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General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: WMCoolmon on March 14, 2005, 05:31:18 pm

Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: WMCoolmon on March 14, 2005, 05:31:18 pm
Why didn't Command use the tried-and-true method of blowing stuff up inside the Knossos wormhole, rather than destroying the Knossos and maybe the wormhole?
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: aldo_14 on March 14, 2005, 05:34:50 pm
Probably were skimping on the explosives; if one or two meson bombs does the job, why send a destroyer full of them through?
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: WMCoolmon on March 14, 2005, 05:38:39 pm
Well, I don't think they had the time to pack a destroyer full of explosives from the discovery of the Knossos to the appearance of the Sathanas. But they should've had enough time to jury-rig an autopilot to one of the Tritons, send it into subspace, and then detonate the bomb.
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: Dark RevenantX on March 14, 2005, 05:40:29 pm
You will need like ten tritons for that, as a triton can carry at most one meson bomb.  Those bombs are huge!
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: aldo_14 on March 14, 2005, 05:41:04 pm
Yeah, but they presumably felt they needed more than one of them - otherwise why waste 2 Orions?

Other thing is that they maybe thought anything they did in transit, would be corrected and repaired by the Knossos; or that they reckoned node was unstable anyways, and it was only the Knossos holding it together.
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: karajorma on March 14, 2005, 05:45:11 pm
Command believed that the knossos was generating the wormhole. IF you try to use the meson bombs when the wormhole is open you'd focus half the energy down the wormhole instead of at the knossos itself and the other half would go away from the knossos too.

Considering that the Knossos survived the first blast it probably would have survived the blast of a destroyer full of mesons and instantly restabilised the node.

They probably believed that to be a waste of energy considering that
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: Unknown Target on March 14, 2005, 05:50:10 pm
Because they thought that the Knossos was holding the portal together, so why waist a destroyer when you can just blow up what they thought was holding it together with a single bomb?
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: WMCoolmon on March 14, 2005, 06:14:10 pm
The Meson bomb generates an explosion FAR greater than any GTVA destroyer's, probably bigger than the Lucifer's. Packing the two destroyers with Meson bombs seemed to me like overkill, to make absolutely sure that the nodes collapsed that time around.

Plus, they apparently thought the Meson bomb would have some effect outside subspace; I remember something to the order of "hopefully" though, which doesn't make a lot of sense when you've got an unknown Juggernaught heading straight for you.
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: IceFire on March 14, 2005, 07:10:21 pm
Two destroyers?  Only the Bastion blew up in Capella destroying the Capella-Epsilon Pegasi link.

The other one (GTD Nerid?) blew up the Vega-Capella link.
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: NGTM-1R on March 14, 2005, 07:33:25 pm
Because I suspect that wouldn't have been effective. The connection might have been disrupted momentarily, but the Knossos would have reestablished it. That's what it is there for, after all.
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: FireCrack on March 14, 2005, 11:10:08 pm
if onyl command had delayed the detonation of those last two meson bombs until the sathanas emerged.
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: Dark RevenantX on March 14, 2005, 11:43:59 pm
Multiple Meson Bombs are needed to blow a Sathanas.  The Knossos thing would have taken out at least 25% of its hull.
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: FireCrack on March 15, 2005, 12:21:52 am
how many are needed? isn't it 2 or 3?
Title: An inconsistency?
Post by: aldo_14 on March 15, 2005, 03:49:19 am
IIRC wasn't there a time lag for the detonation sequence?  Which would make the meson bomb a little unsuitable for tactical use; the Sath could simply destroy them before they got too close (I'm assuming that - like a nuclear bomb - the meson bomb explosion requires a detonation sequence and blowing it up results in a less... 'impressive' explosion).