Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: corvette108048 on August 31, 2007, 11:44:39 am
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There is no way in my mind that the Shivans showed us even one tenth of there power look at what they did in the past. In FS1 look at the SD Lucifer to the Terrans and Vasudans that ship was even stronger to us then the SJ Sathana cause we had nothing that could destroy it unless it was in a subspace worm hole. It took us about 20 years to create the GTVA Colossus witch is just as strong as a Sathana but we have one Colossus and they have a fleet of Sathanas. With those Sathanas they destroyed the Capella star and it was not the first time they destroyed a star with the Sathanas, if you look at the Knossos portal and and the Nebula the Knossos portal was made by the ancients ten thousand years ago and beyond that portal there was a the nebula and the nebula was believed to come from a remanence of a super nova.
to end this if they destroyed a star ten thousand years ago and if they where fighting us with ten thousand year old technology how much wold the Shivans advance in 10k years?
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They seem not to have technological advance. The Ancients were incredibly strong, I can't believe they got defeated by proto-Shaitans and proto-Manticores.
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Really? I heard the Ancients were only slightly more advanced technologically compared to the GTA and the PVN. The reason the Ancients lost though was probably because they couldn't adapt quickly, unlike the GTA/PVN, as humans and vasudans fought in a war for 14 years, forcing them to upgrade technology and tactics rapidly. This speed of development is probably why the GTA/PVN survived the first Great War, adapting Shivan shield tech + absorbing Ancient knowledge of subspace tracking and shield failure in subspace.
I'd guess if it wasn't for the GTA and PVN fighting each other all those years (big military budget, lots of combat experience, fast technological growth), each species would've been wiped out by the Shivans.
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So the Terrans and Vasudans actually survived the war because of the Ancients and themselves as well. Technically, it took 3 races to survive the first Shivan onslaught then.
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Really? I heard the Ancients were only slightly more advanced technologically compared to the GTA and the PVN. The reason the Ancients lost though was probably because they couldn't adapt quickly, unlike the GTA/PVN, as humans and vasudans fought in a war for 14 years, forcing them to upgrade technology and tactics rapidly. This speed of development is probably why the GTA/PVN survived the first Great War, adapting Shivan shield tech + absorbing Ancient knowledge of subspace tracking and shield failure in subspace.
I'd guess if it wasn't for the GTA and PVN fighting each other all those years (big military budget, lots of combat experience, fast technological growth), each species would've been wiped out by the Shivans.
True but if they where going to make a FS3 and they where planning to before Interplay kicked the bucket how long would it to take the the GTVA to create an Knossos portal 20 or 30 years and we would become stronger and the Shivans would be no match for us
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Really? I heard the Ancients were only slightly more advanced technologically compared to the GTA and the PVN. The reason the Ancients lost though was probably because they couldn't adapt quickly, unlike the GTA/PVN, as humans and vasudans fought in a war for 14 years, forcing them to upgrade technology and tactics rapidly. This speed of development is probably why the GTA/PVN survived the first Great War, adapting Shivan shield tech + absorbing Ancient knowledge of subspace tracking and shield failure in subspace.
How you can say something like that? The Ancients colonized thousands of star systems and defeated plenties of civilizations. There's no way you can consider their technology only "slightly more advanced" that the one the GTA and the PVN had. The Ancients have been colonizing the Universe for thousands of years. The Terrans have been doing it for what, just 300 years?
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I believe it was someone from Volition who said that the Ancients were only slightly more advanced. Yes, they did invent the Knossos portal and conquered many civilizations, but they never really encountered any resistance (so those civilizations probably weren't anywhere close to the GTA/PVN) until they met the Shivans. By that time, the Ancients weren't used to adapting quickly and thus were exterminated.
Gamma D. has a good point, it did take 3 races to win the 1st Great War (Ancient technology for subspace combat/tracking, GTA/PVN alliance & tech., although what do you suppose stolen shield tech from the Shivans would count as?)
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You know, I get the feeling the second war with the Shivans was not really a war for the Shivans. We were just a bunch of annoying little pests and happened to get their way. If they really wanted to kill us, they would have been alot more aggressive.
Well, stealing the Shivan shielding technology was probably the works of the Terran since they were the ones who flew the missions to capture those technology.
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Really? I heard the Ancients were only slightly more advanced technologically compared to the GTA and the PVN. The reason the Ancients lost though was probably because they couldn't adapt quickly, unlike the GTA/PVN, as humans and vasudans fought in a war for 14 years, forcing them to upgrade technology and tactics rapidly. This speed of development is probably why the GTA/PVN survived the first Great War, adapting Shivan shield tech + absorbing Ancient knowledge of subspace tracking and shield failure in subspace.
How you can say something like that? The Ancients colonized thousands of star systems and defeated plenties of civilizations. There's no way you can consider their technology only "slightly more advanced" that the one the GTA and the PVN had. The Ancients have been colonizing the Universe for thousands of years. The Terrans have been doing it for what, just 300 years?
True and the ancients found out even though it was late how to destroy the lucifer
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They were overconfident in their abilities. They may have realized that they should have studied the shields used by their nemesis when it was too late. To them, it may have just appeared as an "advantage", not something that would have signed the end of the Ancient Empire.
And I can't believe that someone from :v: said that the Ancients were only slightly more advanced than the GTA/PVN. They have been in war for thousands of years, they must have developed new technologies.
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Look, I'm not saying the Ancients were weak. They were quite powerful to have conquered as much as they did (Knossos portals were one of their greatest achievements as far as we know). The reason they lost, however, was because they weren't used to adapting quickly (something which only happens when you encounter difficult challenges, i.e. fighting an entrenched war for a long time). They did discover how to destroy the Lucifer, which is quite a feat for a race to accomplish, it was just too late to carry out. Now, if the Ancients were used to adapting and advanced technologically as quickly as the GTA & PVN, they could have been able to destroy the Lucifer before it wiped them out.
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No, no and no. Watch the cutscenes, the Ancients were cocky.
Trying to use the technology of their enemies...that's something they must have hated, a lot. The realized that the advantage given by the shields was incredible when it was too late.
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Uhh, that was the point I was trying to get across.
Ancients grew arrogant thinking they were the best in the universe. Arrogance leads to stagnation of technological advancement, thus they don't develop new weapons, do any research on the enemy, etc. Guess they figured out they need to change their ways in order to fight back but it was too late by then.
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They did not develop new technologies for a long time, I think, but they must have reached an incredible level.
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If they only encountered weak civilisations, their military capabilities would not progress much, although their scientific capabilities would. Because of this they spread out through several galaxies not really advancing militarily. Then the Shivans attacked them with a massive fleet of Impervious super destroyers. The Shivans could have annihilated the GTVA, there's no doubt about that.
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I agree with Kie.
That incredible technological level probably wasn't weaponry, otherwise shielding wouldn't have been an issue for them. They've got Knossos portals all over the galaxy, so in that regard they were advanced. Their lack of contact with tough civilizations made them cocky and not advance their military research (they definitely didn't have any beam weapons otherwise the Lucifer wouldn't have been a problem), thus the Shivans were able to annihilate them.
GTA and PVN were at constant war with each other for 14 years, neither side really winning. This pushed them to put military technological development as the #1 priority, while other research was set as less important (hence the GTA and PVN don't have anything similar to a Knossos). As both sides were used to fighting powerful enemies, they were willing to do anything to survive (not as 'cocky' as the Ancients in this regard).
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But they fought before reaching that technological level. The first civilizations they fought with must have been terrible opponents, so the Ancients must have developed new technologies. And remember that the Ancients subduded OR crushed their opponents...they captured their technologies.
Each civilization has its hot spots. The Vasudans, for example, are very good at designing engines. The Ancients reached an incredible level.
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But they fought before reaching that technological level. The first civilizations they fought with must have been terrible opponents, so the Ancients must have developed new technologies. And remember that the Ancients subduded OR crushed their opponents...they captured their technologies.
Each civilization has its hot spots. The Vasudans, for example, are very good at designing engines. The Ancients reached an incredible level.
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ancients
Read the subsection on Ancients technology. They were the best in subspace technology (second to the Shivans). Besides that, they weren't that far ahead of the terrans/vasudans of FS1.
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The problem is, the Shivans aren't toying with us. They went straight for the throat and tried to rip it out in FS1. To extend the metaphor, they sank their teeth in, but about that time the victim managed to find the gun in his drawer and pumped the Shivans full of lead before they actually tore the throat out. (Perhaps literally too, if anybody in "Good Luck" had Avengers.)
FS2 makes it obvious the Shivans were after something else by the Battle of Capella; the GTVA wasn't even on their list of concerns. The Nebular Campaign showed little sign of "toying" really, but was a straight-up brawl, with little recourse to tactical ingenuity by either side.
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[...] though comments by Volition developers state that the Ancients were no more than a few decades ahead of the GTA and PVN at the time of Freespace 1, except in the area of subspace.
That's the most stupid thing I have ever heard from :v:!
And how old are those comments? I would accept them only if they're as old as FS1. I can't believe they said something like that after releasing FS2(beam cannons, Colossus and Sathanas...I can only imagine what the Ancients came up with after thousands of years of space colonization and conquest). If the Ancients were old, really old, they would have developed cutting edge technologies!
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The thing is, if the Ancients conquered each civilization they met without much trouble with their existing weapon tech, then there really isn't any need to spend time and resources developing more powerful stuff. What they went for instead was subspace tech, thereby letting them conquer many weak races at incredible speeds by quickly expanding across the galaxy.
On the other hand Terrans and Vasudans met each other and got bogged down fighting and improving weapons tech, so they didn't really have the time or resources to develop something like a Knossos, thus the range and territory of each race was substantially limited.
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Also, why do people think that the enemies of the Ancients had to be advanced ? I know that there's no cannon evidence, so we can only speculate... But still, I find it hard to believe that EVERY civilization they encountered had warships or even was space fairing.
It is highly probable, that many of the civilisations were at different levels of development, so many Ancient conquest could be similar to the modern Terrans nuking a medieval society. They wouldn't stand the slightest chance. Races at that stage could even simply surrender, terrified by the view of divine creatures coming from the sky.
If that would be the case, it becomes fairly obvious why the Ancients would become so arrogant. Without or with only a small amount of opponents capable of fighting them back, the Ancients would be slowed down in improving their tech. They probably focused more on ways of efficient expanding their empire.
EDIT: Okey, my bad, they were colonizing systems for thousand of years. Poor memory I guess. Sorry.
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Well...they usually needed a few months to wipe out a civilization. This leads me to think that these other civilizations had space faring vessels and multiple systems = they were as much as advanced as the GTA or PVN.
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Well...they usually needed a few months to wipe out a civilization. This leads me to think that these other civilizations had space faring vessels and multiple systems = they were as much as advanced as the GTA or PVN.
You're weird. If they're canonically only slightly superior to the T/Vs, then how can they easily wipe out in months that which is equal to power to the T/Vs, and thus only slightly inferior to the Ancients themselves?
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In months, the elimination of billions of years of evolution on a similar but slower path.
:P
I'm not weird. :v: was weird when talking about the Ancients.
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We could benefit if we could ever see Ancient's first encounter with the Shivans. "They were like the other (...) resisitng, fighting. Only they were not like the others; they did not die." Judging by that encounter, we could get an idea of how the encounters with other races lloked like.
"For thousands of years our empire expanded. (...) For so long never did we encounter advanced life." Only after discovering the subspace they encounter advanced life. Killing billions in a few months isn't a big thing - they could just nuke them. Say, a day per planet, and a planet per week ? They could annihilate entire star systems that way.
The question remains - what is an "advanced life". Are modern Terrans advanced yet ? Or were the Ancients refering to powers such as PVN or GTA ?
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Powers such as the PVN or GTA, maybe slightly inferior...or slightly superior. If the Ancients are so proud of their victories, they must have defeated civilizations with fearsome technologies.
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Well...they usually needed a few months to wipe out a civilization. This leads me to think that these other civilizations had space faring vessels and multiple systems = they were as much as advanced as the GTA or PVN.
You're weird. If they're canonically only slightly superior to the T/Vs, then how can they easily wipe out in months that which is equal to power to the T/Vs, and thus only slightly inferior to the Ancients themselves?
I'm with Snail on this one. The ancients met many different species, a few may have been space-faring and 1 or 2 might have subspace capabilities, but the rest were most likely still planet-bound. Thus, they were able to defeat many species over the millenia until they encountered the Shivans. In fact, the cutscene at the end mentions that if the Shivans didn't exist, the Ancients could've wiped out humanity before we could enter space.
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we most destory the enemy base and for us and for all
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we most destory the enemy base and for us and for all
Ummm, somebody please translate that into English ? :P "destorying" sounds like some plot device... I will destory you, Shivans, ph34r !!!
Back to discussion - it's fairly obvious now that the Shivans are kind of a galactic police. Economy, people - monopolism is baaaad, and the Ancients were monopolists. Somebody should take an example of Shivans and do the same to some monopolists here on Earth :P
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Shivans are like the current USA.Bush thinks that the USA is the worlds police.The Shivans are the Space Police(TM).
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I'm with Snail on this one. The ancients met many different species, a few may have been space-faring and 1 or 2 might have subspace capabilities, but the rest were most likely still planet-bound. Thus, they were able to defeat many species over the millenia until they encountered the Shivans. In fact, the cutscene at the end mentions that if the Shivans didn't exist, the Ancients could've wiped out humanity before we could enter space.
Good point here, but:
Powers such as the PVN or GTA, maybe slightly inferior...or slightly superior. If the Ancients are so proud of their victories, they must have defeated civilizations with fearsome technologies.
A nation becomes proud in case of victory over another nation. Humans aren't that proud of killing species of other animals.
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What's to say the Ancients didn't land on the planets and wage war on the ground? I think only a few of their encounters with other species resulted in space combat, and they were probably much more inferior compared to the GTA and PVN. Most of the resistance they encountered then would've been planet-side.
Shivans, on the other hand, aren't planet-goers, that plus their subspace tech, shielding, weaponry & numbers probably took the Ancients by complete surprise.
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Shivans are like the current USA.Bush thinks that the USA is the worlds police.The Shivans are the Space Police(TM).
"This 911 Emergency"
"OMG, we have this huge ass ship in Capella, it's just beating the living crap out of our juggeranut ! Please send in everything you have !"
"To all units, be advised, we have an unidentified craft of Terran design that has demolished one of our juggernauts. All available Sathanas units, please divert and head for Capella. Code 20-11."
Aboard one of the juggernauts...
"Hey Boss, what do we do ? I see a whole Fleet near the node. Do we destroy them ?"
"Nah, let's blow the sun. It'll teach'em a lesson, and I'll be home for dinner."
That's what happened there !
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What's to say the Ancients didn't land on the planets and wage war on the ground? I think only a few of their encounters with other species resulted in space combat, and they were probably much more inferior compared to the GTA and PVN. Most of the resistance they encountered then would've been planet-side.
Shivans, on the other hand, aren't planet-goers, that plus their subspace tech, shielding, weaponry & numbers probably took the Ancients by complete surprise.
That's a good point. It's incredible that the Ancients' Empire, so vast and huge, was so easily reduced to a small size. Ancients probably were fooled by the Shivans; they believed that if the Shivans were not terrestrail, then they wouldn't come for them to the planet. Ooops, mistake. I think it's fair enough to say that most of the surviving Ancients fled to their homeworld, and therefore mae Shivan job so much easier. They could hit one target instead of annihilating seperate Fleets and/or colonies.
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Shivans are like the current USA.Bush thinks that the USA is the worlds police.The Shivans are the Space Police(TM).
Mobius? Me? :wtf:
Shivans are like the current USA.Bush thinks that the USA is the worlds police.The Shivans are the Space Police(TM).
It was Hades!!! :P
What's to say the Ancients didn't land on the planets and wage war on the ground? I think only a few of their encounters with other species resulted in space combat, and they were probably much more inferior compared to the GTA and PVN. Most of the resistance they encountered then would've been planet-side.
Shivans, on the other hand, aren't planet-goers, that plus their subspace tech, shielding, weaponry & numbers probably took the Ancients by complete surprise.
I don't like the idea of a so weak Ancient fleet... they might have had super juggernauts and even bigger vessels, built in thousands of years. Why would we think of the Ancient fleet as a limited one?
That's a good point. It's incredible that the Ancients' Empire, so vast and huge, was so easily reduced to a small size. Ancients probably were fooled by the Shivans; they believed that if the Shivans were not terrestrail, then they wouldn't come for them to the planet. Ooops, mistake. I think it's fair enough to say that most of the surviving Ancients fled to their homeworld, and therefore mae Shivan job so much easier. They could hit one target instead of annihilating seperate Fleets and/or colonies.
The Shivans simply had the advantage of using shields and the Ancients were too cocky to use it themselves. Shields or not, however, they would have never survived to a prolonged war. Even if they had the technologies, they would have never secured a node, for example(who knows, their religion might have impeded it).
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Shivans are like the current USA.Bush thinks that the USA is the worlds police.The Shivans are the Space Police(TM).
Mobius? Me? :wtf:
Shivans are like the current USA.Bush thinks that the USA is the worlds police.The Shivans are the Space Police(TM).
It was Hades!!! :P
Hehe... ooops ? :P Sorry for that, writing when being tired isn't the brightest idea...
What's to say the Ancients didn't land on the planets and wage war on the ground? I think only a few of their encounters with other species resulted in space combat, and they were probably much more inferior compared to the GTA and PVN. Most of the resistance they encountered then would've been planet-side.
Shivans, on the other hand, aren't planet-goers, that plus their subspace tech, shielding, weaponry & numbers probably took the Ancients by complete surprise.
I don't like the idea of a so weak Ancient fleet... they might have had super juggernauts and even bigger vessels, built in thousands of years. Why would we think of the Ancient fleet as a limited one?
And why would we think of the Ancient fleet as a powerful one ? Why would they need juggernauts, if for thousands of year they had never encountered advanced life ? They didn't seem to meet any significant opposition, and corvettes/destroyers are far more practical for patrolling of such a vast empire.
The Shivans simply had the advantage of using shields and the Ancients were too cocky to use it themselves. Shields or not, however, they would have never survived to a prolonged war. Even if they had the technologies, they would have never secured a node, for example(who knows, their religion might have impeded it).
As far as we know, the Lucy is the only capship with shields in the Shivan fleet. Shields on fighters wouldn't be that much of a threat, so we can assume that the Ancients found out the shields' weakness as a way to fight the Lucy. If the ancient had some kind of beam weaponry, shields wouldn't present a problem. Without beams or something similar they could only watch as the Lucy rips apart their blockade and proceeds to the next node. Seeing how so many Knossos portals were still intact, it seems that the Shivans were right on their tailes.
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Actually, there is no official canon pointing out that beam weaponry are effective against the Lucifer's shields. People just assume beams are powerful enough but we have no idea to what extent the Lucifer's shielding is capable of.
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Actually, there is no official canon pointing out that beam weaponry are effective against the Lucifer's shields. People just assume beams are powerful enough but we have no idea to what extent the Lucifer's shielding is capable of.
Very true, however logic dictates that you don't place beams as the main weapon of a Lucy-killer (Colossus) if it's not going to work against a Lucy. I guess that the GTA and PVN could take enough scans of the Lucy shields to judge whether the beams would be good enough or not. Besides, I don't think a shield would be as powerful to remain intact after being hit with an energy of such output. Perhaps it could last for a shot or two, but I just won't believe that it could survivie multiple hits by BGreens or BFGreens
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Hehe... ooops ? :P Sorry for that, writing when being tired isn't the brightest idea...
No problem :)
And why would we think of the Ancient fleet as a powerful one ? Why would they need juggernauts, if for thousands of year they had never encountered advanced life ? They didn't seem to meet any significant opposition, and corvettes/destroyers are far more practical for patrolling of such a vast empire.
Ours was a proud people, and always the strongest. For thousands of years, our empire expanded. For so long, we could imagine ourselves alone in the universe. For so long, never did we encounter advanced life. [...]
And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy, and it gave us the universe. And we saw other advanced life; and we subdued it, or we crushed it. In months, the elimination of billions of years of evolution on a similar but slower path. With subspace, our empire would surely know no boundaries.
:P
And they were cocky and militaristic...I hardly accept the idea that they have never developed uber-warships. Pride was a valid reason to do that.
Actually, there is no official canon pointing out that beam weaponry are effective against the Lucifer's shields. People just assume beams are powerful enough but we have no idea to what extent the Lucifer's shielding is capable of.
You're right, but we should start considering probable theories, too. We can't leave our minds stuck on a few, poor canon informations. Beams are probably effective against the Lucifer shields.
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God some parts of Fs2 sucked.All the cliff hangers, and such.I bet they thought they were going to make a
F*S*3.
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And they were cocky and militaristic...I hardly accept the idea that they have never developed uber-warships. Pride was a valid reason to do that.
"Ours was a cocky and militartisc people" :P
The main motor to build new ships is the presence of a new threat. It is possible they had built an ubership, given their vast resources... But why would they ? Just for pride ? It is as well possible that they considered an equivalent of our own Orion as a "super juggernaut" and were proud they had an armda of juggernauts ?
We had Orions; Shivans sent a Lucy. This made us build a Collie. Shivans sent the Sathanas - so we can assume that if the GTVA is given enough time, it will built a Juggernaut with BFReds capable of taking multiple Sathanas at once. Then the Shivans will send in... oh wait, that's Inferno already :P
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God some parts of Fs2 sucked.All the cliff hangers, and such.I bet they thought they were going to make a F*S*3.
NOOOOOO !!! Not the forbidden three letters ! Some Vasudans mentioned it and Vasuda Prime was blown up ! Bastion pilots discussed it, and the Delta Serpentis=>Earth node was lost ! Command ordered development of it in the Capella, and the Capella sun went nova. Those are the words of doom ! Luckily, pilots before the "Into the Lion's Den" didn't talk about it, or else their burners would not work :P
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Very true, however logic dictates that you don't place beams as the main weapon of a Lucy-killer (Colossus) if it's not going to work against a Lucy. I guess that the GTA and PVN could take enough scans of the Lucy shields to judge whether the beams would be good enough or not. Besides, I don't think a shield would be as powerful to remain intact after being hit with an energy of such output. Perhaps it could last for a shot or two, but I just won't believe that it could survivie multiple hits by BGreens or BFGreens
Actually, the reason they used beams as the primary weapons on the Collie was because it was the best anti-capital ship weaponry they had. It would be logical that you put your most powerful weapons to defeat a nearly indestructible ship. Chances are, they probably hoped beams were strong enough to penetrate the shields.
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The main motor to build new ships is the presence of a new threat. It is possible they had built an ubership, given their vast resources... But why would they ? Just for pride ?
Yes :P
It is as well possible that they considered an equivalent of our own Orion as a "super juggernaut" and were proud they had an armda of juggernauts ?
No, since all FS species have destroyers who are similar in size. Orion, Hecate, Typhon, Hatshepsut, Demon and Ravana. They're pretty much the same(launch capabilities and 2km long hull). This is the canon definition for "destroyer".
We had Orions; Shivans sent a Lucy. This made us build a Collie. Shivans sent the Sathanas - so we can assume that if the GTVA is given enough time, it will built a Juggernaut with BFReds capable of taking multiple Sathanas at once. Then the Shivans will send in... oh wait, that's Inferno already :P
Good, good...you're learning. Join the Red Side...consider Inferno as Canon...
:lol:
God some parts of Fs2 sucked.All the cliff hangers, and such.I bet they thought they were going to make a F*S*3.
NOOOOOO !!! Not the forbidden three letters ! Some Vasudans mentioned it and Vasuda Prime was blown up ! Bastion pilots discussed it, and the Delta Serpentis=>Earth node was lost ! Command ordered development of it in the Capella, and the Capella sun went nova. Those are the words of doom ! Luckily, pilots before the "Into the Lion's Den" didn't talk about it, or else their burners would not work :P
So true! :lol:
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How the heck does anything larger than a Sathanas go through those small jump nodes anyways?
Well if the Ancients had an ubership, it was no match for the Lucifer apparently. Which leads me to believe their biggest ship might've been superdestroyer-class at best.
I know for sure the Ancients didn't have beam weapons, since the best they came up with killing the Lucifer was taking it out in subspace.
Besides, if the Lucifer shielding was strong enough to repel beam fire, then supposedly the GTVA would've done the same to its warships (at least the Colossus or the destroyers) so it wouldn't get vapourized by Shivan warships.
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The main motor to build new ships is the presence of a new threat. It is possible they had built an ubership, given their vast resources... But why would they ? Just for pride ?
Yes :P
Ummm, no more questions...
It is as well possible that they considered an equivalent of our own Orion as a "super juggernaut" and were proud they had an armda of juggernauts ?
No, since all FS species have destroyers who are similar in size. Orion, Hecate, Typhon, Hatshepsut, Demon and Ravana. They're pretty much the same(launch capabilities and 2km long hull). This is the canon definition for "destroyer".
Yeah... but for the Ancients their destroyers could seem to be the hugest ships in the universe, just as Terrans probably viewed the Orion once.
Good, good...you're learning. Join the Red Side...consider Inferno as Canon...
:lol:
I have no problems with FS on Medium; I have no problems with playing BtRL on Hard. But I ust can't seem do the same with Inferno. Hell, I stoped at the first mission with the... SD Diabolli (or whatever it was called). The beams are just so uberpowerful and the ships have so ubermany HPs, I can't beat it even on Very Easy, not to mention harder settings... There's something fishy going on here...
How the heck does anything larger than a Sathanas go through those small jump nodes anyways?
Well if the Ancients had an ubership, it was no match for the Lucifer apparently. Which leads me to believe their biggest ship might've been superdestroyer-class at best.
I know for sure the Ancients didn't have beam weapons, since the best they came up with killing the Lucifer was taking it out in subspace.
Besides, if the Lucifer shielding was strong enough to repel beam fire, then supposedly the GTVA would've done the same to its warships (at least the Colossus or the destroyers) so it wouldn't get vapourized by Shivan warships.
Listen to the man, he talks smart stuff and makes good points. I have doubts only about the last point - the GTVA never had a chance to test their beams against sheilds, and I believe the biggest problem with shielding a capship would be power - you'd need a Juggernaut class reactors do shield a Fenris :P
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go to bed and have nightmares about a Pegasus fighter right in front of my HUD... Sca~~ry :P
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It is as well possible that they considered an equivalent of our own Orion as a "super juggernaut" and were proud they had an armda of juggernauts ?
No, since all FS species have destroyers who are similar in size. Orion, Hecate, Typhon, Hatshepsut, Demon and Ravana. They're pretty much the same(launch capabilities and 2km long hull). This is the canon definition for "destroyer".
What's stoping them for naming their ship classes whatever they like?
For all we know tehy might have called destroyers "Massacrators" or whatever...sheesh :rolleyes:
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Because the nodes were designed in FS1 and were supposed to be enough for destroyers/superdestroyers only?
Well if the Ancients had an ubership, it was no match for the Lucifer apparently. Which leads me to believe their biggest ship might've been superdestroyer-class at best.
Who said that the Lucifer fought the Ancients?!? :wtf:
I know for sure the Ancients didn't have beam weapons, since the best they came up with killing the Lucifer was taking it out in subspace.
Again, how do you know that they fought a Lucifer? :wtf:
Besides, if the Lucifer shielding was strong enough to repel beam fire, then supposedly the GTVA would've done the same to its warships (at least the Colossus or the destroyers) so it wouldn't get vapourized by Shivan warships.
Umpf! :wtf:
Ummm, no more questions...
Good boy! :nod:
Yeah... but for the Ancients their destroyers could seem to be the hugest ships in the universe, just as Terrans probably viewed the Orion once.
The Terrans knew about superdestroyers...but they simply thought that superdestroyers are useless. The Lucifer changed their mind.
I have no problems with FS on Medium; I have no problems with playing BtRL on Hard. But I ust can't seem do the same with Inferno. Hell, I stoped at the first mission with the... SD Diabolli (or whatever it was called). The beams are just so uberpowerful and the ships have so ubermany HPs, I can't beat it even on Very Easy, not to mention harder settings... There's something fishy going on here...
How's this possible? Inferno is tough, but you seem not to have problems with FS and BtRL... :wtf:
Listen to the man, he talks smart stuff and makes good points. I have doubts only about the last point - the GTVA never had a chance to test their beams against sheilds, and I believe the biggest problem with shielding a capship would be power - you'd need a Juggernaut class reactors do shield a Fenris :P
AAA beams penetrate shields of any kind of spacecraft. Beam cannons are much better while the shields of a warship, apparently, have nothing out of the ordinary(they cover an immense hull, but they don't appear to be that tough).
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go to bed and have nightmares about a Pegasus fighter right in front of my HUD... Sca~~ry :P
Good luck then. :D
What's stoping them for naming their ship classes whatever they like?
For all we know tehy might have called destroyers "Massacrators" or whatever...sheesh :rolleyes:
:wtf:
Destroyers are destroyers...central command ships capable of housing spacecraft...2kms long.
Oh...my new quotes record!!! :pimp:
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Lucifers have shielding and planetary bombardment cannons necessary for wiping out life on homeworlds. Sathanas juggernauts don't have shielding and are used for causing supernovas.
The Ancients went through all the trouble to find out that shielding doesn't work in subspace, which only makes sense if they encountered a shielded warship capable of causing massive destruction such as the SD Lucifer. I don't think the Ancients would've bothered with all that if only Shivan fighters and bombers had shields on them, since explosives are enough to pierce those weak shields.
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Man this was discused vefore the lucyes shields would be useless agins beam cannons! The ancients were taken out by multiple lucy class SD Also They probaly managed to take some of them out ! I know thery are refering to the fact they had the tech but not the means but this could also mean they had no more spaceships capable oh gooing after the Lucy in susbpace to take them out! And even then if they managed to take out all the Lucis there is still a question of wheather they would have the means to continue fighting the ramaining shivan forces!
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Uhh, proof? There is no official canon that beams are effective against the Lucifer's shields.
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Uhh, proof? There is no official canon that beams are effective against the Lucifer's shields.
Let's see, shields require energy to run right? Well the Lucifer has to output enough energy to cover the entire hull, which is probably why it had 5 reactors.
Now, granted the shields on the Lucifer are far superior than that of a fighter or bomber. However, if you force more energy against that hull than the shielding energy can compensate for, you ultimately cut through and start melting hull plating. This is what the anti-capship beam is meant for.
An anti-fighter beam probably wouldn't have the power to make it past shielding, but the strength of a BGreen/BVas, let alone BFGreen/LRBGreen, is plenty to overpower the shielding on a Lucifer. The Colossus is capable of bringing down 5-6 LRBGreens on a Lucifer all at once, you can't say that much focused energy won't get through the spread apart energy of a Lucifer's shields, can you?
Think of it another way:
If an SD Lucifer ever went renegade/captured by hostile forces, how would the Shivans deal with it? Call in a Sathanas and overpower the lil' traitor with its 4 BFReds :lol:
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Another fact is Vasudans had some connection to The Ancients and knew about The Shivans before we first encountered them.
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The fact that the game itself says the Colossus was designed to engage multiple destroyers or multiple Lucifer class destroyers at once and still win is ample prouf to me that beams cut through shields like a hot knife through butter!
can remember exactly whre is was discused and i dont really care ! It seems people here are starting to replace what was once common sence wiht thryr own theories as canon evidence sinpli because it fits they logic ! Or campaign developement for that matter! who knows ! Either way i dont care!
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That's what they assume. If there was an impenetrable bunker and you finally develop a new type of bomb that can cause major damage, what makes it so that it'll actually work on the bunker? For all we know, the new weaponry despite it being extremely power, may be a fluke against the object it was designed to combat against.
Also, they never commented that the Collie was meant to combat multiple Lucys. They only said it was 3 times the length of the Lucy.
In additional, it would appear the shield the Lucifer used was different from those of the shielding on fighters. For all we know, that shield may absorb the energy from lasers and beams.
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That's what they assume. If there was an impenetrable bunker and you finally develop a new type of bomb that can cause major damage, what makes it so that it'll actually work on the bunker? For all we know, the new weaponry despite it being extremely power, may be a fluke against the object it was designed to combat against.
Also, they never commented that the Collie was meant to combat multiple Lucys. They only said it was 3 times the length of the Lucy.
In additional, it would appear the shield the Lucifer used was different from those of the shielding on fighters. For all we know, that shield may absorb the energy from lasers and beams.
The Lucifer's shields don't absorb energy, otherwise Sathanas juggernauts would have no way to take out stolen/renegade Lucifers. Even if it did, there is a limit to how much you can absorb before your reactors/batteries overload. I'm quite sure 5 or 6 LRBGreens hammering at the Lucifer all at once is more than sufficient to overpower the shielding either way.
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The fact that the game itself says the Colossus was designed to engage multiple destroyers or multiple Lucifer class destroyers at once and still win is ample prouf to me that beams cut through shields like a hot knife through butter!
can remember exactly whre is was discused and i dont really care ! It seems people here are starting to replace what was once common sence wiht thryr own theories as canon evidence sinpli because it fits they logic ! Or campaign developement for that matter! who knows ! Either way i dont care!
Is the period key on your keyboard broken? :wtf:
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To tell you the Truth, I could barely read it and know what it mean't.
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The fact that the game itself says the Colossus was designed to engage multiple destroyers or multiple Lucifer class destroyers at once and still win is ample prouf to me that beams cut through shields like a hot knife through butter!
That'd be a brilliant theory if those things were said in the game rather than your imagination.
Also, they never commented that the Collie was meant to combat multiple Lucys. They only said it was 3 times the length of the Lucy.
It was actually that 12 Lucifers could fit within is massive hull
That's what they assume. If there was an impenetrable bunker and you finally develop a new type of bomb that can cause major damage, what makes it so that it'll actually work on the bunker? For all we know, the new weaponry despite it being extremely power, may be a fluke against the object it was designed to combat against.
Also, they never commented that the Collie was meant to combat multiple Lucys. They only said it was 3 times the length of the Lucy.
In additional, it would appear the shield the Lucifer used was different from those of the shielding on fighters. For all we know, that shield may absorb the energy from lasers and beams.
The Lucifer's shields don't absorb energy, otherwise Sathanas juggernauts would have no way to take out stolen/renegade Lucifers. Even if it did, there is a limit to how much you can absorb before your reactors/batteries overload. I'm quite sure 5 or 6 LRBGreens hammering at the Lucifer all at once is more than sufficient to overpower the shielding either way.
Its a complete unknown whether beams could take down the Lucifer's shields or not. Anything you have to say is mere guesswork.
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Both the Lucifer + its fighter escorts lost shielding in subspace. That would mean they both have the same configuration, just that the Lucifer has 5 big reactors to power its. If the Lucifer's shielding was made up differently, then I'd expect subspace to either not affect it, or have some different effect than total shield loss.
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You would think so, but Fs1 had so many loopholes, and such.
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The fact that the Lucifer class SD loses shielding in subspace just as any other small spacecraft is proof enough they are the same tipe of shields the only diference beeing in the maive strenght of the shields on the Lucifer when compared to those of the smaller spacecrafts! Hell those huge blob turrets that are used in FS1 as capital ship weaponry are rather useless against the shields of a heavy fighter!
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Its a complete unknown whether beams could take down the Lucifer's shields or not. Anything you have to say is mere guesswork.
I call bull****.
On the lot of you, in fact, who believe in the Lucy's continued invinciblity. :V: specifically stated that the Lucifer's shield systems would not hold up against FS2-era weaponry.
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Its a complete unknown whether beams could take down the Lucifer's shields or not. Anything you have to say is mere guesswork.
I call bull****.
On the lot of you, in fact, who believe in the Lucy's continued invinciblity. :V: specifically stated that the Lucifer's shield systems would not hold up against FS2-era weaponry.
Bah, and what's FS2-era weaponry ? B-e-a-m-s. I bet you an upgraded Hecate that weapons of fighter class (AKA Subachs, Prometheus, Kaysers) would never get past Lucy's shield. And most of the capship weapons are FS1-era ones - blob turrets anybody ? Flak is relatively new, however the explosions themselves don't seem so powerful, and the sharpnels have proly just as much kinetic energy as a Morning Star. So, BEAMZ...
You would think so, but Fs1 had so many loopholes, and such.
If we use such arguments, then we can call most of the discussions here bull****, because either we have no evidence or there are simply loopholes. Come on, the fun about it is to speculate basing on what we have :P
I have no problems with FS on Medium; I have no problems with playing BtRL on Hard. But I ust can't seem do the same with Inferno. Hell, I stoped at the first mission with the... SD Diabolli (or whatever it was called). The beams are just so uberpowerful and the ships have so ubermany HPs, I can't beat it even on Very Easy, not to mention harder settings... There's something fishy going on here...
How's this possible? Inferno is tough, but you seem not to have problems with FS and BtRL... :wtf:
I had to replay the second/third mission (the one where Independence attacks the this upgraded Arcadia) at least ten times. In the end, I could barely keep the Independence at 10% of hull integrity. Somebody seriously screwed up the power of the beams - I don't want to know how powerful are the beams on the bigger ships... And later, in the first Diaboli mission - at first try, I managed to do everything alright, however there was some bug (can't remember what happened) and I had to restart again. From there on, I always loose mission critical capship, usually due to bombers. With the weapons settings a bit screwed up (they're not always symetrical, and sometimes way off the main axis of the ship) targeting is a pain in the ass, and, as mentioned, too uberpowerful beamz.
FS gets easier on harder levels, because a)friendly ships don't die so easily b) your weapons do more damage (only on Medium and above I'm capable of taking out all the Sathanas guns; on easy and very easy, two Helios aren't enough to take down one gun). In Inferno, on anything better than Easy, the beams eat capships like the Sathanas annihilated the Phoenicia. It's frustrating the crap out of me. I need some INF vets to enlighten me obviously.
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Actualy managed to finish Inferno! Then agin i was damned lucky on a couple of missions! Also those beams are out of this world !
Also forgot about the statement from :v: about the Lucifers shields!
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What statement? I don't recall any bit of information regarding beams being capable of penetrating the Lucifer's shields.
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Mobius, Inferno is not canon, Inferno Ancient ships are not canon so they have no juggernauts. However, what IS canon, is that the Ancients are only slightly more superior to the T/Vs.
In addition, even if Inferno was canon, the Ancient fleet encountered in Gateways or R3 is an improved fleet 8,000 years later. The Ancients finally evolved.
I will put it like this:
The T/Vs are at "Level 3" power.
If the Ancients are at "Level 3.5" power.
How could the Ancients defeat hundreds of "Level 3" type species in months if they are only at "Level 3.5?"
I think the Ancients, at "Level 3.5," defeated hundreds of species at "Level 0.5" in months.
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I will put it like this:
The T/Vs are at "Level 3" power.
If the Ancients are at "Level 3.5" power.
How could the Ancients defeat hundreds of "Level 3" type species in months if they are only at "Level 3.5?"
I think the Ancients, at "Level 3.5," defeated hundreds of species at "Level 0.5" in months.
Well, I would rather go for Level 1.0 or 1.5, but still, it makes more sense than Ancients being uberpowerful. If they were uberpowerful, how could they be destroyed so easily ? The Shivans would need to be also quite powerful, and so T/V wouldn't stand a chance against them. Unless of course we assume that all we ever met was barely a patrol, and the Sathanas Armada was only a standard battlegroup...
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Mobius, Inferno is not canon, Inferno Ancient ships are not canon so they have no juggernauts. However, what IS canon, is that the Ancients are only slightly more superior to the T/Vs.
In addition, even if Inferno was canon, the Ancient fleet encountered in Gateways or R3 is an improved fleet 8,000 years later. The Ancients finally evolved.
I will put it like this:
The T/Vs are at "Level 3" power.
If the Ancients are at "Level 3.5" power.
How could the Ancients defeat hundreds of "Level 3" type species in months if they are only at "Level 3.5?"
I think the Ancients, at "Level 3.5," defeated hundreds of species at "Level 0.5" in months.
Well put, the Shivans were probably tech level 5 or 6, except they had massive numbers. In FS2 the GTVA would probably be level 4 or 4.5, but they still can't handle the Shivans because of their numbers (the Lucifer's group was probably a scout force and the Juggernaut armada was probably just one of their many fleets :lol: )
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Mobius, Inferno is not canon, Inferno Ancient ships are not canon so they have no juggernauts. However, what IS canon, is that the Ancients are only slightly more superior to the T/Vs.
I know, Inferno isn't canon. The Ancients should have Superjuggernauts and Hives. And the tech level has nothing to do with the capability of building warships.
The Terran species was capable of building superdestroyers...they didn't proceed just because they considered superdestroyers an useless line of warships.
And what does it take to build up a Juggernaut? The GTVA built a Juggernaut in the Reconstruction period...and it was a supersecret project, too. This leads me to think that the Ancients were able to build ships of this size and above(they had thousands of years to do it, and billions of slaves to use). Remember that they were cocky and overconfident.
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I know, Inferno isn't canon. The Ancients should have Superjuggernauts and Hives. And the tech level has nothing to do with the capability of building warships.
Really? Why didn't the GTA build the Icanus in 2321 and wipe out the Vasudans in an instant. The Ancients DO NOT have Supperjuggernauts, which is proven wrong already by canon. They DO NOT have Hives, which is also contradicted by fully-canon sources.
If they had survived the 8,000 years, then yes, I think they would have SJs and Hives, but at the time they were wiped out, they had only destroyers and maybe a few superdestroyers.
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For all we know, they may have had just regular blobs as weapons.
That may have been why they could not hurt them.
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The point is, Mobius, that before the Shivans, the Ancients presumably didn't need anything bigger than a destroyer. Let's even assume that they built a Juggernaut, as powerful as a Colossus, just for pride. One ship can't be in a few places at once, and it can be destroyed if swarmed by smaller, but more numerous opponent. And Shivans love to send waves after waves of ships. Their tactics look like:
1. Send in a task force.
2. If the task force fails, send in a bigger one. Repeat.
Nobody's negating that the Ancients were capable of building juggernauts. But without a good reason, they wouldn't construct a whole armada of them, and one ship just won't stop a race such as the Shivans. We have no idea how much time did the extermination of the Ancients take, but seeing how Knossos portals (which were pressumably the only thing making the node usable) are still intact, it was fast. So fast, that the Ancients didn't managed to cut off Shivans. This means that they probably didn't have the time to construct a whole new Fleet. Even for such a wealthy race, construction of a Collie class ship would take months. The Shivans wouldn't give them enough time to accomplish this.
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It's 100% canon that the Ancients were only a bit far ahead of the T/Vs. You cannot refute that without contradicting canon.
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Listen to Vip and Snail, they make valid points about both the Shivans and the Ancients.
Ah, and tech level has a lot to do with ship-building, it determines such things as:
-whether the ship has beam weaponry
-subsystem complexity
-subspace capabilities (Ancients were very good at this, though probably not at Shivan level)
-ship hull composition (make it out of ordinary materials or superdense molybednum/depleted uranium)
-speed you build a ship (automated or do you use manpower to assemble it)
There's probably more factors related to technology and ship-building, don't have time right now to try and list them...
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:blah: ok, let me jump in....
I think of the Ancients military like the US Army, they have advanced weapons and equipment, but it takes time to upgrade existing units and change tactics.
Example, I have a piece of equipment that was made in the 90s, it works as well as the new '07 model, but is much larger and less effective because it gets in the way. I dont have the new equipment yet because its not a priority, even if I were I would have to wait for everyone else that is higher priority to get one.
So even if the Ancients had everything they needed to defeat the shivans they might not have been able to get the right things to the right places at the right time.
It is harder for large military forces to adapt to new and changing situations that were not planned for.
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Really? Why didn't the GTA build the Icanus in 2321 and wipe out the Vasudans in an instant. The Ancients DO NOT have Supperjuggernauts, which is proven wrong already by canon. They DO NOT have Hives, which is also contradicted by fully-canon sources.
If they had survived the 8,000 years, then yes, I think they would have SJs and Hives, but at the time they were wiped out, they had only destroyers and maybe a few superdestroyers.
Stop behaving like a ********!!!
The Terrans considered superdestroyers useless, that's why they didn't build them!
Ah, according to you...the Ancients might have had 1325796119716714267256421466642742616 cruisers, corvettes and destroyers and not even a single juggernaut? It is a fact that the Ancients had a massive fleet. I simply can't believe that they didn't have bigger warships.
The point is, Mobius, that before the Shivans, the Ancients presumably didn't need anything bigger than a destroyer. Let's even assume that they built a Juggernaut, as powerful as a Colossus, just for pride. One ship can't be in a few places at once, and it can be destroyed if swarmed by smaller, but more numerous opponent. And Shivans love to send waves after waves of ships. Their tactics look like:
1. Send in a task force.
2. If the task force fails, send in a bigger one. Repeat.
The Shivans were their last opponents. And I'm refering to all the species they fought. Both Terrans and Vasudans, who have been colonizing systems for a few hundred years, came out with a Juggernaut. The Ancients have been doing it for thousands and thousands of years, dammit. What's the point in having billions of destroyers and not even a Juggernaut? Come on...
They also had an immense Empire. Who can ensure us that there have never been rebellions? In case of rebellions, there's something as much as advanced as you to face. The GTVA realized how important a ship like the Colossus is, when there's a rebellion. And the Ancients were aggressive and militaristic.
Just use your imagination, don't let some canon informations limit you. The Ancients must have been strong, damn strong. Canon infos about Ancient technology don't force us to think that they have never had Juggernauts or even bigger warships. The GTA met the PVN. The FreeSpace Universe appears to be full of advanced species. Ok, some of the species got defeated by the Ancients were primitive, but there must have been powerful ones.
Nobody's negating that the Ancients were capable of building juggernauts. But without a good reason, they wouldn't construct a whole armada of them, and one ship just won't stop a race such as the Shivans. We have no idea how much time did the extermination of the Ancients take, but seeing how Knossos portals (which were pressumably the only thing making the node usable) are still intact, it was fast. So fast, that the Ancients didn't managed to cut off Shivans. This means that they probably didn't have the time to construct a whole new Fleet. Even for such a wealthy race, construction of a Collie class ship would take months. The Shivans wouldn't give them enough time to accomplish this.
I think you're continuously negating their capability of building Juggernauts. Internal rebellions? The fact that Juggernauts are powerful? These are valid reasons.
The Ancients colonized systems for thousands of years, and they had a massive fleet. This is a fact.
So, they put up one hell of a defense line. They got defeated, but they put up a good fight. The Shivans must have needed years to gain control of all Ancient systems(did they want to exterminate the Ancients? They can't let them survive). Just look at the time the Shivans needed to penetrate in GTA/PVE space(without considering the Lucifer, which was invincible).
The Knossos portals were constructed by the Ancients...in thousands of years, subspace certainly started to be something the Ancients loved. It might have had an important part in their religion(in thousands of years, religions change).
]Your concept of Ancient civilization is limited because you see nothing but FS1 related infos. Try to imagine the Ancient civilization...and do it with the FS2 Universe in mind. That's what I do, that's why I imagine the Ancients as a powerful civilization. Ego Liber Spiritus Sum.
It's 100% canon that the Ancients were only a bit far ahead of the T/Vs. You cannot refute that without contradicting canon.
So? Don't be stupid! A few decades could mean 50 years. That's enough to compare them to Inferno GTVA, EA and SCP. And that's enough to justify the presence of uberwarships.
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THE FACT THAT THE ANCIENTS WERE ONLY SLIGHTLY SUPERIOR TO THE T/VS IN 2335 IS CANON AND CANNOT BE CONTRADICTED
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[size=9]
SO? 'A FEW DECADES' COULD MEAN 50 YEARS. THE GTVA CAME UP WITH THE COLOSSUS.[/size][/glow][/b]
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Okay, I give up, this is arguing and flaming.
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Maybe it was the lucifer fleet that destroyed the ancients.
(Just trying to stop the flaming).
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No. I have no intention of offending you. But I can offend your frozen ideas.
A few decades. A few decades. A few decades.
A much bigger Empire. A much bigger Empire. A much bigger Empire.
That's enough to justify my theories.
Maybe it was the lucifer fleet that destroyed the ancients.
(Just trying to stop the flaming).
We don't have a proof. And the Lucifer was deployed to make planets unhabitable. No, it isn't designed to "exterminate" a species. :p
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What about the Sathanas fleet? :shaking:
Wait I just remembered.It had to have been the Lucifer; there records say how to kill it.
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Really? Why didn't the GTA build the Icanus in 2321 and wipe out the Vasudans in an instant. The Ancients DO NOT have Supperjuggernauts, which is proven wrong already by canon. They DO NOT have Hives, which is also contradicted by fully-canon sources.
If they had survived the 8,000 years, then yes, I think they would have SJs and Hives, but at the time they were wiped out, they had only destroyers and maybe a few superdestroyers.
Stop behaving like a ********!!!
The Terrans considered superdestroyers useless, that's why they didn't build them!
Ah, according to you...the Ancients might have had 1325796119716714267256421466642742616 cruisers, corvettes and destroyers and not even a single juggernaut? It is a fact that the Ancients had a massive fleet. I simply can't believe that they didn't have bigger warships.
But why do you need a juggernaut, if for the same price you can have several destroyers, which are can be in several places at once, have more firepower combined, can be faster built ?
The point is, Mobius, that before the Shivans, the Ancients presumably didn't need anything bigger than a destroyer. Let's even assume that they built a Juggernaut, as powerful as a Colossus, just for pride. One ship can't be in a few places at once, and it can be destroyed if swarmed by smaller, but more numerous opponent. And Shivans love to send waves after waves of ships. Their tactics look like:
1. Send in a task force.
2. If the task force fails, send in a bigger one. Repeat.
The Shivans were their last opponents. And I'm refering to all the species they fought. Both Terrans and Vasudans, who have been colonizing systems for a few hundred years, came out with a Juggernaut[/n]. The Ancients have been doing it for thousands and thousands of years, dammit. What's the point in having billions of destroyers and not even a Juggernaut? Come on...
Yes, they came with the juggernauts and superdestroyers... AFTER meeting the Shivans !!!
Nobody's negating that the Ancients were capable of building juggernauts. But without a good reason, they wouldn't construct a whole armada of them, and one ship just won't stop a race such as the Shivans. We have no idea how much time did the extermination of the Ancients take, but seeing how Knossos portals (which were pressumably the only thing making the node usable) are still intact, it was fast. So fast, that the Ancients didn't managed to cut off Shivans. This means that they probably didn't have the time to construct a whole new Fleet. Even for such a wealthy race, construction of a Collie class ship would take months. The Shivans wouldn't give them enough time to accomplish this.
I think you're continuously negating their capability of building Juggernauts. Internal rebellions? The fact that Juggernauts are powerful? These are valid reasons.
AM NOT :P I'm just saying they DIDN'T HAVE A REASON TO CONSTRUCT A JUGGERNAUT ARMADA. Clear ? And about those rebellions - a bunch of smaller, but more numerous ships is far more useful in a rebellion. Just look at NTF's last run to the Gamma Draconis. They outmaneuvered the Colossus, something they could not achieve with multiple destroyers waiting for them.
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No, they simply talked about tracking ships in subspace. They probably hadn't the Lucifer in mind.
Without shields, Shivan spacecraft becomes weaker *cough* Dragon *cough*. Without shields, the Ancients would have had a chance.
But why do you need a juggernaut, if for the same price you can have several destroyers, which are can be in several places at once, have more firepower combined, can be faster built ?
Why would you need a corvette, if you can have 2-3 cruisers?
:wtf:
It doesn't make sense! :rolleyes:
Yes, they came with the juggernauts and superdestroyers... AFTER meeting the Shivans !!!
Proofs? :confused:
AM NOT :P I'm just saying they DIDN'T HAVE A REASON TO CONSTRUCT A JUGGERNAUT ARMADA. Clear ? And about those rebellions - a bunch of smaller, but more numerous ships is far more useful in a rebellion. Just look at NTF's last run to the Gamma Draconis. They outmaneuvered the Colossus, something they could not achieve with multiple destroyers waiting for them.
No. We're talking about the FreeSpace Universe, not FreeSpace battles in-game. A couple of corvettes can take out a destroyer...in game...but a destroyer is supposed to be a fearsome presence.
And Pride is a valid reason.
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We have basically no canon evidence on the Ancients except that they are only slightly superior to the T/Vs.
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No, they simply talked about tracking ships in subspace. They probably hadn't the Lucifer in mind.
Without shields, Shivan spacecraft becomes weaker *cough* Dragon *cough*. Without shields, the Ancients would have had a chance.
So what, swarms of Dragons destroyed the Ancient Fleet ? Come on...
But why do you need a juggernaut, if for the same price you can have several destroyers, which are can be in several places at once, have more firepower combined, can be faster built ?
Why would you need a corvette, if you can have 2-3 cruisers?
:wtf:
It doesn't make sense! :rolleyes:
If the cruisers were a bit less crappy than the Fenris, and the Ancients could coordinate them well, then it's even better than corvettes !
Yes, they came with the juggernauts and superdestroyers... AFTER meeting the Shivans !!!
Proofs? :confused:
Ummm, as far as we know there was no superdestroyer in the T/V war... And the Collie was announced 10 years after destruction of Lucifer. They could have plans for them before, but hell, NASA or US Military also has many different plans, not always being possible or just cost/effective:P
AM NOT :P I'm just saying they DIDN'T HAVE A REASON TO CONSTRUCT A JUGGERNAUT ARMADA. Clear ? And about those rebellions - a bunch of smaller, but more numerous ships is far more useful in a rebellion. Just look at NTF's last run to the Gamma Draconis. They outmaneuvered the Colossus, something they could not achieve with multiple destroyers waiting for them.
No. We're talking about the FreeSpace Universe, not FreeSpace battles in-game. A couple of corvettes can take out a destroyer...in game...but a destroyer is supposed to be a fearsome presence.
Umm, last time I checked Command Briefings were part of the FreeSpace Universe... If they are not, then what is ? Only other thing besides te game we have is the Freespace Reference Bible, and there's not much in it...
And Pride is a valid reason.
To build a Juggernaut armada ? Even Command isn't that stupid...
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Ok, I didn't want to post it...but I'm now morally forced to do it :blah:
I think that :v: sucked at creating the Ancients. They didn't give us the informations we need, they didn't give out reasonable informations about them. Saying "this civilization expanded its Empire for thousands of years" is easy. They failed at giving reasonable info. They didn't think a lot about the Ancients, they wrote something and made cutscenes. Our discussions about the Ancients(as well as our MODs and our theories based on them)are all the result of a reasonable thinking. We flame each other for the so called "canon" that, in this case, is result of a poor 2 minutes thinking. :v: simply failed with the Ancients. They made a great game, but they failed in one of the aspects: in creating a valid background for one of their species.
We're free to believe on whatever we think.
So what, swarms of Dragons destroyed the Ancient Fleet ? Come on...
No, but Dragons wiped out Ancients fighters and paved the way for SHIVAN BOMBERS :P
If the cruisers were a bit less crappy than the Fenris, and the Ancients could coordinate them well, then it's even better than corvettes !
That's another common in-game thought. Do you realize that beam cannons are supposed to be much stronger than their in-game counterparts? In every videogame, everything is capable of sustaining much more damage. We need many gun shots to kill a man, we usually need 2+ missiles to shoot down a plane...and we need many beam shots to destroy a warship.
Just free your mind!!! :pimp:
Umm, last time I checked Command Briefings were part of the FreeSpace Universe... If they are not, then what is ? Only other thing besides te game we have is the Freespace Reference Bible, and there's not much in it...
:wtf:
What do you mean? I was criticizing your in-game thoughts!
To build a Juggernaut armada ? Even Command isn't that stupid...
Again with those comments on Command... :doubt:
I'm an Ancient.
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It's canon. A bad part of canon, yes. But canon.
And no more ****ing Command jokes. :rolleyes:
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Ha hem...
That's your interpretation of canon.
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Ok, I didn't want to post it...but I'm now morally forced to do it :blah:
I think that :v: sucked at creating the Ancients. They didn't give us the informations we need, they didn't give out reasonable informations about them. Saying "this civilization expanded its Empire for thousands of years" is easy. They failed at giving reasonable info. They didn't think a lot about the Ancients, they wrote something and made cutscenes. Our discussions about the Ancients(as well as our MODs and our theories based on them)are all the result of a reasonable thinking. We flame each other for the so called "canon" that, in this case, is result of a poor 2 minutes thinking. :v: simply failed with the Ancients. They made a great game, but they failed in one of the aspects: in creating a valid background for one of their species.
We're free to believe on whatever we think.
Oh come on, that's such a typical whining I hear from other SW fans... "George Lucas messed up things LIVE WITH IT"... No, I will not. I will try to make some logic out of it.
If the cruisers were a bit less crappy than the Fenris, and the Ancients could coordinate them well, then it's even better than corvettes !
That's another common in-game thought. Do you realize that beam cannons are supposed to be much stronger than their in-game counterparts? In every videogame, everything is capable of sustaining much more damage. We need many gun shots to kill a man, we usually need 2+ missiles to shoot down a plane...and we need many beam shots to destroy a warship.
Just free your mind!!! :pimp:
I could explain my logic here... but I won't :P Too tired...
Umm, last time I checked Command Briefings were part of the FreeSpace Universe... If they are not, then what is ? Only other thing besides te game we have is the Freespace Reference Bible, and there's not much in it...
:wtf:
What do you mean? I was criticizing your in-game thoughts!
What I said - in the Command Briefings, Petrarch states that the NTF has outmaneuvered the Colossus. If they 5 destroyers instead of the Collie and could coordinate them, the NTF would surely have a much tougher times outmaneuvering them. All based on briefings and logic.
What you said - stop thinking ingame.
WTF ?
To build a Juggernaut armada ? Even Command isn't that stupid...
Again with those comments on Command... :doubt:
Sorry, still can't get used to this new "No Command bashing" directive... On the other hand, after hearing Command jokes every day for the past few years vets here can get pissed off.
I'm an Ancient.
Prove that to me :P
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Ummm, as far as we know there was no superdestroyer in the T/V war... And the Collie was announced 10 years after destruction of Lucifer. They could have plans for them before, but hell, NASA or US Military also has many different plans, not always being possible or just cost/effective:P
1) NASA and US Military can only use the resources of a single nation of a single planet, don't compare them with the GTA;
2) Read as many table entries as you can. I read something about superdestroyers and the fact that they were considered as useless warships for a long time.
I could explain my logic here... but I won't :P Too tired...
Good boy :nod:
What I said - in the Command Briefings, Petrarch states that the NTF has outmaneuvered the Colossus. If they 5 destroyers instead of the Collie and could coordinate them, the NTF would surely have a much tougher times outmaneuvering them. All based on briefings and logic.
What you said - stop thinking ingame.
WTF ?
Yes, stop thinking in-game. How can you give for sure that 5 destroyers would have changed the outcome of that engagement?
I'm an Ancient.
Prove that to me :P
You Shall SeeTM!!!
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Will you stop with the massive ****ing text?
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Ummm, as far as we know there was no superdestroyer in the T/V war... And the Collie was announced 10 years after destruction of Lucifer. They could have plans for them before, but hell, NASA or US Military also has many different plans, not always being possible or just cost/effective:P
1) NASA and US Military can only use the resources of a single nation of a single planet, don't compare them with the GTA;
2) Read as many table entries as you can. I read something about superdestroyers and the fact that they were considered as useless warships for a long time.
1) GTA has also many other things to spend money on tahn US or NASA :P
2)Unfortunately, I do not know how to read table entries, so I can rely only on techroom and game.
What I said - in the Command Briefings, Petrarch states that the NTF has outmaneuvered the Colossus. If they 5 destroyers instead of the Collie and could coordinate them, the NTF would surely have a much tougher times outmaneuvering them. All based on briefings and logic.
What you said - stop thinking ingame.
WTF ?
Yes, stop thinking in-game. How can you give for sure that 5 destroyers would have changed the outcome of that engagement?
I'll speak slowely and clearly. NTF OUTMANEUVERED the Collie. Would they also be able to do this if there were five destroyers instead of one Collie there, placed so that they could not escape ? One ship can only be in one place. Five ships can make a perimeter around the node. 1 Collie has more firepower than 5 Orions combined, but 5 Orions can target more ships at once and can bring more cannons than the Collie on their targets. Is it something with my English that you can't understand this ?
I'm an Ancient.
Prove that to me :P
You Shall SeeTM!!!
Ancient Fanboy, phh...
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That's your interpretation of canon.
It's still canon. It's up to you how you interpret it. I interpret it as the Ancients are weak, you interpret is as the Ancients are unbelievably strong. It doesn't matter.
Will you stop with the massive ****ing text?
I've basically given up on this thread.
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Will you stop with the massive ****ing text?
Will you stop with your pointless spamming? :P
No, that text is useful. And I don't flame with it, so there are no problems :P
1) GTA has also many other things to spend money on tahn US or NASA :P
2)Unfortunately, I do not know how to read table entries, so I can rely only on techroom and game.
1) :P
2) That's a problem. Under all points of view :P
I'll speak slowely and clearly. NTF OUTMANEUVERED the Collie. Would they also be able to do this if there were five destroyers instead of one Collie there, placed so that they could not escape ? One ship can only be in one place. Five ships can make a perimeter around the node. 1 Collie has more firepower than 5 Orions combined, but 5 Orions can target more ships at once and can bring more cannons than the Collie on their targets. Is it something with my English that you can't understand this ?
Yes, because they would have probably destroyed/damaged them. When fighting the Repulse, the Colossus sustained damage. The firepower discharged by the Repulse was enough to cripple a destroyer. Furthermore, the NTF could rely on many Orions and Deimos during that battle. They couldn't destroy the Colossus, but they could destroy...destroyers.
And remember that only certain circumstances call for the sacrifice of a ship. And the NTF's push was an unexpected move.
I'm an Ancient.
Prove that to me :P
You Shall SeeTM!!!
Ancient Fanboy, phh...
Yes. Ancient Fanboy. ;7
That's your interpretation of canon.
It's still canon. It's up to you how you interpret it. I interpret it as the Ancients are weak, you interpret is as the Ancients are unbelievably strong. It doesn't matter.
What do you mean? I say "That's your interpretation of canon" and you reply with "It's still canon"! This is arrogance! :wtf:
:v: wasn't clear. That's why none of our theories can be accepted or denied.
I've basically given up on this thread.
But you're still posting :P
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What do you mean? I say "That's your interpretation of canon" and you reply with "It's still canon"! This is arrogance! :wtf:
This is why I've given up on this thread.
You're not even reading what I'm writing. I said "It's up to you how you interpret it." :doubt:
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That's not the point. We have poor info about the Ancients. I can't give for sure that your theories aren't valid. You should have done the same...you accept my theories as "possible" just because you fear another Flame WarTM. I don't want to flame males.
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1) GTA has also many other things to spend money on tahn US or NASA :P
2)Unfortunately, I do not know how to read table entries, so I can rely only on techroom and game.
1) :P
2) That's a problem. Under all points of view :P
2) Umm, yeah... Ooops ? :P
I'll speak slowely and clearly. NTF OUTMANEUVERED the Collie. Would they also be able to do this if there were five destroyers instead of one Collie there, placed so that they could not escape ? One ship can only be in one place. Five ships can make a perimeter around the node. 1 Collie has more firepower than 5 Orions combined, but 5 Orions can target more ships at once and can bring more cannons than the Collie on their targets. Is it something with my English that you can't understand this ?
Yes, because they would have probably destroyed/damaged them. When fighting the Repulse, the Colossus sustained damage. The firepower discharged by the Repulse was enough to cripple a destroyer. Furthermore, the NTF could rely on many Orions and Deimos during that battle. They couldn't destroy the Colossus, but they could destroy...destroyers.
Ummm, wasn't the Colossus damaged because this big, shiny Repulse rammed it ? :P Well, if they could destroy 5 destroyers, why couldn't they cripple the Colossus ?
And remember that only certain circumstances call for the sacrifice of a ship. And the NTF's push was an unexpected move.
I just don't get about what sacrifice are you talking about...
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That's not the point. We have poor info about the Ancients. I can't give for sure that your theories aren't valid. You should have done the same...you accept my theories as "possible" just because you fear another Flame WarTM. I don't want to flame males.
I don't want to get banned, besides, I accept that "several" decades could mean anything.
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Mobius, there is no cannon evidence that the Ancients were strong.It said that "They could not harm the Shivans".
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The canon evidence is that "The Ancients are only a few decades ahead of the GTA and PVN". But that could mean anything from 20 years to 90.
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That's the point! :)
No more argues! :)
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Will you stop with the massive ****ing text?
I agree. Size 9 text is unneccesary.
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It's necessary to calm everyone down.
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No, I think it just makes every one less calm Mobius.
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It helped me in stopping flaming, I guess it was useful :P
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Once may be justifiable, but after that you're just yelling for no good reason. Please don't.
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Maybe it was the lucifer fleet that destroyed the ancients.
(Just trying to stop the flaming).
This is the most plausible explanation. The Lucifer was the only Shivan warship with shielding, plus it was the only vessel capable of planetary bombardment to wipe out the Ancient's planets and homeworld (a Sathanas might be able too, but those don't have shielding and the forward beams can get defanged with reasonable firepower then destroyed, but Sathanas are more of a supernova weapon). Shivan fighters and bombers have much weaker shields that can get blown past by simple explosive force (GTM Furies anyone?), but the Lucifer can take torpedo hits as if they were duds.
Let's put it this way, if the Ancients didn't encounter a Lucifer, then there would've been no need to find out shields fail in subspace, as Shivan fighters and bombers don't have the firepower to wipe out life on a planet, or the shielding strength to survive a barrage of missiles.
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No, it doesnt' make sense.
The Lucifer was the only Shivan ship with shielding...we have yet seen. It can bombard planets and make the unhabitable, but it doesn't appear to be designed to wipe out civilizations(supernovae). The Ancients were completely annihilated, which means that the Shivans sent warships and plenties of spacecraft.
Vasudan scientists found the remnants of the Ancient civilization in a planet. Was it bombarded by the Lucifer? We know that the Lucifer is capable reducing everything to shreds. How it is possible that a considerable number of artifacts remained(the Ancients must have been tough)?
The Ancients almost LIVED in subspace. And in subspace, the advantage of using shields disappears. We can't only think of the Lucifer, I mentioned the Dragon and I had my motives.
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The Ancients didn't live in subspace. :wtf:
Where did you get that idea?
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His imaginationTM. :P
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The Ancients didn't live in subspace. :wtf:
Where did you get that idea?
Well, they used subspace, extensively I guess... But to actually live in it ? That's a bit too much. Next thing we'll hear is that the Ancients are a sister race to the Shivans...
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It's practically disproven since the Ancients only found out that Shivan shields did not work in subspace when it was too late.
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It's practically disproven since the Ancients only found out that Shivan shields did not work in subspace when it was too late.
That raises a question in my head. What did they mean by the "no means" phrase ? Didn't they have any space vessels left capable of going into subspace ? Or perhaps they simply didn't had enough firepower on the few remaining ships to actually hurt the Lucy/whatever else Shivan vessel in subspace ?
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It doesn't matter evil way, but IMO it would be the latter.
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It could be a little bit of both.
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How's that possible? How could they have NO ships and a FEW ships at the same time? :p :p
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I meant they have like freighters and transports.Very few of them.
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They didn't actually "live" in subspace, you barbarians! :P
Open your minds...subspace was important for them!!!
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I just thought what a suitable punishment that could be... The few Ancients that survived because they remained in shelters, looking at the stars that were once their empire. Unable to launch from surface, either by losing all the tech/manpower/resources to build a space craft or by everything being shot down by Shivan vesels lurking at the orbit... Scary.
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Or there was more than one Lucifer...In which case a few ships won't be enough.
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They didn't actually "live" in subspace, you barbarians! :P
Open your minds...subspace was important for them!!!
Living=spending most of the time in current place. Sure, the subspace was important to them, but they didn't spent their freaking leasure time there :P Choice of words, Mobius...
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We don't have a proof. And the Lucifer was deployed to make planets unhabitable. No, it isn't designed to "exterminate" a species. :p
There are big problems with this statement.
Specifically, the only way to exterminate a species is to kill them all. Which the Lucifer is superbly equipped to do; it can glass a world from orbit, necessary to kill off a species with certainity, and because it does not rely on some form of expendable munition (read that: Harbinger bombs, the GTA could have wiped out Vasuda Prime just as thoroughly if they could get the bombs to the target) to do it, then the Lucifer can glass a planet hundreds or thousands of times, as many as is required to ensure nobody escapes. To claim this capablity was not intended in its design is extremely tenuous.
Furthermore while there is no proof, the circumstantial evidence is very persuasive: technologically and numerically the Lucifer fleet is vastly inferior to the fleet deployed in FS2. It seems probable it is therefore of an earlier vintage, and somebody cut it down to its current size. The only known, and hence best, candidates for reason for deployment and inflicting losses on it are the Ancients. So no, it's not proveable, but it's the best theory out there.
On other subjects: given the Ancients had a much larger empire than the GTVA (this is what the GTVA believes however, and as an ingame source and not a :V: statement the possiblity of a fallible narrator comes into the equation), it makes sense they had a larger fleet. Given that they encountered many sentient species, whereas the Terrans and Vasudans have only run into each other (and the Shivans), and unless their expansion was along a single line of jump nodes (highly improbable), they must have had a large fleet to push in so many directions at once. Assuming they made some attempt to hold the line at the edges of expansion against anyone who might wander in also implies a large fleet.
:V:'s statement that the Lucifer's shields would not hold up against FS2-era weaponry implies that the Lucy's shield worked on different principles from fighter shields. After all, lest we forget, the Lucifer spent 18 hours bombarding Vasuda Prime, and had to have made some kind of approach to it too. During which the PVN would have thrown everything they had at it. The resources of a world are not to be sniffed at; those of a homeworld, heavily fortified, are even less so. (Vasuda Prime had a direct node connection to Antares, which was often under Terran control or at least contested...and recall if somebody gets through to Vasuda Prime and drops a Harbinger we're looking at losing several hundred square kilometers just from the primary effects (blast itself) and an environmental disaster of momumental proportions.) The Harbinger, FS1's most powerful weapon, does damage equivalent to 2/3s of a Helios bomb. The Vasudans doubtless had their own super-warheads, or at least something as capable as a Tsunami, and no shortage of delievery platforms: this was their homeworld, they would have strapped weapons to anything that could move and stopped at nothing to deliever them to the target.
Yet the Lucifer shrugged it all off. This implies weapons below a certain power level cannot damage the Lucifer. If you could attrit its shields down to nothing like a fighter, then the PVN would almost certainly have managed it. However, the problem is worse than it appears even then. The Vasudans have a known willingness to sacrifice their lives for the greater good (Anubis tech room entry, the HoL attempt to ram an explosives-filled cruiser into your home destroyer in FS1), and it is therefore certain that, in their darkest hour, someone (probably lots of someones) strapped the biggest number of bombs they could onto their ship and rammed the Lucy. An Amun packed full of Tsunamis or equivalent is going to make a boom at least equivalent to an FS2 Helios, probably more. (Nevermind an Aten loaded with nukes.) This didn't bother the Lucifer either.
Therefore it follows that it is worse than weapons below a certain power level being unable to harm the Lucifer. It was immune to that type of weapon. There are two new weapon types in FS2: flak and beams. Flak, however, is merely explosives and projectiles delievered to the target in a new fashion. Beams are the only truly all-new weapon type. This also makes them the only possible candidate for "FS2-era weapons the Lucifer's shields cannot stand up to".
This doesn't necessarily prove that beams beat all shields (though arguing they don't beat fighter shields is a lost cause for what should be obvious reasons), but it does prove reasonably well that they would beat the type of shielding the Lucifer used.
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Oooh... Long post.
And I agree.
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Oooh... Long post.
And I agree.
I agree to agree.
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Agreed. A helios is just a single blast of energy. Very strong, but single. However beams deliver an excessive amount of energy (equivalent to maaaany Harbringers) for several seconds... As seen in the FS2 intro, an SSL could rip an Orion. I guess than BGreens and similar where capable of the same, even if on smaller scale. And a BFRed could certainly do the same or even more than an SSL.
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Well my personal theory about beams piercing 'sheath' shields is that the sheath shield is basically an extremely strong shield that regenerates extremely quickly, and only a constant barrage of fire can pierce this shield. The damage needed is probably many, many Harbinger bombs exploding on the Lucifer all at once for about a minute constantly without break. Even a pause for a second or two will allow the shield to recharge to half or even full strength. All damage must be constant, with damage being delivered every split second.
The only way this could be done in the FS universe devised is the use of beam weapons. Beam weapons deliver a whole load of damage constantly for as long as the beam is fired at the targeted ship (in this case a Lucifer class destroyer). The beam will be able to pierce the shield after only a few seconds on the shield. Because the beam is always firing upon the shield, the Lucifer does not have enough time to recharge its shield. Thus, the beam will burst through, vomiting all its plasma on the Lucifer.
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Scary thing indeed. Good point :)
Living=spending most of the time in current place. Sure, the subspace was important to them, but they didn't spent their freaking leasure time there :P Choice of words, Mobius...
There's a difference between "live" in space and live in space. :P
There are big problems with this statement.
Specifically, the only way to exterminate a species is to kill them all. Which the Lucifer is superbly equipped to do; it can glass a world from orbit, necessary to kill off a species with certainity, and because it does not rely on some form of expendable munition (read that: Harbinger bombs, the GTA could have wiped out Vasuda Prime just as thoroughly if they could get the bombs to the target) to do it, then the Lucifer can glass a planet hundreds or thousands of times, as many as is required to ensure nobody escapes. To claim this capablity was not intended in its design is extremely tenuous.
You give for sure that a species lives only on its homeworld. The Lucifer bombarded Vasuda Prime and attempted to bombard Earth. It ignored any other habitable planet. A species, anyways, can survive in space. Just think of space stations and hidden outposts in asteroid belts. The Lucifer didn't have a great launch capacity, so its fighter and bomber complement wasn't enough to face hordes of escort fighters that have to protect transports fleeing from a planet.
It is designed to make planets inhabitable, but it isn't good at terminating a species.
On other subjects: given the Ancients had a much larger empire than the GTVA (this is what the GTVA believes however, and as an ingame source and not a :V: statement the possiblity of a fallible narrator comes into the equation), it makes sense they had a larger fleet. Given that they encountered many sentient species, whereas the Terrans and Vasudans have only run into each other (and the Shivans), and unless their expansion was along a single line of jump nodes (highly improbable), they must have had a large fleet to push in so many directions at once. Assuming they made some attempt to hold the line at the edges of expansion against anyone who might wander in also implies a large fleet.
:yes:
:V:'s statement that the Lucifer's shields would not hold up against FS2-era weaponry implies that the Lucy's shield worked on different principles from fighter shields. After all, lest we forget, the Lucifer spent 18 hours bombarding Vasuda Prime, and had to have made some kind of approach to it too. During which the PVN would have thrown everything they had at it. The resources of a world are not to be sniffed at; those of a homeworld, heavily fortified, are even less so. (Vasuda Prime had a direct node connection to Antares, which was often under Terran control or at least contested...and recall if somebody gets through to Vasuda Prime and drops a Harbinger we're looking at losing several hundred square kilometers just from the primary effects (blast itself) and an environmental disaster of momumental proportions.) The Harbinger, FS1's most powerful weapon, does damage equivalent to 2/3s of a Helios bomb. The Vasudans doubtless had their own super-warheads, or at least something as capable as a Tsunami, and no shortage of delievery platforms: this was their homeworld, they would have strapped weapons to anything that could move and stopped at nothing to deliever them to the target.
Was the Harbinger introduced only later in the main FS1 campaign?
Yet the Lucifer shrugged it all off. This implies weapons below a certain power level cannot damage the Lucifer. If you could attrit its shields down to nothing like a fighter, then the PVN would almost certainly have managed it. However, the problem is worse than it appears even then. The Vasudans have a known willingness to sacrifice their lives for the greater good (Anubis tech room entry, the HoL attempt to ram an explosives-filled cruiser into your home destroyer in FS1), and it is therefore certain that, in their darkest hour, someone (probably lots of someones) strapped the biggest number of bombs they could onto their ship and rammed the Lucy. An Amun packed full of Tsunamis or equivalent is going to make a boom at least equivalent to an FS2 Helios, probably more. (Nevermind an Aten loaded with nukes.) This didn't bother the Lucifer either.
An explosion is an explosion. A beam cannon shot is something impressive(very high temperature). Using a beam cannon is pretty much like discharging the power of a star, in a minor part.
Torpedoes have a small shield factor. I'm not impressed of the fact that the Lucifer passed through a horde of kamikaze Vasudans.
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As taken from FS1 Command Briefing:
"New Technology: Harbinger Bomb
The Harbinger will assist us greatly in any attacks against capital ships. Until recently, Harbingers were reserved for planetary attacks only. With this project nearing completion, we may be able to finally defeat the Lucifer. "
This means that the Hrabringers were never before used as anti-capship weapons.
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You give for sure that a species lives only on its homeworld. The Lucifer bombarded Vasuda Prime and attempted to bombard Earth. It ignored any other habitable planet. A species, anyways, can survive in space. Just think of space stations and hidden outposts in asteroid belts. The Lucifer didn't have a great launch capacity, so its fighter and bomber complement wasn't enough to face hordes of escort fighters that have to protect transports fleeing from a planet.
It is designed to make planets inhabitable, but it isn't good at terminating a species.
The problem is, most of the defender's fleet would be sent against the Lucy in order to stop her from reaching the homeworld. I guess they wouldn't have much left there fighting-capable...
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See? It was introduced later in the campaign...so no planetary bombardments on Vasuda Prime!.
The problem is, most of the defender's fleet would be sent against the Lucy in order to stop her from reaching the homeworld. I guess they wouldn't have much left there fighting-capable...
The point of my post was about the Lucifer and the fact that it is only capable of bombard planets and attack sitting ducks(space stations, immobile destroyers) without posing a threat to convoys. Forget what happened in Vasuda Prime, mine was a generalized post :)
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The Lucifer doesn't just wipe out planets, it'll destroy any targets of opportunity in its path (installations, warships, basically any non-Shivans and it'll even fry Shivans that were unlucky enough to get in its line of fire).
The Lucifer might not be able to terminate a species on its own, but that's why it brings a fleet with it (Demon-class destroyer & lots of cruisers in FS1) to mop up any resistance/escapees.
About the shielding and beam weaponry, I'm in agreement with ngtm1r, Snail, vip and Hades. Which would mean the GTVA beam weapons would bust up a Lucifer if they ever encountered one again. Especially the BFGreen/LRBGreen.
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See? It was introduced later in the campaign...so no planetary bombardments on Vasuda Prime!.
Ekhm... it was never used before AGAINST CAPSHIPS. It was RESERVED for PLANETARY BOMBARDMENT, meaning they had the Harbringer for quite some time, possibly for a few years even. Read. Carefully. What. I. Post.
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The Shivans arrive in Delta Serpentis, right?
Now tell me why there still are living Terrans and Vasudans in the systems they conquered.
Ekhm... it was never used before AGAINST CAPSHIPS. It was RESERVED for PLANETARY BOMBARDMENT, meaning they had the Harbringer for quite some time, possibly for a few years even. Read. Carefully. What. I. Post.
Calm down... :p
Reaching Vasuda first...and Vasuda Prime then was undoubtely difficult. I was only saying that a planetary bombardment on Vasuda Prime was impossible.
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You give for sure that a species lives only on its homeworld. The Lucifer bombarded Vasuda Prime and attempted to bombard Earth. It ignored any other habitable planet. A species, anyways, can survive in space. Just think of space stations and hidden outposts in asteroid belts. The Lucifer didn't have a great launch capacity, so its fighter and bomber complement wasn't enough to face hordes of escort fighters that have to protect transports fleeing from a planet.
INCORRECT. Read the Lucifer's FS1 tech description again right now. Colonized is different from homeworld. Furthermore if it can do it to homeworlds it can do it to any world. The Shivans simply went for the most important targets first; you can't say they wouldn't have graduated to lesser ones afterwards. (And the FS1 tech description proves that they did attack other worlds.)
Being effectively invincible and posessing Shivan subspace drive technology, the Lucifer does not need to swat aside the escorts. It can simply ignore them. As long as you can run, the Lucifer can chase; the shield and known firepower of the SSL means it can successfully engage any spaceborne target and destroy it. It may take a long time to kill every last station, cruiser, and destroyer, but as long as the Lucifer's sheathe shield worked it has all the time in the world.
Also go watch the first Intel ani for the Lucifer again and tell me it has ****ty launch capacity; it launches hordes of Scorpions.
Was the Harbinger introduced only later in the main FS1 campaign?
Harbinger was already existant according to tech description, for use in planetary bombardment; the implication is that the GTA didn't have a form suitable for spaceborne deployment (no motive power probably).
Torpedoes have a small shield factor. I'm not impressed of the fact that the Lucifer passed through a horde of kamikaze Vasudans.
This is either a bad change made by the Port, or you're talking out of FS2 experience. Detonating a Tsunami at short range in FS1 was a very bad idea and invariably left an Apollo with full shields a flying wreck or dead; Harbingers were even worse.
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The Shivans arrive in Delta Serpentis, right?
Now tell me why there still are living Terrans and Vasudans in the systems they conquered.
A thought hit me. The Shivans almost always went for the homeworld of a species. Why ? It must be the best choice in their "logic". Can this mean that destroying Shivan homeworld/homestation/whatever would cripple them so much ? Just a thought.
Ekhm... it was never used before AGAINST CAPSHIPS. It was RESERVED for PLANETARY BOMBARDMENT, meaning they had the Harbringer for quite some time, possibly for a few years even. Read. Carefully. What. I. Post.
Calm down... :p
Reaching Vasuda first...and Vasuda Prime then was undoubtely difficult. I was only saying that a planetary bombardment on Vasuda Prime was impossible.
Don't worry, I was just... putting pressure on those words :) Believe me, you need more than a mesage board post to get me angry :P
And that's a different point. Not being able to use the Harbringers and not being able to deliver them are two different matters. Good you made yourself clear :P
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Also go watch the first Intel ani for the Lucifer again and tell me it has ****ty launch capacity; it launches hordes of Scorpions.
Heh, now I remembered that mission in FS1 ("Running the Gauntlet" me thinks), where the Lucy launched wave after wave after wave of Basilisks and some scorpions... It has enough capacity to give you a headache...
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Heh, now I remembered that mission in FS1 ("Running the Gauntlet" me thinks), where the Lucy launched wave after wave after wave of Basilisks and some scorpions... It has enough capacity to give you a headache...
That is due to game mechanics. Having the same amount of ships present in a mission as in the intel anim would be quite challenging, never mind the game engine raping. Or are you saying that you could hold off dozens or even hundreds of Scorpions at once?
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Well, if given something rather manueverable, then yes, I could withstand dozens of Scorpions... The problem would be with fighting them :P Every second you stop wild, random manuevers, you get shot by several fighters and after few seconds you're vaporized...
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Hmm, will Meson bombs be able to penetrate Shivan shields? The Meson bomb is suppose to be the most powerful weapon ever developed by the GTVA.
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Hmm, will Meson bombs be able to penetrate Shivan shields? The Meson bomb is suppose to be the most powerful weapon ever developed by the GTVA.
Well, as said before, it's not the amount of damage that really counts, but the duration of fire. Of course, a supernova blast or something similar could easily annihilate the shield, but T/Vs don't and won't have any weapon like that for a long time. If the beam was actually just a single shot, it could not penetrate the shield. But as it last for several seconds, the energy is pumped without a break into the shield, collpasing it or something. Therefore for a short while, the beam can hit directly the hull.
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I'm pretty sure the Meson bomb does more damage then most beams. Not to mention it does all that damage in less time as well meaning not only would it cripple the supposed regenerating shield but actually pierce it and continue to damage the hull.
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Still, it's a vaste of energy. The beams use all of their energy to hit the shields, because... well, they're beams. But meson bombs (or any bombs for that matter) generate shockwaves in every direction. Overall energy output is bigger than in beams, but the energy that hits the shield would be prolly only a percentage of that power. If the explosion was very close to Lucy, only about 60-70 % of the energy would hit the shield. If a beam hits the target, almost 100% of it's energy is pumped directly into the target.
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I'm pretty sure a bomb that forces you to be at least 3km away would be more then enough to crack all the shields on the entire Lucifer down. Imagine that, a Lucifer with its shell blown out by a bomb.
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But the Lucifer is big, and should be able to regenerate its shields...
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Oh well, maybe if it was close...
It's really hard to judge; we would need to compare the energies of both beams and meson bombs. Unfortunately, the :v: guys didn't give us those data :P
But surely, even a Lucy wouldn't survive being rammed by an Orion packed with mesons :D
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Mesons bombs can collapse a friggin jump node. Besides, I'm talking about an actual successful deployment. Like a suicidal Ursa loaded with a Meson ramming into a Lucifer.
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I don't remember the cinematics really now... But the Bastion looked like it was really packed with those mesons. At least ten. Otherwise why use an expensive destroyer, if you could send a corvette, which is even faster ? Maybe it was more of "Overkill better than failure" methods, but still, I guess smaller explosions wouldn't collapse a node. Still, no proof.
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Mesons bombs can collapse a friggin jump node. Besides, I'm talking about an actual successful deployment. Like a suicidal Ursa loaded with a Meson ramming into a Lucifer.
The jump node is destroyed from the inside. Three Meson bomb explosions in the immediate vicinity stabilized it(it may have been the destruction of the Knossos to stabilize the node, who knows).
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Mesons bombs can collapse a friggin jump node. Besides, I'm talking about an actual successful deployment. Like a suicidal Ursa loaded with a Meson ramming into a Lucifer.
The jump node is destroyed from the inside. Three Meson bomb explosions in the immediate vicinity stabilized it(it may have been the destruction of the Knossos to stabilize the node, who knows).
Or the node could be as well stabilized by the dozens of GTVA ships coming through it, or the Knossos finally did its job and stabilized the node permamently...
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Mesons bombs can collapse a friggin jump node. Besides, I'm talking about an actual successful deployment. Like a suicidal Ursa loaded with a Meson ramming into a Lucifer.
A Meson bomb is much, much bigger than an Ursa.
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A Meson bomb is much, much bigger than an Ursa.
Give the meson a cockpit and some decent thrusters :P
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Or the node could be as well stabilized by the dozens of GTVA ships coming through it, or the Knossos finally did its job and stabilized the node permamently...
Was it stabilized permanently? None of the nodes is permanent.
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Or the node could be as well stabilized by the dozens of GTVA ships coming through it, or the Knossos finally did its job and stabilized the node permamently...
Was it stabilized permanently? None of the nodes is permanent.
Yes, yes... "permanently for the moment" sounds kinda contradicting :P
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The nodes used by the GTVA are believed to remain stable for many years...that's what the Tech Intel says :)
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Mesons bombs can collapse a friggin jump node. Besides, I'm talking about an actual successful deployment. Like a suicidal Ursa loaded with a Meson ramming into a Lucifer.
The jump node is destroyed from the inside. Three Meson bomb explosions in the immediate vicinity stabilized it(it may have been the destruction of the Knossos to stabilize the node, who knows).
You are correct in your first sentence. However, those 3 Meson bombs simply destroyed the Knossos, nothing more. The Knossos portal had already long done its job of stabilizing the jump node, and there was no effect on node stability by the bombs since they were detonated in normal space as opposed to blowing up in subspace.
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A Meson bomb is much, much bigger than an Ursa.
Give the meson a cockpit and some decent thrusters :P
Do you want to pilot it :p
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*Raises hand*I will! :D
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A Meson bomb is much, much bigger than an Ursa.
Give the meson a cockpit and some decent thrusters :P
Do you want to pilot it :p
*Raises hand*I will! :D
You see ? There are always volunteers ;)
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Oh well, maybe if it was close...
It's really hard to judge; we would need to compare the energies of both beams and meson bombs. Unfortunately, the :v: guys didn't give us those data :P
But surely, even a Lucy wouldn't survive being rammed by an Orion packed with mesons :D
EH? A single Meson bomb does more damage then 4BFReds...check the values used in FS2 missions..
Sath HP = Collie HP = Knossos HP = 1000000
3 mesons took out the Knososs...the Sath needs to fire 5-6 times to kill the Collie..need I say more?
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Yes. The Knossos' HP are fake. :P
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It may be half that though.
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Oh well, maybe if it was close...
It's really hard to judge; we would need to compare the energies of both beams and meson bombs. Unfortunately, the :v: guys didn't give us those data :P
But surely, even a Lucy wouldn't survive being rammed by an Orion packed with mesons :D
EH? A single Meson bomb does more damage then 4BFReds...check the values used in FS2 missions..
Sath HP = Collie HP = Knossos HP = 1000000
3 mesons took out the Knososs...the Sath needs to fire 5-6 times to kill the Collie..need I say more?
Ain't that a tad too much of in-game mechanics ? This can't be really trusted. Example:
4 BFReds hits the "nose" of an Orion. What happens ?
In-game - the Orion blows up.
In-universe - the Orion has its nose vaporized, but otherwise should be still intact.
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In-universe, the Orion becomes rendered useless because it just lost a huge chunk of itself and is probably very instable.
In-game, the Orion becomes rendered useless because its about to explode from losing a huge chunk of itself.
Both outcome have a chance that the Orion will explode. Depends really on what part of the ship is hit but a fatal hit will probably render the ship useless either way.
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In-universe, the Orion becomes rendered useless because it just lost a huge chunk of itself and is probably very instable.
In-game, the Orion becomes rendered useless because its about to explode from losing a huge chunk of itself.
Both outcome have a chance that the Orion will explode. Depends really on what part of the ship is hit but a fatal hit will probably render the ship useless either way.
Umm, when I said nose, I meant like the first 5 metres of it :P I don't think that losing such a "chunk" would really affect a 2,1 km long ship... Yeah, I know that's very extreme case, but it shows how the game mechanics work.
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If the Sathanas is in front of the Orion and it fires its BFReds on the "nose", well...
In-Universe, the beams penetrate the hull, kill most crewmen, disrupt most systems...and the Orion is destroyed;
In-game, the Orion is destroyed.
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*Vip drawns in the vast ocean of his stupidity*
The front of the Sathanas is pointed to the side of the Orion. The distance is about... 5-10 clicks. The Sathanas fires it's four BFReds, all of which hit exactly the same spot - the nose of the Orion. Because of the angle of the attack, only the spot which was hit by the beams gets vaporized. The Orions nose is vaporized, however the beams do not make any further damage. The Orion is still mostly intact (unless Cyclops/Helios/whatever was stored somewhere nearby :P)
My point being - in game, it doesn't really matter where you hit; the beam hitting the nose of an Orion or the center of the hull still brings down the same amount of HP. In reality, a beam hitting nose would only destroy it, whereas hitting the center would cause massive damage ala FS2 intro.
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I wonder how it would be like if someone detonated a Meson bomb right in front of an Orion. An in-universe example of course. In-game example would probably = Orion dead or Orion heavily damaged.
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*Vip drawns in the vast ocean of his stupidity*
The front of the Sathanas is pointed to the side of the Orion. The distance is about... 5-10 clicks. The Sathanas fires it's four BFReds, all of which hit exactly the same spot - the nose of the Orion. Because of the angle of the attack, only the spot which was hit by the beams gets vaporized. The Orions nose is vaporized, however the beams do not make any further damage. The Orion is still mostly intact (unless Cyclops/Helios/whatever was stored somewhere nearby :P)
My point being - in game, it doesn't really matter where you hit; the beam hitting the nose of an Orion or the center of the hull still brings down the same amount of HP. In reality, a beam hitting nose would only destroy it, whereas hitting the center would cause massive damage ala FS2 intro.
If you wanted to design ships to behave more realistically to damage, then follow a similar example with the NTF Boadicea (that asteroid base in the 2nd FS2 mission with the Iceni inside). Mod the ship to have several destructable sections on the exterior, so that if they get hit, then it breaks off and further attacks will no longer deal damage to it (like the asteroid chunks that come off the base). Have the vital sections force death of the warship upon destruction, regardless of integrity of other areas.
So let's say the Orion was modded this way, the beams pierce the tip of the ship, causing that section to break off from the vessel (forward section modded to be a subsystem with destructable component, further attacks pass through empty space). If a beam pierces a main section (not modded as a subsystem, so it'll go up when hull reaches 0%) then let the ship die, no matter if the non-vitals are intact or not.
Gamma D., blowing up a Meson bomb in front of that Orion would send shockwaves through the ship, pretty much wrecking the hull and its interior and killing its crew inside.
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Well, as always, much depends on the placing of the bomb. It's different in fron, and diiferent o sides, and stuff like that. Also, does anybody know on what basis does the Meson bomb work ? Is it generating massive heat ? Anti-matter ? Pure energy ? Anti-matter would surely just vaporate a big chunk of the Orion. Pure energy similar, but on a smaller scale. Massive heat would prolly melt down the sections it faces, but they could be still salvagable.
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If you wanted to design ships to behave more realistically to damage, then follow a similar example with the NTF Boadicea (that asteroid base in the 2nd FS2 mission with the Iceni inside). Mod the ship to have several destructable sections on the exterior, so that if they get hit, then it breaks off and further attacks will no longer deal damage to it (like the asteroid chunks that come off the base). Have the vital sections force death of the warship upon destruction, regardless of integrity of other areas.
Yeah, that's one of the very few things I miss in the Freespace. If only I had any 3D/modelling/designing/graphical/ANY skills... :(
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but you have many gtva units engouh to destory the enemy main base we must destory the enemy main base and then it would be ends the shivans terrans and vasudans
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to answear the question i do not belive the shivans are playng games with the GTVA but rather at least to me it seems they are rather pushing the GTVA further and further ahead.
Tech society everything. I belive the shivans took note of the Colossus and decided the GTVA is on the right path perhaps! Remember they are the great destroyers but also the great preservers. I mean it was an unprecedented feat of cooperation on the part of the GTVA to evacuate the capella star sistem where both terran and vasudan civilians were! Also there are a lot of alliance warships fighting toghether in this war. The best example of terran and vasudan cooperation is perhaps the GTVA Colossus perhaps they took notice of it and said
"well these guis are on the right path for survival what do you say we call it a night and get the hell out of here"
of course another one could of said :"hey while were at it why dont we take some snacks with us AKA capella supernova " since well shivans to me it seems kinda need the nebulas for mining etc.
Also perhaps the shivans were kinda preparing the GTVA for a much more catastrophic war. This is just speculation on the whole "bigger problem" thing.
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to answear the question i do not belive the shivans are playng games with the GTVA but rather at least to me it seems they are rather pushing the GTVA further and further ahead.
Tech society everything. I belive the shivans took note of the Colossus and decided the GTVA is on the right path perhaps! Remember they are the great destroyers but also the great preservers. I mean it was an unprecedented feat of cooperation on the part of the GTVA to evacuate the capella star sistem where both terran and vasudan civilians were! Also there are a lot of alliance warships fighting toghether in this war. The best example of terran and vasudan cooperation is perhaps the GTVA Colossus perhaps they took notice of it and said
"well these guis are on the right path for survival what do you say we call it a night and get the hell out of here"
of course another one could of said :"hey while were at it why dont we take some snacks with us AKA capella supernova " since well shivans to me it seems kinda need the nebulas for mining etc.
Also perhaps the shivans were kinda preparing the GTVA for a much more catastrophic war. This is just speculation on the whole "bigger problem" thing.
No, they could care less that the humans and vasudans joined forces. The Shivans simply kill anything that isn't one of their kind, and if they were really 'preservers', then they'd invest some time and resources into a universal translator to try and negotiate with species first, rather than go Kill-on-Sight to every non-Shivan they meet (as far as we know, it was the Ancients who first tried to communicate with the Shivans, since ETAK was created using Ancient artifacts stolen by Bosch).
I view Shivans as machines who get the job done. They were given enough sentience to carry out their assigned tasks, but not much more than that. I doubt the Shivans view the GTVA as anything more than another species to be disposed of (although we don't know whether the Shivans are engaged with 'greater' enemies, which could explain them not giving much effort to wiping out the GTVA).
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On topic - well, in FS1 the Shivans where definitely not toying with the GTVA. Were they a scout, splinter or the main fleet, they went to kill Terrans and Vasudans. And they nearly succeeded. GTA surely would have been defeated if not for their cooperation with the Vasudans and discovery of Ancient ruins.
However, in FS2, the situation is different. The conflict in nebula was IMO more of a defence. And the so-many-times-discussed issue of the Sathanas fleet. Even one or two of them would be more than enough to pulverize the remains of the GTVA fleet, so that the Shivans could easily destroy system after system. However, just as Petrarch said, "their motives remain unknown". I believe that the hint in the outro, about the Shivans being exiles, may be at least partialy true. The :v: wouldn't put it there only to tease the player :P
On another note:
Two sentences from the FS1 outro are really interesting.
"Long had we been the destroyers. Our turn has nearly come."
This could mean obviously that it's nearly our turn to be destroyed, but on the other hand... The sentences just before the ones I quoted are talking about the Shivans as the preservers. And later, the lines about T/V war... "(...) we learnt how to adapt, we learned how to study the enemy, we learned how to overcome, we learned how to survive."
Isn't this somehow a hint that the Terrans (w/ or w/o Vasudans) are to become the next preservers ?
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Yes. The Knossos' HP are fake. :P
Oh? Where did that piece of information come? Devine intervention?
Unless you can find a [V] quote that things in tables shouldn' be takes as canon, you're comment is pretty much worthless..
Ain't that a tad too much of in-game mechanics ? This can't be really trusted. Example:
4 BFReds hits the "nose" of an Orion. What happens ?
In-game - the Orion blows up.
In-universe - the Orion has its nose vaporized, but otherwise should be still intact.
HP's are a general abstaraction of toughness....but they are still valid as tehy give you an approximate feel for just how string a ship is.
That said, this is a game, and some things can't be displayed perfectly (alltouhg I belive we now can make ships with big chunks blown off them), but basic ship data isn't one of them. (aside from the armor...untill the armor.tbls are fully done)
What are you gonna argue next? Lack of newtonian physics in-game?
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THe problem here is that there is litle inf on the Shivans.
They are Xenocidal, they are cybernetic, maybe even engineered.
But, how did the Sathie fleet tied in with the lucis?
was a lucy Fleet that did the ancients? the whole thng with the shields seems to be, specially since the lucy's shields were qualitatively different from the fighter based versions.
actually, the big question is, do shivans adapt? if the differences between FS1 and FS2 are because they realized how vulnerable could the lucys e... their industrial capability is nothing short of monstrous.
of course, maybe the lucy flets are rovering bands that go for decapitation strikes against other sentients and the sathys and co are tasked with other functions. and we can't even beguin guessing why they decided to turn Capella nova.
Though, I do have an idea about that. we know, more or less, that shivans are not planetbound (at least the ancients seemed to think so) what if cooking off Capella was their way of "Shivaforming"? remember the Nebula? thousands of years old, those were bosch words (sure he gave a higer upper limit, but also mentioned the thing in a what if it was witnessed by the Pharaos...
(course, if that's the case, those knossos portals are tough as nails)
As a counterpoint, yeah, the mission beyond the nebula was beyond the nebula. so maybe not, or only certain stars could go though the process... who knows. maybe they are making galactic art and are very sensitive to critics...
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So that's the bigger picture! The galaxy is the Shivans universal Etch-a-Sketch. Making a star (Capella) go nova is how they shake the thing to wipe the picture. Then the can continue to draw pretty constellation pictures, oooh look, that ones a dragon, and that one's a bear. They're making a giant dot to dot just for us on Earth/Terra. :drevil: :lol:
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HP's are a general abstaraction of toughness....but they are still valid as tehy give you an approximate feel for just how string a ship is.
That said, this is a game, and some things can't be displayed perfectly (alltouhg I belive we now can make ships with big chunks blown off them), but basic ship data isn't one of them. (aside from the armor...untill the armor.tbls are fully done)
What are you gonna argue next? Lack of newtonian physics in-game?
I will be a good user and I will listen to text below your nick :p so just a few words...
Geeez, Trashman, don't be touchy... I just wanted to point out that the game mechanics aren't 100% accurate. It's just like Delta Force 1 (the game) - you hit the guy in the leg, and he immidiately died :P Not very convincing... And unlike the lack of Newtonian flight model, this wasn't discussed several hundred times already :P I've been checking the HLP for a few years now, plus other message boards too.
So that's the bigger picture! The galaxy is the Shivans universal Etch-a-Sketch. Making a star (Capella) go nova is how they shake the thing to wipe the picture. Then the can continue to draw pretty constellation pictures, oooh look, that ones a dragon, and that one's a bear. They're making a giant dot to dot just for us on Earth/Terra.
So, the exploding destroyers in T/V war or NTF Rebellion ruined the picture and pissed off Shivans ? ;)
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Side-topic :
1. GTVA ships don't have a very strong hull . And upon some part of their ship's hull getting destroyed , the ship becomes unstable ( air being sucked out by vacuum into space , and it takes time for the airlocks to lock the damaged place IF their ships have airlocks there ) . Second , when the beams attack , not only do they breach the hull , but also heat up the air inside the ships to very high levels , rendering most subsystems unstable ( that explains why ships sometimes still fire when the break ) . And since the ships is shaken by the beam power , the air is extremely hot and the air leaving issue , the warheads explode also . Reactors eventually explode too .
2. Meson bombs are based on sub-atomic particles called Mesons . They are composed of a quark and an antiquark, and have masses generally intermediate between leptons and baryons.
On-topic :
I believe that the Shivans aren't toying with the GTVA , but rather preparing them from the "bigger problem" . They are fighting them to make them improve faster . When the GTA and PVN were at war , they hardly advanced . From what I heard , Orions and Typhoons were their only destroyers during the whole war . Only when the Shivans came they started advancing . And in FS2 era , the shivans returned to get them to improve even faster . Because GTVA's advancing slowed down during the NTF rebelion . Making the Capella star go supernova was also another thing that the Shivans wanted the Terrans and Vasudans learn to stop ( stop stars go supernova BEFORE their time I mean ) .
Anyways , those are just ideas .
By the way , sorry if this was already mentioned , I read only a few parts of the topic ;)
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So that's the bigger picture! The galaxy is the Shivans universal Etch-a-Sketch. Making a star (Capella) go nova is how they shake the thing to wipe the picture. Then the can continue to draw pretty constellation pictures, oooh look, that ones a dragon, and that one's a bear. They're making a giant dot to dot just for us on Earth/Terra. :drevil: :lol:
I was thinking more in the lines of wacky nebula art, maybe they are big abstract fans or something...
Of course, maybe it was comission work, somebody decided this galaxy needed some bright spots,
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FRED default hitpoints for the Knossos is 1 million, but the default explosion of a Meson bomb is only 50,000 dmg (though this damage applies to everything within 3 km of the blast). When you blew up the Knossos in the FS2 campaign, the Meson bombs either had explosive force upgraded, took out a Knossos with 150,000 hp, or the Knossos was taken out by a SEXP :rolleyes:
I don't think Shivans are purposely trying to 'toughen up' the GTVA. If they did, they'd giftwrap a couple of their warships/Sathanas juggernauts loaded with their technology and send it to the Terrans and Vasudans, rather than decimate their fleets and blow up a star to kill themselves and the GTVA :lol:
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I bet it was a SEXP. Just look at the explosion, I can't believe that it was caused by the shockwave...
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It was definitely a SEXP, if you look at the mission events it said the Portal self destruced.
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This leads me to think that the Knossos' HP are a bit random. That thing can't be as much as resistant as a Juggernaut!
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Side-topic :
1. GTVA ships don't have a very strong hull . And upon some part of their ship's hull getting destroyed , the ship becomes unstable ( air being sucked out by vacuum into space , and it takes time for the airlocks to lock the damaged place IF their ships have airlocks there ) . Second , when the beams attack , not only do they breach the hull , but also heat up the air inside the ships to very high levels , rendering most subsystems unstable ( that explains why ships sometimes still fire when the break ) . And since the ships is shaken by the beam power , the air is extremely hot and the air leaving issue , the warheads explode also . Reactors eventually explode too .
2. Meson bombs are based on sub-atomic particles called Mesons . They are composed of a quark and an antiquark, and have masses generally intermediate between leptons and baryons.
On-topic :
I believe that the Shivans aren't toying with the GTVA , but rather preparing them from the "bigger problem" . They are fighting them to make them improve faster . When the GTA and PVN were at war , they hardly advanced . From what I heard , Orions and Typhoons were their only destroyers during the whole war . Only when the Shivans came they started advancing . And in FS2 era , the shivans returned to get them to improve even faster . Because GTVA's advancing slowed down during the NTF rebelion . Making the Capella star go supernova was also another thing that the Shivans wanted the Terrans and Vasudans learn to stop ( stop stars go supernova BEFORE their time I mean ) .
Anyways , those are just ideas .
By the way , sorry if this was already mentioned , I read only a few parts of the topic ;)
Side-topic rebuttal:
I believe you underestimate the GTVA's engineering and overestimate the superheating ability of a photon beam cannon. GTVA ships undoubtedly have airlocks standard on most all of their large ships. This Hippocrates is an obvious showcase of this. It says in the tech room description: "The unusual design of the Hippocrates enables its crew to isolate sections of the ship quickly in the event of quarantine or hull breach." Also, when the Colossus fought Koth and his destroyer, the on-duty commander of the Colossus mentioned that they had evacuated forward decks and were preparing for the impact of the Repulse's suicidal attempt. Also, it's intellectually dishonest to say that a space-faring race that has mastered subspace, nebular mining, built a Juggernaut, and has developed a unique method of communicating with the Shivans simply doesn't think to put in airlocks for critical decks, that is, if they don't already exist in every corridor of the ship.
About the beam cannons:
Go back and look at the FS2 intro. Tell me how long it took for that first-generation Lucifer beam weapon to go through that Orion destroyer...less than a few seconds? Also, if the beam cannon is really heating up the air inside of the ship, how hot do you think that air is once the beam breaks through the hull (in a matter of milliseconds, I might add) and is released into the "Absolute-zero-cold" vacuum of space? If I was a ship designer, I would be a bit LESS worried about the residual heat of a beam cannon's impact and MORE worried about the gaping hole that now exists in my weapons subsystem. It's not like the engineers know how to deal with heat, anyways: fusion reactors, overcharging first generation high-yield juggernaut-class beam cannons? Excuse me, but, holy ****; that's a heck of a resume.
About the Shivans:
It's all about subspace. The Shivans were only aroused when the humans and Vasudans entered subspace. It's weird to see it this way, but the Shivan's probably aren't toying with anyone. Ask the Ancients if the Shivans toyed around with them. I'm really sticking by what Alpha 1 said at the end of FS1: "The Great Preservers". Nobody knows just what kind of effects the use of subspace will cause in the long run; what if the constant use has negative side effects, like the galactic weakening of jump nodes, not just active nodes, but a system-wide shutdown of all subspace travel!? I also believe that's why the Shivans left the Knossos portals intact. The Ancients may have been arrogant, but they weren't stupid, or they just didn't know what they had. By keeping the Knossos portals alive, subspace travel between systems was preserved.
Here's a thought. What if the detonation of Capella not only created a new portal, but has a universal effect on subspace itself? The rippling energy emanated from Capella before it's destruction could only be a precursor to some fantastic going-ons after the supernova of the star itself. We won't know because everything in that system just got annihilated; but I'm sure the Shivans are more interested in keeping the fabric of space intact than military conquest. It's been noted many places that if the Shivans really were planning the systematic destruction of the GTVA, it would have been much easier to send one or two Sathanas juggernauts to each system, instead of consolidating them all around each individual star and causing a cataclysmic explosion. Well, if it's not destruction, the only other motive the Shivans had for doing anything was...preservation...