Originally posted by LOA--Paul
I always wondered if capital ship kamikazes would work.
(I'm paraphrasing)
"Impervious to all energy and Kinetic Attacks"
Originally posted by kietotheworld
Don't think so, the Lucifer is
Originally posted by Fergus
1) Insert the last supply of headz and fish on board.
2) Inform the Vasudan command.
3) Observe the carnage.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
What could beat the Lucifer's Shield... apart from beams and not including subspace missiles or specialised weapons?
Originally posted by pyro-manic
Theoretically a concentrated volley of beam fire could get through the shield (IIRC they were developed to counter Shivan capital ships - I'd assume that includes Lucifer-class vessels), but that would require risking several destroyers and/or corvettes, without being sure of success. You'd probably take losses before you inflicted any serious damage, and you might well lose the entire attacking force if the beams failed to penetrate/ did only superficial or minor damage...
DERELICT SPOILER:Spoiler:The Nyarlathotep - the Lucifer in Derelict - was eventually destroyed by ramming it with a Deimos corvette spiked with Meson warheads. But the Nyarlathotep's shield was non-functional, so we can't say whether it would have worked had the shield been up...[/B]
Originally posted by kietotheworld
I always assumed that beams were developed to kill any Lucifer in subspace.
Originally posted by pyro-manic
kietotheworld: No - destroying a capship in subspace would be suicide - the node would collapse, and you'd be destroyed along with it. Ship-to-ship combat is a big no-no in subspace. Besides, it'd be almost impossible to get into a position to launch an attack, and even less likely that the attack would be under favourable conditions - just getting into a position where you could follow the Lucifer into subspace would be very difficult.
The idea of beam weapons was copied from the Lucifer's superlasers by the GTI AFAIK - it's likely that the GTD Hades would have carried some form of beam cannon had it been completed, making it vastly more powerful. The shocking performance of Alliance capital ships against their Shivan counterparts was one of the biggest problems that needed to be urgently addressed after the Great War - the lack of useful ship-to-ship weaponry was the main problem, with Terran and Vasudan turrets being far inferior to the Shivan turrets. And the power of the Lucifer would have been terrifying - a ship that destroyed the GTD Galatea (one of the most famous and valued ships in the entire GTA) in a matter of minutes, with only a few volleys from it's main weapons. FS1-era Alliance ships didn't have anything like that kind of firepower - it'd be like having a 16th-century galleon going up against a 1930's battleship.
Beam weapons were developed to counter the Shivans, but I suspect that the GTVA was dreading the possibility of another Lucifer - hence the Colossus, which was the "secret weapon" to be used if another Lucifer fleet appeared... [/B]
Originally posted by kietotheworld
So all the fighters who took on he Lucifer in Good Luck died did they?
All the Colossus would have to do would be to chase the Lucifer until it tried to jump out.
Where do you get this idea that the beams were reverse engineered from the Shivan Super Laser? Its certainly not canon.
How would the GTVA get enough information on the Lucifers shield to find out how to penetrate it? Anyway the Colossus is hardly going to be afraid of the Lucifer, its faster than it and if the Lucifer turned to attack the Colossus it could just warp out.
Originally posted by Bobboau
I always thought the Nyarlathotep simply didn't have sheilds and had the ability to repair itself instead.
And then what?
They don't know anything about the Lucy's shields. That's the whole point. It was impervious to everything the Alliance threw at it. The whole idea of the Colossus was to have a vessel which had a vast amount of firepower, several orders of magnitude more than anything else built beforehand. The thinking was that you might be abe to penetrate the shield if you could hit it hard enough - hence the 12 or so BFGreen beam cannons the Colossus carried. They didn't know if it would actually work, though - it was just the best idea they had...
Originally posted by kietotheworld
@pyro-maniac
I watched it again, and there was nothing different to how I remembered. What was I supposed to be looking at?
@Pyro-maniac again
What do you think? maybe just maybe it would chase it into subspace and beam it to death? Or maybe it would just sit and look at it travelling into subspace to raze some planets.
So why do you think the beams would penetrate the shields?
Originally posted by kietotheworld
@Aldo_14
No because the Lucifer entered subspace a good 6 minutes before the Fighters and yet when the Lucifer was destroyed everyone was spewed out into Sol.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
The Lucifer didn't move in subspace, if it would have made it get to Earth faster then it definately(sp?) would have moved. And 4 Ursas exit the node at the exact same time as the middle of the Lucifer, then 12 or so fighters fly on to Earth.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
Anyway, what's with all of this fit inside subspace stuff. In good luck you can keep going for as long as you want to the side and you never stop because you've hit the side of subspace.
Originally posted by aldo_14
Doesn't matter; in order to catch up a six minute gap, the GTVA ships must have been moving a speed which was relatively faster than the Lucifer, and thus by extension would have been able to exit ahead or at the same time. (anyway, why would the Lucifer need to hurry - assuming capships can - given that it had 800,000 or so hitpoints)
The reason you don't see twelve, etc, fighters exiting is probably simply down to the editing & cuts between views (also the Lucifers sides in the intro bit would shield a lot of them from view); there's not really any reason for them to show how every single fighter escaped.
And, of course, there's a cut from the explosion to the flypast, so it's just as likely they were met by escort fighters (actually, notice how completely non militarized Sol is? You'd expect a massive fleet in wait for a last gasp defence, surely....)
I don't have the cutscene handy to double check that, but I'm 100% sure that no ships exited whilst the Lucifer was blowing up; any ships that made it out would have to have exited before the shockwave, and we don't see any.
Fair point; I'd forgot about that. Although don't you sort of 'surf' round the edge or something rather than be able to move away from the Lucifer? (must check) [/B]
Originally posted by kietotheworld
Why would you want a last gasp defence against an invulnerable super-destroyer with weapons powerful enough to destroy you in a few shots?
Originally posted by aldo_14
Oooh.... how about 6 billion+ people living on Sol? What are you suggesting - they just retreat and say 'fair dos big man, on you go and nuke our homeworld' ?
I'll check the cutscene in a wee bit and reply RE: the rest.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
Because it had reactors and if the reactors are destroyed hen the Lucifer blows up :p
Originally posted by kietotheworld
I'm sure a few wingmen died in subspace though
Originally posted by kietotheworld
Well I just saw it and they do. :p
Originally posted by kietotheworld
No they evacuate the population of earth in numerous cruisers, destroyers and transports. They would exit through the other 2 Sol Nodes which would still exist.
Even 100 Orion's shooting plasma blobs at the Lucifer will not do anything except kill 1,000,000 extra people who could have evacuated.
Seriously Do you think that they should have just died anyway to irriatate the shivans?
Originally posted by aldo_14
The Lucifer had never previously been destroyed as far as we know. It also had a goodly amount of fighters onboard for defensive purposes to prevent small scale attacks. And, of course, it's possible the zero speed was simply for gameplay purposes so the player would never get left behind (i.e. if they had to turn to take out an enemy on their tail).
I'm sure if V thought it was worthwhile to render a new animation for every possible combination of wingmen killed, they would have done so.
Yah I know its a plot hole
Nope, they don't. The last few ships fly out over the top (Ursa IIRC) . At this point the reactors on the surface are exploding (this is basically your propagating explosion). The point I am specifically referring to is when the Lucifer explodes - not the surface explosions - but the point where ithe blue shockwave appears and the node closes (cutting the Lucifer neatly-or not so neatly- in half). After this point we see no new ships arriving (and the same susbpace portal as the previously arriving fighters came out of, is now closed and destroyed).
Don't you find it strange that at the moment the Lucifer lost hull integrity everyone was spewed out of the node?
EDIT;
Do you really think they could have evacuated Earth (and that's ignoring the many colonies and military assets in Sol outside Earth itself) in the time after which it became obvious the Shivans had found it? (<3 months to evacuate billions, in the middle of war affecting every system). And even if they did so, why? To create a moving target? To sacrifice the military and economic hub of the war effort (not the industrial heart of munitions and ship manufacturing)?
Where would they get the destroyers and soforth from? Divert them from the war? An Orion has a 10,000 strong crew. Even if they removed all the crew (which I presume is your 1,000,000 estimate - less than 1% of the current day Earth population), they would need thousands of ships to evacuate earth - each one a perfect target for Shivan attack.
It was simply a last stand - lose Earth, lose the war.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
Don't you find it strange that at the moment the Lucifer lost hull integrity everyone was spewed out of the node?
Originally posted by kietotheworld
I meant that even if there were 100 Orions they would all die which would be worse than evacuating. Also the reason to evacuate Earth is because a moving target perfect for a Shivan attack is better than a huge globe which would be still in relation to the Lucifer. I agree that they wouldn't be able to evacuate all of the population of Earth but I'm sure they could use decommisoned destroyers etc. to do a pretty good job of it. I'm not sure how many people they could evacuate but they would be able to save some lives. The fact is that no matter what you chuck at the Lucifer (At least during FS1) will do NO DAMAGE[/U] to it. The only possible thing you could do would be to arm 1000 fighters with flails and have them push it away, until they ran out of energy or were destroyed by Shivan fighters.
Originally posted by pyro-manic
kietotheworld: No - destroying a capship in subspace would be suicide - the node would collapse, and you'd be destroyed along with it. Ship-to-ship combat is a big no-no in subspace. Besides, it'd be almost impossible to get into a position to launch an attack, and even less likely that the attack would be under favourable conditions - just getting into a position where you could follow the Lucifer into subspace would be very difficult.
No, because 1) there wouldn't be room inside the node to get alongside the Lucifer to broadside it, and 2) by destroying the Lucifer inside the node, the Colossus would be committing suicide - the node would collapse around it. See above.
Originally posted by TrashMan
We don't know how big an explosion has to be to collapse the node, but it's surely far greater than a destroyer going off..
remebr that GTVA sent two destroyers packed with meson bombs. Lucifer had those 5 uber-reactors.
So a destroyer or a crovette blowing up would probably NOT collapse the node.. I guess it would shake ita up a bit, causing damage to anything in it or would make it more dangerous to travel for a while...
Originally posted by TrashMan
Beam weapons could not have been copied from the Lucifer, as the front part with the beams is in SOL. Maby they scientists worked something up with the scan results of the Lucifer, but that isn't a real copy - tehy had to design the whole thing by themselves with only a few guidelines.
Originally posted by TrashMan
1) there is enough room in subspace
2) How sez the Colli has to destroy it?.. just damage it enough to make it useless (target it's shield generator or main cannons...leave the bloke at 2% hull). When they exit subspace, it's easy pickings from there on.
Originally posted by TrashMan
1) there is enough room in subspace
Originally posted by kietotheworld
@Aldo, would you just leave the people on Earth to die and send a huge fleet at the Lucifer to die, or would you evacuate the Earth and save as many lives as you could?
I personally couldn't say to some people on Earth, sorry you have to die because we won't have enough food could you?
Originally posted by Cobra
and, to the part about beams being developed in Sol: (Follow me on this) In FS2, it was constantly mentioned that all contact (key word: contact) with Sol was lost. how could they have made beams and contacted the now-GTVA about them?
Originally posted by aldo_14
Personally, I'd rather do everything I can to end the invasion right there and then, rather than just keep running away as my species was slaughtered by the Shivans. Even if the chance of victory was remote at best.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
There would be NO[/u][/i] chance of victory because you are fighting a ship that has an invulnereable shield! There would be more chance or survival if you kept running because if you stay in Sol you are all guaranteed to die, and if you run away you have a small chance of Survival. Attacking the Lucifer is like attacking a rock with your barehands, absolutely pointless!
Originally posted by Mongoose
kieto, first of all, there were no other nodes out of Sol. The Delta Serpentis-Sol node is the only one. The other nodes shown in the command animations were an error, as was the line by Alpha One in the final monologue; one of the Volition people admitted as much. They had only ever planned to have one node.
Originally posted by Mongoose
As for the beam weapons, I can't remember the exact location, but I know it was mentioned somewhere in-game that they were reverse-engineered from the Shivans. It doesn't matter that the Lucifer's wreckage wound up in Sol; as I said above, the alliance had obtained detailed scans of the Lucifer; it also had the Ancients' data to work from. Obviously, that was enough for them to eventually create working beam cannons.
Originally posted by neo_hermes
what i believe Mongoose is saying is that Alpha 1(PLayer). Scanned the Lucy and Thus Got a highly detailed reading of that Superdestroyer's Power distribution. with that data they where able to make Something Similar to the Shivan Beam cannon/ Flux cannon/ Super Laser whatever you want to call it.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
@weatherop
The Super Lasers on the Hades were reverse engineered but as for the beams in FS2 they are completely different.
Originally posted by Nuke
a black hole :D
Originally posted by WeatherOp
Sorry I'm so late to respond to this, but yeah the FS2 beams are different, the Mainbeams on the Luci were Shivan Flux Cannons, not Photon Beam cannons. And that makes a question, did the GTI replicate the Flux cannons, and how would they compare to the BFRed or the BFGreen. AS we all know that they destroyed that Vasudan city in one shot, and it left most of V-Prime uninhabitable, whitch means they could cause some radiation, and thats why I think they are Nuclear based. And that means the Luci's shields wouldn't be the main problem, if Flux cannons are far more powerful than Phazers.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
Sorry but the FS2 beams (At least on the Psamtik) are clearly stated as photon beam cannons, whie the Lucifer's beam is clearly stated as a flux gun.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
@Aldo, I think we should agree to disagree, I think running away is the only option which gives a chance of survival and you think the opposite.
Originally posted by aldo_14
Aren't they only referred to that in the tbl turret entry, though? And I doubt 'megafunk' is a technically sound type of laser....
Agree! Never!!!! :D
Originally posted by kietotheworld
Well now we can have another argument instead, the Lucifer's "Beam" isn't the Shivan Megafunk, its the Shian Super Laser, the Megafunk is the bigass plasma blob that comes out of Shivan Destroyers.
The tech description for the Lucifer goes something like: "The Lucifer has 3"(I think it has a turret on its rear) "flux cannons capable of taking down one of our capital ships in a few hits."
Originally posted by aldo_14
Well, we don't have a lower bound for destroying a node; the GTVA could have played it safe and tried to ensure and equal magnitude explosion to that (estimated) of the Lucifer. The only canonical thing I've ever read about the required explosion is the equally vague " Furthermore, the Ancients speculate that subspace nodes were quite fragile, and that combat during a jump would surely cause the collapse of the surrounding nodes." from the ref bible.
Possibly that's intentional - maybe V thought they might have to use node collapse as a plot device at some point and wanted to leave it as open as possible.
Assuming you can actually target the shield generator. It might be some property of the surface armour rather than a specific local generator subsystem (it is sheath shielding, after all). [/B]
Originally posted by neo_hermes
Shivan Beam cannon/ Flux cannon/ Super Laser whatever you want to call it.
Originally posted by TrashMan
I don't recall ever hearing or reading that sentance in FS. Anyway, the GTVA didn't use 1-2 meson boimbs, they packed the destroer full.. stripped away everything except the engine. It has al least 20 Meson Bombs there.. that's FAR more then a destroyer blowibng up.
Originally posted by TrashMan
It definately has a generator.
And regardless, in subspace, Colossuss could tear the vital parts of the Lucy. If you can't target the generator, then you can the cannons or engines.
What threat would the Lucifer be if it's unable to move or fire?
Originally posted by TrashMan
I don't recall ever hearing or reading that sentance in FS. Anyway, the GTVA didn't use 1-2 meson boimbs, they packed the destroer full.. stripped away everything except the engine. It has al least 20 Meson Bombs there.. that's FAR more then a destroyer blowibng up.
Originally posted by FireCrack
Anyone consider it possible that the full name is somthing along the lines of
Photon flux beam cannon.
Originally posted by WeatherOp
a flowing of fluid from the body; especially : an excessive abnormal discharge from the bowels
Originally posted by Cobra
just a different use of energy.
although if LRed's replaced the SSL in FS2, why didn't :v: make beams for the FS1 Lucy in the first place?
*prepares to get flamed*
Originally posted by StratComm
I believe that the Port staff did actually replace the Shivan Super Laser with a true beam, by the way.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
apart from beams and not including subspace missiles or specialised weapons.
Originally posted by Knight Templar
Scissors.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
apart from beams and not including subspace missiles or specialised weapons.
Originally posted by aldo_14
The Lucifer had never previously been destroyed as far as we know. It also had a goodly amount of fighters onboard for defensive purposes to prevent small scale attacks. And, of course, it's possible the zero speed was simply for gameplay purposes so the player would never get left behind (i.e. if they had to turn to take out an enemy on their tail).
I'm sure if V thought it was worthwhile to render a new animation for every possible combination of wingmen killed, they would have done so.
Nope, they don't. The last few ships fly out over the top (Ursa IIRC) . At this point the reactors on the surface are exploding (this is basically your propagating explosion). The point I am specifically referring to is when the Lucifer explodes - not the surface explosions - but the point where ithe blue shockwave appears and the node closes (cutting the Lucifer neatly-or not so neatly- in half). After this point we see no new ships arriving (and the same susbpace portal as the previously arriving fighters came out of, is now closed and destroyed).
EDIT;
Do you really think they could have evacuated Earth (and that's ignoring the many colonies and military assets in Sol outside Earth itself) in the time after which it became obvious the Shivans had found it? (<3 months to evacuate billions, in the middle of war affecting every system). And even if they did so, why? To create a moving target? To sacrifice the military and economic hub of the war effort (not the industrial heart of munitions and ship manufacturing)?
Where would they get the destroyers and soforth from? Divert them from the war? An Orion has a 10,000 strong crew. Even if they removed all the crew (which I presume is your 1,000,000 estimate - less than 1% of the current day Earth population), they would need thousands of ships to evacuate earth - each one a perfect target for Shivan attack.
It was simply a last stand - lose Earth, lose the war.
Originally posted by Carl
and this is further evidence toward my hypothesis on shivan mating in post 13 in this thread: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,28115.0.html
Originally posted by pyro-manic
I suspect that lots of them did, yes. We only see a few ships escaping as the Lucifer breaks warp, a fraction of the number involved in the attack.
Originally posted by ngtm1r
Incorrect. Count them at the end. More then half of them survived.
4 Ursas. 4 Thoths. 4 Hercs. 4 Ulysses. In fact, that might be everbody...can't remember if there were more then four wings, but I think not.
Edit: That IS everybody. The entire Bastion attack force survived.
Originally posted by Woolie Wool
But what if the GTA and PVN had already given the Shivans everything they had and were almost completely annihilated by the time the Lucifer's wreckage reached Sol?
Originally posted by FireCrack
During the T-V war the front was always far from sol and n earer to vasuda. Mabye there were once static defences but they were scavanged to build more warships to assault the then distyant enemy, the vasudans.
Originally posted by aldo_14
Alright, then where's the industrialisation?
Originally posted by karajorma
Space is big. Why would there have to be anything near where the node is? Anything arriving at the node can jump out to it's final destination a few minutes later.
Originally posted by karajorma
Ah. You probably wouldn't able to see anything more than maybe some lights on the moon at that distance though. If you look at Endgame the moon is fully lit so you wouldn't be able to see even that.
Originally posted by Fergus
I dunno, I would have expected alot of traffic out of the Sol system, refugees would be flowing out of the system, meh maybe not.
Originally posted by ngtm1r
Actually, I would expect some kind of minefield in front of the node, lots of Harbinger bombs probably. The Lucifer probably can't raise its shield when it's half-in and half-out of subspace, so that would be the last chance to hit it.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
I've just realised why they wouldn't have any ships in front of the node, they would be getting ready to follow the Lucifer out of the system and launch an almighty attack on it.
When I was playing FS1 I could never see the logic in sending the Bastion after the Lucifer, after all it has 16 turrets and the Lucifer has about 30 and 2 "beams". I has so much trouble with the Clash of the Titansand I kept thinking who cares if the Bastion gets destroyed, don't just give up on Earth, let us follow it and destroy. When I eventually got through COTT and THe Great Hunt and I realised the Bastion wasn't coming with us anyway I wanted to chuck my computer out the window.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
What difficulty do you play on?, you shouldn't be able to get to the node in an Ursa without cover unless you play on very easy.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
What difficulty do you play on?, you shouldn't be able to get to the node in an Ursa without cover unless you play on very easy.
Originally posted by Nuke
everyone knows that the best way to kill a lucifer is with a self destruxt sexp
Originally posted by kietotheworld
It can't, try using cheats to bring up the Super Laser in FS1, then fire it at the Lucifer.
Originally posted by kietotheworld
Well the GTA and PVN must have tried their most powerful weapons on the Lucifer, therefore many ~2GT Warheads couldn't damage it. And numerous GTs of weapons seem to be more powerful than the Shivan Super Laser
Originally posted by kietotheworld
OK well the GTVA used weapons that are a small portion of the Super Laser's damage, and no damage at all was registered on the Lucifer's shields. completely impervious, not extremely resistant, to all of our attacks.
Originally posted by Cobra
:wtf: what the...
Originally posted by pyro-manic
I didn't like it because it was a crap film :p
I think that the energy required to penetrate the shield is magnitudes higher than what can be delivered by the GTVA's weapons (or at least Terran and Vasudan weapons in FS1). Whether the Colossus' beams could have damaged the Lucifer is a matter for speculation (I personally don't think they would inflict any substantial damage - maybe a couple of percent, but no more). I think the key to beating the shield lies in subspace technology - perhaps inducing some kind of subspace field around the Lucifer would destabilise or disrupt the shield, allowing weapons to pass through. Speculation of course, and the GTVA has no such technology, so it's not likely to happen.