[TrashMan]

I wasn't talking about the disabling of the sath's engines, i was just refering to what would happen after you were somehow able to do so. It's like i said, it sounds nice in idea, but it would take too much resources, and i guess i should have included a little too many casualties to achieve.

With the survival of your race in question I doubt such a a thing as high resource cost will be a problem.
Park every Orion and Hatie and Deimos and Aeolus you have around the node (actually, park everything you have, period), throw in some Mjolnirs for good mesure.

We're talking some serious beam firepower here, enough to destroy a sath in a single salvo..it probably wouldn't even have time to say "What?"

[S-99]

Taking a little hint from the movie 300?

Essentially gathering a small number of really powerful forces around a node is pretty  much the same tactic that the 300 used. Where they lure the enemy into a really tiny passage, in this case a node, and just pick them off one by one.

Of course with this you'd want to assemble all the most powerful beams you got, but it could be done, the gtva has slow beams but they are very powerful.

[TrashMan]

That's the general idea. When faced with superior number good usage of choke points is a must.

Any military that doesn't know how to use them for maximum effect isn't a military I'd want to serve in.

[Kie99]

Gathering all your resources in one place is not practical, especially against an enemy such as the Shivans.  Firstly, a substantial part of your defensive force will get massacred by swarms of fighters and bombers pouring through the node.  Secondly, Shivan juggernauts exploding will do significant damage to your warships.  Furthermore, your ships will need resupplying.  The Sathanes would not all come through at once, if they wait a few days, sending through a few scouts to check for activity every now and again, you'll end up with massive logistics problems.  The swarms of Shivan fighters coming through will go for your supply convoys instead of your warships, and your destroyers will have to withdraw to resupply, exposing weaknesses in your line of defence.

Even if you could avoid these problems, if the Shivans find another node into GTVA space, a Sathanas with accompanying fleet (Ravana, Demon, Cruisers) could raze all your planets in a few systems before you have a chance to do anything about it.

EDIT: By the way, there are 2 nodes from Capella to GTVA space, spreading your defensive line thinner.

[TrashMan]

You don't need all of your resources silly. Just enough. Putting too much ships wouldn't help anyway, it would get awfuly ycrowded, since beams have a fixed range

Defensive force massacred by shivan fighters?
Wouldn't it be the other way around? You got Deimoses, Aeolues, Levis parked around and 100's of fighters deployed, no to mention sentry guns.

Juggs exploding doing damage? It possible if you put your warships too close. So don't.

Resupplying?
Since when is that a problem? You hold the system and the door is blocked. You got a LOT of fighters in system. Even assuming some shivans fighter live long enough to jump and go harass your supply chain, why do you think it will be unguarded? A convoy of supply ships has a decent number of turrets and even a standard escort (cruiser or two + fighters) is enough to fend of most shivan attacks.

Would the shivans eventually breach even such a blockade? Most likely..it's a matter of attrition, they would wear the defenders down eventually.
but the object is to buy as much time as possible and inflict as big as losses as possible to the shivans.

There's no better way to do this than a blockade. You can take 10 of their ships for each one you loose, if not more.

[Kie99]

You don't need all of your resources silly. Just enough. Putting too much ships wouldn't help anyway, it would get awfuly ycrowded, since beams have a fixed range

How many's enough though?  According to a briefing, I think it was Speaking in Tongues or the one before it, the only ships even capable of damaging a Sathanas are Hecate and Hatshepsuts (And the Colossus, but that's not a factor here).  It'd take a massive amount of firepower to take out a Sathanas before it can take out at least some of your fleet, you're going to need a lot of destroyers.

Defensive force massacred by shivan fighters?
Wouldn't it be the other way around? You got Deimoses, Aeolues, Levis parked around and 100's of fighters deployed, no to mention sentry guns.

The Shivans have many, many times more resources than you do.  80 Juggernauts worth of fighters, god knows how many destroyers worth.

Juggs exploding doing damage? It possible if you put your warships too close. So don't.

Debris, the Sathanas will turn towards your ships to fire it's beams, and the Debris from its explosion will destroy them on the off chance the beam salvo hasn't.

Resupplying?
Since when is that a problem? You hold the system and the door is blocked. You got a LOT of fighters in system. Even assuming some shivans fighter live long enough to jump and go harass your supply chain, why do you think it will be unguarded? A convoy of supply ships has a decent number of turrets and even a standard escort (cruiser or two + fighters) is enough to fend of most shivan attacks.

You're making assumptions about the size of the Shivans force which go against what we've seen.  They tend to have huge numbers of fighters.  They could jump out quickly after entering your system and just wait until they detect a supply convoy.   Having Corvettes stationed right next to the node would be a bad idea for obvious reasons.

Would the shivans eventually breach even such a blockade? Most likely..it's a matter of attrition, they would wear the defenders down eventually.
but the object is to buy as much time as possible and inflict as big as losses as possible to the shivans.

Definitely, it'd be very quick as well.

There's no better way to do this than a blockade. You can take 10 of their ships for each one you loose, if not more.

There is a better way, the GTVA did it, they destroyed the nodes.  That's the only way they could have survived if the Shivans had wanted to annihilate them.

[TrashMan]

1. Every beam capable ship can damage a Sathanas. And you really don't need that many ships at the node. Do some FRED simulations and you'll see that 10 destroyer + a few Mjolnirs is more than enough to vaporize a sath.
Imagine how many corvettes and cruiser you could throw in as extras.

2. They might have more fighters but they can only send a fixed amount at a time. The node is a choke point. Any fighter exiting the node will be greeted with flak and AAf beam fire and a bout a dozen trebs on his ass, and they can't jump out instantly.


3. A sath would be toast before he even starts to turn. In my simulations in never managed to turn even half way. It has a lot of speed when exiting the node, so it and the debris drift quite nicely away.

4. Look under 2.

5. We're operating on the assumption that the node cannot be destroyed (no mesons or to valubale a node for Command)
Of course blowing it up is hte best solution.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

1. Every beam capable ship can damage a Sathanas. And you really don't need that many ships at the node. Do some FRED simulations and you'll see that 10 destroyer + a few Mjolnirs is more than enough to vaporize a sath.
Imagine how many corvettes and cruiser you could throw in as extras.

2. They might have more fighters but they can only send a fixed amount at a time. The node is a choke point. Any fighter exiting the node will be greeted with flak and AAf beam fire and a bout a dozen trebs on his ass, and they can't jump out instantly.


3. A sath would be toast before he even starts to turn. In my simulations in never managed to turn even half way. It has a lot of speed when exiting the node, so it and the debris drift quite nicely away.

4. Look under 2.

5. We're operating on the assumption that the node cannot be destroyed (no mesons or to valubale a node for Command)
Of course blowing it up is hte best solution.

1. The Alliance does not have that many destroyers to spare. I am also willing to believe that Mjolnirs are expensive to build. Furthermore, keep in mind that a wing of fighters should be capable of taking out Mjolnirs on their own. I've seen one get destroyed in such a manner before.

2. Do you know that a node is pretty big and fighters are quite small? The choke point is not the node, but how fast the Shivans deploy their fighters. If can deploy 100+ fighters at once, we're toast, but they can't.

3. The pivot point of the Sathanas is its midsection. All large ships can't turn very fast even if they can move very fast.

4. ...hunh?

5. No arguments there.

However, I note that the damage calculations of FreeSpace are a bit off. A single chunk of flying debris should not be able to kill a destroyer instantly. Just Another Day seems to drive this point home.

[S-99]

1. The Alliance does not have that many destroyers to spare. I am also willing to believe that Mjolnirs are expensive to build. Furthermore, keep in mind that a wing of fighters should be capable of taking out Mjolnirs on their own. I've seen one get destroyed in such a manner before.

2. Do you know that a node is pretty big and fighters are quite small? The choke point is not the node, but how fast the Shivans deploy their fighters. If can deploy 100+ fighters at once, we're toast, but they can't.

3. The pivot point of the Sathanas is its midsection. All large ships can't turn very fast even if they can move very fast.

4. ...hunh?

5. No arguments there.

However, I note that the damage calculations of FreeSpace are a bit off. A single chunk of flying debris should not be able to kill a destroyer instantly. Just Another Day seems to drive this point home.

1. The alliance has plenty of destroyers available, the problem is how many were told to go to the systems near capella and to capella.

2.Nodes are big but not that big.

3. A fighter can turn very fast, a sathanas can not turn very fast. And with this turning speed of the sathanas, the sathanas would have to do pretty much a 180 degree turn to gets it's forward firing beams in position. By the time the sath is like half way into it's turn or less it's already destroyed anyway.

[AlphaOne]

Well ive seen a lot of discusion about this and the main idea to hold on to is that the GTVA as it was at the end of the FS2 campaign im talking about the final 2 or 3 missions had an imposible task to it. I mean it already lost A LOT of heavy hitting ships (im talking about Orions here cuz they are the only really good heavy hitters of the GTVA) And while i do agree that the GTVA still had  a decent number of destroyers left there is a problem of getting them in place . All this takes time. In theori in an IDEAL situation the GTVA could of stopped the Shivan advance and inflict huge casualties to the shivans .

However defeat them completely NO FRICKING WAY ! Not at this point in time or even in the close future. Give them 40 or more years with and IDEAL situation and then perhaps with incredible luck and complete blundering on the part of the shivans they might inflict such huge losses as to consider the shivans deafeated.

Also the GTVA COULD IN THEORY match or perhaps even out tech the shivans in many areas but there is a question of costs. If you end up with a destroyer that can outgun and outperform a Ravana but costs as much as a fricking Collie then you get nowhere fast now do you?

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Well ive seen a lot of discusion about this and the main idea to hold on to is that the GTVA as it was at the end of the FS2 campaign im talking about the final 2 or 3 missions had an imposible task to it. I mean it already lost A LOT of heavy hitting ships (im talking about Orions here cuz they are the only really good heavy hitters of the GTVA) And while i do agree that the GTVA still had  a decent number of destroyers left there is a problem of getting them in place . All this takes time. In theori in an IDEAL situation the GTVA could of stopped the Shivan advance and inflict huge casualties to the shivans .

However defeat them completely NO FRICKING WAY ! Not at this point in time or even in the close future. Give them 40 or more years with and IDEAL situation and then perhaps with incredible luck and complete blundering on the part of the shivans they might inflict such huge losses as to consider the shivans deafeated.

Also the GTVA COULD IN THEORY match or perhaps even out tech the shivans in many areas but there is a question of costs. If you end up with a destroyer that can outgun and outperform a Ravana but costs as much as a fricking Collie then you get nowhere fast now do you?

I'm not too sure. It has been theorised that GTVA technology in 2367 is close to that of the Ancients. Plus, the GTVA has subspace-tracking technology, so if their technology advances to rival that of the Ancients, the Shivans are in deep trouble.

[Gamma_Draconis]

I'm pretty sure the Shivans are decades ahead of the Ancients as well. If anything, subspace is like a second home to the Shivans.

[S-99]

Well ive seen a lot of discusion about this and the main idea to hold on to is that the GTVA as it was at the end of the FS2 campaign im talking about the final 2 or 3 missions had an imposible task to it. I mean it already lost A LOT of heavy hitting ships (im talking about Orions here cuz they are the only really good heavy hitters of the GTVA) And while i do agree that the GTVA still had  a decent number of destroyers left there is a problem of getting them in place . All this takes time. In theori in an IDEAL situation the GTVA could of stopped the Shivan advance and inflict huge casualties to the shivans .

However defeat them completely NO FRICKING WAY ! Not at this point in time or even in the close future. Give them 40 or more years with and IDEAL situation and then perhaps with incredible luck and complete blundering on the part of the shivans they might inflict such huge losses as to consider the shivans deafeated.

Also the GTVA COULD IN THEORY match or perhaps even out tech the shivans in many areas but there is a question of costs. If you end up with a destroyer that can outgun and outperform a Ravana but costs as much as a fricking Collie then you get nowhere fast now do you?

Be specific, not enough destroyers in the general vicinity, or not enough destroyers in the gtva period?

[AlphaOne]

Well not enough destroyer in the GTVA . I mean i honestly believe the GTVA at the end of the second shivan invasion after capella and all are left with a hole in theyr destroyer forces since well they took out enough of them on theyr own thanx to the NTF not to mention those that were lost to the NTF and to the shivans so my belief is that about 40% of the total destroyer forces was lost perhaps less.

However even at full strenght the GTVA did not have the ships to asign even one destroyer per Sathanas. 80 destroyer the GTVA did not have 40 or so i believe it is very posible.

However I also believe the GTVA was short on large warships such as the destroyer class because they were either phasing out older designs or they were just starting construction on the newwer classes.

So i believe there was a low number in terms of available destroyers. Given another say 5 years or so the GTVA might of come to full power at about 60 or so destroyers perhaps more perhaps less im not to sure it all depends on the number of destroyers per fleet.

And given the fact that the GTVA i believe was also looking for new ways to expand i believe they would of increased they fleets even more.

The reason why I state that the GTVA would of increased its fleets and expanded was about that debriefing you get about the science cruiser that scanned for subspace portals a few years back .

[TrashMan]

the point of the choke point is that you don't have to assign your ship in a 1 to 1 ratio compared to the enemy.

Enemy ships can only come 1-2 at a time trough the node, then they have to move out of the way so the ones behind them can jump in.


At you're end of the node, you'll outnumber the enemy.

Now, even under the best conditions the GTVA could not win IMHO, but it could give the Shivies a trashing of the lifetime.

Throwing saths at such a defense doesn't work very well...In my simulations, after 10 saths, only one ship in the defending force was destryed...a corvette..and thast due to debris. Throwing lots of cruisers worked a bit better.

In any case, the shivan losses were epic.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Weeellll, considering that the Ancients had a huge empire back then, that must mean that either the Shivans have even more forces than the Ancients, or that they only had the Lucifer back then. After all, the Ancient monologue did they that "they didn't die".
...or it could even be because the Ancients had no shield-penetrating weapons like the GTVA.

[Killer Whale]

I can't put 10 beam carrying warships in FRED, it crashes. Do you know how powerfull RBCs are, quite powerfull, but terrible on hitpoints. 1 or 2 maras can take them out before you travel 2 clicks (aren't they supposed to have a missile launcher or something? meh). A squadron can protect an RBC for quite a while, 10 RBCs could probably take out a sath quite quickly, and it'd be best to put them a couple of clicks from the blockaded node because jump drives gain speed very quickly. On the other side of the node you could put in corvettes and destroyers, but after all this...





Is command really a good admiral? Does he even know what a choke point is?

[BengalTiger]

So something's wrong with FRED on your PC- I've made a couple BoE missions with dozens of beam carrying ships and all was fine.