or do we?  :shaking:)

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New type of meson warhead.....

I believe they already have that. Inferno has some sort of Meson Torpedo, and then there's the Gorgon Cannon from Derelict to be considered.
"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?" -DEATH, Discworld

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Offline Herra Tohtori

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Actually the reason for laser beams being able to eat their way through metal is that the energy input is great enough for metal to vaporize from the surface where the light hits. The residual heat and the hot metal vapour then melts some metal on the edges of the hole. Photon Beam (Laser) itself has no temperature measurable. Only the frequency (color) of the light can be expressed in Kelvins, but that's not quite important. What's important is energy input into target surface - if energy input is remarkably higher than what the target can emit, the target gets hotter. If energy input (absorbation) is GREATLY bigger than what target can emit, target surface vaporizes through immediat phase change; if the difference between absorbation and emission is smaller, heating is of course slower and the target surface goes through brief liquid state before vaporizing.

Freespace beams, however, are nothing remotely like lasers. They are bound to be particle beams of some sort. Also, there is bound to be some charged particles in that beam because they are visible. Most likely some lower-end beam cannons are simply plasma held together by a strong tube-shaped magnetic field.

This is how a FS2 beam could work out: There is a cell full of main mater that forms the visible part of the beam. Then there is another cell, releasing "core matter" for the beam. Core matter must be electrically charged particles such as electrons or protons, though positrons would also work quite nicely if there were a plentitude of them...

So, the core jet consists of charged particles accelerated into great speed. The faster the better. When this thin but powerful beam of charged matter proceeds through the space, it forms a magnetic field around it, perfectly similar to the magnetic field induced by electric current in a wire. So, there we now have a roughly tube-shaped magnetic field. Through this magnetic pipe, the main damage-creating hot plasma or whatever matter is then pumped at great volumes. The magnetic field prevents the plasma from expanding rapidly into space, which it would normally do very fast. When the plasma hits the target (hopefully), it starts melting its way through it.

Pros compared to lasers:

-Looks much cooler in space, when hot matter is hot enough to be visible whereas laser beam is invisible except when it hits something

-Greater momentum effect - the mass causes damage also by kinetic energy, not just thermal energy

-charged particles ionize the target molecules, causing even greater destruction

Cons:

-Limited range; the core beam starts to disperse due to electric force between particles of similar charge. Because of this the range also effects the beam's ability to penetrate armour - if the energy density drops too low, it cannot go through hull plating, causing only limited amount of damage on targets external side. When the core beam collapses altogether, the damage-inducing matter also spreads into space - this is the cause for FS2 beams ending "suddenly".

-Another thing reducing effectivity alongside range is the hot damage-matter radiating its energy into space on the journey. The cool looks have a price.

-Need of ammunition. Though the beam cannons probably are able to generate their own ammunition by converting energy into matter. Hence the advent of beam weapons after Shivan weapons' research only; earthlings and vasudans were not able to create (or even think of?) such possibility - the Shivans brought the beams to us.  :D

Strange thing is that Shivan beams are red, which is the lowest energy color in electromagnetic spectrum. So I bet the Shivan beams get their power mainly from sheer volume, whereas Terran/Vasudan green/blue/silver beams get hotter/more energetic and thus don't need that much matter into them.

Of course, this is just speculation. Main point is however that beams are _not_ laser beams. They shouldn't even be mentioned in same sentence. Good example of how ineffective laser weapons are is ML-16, and even that is quite too effective considering the energy drain mentioned...  :p
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Offline mr.WHO

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
@ Herra Tohtori: I like your plasma beam theory. It preatty fit what we can see in FS (and that first FS2 mission
"commence plasma core insertion" dalogue).
Also plasma have few millons degree (I heard that scientist created few billions degree plasma week ago), and in FS 2 outro it's clearly visible that beams burn through hull (those burnung scars).

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Strange thing is that Shivan beams are red, which is the lowest energy color in electromagnetic spectrum. So I bet the Shivan beams get their power mainly from sheer volume, whereas Terran/Vasudan green/blue/silver beams get hotter/more energetic and thus don't need that much matter into them.

Note that shivans beams are much more stable and thiner (I guess that they have better magnetic field that hold beam together), this means that they can have more focused beams that can do more dammage with less energy need (this also make clear why they need much less time to "reload" another salvo).
Look at FS2 BGreen of BFGreen, they are very unstable so this means that large amount of energy vent into space, if GTVA would have same magnetif field tech, their beams would be much more powerful, and if they would decrees
amount energy per shot, GTVA beams would be more powerful than shivans but with same fire rate.

 

Offline Qwer

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Back to Gargant topic.

I know only 4 ways:
- GTVA will be destroyed by Gargant, a little of remaining people will escape, colonize planet and stop travelling in subspace
- Shivans will ally with GTVA
- Gargant will destroy entire GTVA fleet, then give them rest
- Gargant won't attack GTVA
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Offline Woomeister

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
I'll confirm the second option is a big no.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2006, 07:59:59 am by Woomeister »

 

Offline mr.WHO

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
first option would be false too, because Woo is making ancients pack & campaign, that will (I think) be place in post shivan invasion period.

third: possible, same like 80 sathanases blowing up Capella.

forth: quite possible, GTVA (SOC) will move to shivan space, will see Gargant, get scared, get back to GTVA, then GTVA would blow away all nodes to shivan space.

 

Offline Qwer

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
First - Gargant will show up during Chapter 3 (if it will be made, because there are no plans for it for now).\
Fourth - Woo said in FAQ there will be no collapsing nodes. I've thought about Shivans throwing everything, but Gargant, because of afraid, what could GTVA got. Gargant is Hive, and it is very important to them.

Third option would be true only under right conditions. Me and few more Polish Freespace Fans thinks Shivans are fighting with races for fun, like Sport. They're attacking, destroying whole fleet and homeworld, then leaves race to grow. If race would hold against attack, Shivans are preparing better fleet, and so on. I bet Woo has the same point of viev as me.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2006, 09:14:24 am by Qwer »
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Offline Woomeister

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Fourth - Woo said in FAQ there will be no collapsing nodes.

Once you see chapter 2 you'll see why that wouldn't stop the Shivans  :drevil:

 

Offline Qwer

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Lemme guess...something like Shivan Knossos from Derelict? :D
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Offline Woomeister

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
No

 
Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
I think I know what he's talking about.....

As for the Gargant being important to Shivans... that may very well be, except that Woo has stressed repeatedly that it is invincible. And there's also the screenshot in Inferno R1 to consider: it shows the Gargant practically on top of Earth. Yes, I know that story's been dropped, but still, it would be cool to actually fight the Shivans in our home system.
"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?" -DEATH, Discworld

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Offline Woomeister

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
That was just a cool looking render, it wasn't made to show part of the story.

As for fighting Shivans in the Sol system, we've already stated this will happen.

 

Offline Woomeister

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
The Shivans can do other interesting stuff :)

 
Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Umm, we could just pull off another Lucifer (blow up the Gargant while it's jumping)

    |[===---(-         
    ||
 =(||==)_
    ||_____|
 =(||==)
    ||                   
    |[===---(-                             

"Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be since I've found Serenity. But you can't take the sky from me." - Ballad of Serenity

 

Offline mr.WHO

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
emm, that was reapeted thosand time: Lucifer shields aren't invunerable, GTA/PVN just didn't have any weapon that could overload shields faster than it's 6 reactors can recharge them. Gargant would toast Lucifer (even infeno one) in half second.

 
Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Furthermore who ever said that the Gargant has the same shields? The Vinashaak does, I believe, but the Gargant just has super-tough armor.
"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?" -DEATH, Discworld

"You can fight like a krogan, run like a leopard, but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard!"

 

Offline Woomeister

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Re: How they might destroy the Gargant
Gargant has no shields.