[TrashMan]

There would still be a gravity well. And there is no proof that the mass of the star has any effect on the nodes. All we know is that there must be a stellar mass for nodes to form. That changing the mass would change the stability of the nodes is not proved.

If it's a clear link then some correlation must exist. I don't know WHAT effect it would have, but it would be some. Maby a fluctuation or temporary instability of hte subspace corridor. Maby it would collapse totaly. but SOMETHING would happen.

It's like saying a human would be completely uneffected by the sudden drastic change in the oxygen levels in the atmosphere.

I wonder if you're blind

Watch the FS2 Intro! That Manticore was superb...the Medusa was shot down by a missile launched from a fighter. The FS1 Intro tells us something about the skill of Shivan pilots. Alpha 1 is skilled enough to handle a Scorpion, but average Terran pilots weren't able to handle a few Shivan fighters.

the manticore is more manuverable than a herc, and we have no idea how skilled the terran piltos was (or if his fighter was allready damaged)
Medusa getting showered with lazers and blowing up after being hit with a missile? It's not an uncommon site and tells little.

While I agree that shivan probably aren't as pathetic as they are in-game, IMHO terrans/vasudans are better pilots, since if there weren't, there wouldbe no GTVA to speak of.


Could the GTVA stop the Shivans? Hardly. they'd have to be EXTREEMLY lucky to stop 80 juggs. But it jsut may be possible.

Nodes are bottlenecks and with good blockades, you could make the shivans bleed..heavily. Also, a allready established system would house more fighters than several fleets - just think of all the room on planets/moons for fighter bases.
F'course, even considering a best-case scenario the GTVA would have a phyric victory - it would have to sacrifice many systems and a LOT of lives. and that's counting node-collapsers.

[BengalTiger]

My theory:
Beams cost (nothing cannon confirms this, but I didn't find anything against it).
Shivans rely on numbers.
When adding the two together- I come up with the idea of Shivans having different fleets for handling civilisations with different 'threat levels'.

In FS 1 the Shivans gave the GTA and PVN a low threat level- they lost 1 fighter during the first days of combat, killing cruisers and whole squadrons themselves.
The called in capships were the cheaper type, with no beams, and the Shivans held the beam-equipped units in reserve or in some other conflict.
To make sure that the Terrans and Vasudans get pwned quickly, a battleship with 2 huge beams was sent for breaking through defense lines and planetary bombardment.
The Shivans also decided to send a shield equipped capship, after noticing that Terrans and Vasudans have no weapons to counter heavy shielding.
So the Lucy was selected as flagship.

The plan failed, and the Lucy was lost in some 10 minutes of battle, attacked by a group of fighters.

After that, the Shivans officialy claimed the Lucy class obsolete and developed a new, huge-@$$ ship.

Then came FS 2. The GTVA got a 'high' threat level since the Shivans remembered their epic @$$-whooping from Alpha 1, and ships with beams were called, with a Sathanas en route to work as flagship.

The GTVA made a huge mess in the Shivan Nebula before the Sath appeared, forcing them to use units retired even in the FS 1 era, now serving as reserve and patrol ships (my little theory on why the SF Aeshma was so crappy compared to the Basilisk). The first Sath was also extinguished by a surprisingly huge water gun, so the Shivans gave the GTVA a 'F***ing High' threat level, and called the rest of the fleet.
In order to show the GTVA that they suck, and that destroying jump nodes when a fleet of jugs is assembling sucks too, Shivan command decided to test a new invention. A mechanism that would reactivate collapsed jump nodes by some ghey magic tricks the GTVA knows as subspace rifts.
Obviously, the 80 jugs set the rift generator power level too high, and instead of making the star artificially heavier (to create a large enough gravity well for a spontanous subspace node creation and recreation) it went KABOOM. Everyone, but those who noticed the plan isn't working and warped out, was smoked.

So today, post FS 2 we have a whole bunch of angry Shivans, working on a new master plan to open that can of whoop@$$ on us. Untill they will be absolutly sure this plan is perfect, they won't bother to come, and will concentrate on wars elsewhere instead.

Nodes are bottlenecks and with good blockades, you could make the shivans bleed..heavily. Also, a allready established system would house more fighters than several fleets - just think of all the room on planets/moons for fighter bases.

Gives me an idea: disable a Sath at the entrance of a node, and watch all the others that are already in subspace and can't turn back crash into it.

[Kie99]

I don't think you people are quite grasping how powerful the Sathanas is.  One of the bastards was considered a threat to the GTVA and there were only 3 or 4 ships with the capability to damage it.    It can annihilate a Terran destroyer in One salvo and a Vasudan one in two.  It fought "The bulk of the allied fleet" at the Capellan end of the Capella-GD node and came through virtually unscathed.  The GTVA had one ship that could go toe to toe with a Sath and not get annihilated, and that was short lived because of the massive accompanying fleet the Sathanes had with them which managed to knock it down to 66%.  There were at least 2 Ravanas (one of which managed to toast the GTD Delacroix, and others in the Nebula)

Even if you ignore their massive firepower and numbers advantage, they can go around causing Supernovae as and when they feel like it, not even taking into consideration reinforcements they could bring in from beyond Knossos 3.

80 Sathanes could utterly massacre the entire GTVA fleet and raze all planets bar those in Sol within a week.

[Steel Prophet]

Nice theory Tiger, but it has a major flaw in my opinion.

The Shivans also decided to send a shield equipped capship, after noticing that Terrans and Vasudans have no weapons to counter heavy shielding.
So the Lucy was selected as flagship.

and

After that, the Shivans officialy claimed the Lucy class obsolete and developed a new, huge-@$$ ship.

Why didn't the new huge-@$$ ship get shields too, to make it invulnerable in normal space? If the Sath had Lucy's shields, not even the Colossus could have destroyed it. So why the hell did they remove a proven defense system on their new flagship?

[BengalTiger]

So here is my theory on that:

Beams aren't stopped by shields, so a Lucifer class ship is an easy target for any race that has beam cannons.
This limits the Lucifer's role to fighting more primitive civilizations. Once 'primitive' humans destroy a Lucifer with ease in a 10 minute battle, the Shivans realize they're doing something right, and analyze the cause of their failure. It turns out that the external reactors that power the massive shield generators (again- nothing cannon can confirm this, or prove it wrong) were the problem, so the Shivans figure out the Lucy is an expensive error and begin to mass produce the Sathanas, without vulnerable reactors outside it's armor. Since no additional reactors leave it without power supply to generate shields, the big S gets really heavy armor and a huge amount of turrets, as a countermeasure to the fact it is not invulnerable in normal space to strike craft weapons.

[Steel Prophet]

But Lucy's reactors were also protected by its shields in normal space. Only in subspace there are no shields.

[TrashMan]

I don't think you people are quite grasping how powerful the Sathanas is.  One of the bastards was considered a threat to the GTVA and there were only 3 or 4 ships with the capability to damage it.

Where do you get that from?   

It can annihilate a Terran destroyer in One salvo and a Vasudan one in two.

It can kill a vasudan one in one savlo too actually.

It fought "The bulk of the allied fleet" at the Capellan end of the Capella-GD node and came through virtually unscathed.

The bulk of what the GTVA had in-system at that time. And they had little since they still hanv't brought most of the ships in GD or Capella.
Don't allso forget that it came unscrathced for gameplay purposes. Even if you put if against 5 corvettes they will bring a few % off it's hull integrity, yet it started in bearbating with 100%.. 

Even if you ignore their massive firepower and numbers advantage, they can go around causing Supernovae as and when they feel like it, not even taking into consideration reinforcements they could bring in from beyond Knossos 3.

For a single supernova they need a lot of Sathanases and apparently approx 3 days to charge up the weapon, during which the Saths stay still.
You seem to be forgetting the GTVA can pop nodes at will too and have a lot of static defenses.

So yes, I do believe the GTVA can put up quite a fight, and while it cannot score an outright victory it could at least gain a phyric one.

[Flipside]

Well, personally, I think [v] were trying to get the message across that trying to fight the Shivans is like trying to stop a tidal wave, meeting it head-on will never succeed, The problem is there are so many possible theories for why the Shivans are here and what they are doing, anything from expunging subspace civilisations to a race driven mad and desperately trying to escape something worse than they are, that, and anything in between could be true.

I think what Volition were getting at is that you don't stop the war by fighting the Shivans head-on, you can't win, the answer to this problem was never intended, I think, to involve some sort of climactic 'cage fight' between the GTVA and the Shivans, it was going to be solved some other way, I just wish I knew more detail than that.

[Steel Prophet]

And it was also a new way to finish a whole game. Freespace 2 is the first game (i can think of) in which you don't have to survive to "win" the game.

[Snail]

Snayle's Theory

Explain why the Shivans in FS1 were so different from the Shivans in FS2. Explains why Saths did not have shields. Explains why the Saths didn't attack the Terrans. Explains what the SCNs are. Explains why the Saths blew up Capella.

I do think this theory is the best thing I've done in this life. Man I suck.

[BengalTiger]

But Lucy's reactors were also protected by its shields in normal space. Only in subspace there are no shields.

So another update to my theory (a few more and it will be flawless and better than Snayle's ):

Claim 1. AAA beams don't react with shields, they simply fly through.
Claim 2. The GTVA Big C was designed to kill the Lucifer, without chasing it into subspace, with the use of beams.

Theory based on the claims: As small beams shoot through small shields like a laser beam through glass, big beams (such as those on the Big C) shoot through big shields (such as the Lucifer's) with ease.

*gets to work on what Bosch was doing on a science cruiser*

[Mobius]

I don't get you sometimes.

I give you an entire plethora of reasons supporting my theories, but you seem to be so able to completely ignore them as if I never posted them. Truly unfathomable.

I don't get you sometimes.

I give you an entire plethora of reasons supporting my theories, but you seem to be so able to completely ignore them as if I never posted them. Truly unfathomable.

THIS is my reply

[karajorma]

There would still be a gravity well. And there is no proof that the mass of the star has any effect on the nodes. All we know is that there must be a stellar mass for nodes to form. That changing the mass would change the stability of the nodes is not proved.

If it's a clear link then some correlation must exist. I don't know WHAT effect it would have, but it would be some. Maby a fluctuation or temporary instability of hte subspace corridor. Maby it would collapse totaly. but SOMETHING would happen.

You're making the assumption that there is a relationship between stability and location of jump nodes and the size of the gravity well. You can't make that assumption.

1. Suppose that jump nodes simply require a threshold value to form. i.e if the star is over 0.5 solar masses jump nodes can form, below that they won't form at all since the physics simply don't allow it. Above that they form but the mass of the star has no effect on their distribution or location. Their stability depends on other factors (distance between the stars, relative velocity and a whole manner of other factors).
2. Suppose that jump nodes don't work on a local gravitational effect but are actually working on the gravitational effects of stars upon each other. Suppose it's some sort of Lagrangian effect with only two star systems whose gravity somehow cancels out able to create jump nodes between them.  Gravity moves at the speed of light. That means that it would take years before any local change of gravity would reach the stars further away and disrupt the subspace network. Furthermore if that is true blowing up Capella probably wouldn't have any effect at all on the nodes. When we're talking on the scale of the distance between Capella and Epsilon Pegasi, Vega and Gamma Draconis there have been no gravitational changes. All the mass of Capella is still in a big sphere surrounding the new neutron star/black hole.


Sorry but we do not know enough to say that there would be changes. You've assumed that jump nodes form because of the effects of the local gravity well and we certainly do not know that to be true. Jump nodes could easily be dependant on gravitational effects between the two systems they connect and if that's true then Capella's nodes wouldn't have been affected in the slightest by the supernova. Not on the minutes and hours time scale you're talking about at least.

The simple fact is that what happened to the nodes after Capella blew up is completely open to interpretation. If you want to make a campaign saying they shifted, you can. If you want to make a campaign saying they didn't you can too.

[Snail]

So another update to my theory (a few more and it will be flawless and better than Snayle's ):

Hmmm... Hole punching time methinks...

My theory:
Beams cost (nothing cannon confirms this, but I didn't find anything against it).
Shivans rely on numbers.
When adding the two together- I come up with the idea of Shivans having different fleets for handling civilisations with different 'threat levels'.

In FS 1 the Shivans gave the GTA and PVN a low threat level- they lost 1 fighter during the first days of combat, killing cruisers and whole squadrons themselves.
The called in capships were the cheaper type, with no beams, and the Shivans held the beam-equipped units in reserve or in some other conflict.
To make sure that the Terrans and Vasudans get pwned quickly, a battleship with 2 huge beams was sent for breaking through defense lines and planetary bombardment.
The Shivans also decided to send a shield equipped capship, after noticing that Terrans and Vasudans have no weapons to counter heavy shielding.
So the Lucy was selected as flagship.

The plan failed, and the Lucy was lost in some 10 minutes of battle, attacked by a group of fighters.

After that, the Shivans officialy claimed the Lucy class obsolete and developed a new, huge-@$$ ship.

Then came FS 2. The GTVA got a 'high' threat level since the Shivans remembered their epic @$$-whooping from Alpha 1, and ships with beams were called, with a Sathanas en route to work as flagship.

The GTVA made a huge mess in the Shivan Nebula before the Sath appeared, forcing them to use units retired even in the FS 1 era, now serving as reserve and patrol ships (my little theory on why the SF Aeshma was so crappy compared to the Basilisk). The first Sath was also extinguished by a surprisingly huge water gun, so the Shivans gave the GTVA a 'F***ing High' threat level, and called the rest of the fleet.
In order to show the GTVA that they suck, and that destroying jump nodes when a fleet of jugs is assembling sucks too, Shivan command decided to test a new invention. A mechanism that would reactivate collapsed jump nodes by some ghey magic tricks the GTVA knows as subspace rifts.
Obviously, the 80 jugs set the rift generator power level too high, and instead of making the star artificially heavier (to create a large enough gravity well for a spontanous subspace node creation and recreation) it went KABOOM. Everyone, but those who noticed the plan isn't working and warped out, was smoked.

So today, post FS 2 we have a whole bunch of angry Shivans, working on a new master plan to open that can of whoop@$$ on us. Untill they will be absolutly sure this plan is perfect, they won't bother to come, and will concentrate on wars elsewhere instead.

The first problem:
Why should they wait 32 years to send the Sath? If the GTA/PVN is a high threat level, why not send in a whole lot more while they're still weakened by the first fleet's attack? Or better yet, if the GTA/PVN is now a high threat level, send in the beam equipped ships immediately, send in lots of newer capships, to pawn them as quickly as possible, then get on with the other conflict. Why wait 32 years to let the GTA/PVN (now GTVA) recover and develop beams themselves?

Second:
It is implied that the Shivans nuked stars before Capella (during the Ancients). The Sathanes and the idea of star nuking was around for long before the GTVA. It was not a new creation.

Third:
Shivan Commander: Let's scare the GTVA by making a big jump node! They'll soil their pants!
Shivan Lieutenant: How will making a new jump node scare the GTVA? Why don't we use our shiny new @$$-kicking Saths to attack the GTVA?
Shivan Commander: You're demoted.

Forth:
The Shivans not need plan do. Use Saths/retired Lucys/everything they've got. Why do they need a plan? They can kill us right now anyway. Making large tactical errors, like sending a small fleet to deal with a small threat which turns out to be a very big one, then doing some ghey fancy magic tricks, only for them to go wrong and lose half their Saths... This makes GTVA Command look like the wisest man in the universe.

Fifth:
The Lucifer did not fail entirely. Look what it did:
1) Destroyed a lot of ships
2) Destroyed Vasuda Prime
3) Destroyed yet more ships.
4) Got through all of GTA space to the very core, ONLY JUST failing. Two more minutes and Earth would've been a giant crop circle.
5) Collapsed the node anyway, effectively cutting off Earth.

The FS1 strategy failed only by the skin of the GTA's teeth. If the FS2 fleet tried the FS1's fleet tactics, the GTVA would be no more. Instead, the Sathanas fleet decided to do this:
1) Nuke themselves.

Beams aren't stopped by shields, so a Lucifer class ship is an easy target for any race that has beam cannons.
This limits the Lucifer's role to fighting more primitive civilizations. Once 'primitive' humans destroy a Lucifer with ease in a 10 minute battle, the Shivans realize they're doing something right, and analyze the cause of their failure. It turns out that the external reactors that power the massive shield generators (again- nothing cannon can confirm this, or prove it wrong) were the problem, so the Shivans figure out the Lucy is an expensive error and begin to mass produce the Sathanas, without vulnerable reactors outside it's armor. Since no additional reactors leave it without power supply to generate shields, the big S gets really heavy armor and a huge amount of turrets, as a countermeasure to the fact it is not invulnerable in normal space to strike craft weapons.

Again, the Lucy did not entirely fail. It was destroyed only by a lucky fluke (even the mission is called "Good Luck").

If the Shivans could wipe out the GTVA just with sheer brute strength immediately, why wait?

[Mobius]

Karajorma VS TrashMan and Mobius VS Snail

[terran_emperor]

Personally, i think that they could have defeated the shivans in capella, if they sent in all fleets, basically every thing they had.
>1st - 12th Terran Fleets
>1st - 13th Vasudan Battle groups

I'd say about 600 ships and the ****-load od fighters and bombers that go with it.

but it would mean loosing their entire millitary. So its more beneficial to seal off the system

[Kie99]

I don't think you people are quite grasping how powerful the Sathanas is.  One of the bastards was considered a threat to the GTVA and there were only 3 or 4 ships with the capability to damage it.

Where do you get that from?

Briefing of the mission where you try to lure the Sathanas out by blowing up Cains.

It fought "The bulk of the allied fleet" at the Capellan end of the Capella-GD node and came through virtually unscathed.

The bulk of what the GTVA had in-system at that time. And they had little since they still hanv't brought most of the ships in GD or Capella.
Don't allso forget that it came unscrathced for gameplay purposes. Even if you put if against 5 corvettes they will bring a few % off it's hull integrity, yet it started in bearbating with 100%..

Bear Baiting was at the Gamma Draconis side of the node.  Briefing to High Noon "The Sathanas entered the Capella system and obliterated the line of defence we had established to intercept it."  I expect the GTVA brought through ships from Vega.

Even if you ignore their massive firepower and numbers advantage, they can go around causing Supernovae as and when they feel like it, not even taking into consideration reinforcements they could bring in from beyond Knossos 3.

For a single supernova they need a lot of Sathanases and apparently approx 3 days to charge up the weapon, during which the Saths stay still.
You seem to be forgetting the GTVA can pop nodes at will too and have a lot of static defenses.

Static defences stronger than the bulk of their fleets?  I was working of the assumption that the GTVA won't be destroying nodes based on the fact that it would make their strategy exactly the same as it was in the actual game and would result in a quick easy victory for them despite losing Capella.

So yes, I do believe the GTVA can put up quite a fight, and while it cannot score an outright victory it could at least gain a phyric one.

Without collapsing nodes the GTVA will score no victory, phyrric or otherwise.

Personally, i think that they could have defeated the shivans in capella, if they sent in all fleets, basically every thing they had.
>1st - 12th Terran Fleets
>1st - 13th Vasudan Battle groups

I'd say about 600 ships and the ****-load od fighters and bombers that go with it.

but it would mean loosing their entire millitary. So its more beneficial to seal off the system

Being generous and assuming 3 Destroyers for each Fleet/Battle-Group.  That gives you 75 Destroyers.  The Shivans have that many Juggernauts capable of toasting them in one shot.  Each Sathanas contains tens, possible hundreds of fighters, and there are Ravanas, Demons, Liliths (Which are absolute beasts for their size) in the system already, and more coming through from Gamma Draconis.  You have a base of operations in Capella, a stronghold of some kind?  2 Sathanes will jump in and maul it. 

You send everything you have you will get utterly caned and lose everything for maybe a couple of Sathanes.

[Snail]

You realize that probably most of the destroyers had already been deployed to Capella. IMO, I think only the core fleets have more than 1 destroyer. The fringe fleets might not even have a single destroyer....

[TrashMan]

Where do you get that from?

Briefing of the mission where you try to lure the Sathanas out by blowing up Cains.

It sez that the guns of their capital ships will be required and that the Aquataine, Psamtik and Toeris will be conducting the attack - it doesn't say that other ships in the GTVA can't damage it..that's bollcoks.

Bear Baiting was at the Gamma Draconis side of the node.  Briefing to High Noon "The Sathanas entered the Capella system and obliterated the line of defence we had established to intercept it."  I expect the GTVA brought through ships from Vega.

the Sath was a big surprise and came trough rather quickly. It's doubtfull the GTVA could have brought any significant number of ships there at such short notice, especially considering that GD was on the far side of nowheere and that they had a lot of resources invested in fighting the NTF.

Static defences stronger than the bulk of their fleets?  I was working of the assumption that the GTVA won't be destroying nodes based on the fact that it would make their strategy exactly the same as it was in the actual game and would result in a quick easy victory for them despite losing Capella.

Bottlenecks. They kinda make numerical superiority less of a advantage. A whole fleet with Mljonirs coming the node could take out a Sathanas in a single salvo. It couldn't hold forever against the shivan numbers, but the point is to inflict as big as losses you can with as little as investments.
Alltough none-poping is the soundest strategy to use, yes.


@Kajorama - yes, it's a assumption, but the most plausable one IMHO. In nature, when things are somehow tied, that tie is generally strong indeed.
It's like the size of the star and the supernova - we know there is a size/mass treshold after which the star wil lgo boom, but the size of the bang is still dependent on the mass of the star.

[Kie99]

Where do you get that from?

Briefing of the mission where you try to lure the Sathanas out by blowing up Cains.

It sez that the guns of their capital ships will be required and that the Aquataine, Psamtik and Toeris will be conducting the attack - it doesn't say that other ships in the GTVA can't damage it..that's bollcoks.

You're probably right, I haven't played the main campaign in a while.

Bear Baiting was at the Gamma Draconis side of the node.  Briefing to High Noon "The Sathanas entered the Capella system and obliterated the line of defence we had established to intercept it."  I expect the GTVA brought through ships from Vega.

the Sath was a big surprise and came trough rather quickly. It's doubtfull the GTVA could have brought any significant number of ships there at such short notice, especially considering that GD was on the far side of nowheere and that they had a lot of resources invested in fighting the NTF.

Capella isn't on the far side of nowhere though, it was a major system and that's where the battle took place.  Hadn't the NTF been crushed by this point anyway?[/quote]

Static defences stronger than the bulk of their fleets?  I was working of the assumption that the GTVA won't be destroying nodes based on the fact that it would make their strategy exactly the same as it was in the actual game and would result in a quick easy victory for them despite losing Capella.

Bottlenecks. They kinda make numerical superiority less of a advantage. A whole fleet with Mljonirs coming the node could take out a Sathanas in a single salvo. It couldn't hold forever against the shivan numbers, but the point is to inflict as big as losses you can with as little as investments.
Alltough none-poping is the soundest strategy to use, yes.

Mjolnir's potency is overestimated.  Couple of fighter wings can waste one no problem.  You'd send an expeditionary force in first before putting your Sathanas through that.