Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: General Battuta on January 03, 2008, 10:54:39 am
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I hope this isn't one of the topics that comes up so often it makes veterans groan.
I think we're all aware the mission is full of flaws and last-minute hacks. Has there ever been consideration of repairing it, and giving the Colossus a worthy finale? Perhaps beam-freeing the allied capital ships?
The changes need not be absolute heresy. The replacement mission could be optional.
This is probably an awful/impractical idea -- please, inform me!
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The mission was beyond perfect.
A fitting end to the arrogant bat**** linear thought process of the two races. A twenty year long project getting its **** ruined in twenty seconds, because they thought dick waving was the competition.
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The mission was beyond perfect.
A fitting end to the arrogant bat**** linear thought process of the two races. A twenty year long project getting its **** ruined in twenty seconds, because they thought dick waving was the competition.
No wonder you have the monkey avatar. :rolleyes:
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There were a few edited mission is circulation.. all you need to do t ogive the Collie a more glorious death is move tha sath a bit closer to it, so it is in range of most of it's cannons :beamz:
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The mission was beyond perfect.
A fitting end to the arrogant bat**** linear thought process of the two races. A twenty year long project getting its **** ruined in twenty seconds, because they thought dick waving was the competition.
No wonder you have the monkey avatar. :rolleyes:
No wonder you registered in 2007.
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I don't dispute the manner of the Colossus' death.
What's clearly broken about the mission is the fact that it's unfinished -- the Colossus has a complex waypoint system it never executes and the beam-free-all for the Allied capital ships occurs before they warp in.
From what Trashman says, it sounds as if some people have made an attempt to make the mission into something more like what Volition was envisioning.
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Don't really care if you make adjustments to it one way or the other, I'm just saying that as is, it works great all on its own.
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The Admiral should have obeyed orders and jumped, he had no juristiction to take the lives of 30,000 on board the craft and the potential of millions on Capella and other systems.
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Maybe, but it's been speculated that, in the scenario where the Colossus is disabled, the CO of the Collie knew they couldn't jump, but decided to make themselves seem like martyrs by saying 'That's a negatory, Command! We'll hold'em off as long as we can! Get ze Bastion through!', instead of saying 'Um... we can't. No engines.'.
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Or the Colossus wasn't intended to be disabled at that point.
Of course, the sacrifice is still pretty meaningless, as there's nothing to indicate that Sathanas would go after the Bastion if left undistracted by its Colossus snack.
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Their goal wasn't to distract the Sath in particular, but rather the Shivans in general.
Shivans are fighting a titanic battle all over the system, and even the Shivans have limits on numbers available. The Collie's mere presence was distraction enough. Which one are you gonna notice? The big ship that killed a Sath picking off more craft coming in through the node, or just one more destroyer making a run for it on the opposite end of the system? Which one are you gonna devote some resources to?
On the other hand, with the Collie gone, the Shivans are then going to deploy those resources fighting it to other things... including the Bastion.
So actually the Collie was doing some good... although I agree that once a Sath got on their case they should have run for it... they weren't a match in their weakened state.
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The Collie is actually able to give the Sath a nice battle, even damaged (once Sath is moved a bit closer)
once, by sheer luck, it managed to de-claw the Sath and kill it :P But usually, it dies while damaging it significantly
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What's clearly broken about the mission is the fact that it's unfinished
I don't think it's unfinished at all. I think what happened is an 11th hour fix to the mission when a bug was noticed very late in development. The mission was finished but the Colossus was disabled at the last minute to deal with the Sathanas.
I'd bet in the original version the Sathanas jumped in from a different direction and the player jumps out before the two actually engage. Remember that by overdriving it's beams they become LRBGreen's and thus have a longer range than the BFRed so if the distance was long enough it wouldn't have been half as stupid to remain behind as it appeared in the version we saw.
Of course, the sacrifice is still pretty meaningless, as there's nothing to indicate that Sathanas would go after the Bastion if left undistracted by its Colossus snack.
Similarly though there is nothing to indicate it wouldn't follow the Colossus if it did jump out.
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Similarly though there is nothing to indicate it wouldn't follow the Colossus if it did jump out.
But wouldn't that waste even more of the shivans time? And consequently buy the Bastion more of it?
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Well , someone who isn't lazy , please beam-free all all of the ships in the mission , un-disable the Colossus and add more enemy fighters .
Besides , why else would the Colossus send in the heavy bombers than to deal with the Sathanas ? It was supposed to be a glorious battle , in which the Colossus was overpowered and destroyed .
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whats wrong with it its the fact that there is but one collie in game. I mean considering all of the GTVA's tech its hard to believe they got around to finishing just one of them. Sure the GTVA does not posses the manufacturing abilaties of the shivans or the resources. Then again it was peacetime project with the GTVA also focusing on developing new weapons new fighters new destroyers new corvettes new cruisers etc rebuilding its economy developing the colonies etc. .
Actualy now that i think about it its a bit of a wonder they got around to finishing even one. I believe that if the GTVA economy would of been a bit better hell if they had Sol for that matter then they might of been able to complete a better Collie and perhaps more then one.
Oh well the Collie had a good death i think.
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There's something you're not taking in consideration. We=Terrans and possibly the Vasudans will hardly start something that will be completed in 20+ years.
I mean, we have the technology to work on spaceships able to reach remote systems, but they'll need MANY years to get there and return. There will be no advantages(unless we are in an extreme situation).
The Shivans don't have this problem, they seem reletively Eternal to other species. They can work to build up a ship for centuries...
The GTVA is more than capable of building, let's say, 3 Colossi, but it will never do it for the reasons I stated above.
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(http://fc05.deviantart.com/fs7/i/2005/191/7/8/Bat_of_Capella_by_WMCoolmon.png)
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:lol: Brilliant.
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It's not so funny when you are on the receiving end. :p :sigh:
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I actually thought it was quite brilliant how Volition made its (the Collie's) destruction seem very sudden, and un-epic.
The mission, on the whole, probably would have been cooler with more guns blazing, but I thought the mood created by the opposite was more than effective.
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Check WMCoolmon's DeviantArt gallery... More funny FreeSpace related MSPaint rubbish. :)
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Similarly though there is nothing to indicate it wouldn't follow the Colossus if it did jump out.
But wouldn't that waste even more of the shivans time? And consequently buy the Bastion more of it?
Wouldn't really help though if the Colossus jumped out to the Vega node and the Sathanas followed though would it?
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Similarly though there is nothing to indicate it wouldn't follow the Colossus if it did jump out.
But wouldn't that waste even more of the shivans time? And consequently buy the Bastion more of it?
Wouldn't really help though if the Colossus jumped out to the Vega node and the Sathanas followed though would it?
Who said anything about jumping out of the system?
The collie can't do that in 1 jump anyway. first it needs to jump close to the node, wait for re-charge , get in position and jump again.
I was thinking more like leading the Sath on a merry chase trough the system.
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:rolleyes: Credit me with some sense. I know damn well that the Colossus can't jump out of the system to Vega in one jump from near the Gamma Draconis jump node. :rolleyes:
I said that it would do no good if the Colossus jumped TO the Vega node not THROUGH it.
Jumping to the Vega node would be a disaster because that's where the remaining GTVA fleet are trying to evacuate from. Having a Sathanas jump in wouldn't make that any easier.
As for leading them a merry chase around the system. While that might have worked it could also have gone disastrously wrong if the Shivans decided to take advantage of knowing that the Colossus couldn't help if they attacked the Bastion.
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It couldn't help the Bastion either way - staying in one place to draw shivans or moving around to draw shivans...moving is better. you live longer and waste their time a bit longer.
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As for leading them a merry chase around the system. While that might have worked it could also have gone disastrously wrong if the Shivans decided to take advantage of knowing that the Colossus couldn't help if they attacked the Bastion.
The Colossus couldn't help if they attacked the Bastion either way. It'd either be annihilated or playing chase with a Sathanas.
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When someone with 24 thousand posts tells you something, you should learn to LISTEN.
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Check WMCoolmon's DeviantArt gallery... More funny FreeSpace related MSPaint rubbish. :)
Link?
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When someone with 24 thousand posts tells you something, you should learn to LISTEN.
To whom is that comment adressed? :wtf:
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When someone with 24 thousand posts tells you something, you should learn to LISTEN.
Unless said person is wrong. Post count does not directly translate to the ability to form a coherent or correct argument.
Not to say that I necessarily disagree with Karajorma or have a problem with his logic.... Seems like whether the Colossus jumped or not would be pretty irrelevant. Though I've no evidence to support the claim, I'd be willing to bet that the Sathanas can recharge its jump drives faster than the Colossus, so it really just comes down to whether the Colossus wants to die where it stands or whether it wants to die somewhere else in Capella. It's also not like they've tied up some huge amount of the shivans' resources, if the Colossus does go running. There's at least seventy-nine more juggernauts waiting in the wings, supposing the first one doesn't do the trick.
Alamo-style martyrs are better for morale than any other variety of corpse, though. That said, it would be nice to see the Colossus put up more of a fight in its final hour. Standing and taking a beating, without firing so much as a shot was a bit weak.
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When someone with 24 thousand posts tells you something, you should learn to LISTEN.
:yes:
When someone with 24 thousand posts tells you something, you should learn to LISTEN.
Unless said person is wrong. Post count does not directly translate to the ability to form a coherent or correct argument.
:lol:
Not to say that I necessarily disagree with Karajorma or have a problem with his logic.... Seems like whether the Colossus jumped or not would be pretty irrelevant. Though I've no evidence to support the claim, I'd be willing to bet that the Sathanas can recharge its jump drives faster than the Colossus, so it really just comes down to whether the Colossus wants to die where it stands or whether it wants to die somewhere else in Capella. It's also not like they've tied up some huge amount of the shivans' resources, if the Colossus does go running. There's at least seventy-nine more juggernauts waiting in the wings, supposing the first one doesn't do the trick.
How you can claim that the Sathanas can recharge its jump drives faster than the Colossus? Right now I see no evidence.
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Check WMCoolmon's DeviantArt gallery... More funny FreeSpace related MSPaint rubbish. :)
Link?
You should really try using google one of these days. I mean, if you Google "WMCoolmon's DeviantArt Gallery" it's the only result.
Not to say that I necessarily disagree with Karajorma or have a problem with his logic.... Seems like whether the Colossus jumped or not would be pretty irrelevant. Though I've no evidence to support the claim, I'd be willing to bet that the Sathanas can recharge its jump drives faster than the Colossus, so it really just comes down to whether the Colossus wants to die where it stands or whether it wants to die somewhere else in Capella. It's also not like they've tied up some huge amount of the shivans' resources, if the Colossus does go running. There's at least seventy-nine more juggernauts waiting in the wings, supposing the first one doesn't do the trick.
How you can claim that the Sathanas can recharge its jump drives faster than the Colossus? Right now I see no evidence.
There is no plainly stated evidence in FS, but you could conjecture that they recharge faster than the Collie's because of the link between the Shivans and subspace that is expressed in FS at various points. Plus the rate is pretty arbitrary.
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Seems like whether the Colossus jumped or not would be pretty irrelevant.
Pretty much, yes. Altough by running it would buy the bastion at least a minute more..that's still better than nothing.
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I don't think the diversion argument really holds up, or at the very least, it falls completely flat the minute the Sath appears. The cruisers, corvette, and the Ravanna definately do ease the pressure on both the node defenses and the Bastion but, although never explicitly stated, I think it's safe to say that the Sath that attacks the Collie is the only one of the 80 plus fleet that takes a direct part in the Cappella engagement. All indications are that once the Sath fleet made it to Cappella they just went straight for the star; the fighting was left to the more conventional warships.
I mean even one Sath diverted to each node would end the battle in minutes. Revenge for the Collie's earlier Sath kill might really be acceptable as a reason for them bothering so much about it.
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You should really try using google one of these days. I mean, if you Google "WMCoolmon's DeviantArt Gallery" it's the only result.
Actually this thread shows up too.
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I mean even one Sath diverted to each node would end the battle in minutes. Revenge for the Collie's earlier Sath kill might really be acceptable as a reason for them bothering so much about it.
Or...
(1) The Shivans were concerned about the Colossus and diverted a Sathanas to deal with it. Though that Sathanas could barely be spared to deal with the Colossus, the Shivans considered it more of a risk that the Colossus would go on the offensive and disrupt the fleet at the sun.
(2) The Shivans wanted to even the odds, but didn't want to cause Command to order a complete withdrawal of forces in the Capella system. By only diverting the Sathanas to destroy the Colossus, the GTVA left its forces in-system, which let the Shivans destroy more of them and caused them to get wiped out by the Supernova at the bitter end.
(3) The Shivans were concerned about the Colossus jumping into the nebula and beyond, but had sufficient forces to deal with the rest of the warships at the GD node if they went guerilla.
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the only problem I have with (2) is that shivans nuked their own cruisers, corvettes and destroyers...
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But there may not have been a lot there. If they did, we would have seen 30+ Demons at the Vega node. :P
Perhaps the Shivans only sent in what was needed, and they're not stupid so they didn't send in their entire fleet all at once.
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It's quite clearly stated that shivan forces are everywhere in the system. The Saths are holding position around the sun, so it's not them attakcing (altough their fighters are surely involved).
The shivies had a lot of other warship in-system. Warships they could have evacuated 5 minutes before the bang and leave us scratching our heads, wondering why they did that, only for the blast to give us the answer.
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Well the Nebiros appears twice (in Into the Lion's Den as well as Dunkerque) so I think that basically means the Shivans don't have THAT many destroyers in-system.
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When someone with 24 thousand posts tells you something, you should learn to LISTEN.
Actually I don't mind being challenged on my ideas as long as the person doing it plays by the same rules I use (State your assumptions and don't act like they're any more valid than similar ones I can make in the opposite direction). :)
The Colossus couldn't help if they attacked the Bastion either way. It'd either be annihilated or playing chase with a Sathanas.
I'm sure it couldn't but the Shivans are taking a direct interest in the Colossus and we know that the Shivans are actually quite smart when it comes to tactics when they want to be. If they tried leading the Sathanas on a merry chase then the Shivans might simply decide to attack something that will bring the Colossus to it's defence. Something the GTVA seems to be regarding as extra important. Oh look, they're taking great pains to protect that destroyer!
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No exactly a valid point. The GTVA are taking great pains to protect every single transport in the system too.
Besides, would the shivans be afraid of chasing a damaged Collie? They sent a Ravana after it - not a very smart move mind you. :lol:
Altough it wouldn't be a merry chase - the Collie really can't run far (this hold even more true is shivan jump drives charge faster)
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Well the Nebiros appears twice (in Into the Lion's Den as well as Dunkerque) so I think that basically means the Shivans don't have THAT many destroyers in-system.
dude..in Into the Lions Den the Nebiros was just arriving.. later it's in Capella. What does that have to do with number of shivan destroyers?
Just how do you make conclusions like that is beyond me....
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Just how do you make conclusions like that is beyond me....
That was a weak, very weak argument on my part. :blah:
No exactly a valid point. The GTVA are taking great pains to protect every single transport in the system too.
So every transport has several fighter wings and three cruisers protecting it? :wtf:
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So every transport has several fighter wings and three cruisers protecting it? :wtf:
Transports go in groups given they are small ships with not much defenses... and all convoys in-game had escorts - fighters, cruisers, even vettes.
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The Bastion and its escort were the only ships going to the Epsilon Pegasi node, may I add.
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Where do you get that from? They are surely the LAST ships to go there, but the only ones? :lol:
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Quoting canon material is fun.
As we speak, convoys of transports, freighters, and medical ships are heading for the jump nodes to Vega and Epsilon Pegasi.
So technically, Trash has a point. This piece suggests that evacuation ships were heading for the Epsilon Pegasi node, as well. But before the Bastion, for obvious reasons.
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The task force defending the Bastion has been decimated. Only three ships remain:...
The Bastion was protected by more than three cruisers. The three cruisers were just the only ships left by the time Alpha 1 arrives.
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It'd be a fun mini-campaign to watch the effects on that escort as it starts out as a heroic force with a destroyer, corvettes, cruisers, etc and slowly gets knocked down to shambles 'til the point where Alpha 1 arrives.
It's quite clearly stated that shivan forces are everywhere in the system. The Saths are holding position around the sun, so it's not them attakcing (altough their fighters are surely involved).
The shivies had a lot of other warship in-system. Warships they could have evacuated 5 minutes before the bang and leave us scratching our heads, wondering why they did that, only for the blast to give us the answer.
Assume for the moment that the Sathanas fleet's purpose is top priority, and that the Sathanas fleet is in a weakened or more vulnerable state than it would be otherwise. I feel both of these assumptions are supported by canon since if neither were true, there would be no point to sacrificing all the ships in the system (unless what we saw was the Great Shivan Suicide, their equivalent to the poisoned punch bowl)
So the other ships were there as an 'acceptable loss' to keep the GTVA from doing anything untoward, or snooping around too much. Pulling out 5 minutes early would leave the GTVA scratching their heads, but the GTVA would also have time to realize what was happening and either stage its own withdrawal, or start desperately attacking the Sathanas fleet.
No exactly a valid point. The GTVA are taking great pains to protect every single transport in the system too.
Besides, would the shivans be afraid of chasing a damaged Collie? They sent a Ravana after it - not a very smart move mind you. :lol:
Altough it wouldn't be a merry chase - the Collie really can't run far (this hold even more true is shivan jump drives charge faster)
Given the fact that the GTVA is defending every single transport in the system, the fact that they would allocate so many resources to an outdated destroyer not participating in any combat would be very telling. To be consistent with everything else they were doing, the Bastion would be out there defending the transports. As it was the Shivans might not know it was packed with Meson warheads, but they could certainly deduce that it was of greater importance to the GTVA than any of the refugee transports.
The Bastion would also be in a position where the Sathanas could sit there in its flight path without even firing any weapons and the Colossus would be forced to attack the Sathanas anyway.
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I hate it when people think the Shivans are idiots. That's why I'm trying to defend the Shivan's motives on sending in their ships when Capella blows up, but it looks like this is a completely futile argument. :(
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I don't think the Shivans are idiots. Any inexplicable behavior on their part can be attributed to their alien psychology and their totally unknown motives.
We keep saying things like 'even the Shivans wouldn't want to throw ships away', but we really have no basis for that assumption at all. We're just applying human priorities to them. Every time we try to understand them, we anthropomorphize them on some level.
I think it's that completely alien aspect to the Shivans that makes them such excellent characters.
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Assume for the moment that the Sathanas fleet's purpose is top priority, and that the Sathanas fleet is in a weakened or more vulnerable state than it would be otherwise. I feel both of these assumptions are supported by canon since if neither were true, there would be no point to sacrificing all the ships in the system (unless what we saw was the Great Shivan Suicide, their equivalent to the poisoned punch bowl)
So the other ships were there as an 'acceptable loss' to keep the GTVA from doing anything untoward, or snooping around too much. Pulling out 5 minutes early would leave the GTVA scratching their heads, but the GTVA would also have time to realize what was happening and either stage its own withdrawal, or start desperately attacking the Sathanas fleet.
I considered that.
What could the GTVA do in 5 minutes to 80 saths + fighter complement? It was still busy defending the civies...just the saths fighters would be enough to keep the GTVA busy.
And the GTVA can't really pull out in 5 minutes even if it wanted to. By the time the observation that many shivan ships are leaving he system get's processed, the 2 2 are put together and the order for evacuation given, it will already be too late.
Given the fact that the GTVA is defending every single transport in the system, the fact that they would allocate so many resources to an outdated destroyer not participating in any combat would be very telling. To be consistent with everything else they were doing, the Bastion would be out there defending the transports. As it was the Shivans might not know it was packed with Meson warheads, but they could certainly deduce that it was of greater importance to the GTVA than any of the refugee transports.
Not neccesarily. For all they know that destroyer might be pulling out, and destroyer come in fleets..with escorts.
Secondly, if it's a old destroyer, as the Bastion was, as far as the shivans know it might be used as a very big transports...and thus needs a big escort.
It's a big system..a lot of fleet movements..ships going in an out.
And shivans didn't appear to make any target selection at all. They were lashing out at anything that moves.
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No exactly a valid point. The GTVA are taking great pains to protect every single transport in the system too.
Besides, would the shivans be afraid of chasing a damaged Collie? They sent a Ravana after it - not a very smart move mind you. :lol:
Altough it wouldn't be a merry chase - the Collie really can't run far (this hold even more true is shivan jump drives charge faster)
Proof?
Before you tell people to not jump to conclusions you need to do it as well. :rolleyes:
No were in the game does it say that Shivan jump drives charge faster.
It does say that they might be able to jump through unstable nodes, that is it IIRC.
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Assume for the moment that the Sathanas fleet's purpose is top priority, and that the Sathanas fleet is in a weakened or more vulnerable state than it would be otherwise. I feel both of these assumptions are supported by canon since if neither were true, there would be no point to sacrificing all the ships in the system (unless what we saw was the Great Shivan Suicide, their equivalent to the poisoned punch bowl)
So the other ships were there as an 'acceptable loss' to keep the GTVA from doing anything untoward, or snooping around too much. Pulling out 5 minutes early would leave the GTVA scratching their heads, but the GTVA would also have time to realize what was happening and either stage its own withdrawal, or start desperately attacking the Sathanas fleet.
In addition what if blowing up Capella actually requires 80 Sathanas Juggernauts in order to work? What if blowing one up at the wrong time can cause the whole thing to fizzle? Hell they might not even need to kill the entire ship either. Blowing a beam cannon or two might do it. And the Shivans know damn well that a bomber wing can do that very quickly.
I find it interesting that the throw the Beast at the Colossus even though it should be pretty obvious it can't possibly win and only send in the Sathanas once victory is much more likely.
And for that matter it could be that evacuation always was the plan but things were scuppered by the Colossus turning up and blocking the escape route. The ships we see in the last mission are mainly smaller capships. We don't know what happened to the Nebiros. Maybe it did evacuate.
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No exactly a valid point. The GTVA are taking great pains to protect every single transport in the system too.
Besides, would the shivans be afraid of chasing a damaged Collie? They sent a Ravana after it - not a very smart move mind you. :lol:
Altough it wouldn't be a merry chase - the Collie really can't run far (this hold even more true is shivan jump drives charge faster)
Proof?
Before you tell people to not jump to conclusions you need to do it as well. :rolleyes:
No were in the game does it say that Shivan jump drives charge faster.
It does say that they might be able to jump through unstable nodes, that is it IIRC.
That statement is true assuming the dries charge the same. I said it holds EVEN MORE true if shivans charge faster. Where the hell do you see me claiming something wrong here?
As for great pains to protecting transports, Petrarchs command briefing is more than evidence enough, as are the escort ships for the convoy - cruisers and corvettes.
@Kajorama
It's evident that shivans needed a lot of power and time for whatever they were doing. Loosing 1 Sath could very well be a big blow.
However, given their proximity and the number of fighters they wield, as well as GTVA having to commit huge resources for convoy escorts, any attack on the saths is very unlikely to even be initiated, let alone work.
I could be wrong on this but shivans were fighting up to the supernova, any major movement of shivans ships towards the node would be detected.
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There were no ships at the Gamma Draconis node after the Colossus was destroyed. So we have no idea if ships were leaving the system.
Besides you're assuming again that the GTVA would give every scrap of information they had to a squadron leader. Which isn't how they work at all.
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I thought the end of the Colossus was highly anticlimatic. One of the strengths of Freespace 2 is that the capship battles redefine epic, and yet the kind of threw away a chance to have a righteous showdown. Thematically, it would have been nice for the Colossus, which is a symbol of the GTVA, to go down with all guns blazing, instead of "oh lawl a juggernaut we're boned."
On the other hand, that might have been intentional, to impress upon the player how how utterly hopeless things were. The GTVA Collossus was a six-kilometer long battleship, wielding the most amazing and powerful weaponry ever developed. Most astoundingly, it took twenty entire years to build the ship, as well as an insane amount of resources.
The Shivans have about eighty or so.
:eek2:
Eighty of their own equivalent ships. It took the GTVA 20 YEARS and an insane amount of resources, manpower and money to put together one. If that isn't bad enough, the Shivan ships are more powerful, one for one. The Sathanis class is just about a match for the Colossus with only half of its primary armament. With all four main cannons operational, it'll really kick it's tail. And they have eighty of them, just that we've seen.
Contrast this with the arrogance of the GTVA forces earlier in the game. As you're flying through the nebula: "... then we'll show them what firepower is really about!" Then a pilot says "It's a miracle we won the Great War- no beam weapons, no flack cannons..." The GTVA's arrogance and confidence in their new technology is quite obvious, and the game designers go through a lot of effort to impress that on you. Then, BOOM, no more Collossus and a metric ton of Shivan Juggernauts.
The ability of the Shivans to build eighty Juggernaught class vessels while the GTVA can barely muster one raises a lot of questions for me. For starters, why did the Shivans abandon the Lucifer class so easily? Thought beam cannons are awesome, the old Shivan Super Laser is still much more impressive. Even with Beam cannons, the shield system on the Lucifer still makes it pretty much impervious to anything. Given this fact, the arrogance of the GTVA is rather astounding, along with their assumption that the Shivans wouldn't develop comparable technologies.
The fact that the Ancients encountered the same defense technologies thousands of years ago, and Shivan design philosophy (heavy shields, no amour, the very existence of the SD Lucifer in the first place,) shows that they not only gained shield tech ages ago, but have since come to rely on it. And yet, despite having a civilization many thousands of years in age older then the Terrans and Vasudans, we were still able to catch up to their level of tech very fast. The GTVA probably assumed that the Shivans developed tech very slowly, (and Terrans/Vasudens advance very, very fast,) or follow a "legacy" format in their technology- without anybody demonstrating an ability to penetrate their shields, or offer a defense similar in it's quality, they had no need to advance their tech. Necessity is the mother of invention. So I would wager that the GTVA reasonably assumed that an enemy who'd relied on roughly the same level of tech for thousands of years wouldn't pull any big advances out of the hat in only 32, but hey, look what the GTVA has cooked up! They were expecting to fight the same old jukes.
Boy, were they surprised.
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:welcome:
Great first post. In theory, the reason there weren't more Lucifers is that
a)GTVA weaponry was powerful enough to get through the shield
b)It can be crushed by a wing of bombers in a subspace node due to its reactors Other ships in the Shivan Armada don't have this weakness.
And while a lot of people think the SSL is more powerful than a BFRed, that's just perception. 4 BRed salvos (One blast from a Sathanas) can take out an Orion, it took 5 or 6 for the Galatea. I can see why you'd think it, the SSL was so much more powerful than anything else in Freespace, I thought the same myself for a while.
The GTVA weren't just arrogant re: the Shivans, they were ignorant as well. We knew from the Ancient Monologues that they were a civilisation spanning galaxies, and we knew that there were enough impervious vessels to destroy a civilisation spanning galaxies. That should have told the GTVA all they needed to know about their chances against the Shivans. Although if the GTVA had been realistic and sealed off the Shivans immediately, it would have made for a piss-poor game.
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kietotheworld beat me to it - the Lucifer class was abandoned because FreeSpace-universe shields cannot withstand a single beam shot - the beam rips a gap in energy field that constitutes the shield.
furthermore the ancients figured out the tactical weakness of the lucifer, some other species must have as well.
and... how do we know that it was the same faction of shivans behind both incursions.
on that note.. it would be nice to have someone make a spiffied up version of that mission - where it really is an epic battle (especially if the Big C gets in a good shot at one of the Sath's main turrents in the first exchange taking her down to three - thereby evening the match a bit and lengthening it).
That mission is supposed to be epic - it's not.
every time i play it I forget that the beam-free bugs run all the way back to retail and report it as an SCP bug!
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:welcome:
Great first post.
Oooh, even a shiny banner for greets! Thanks.
In theory, the reason there weren't more Lucifers is that
a)GTVA weaponry was powerful enough to get through the shield
b)It can be crushed by a wing of bombers.
Mmm, I was wondering about that. In FRED, at least, the Lucifer murders the Collossus handily, but only because the Lucifer is near impregnable, not through stronger guns...
kietotheworld beat me to it - the Lucifer class was abandoned because FreeSpace-universe shields cannot withstand a single beam shot - the beam rips a gap in energy field that constitutes the shield.
... though it occurred to me that this was a mere oversight on the part of the game designers, since the Lucifer never made a showing in FS2. They just grabbed the ship models from FRED1 and slapped them into FRED2 for posterity's sake, just like the GTI Hades. Because of this, I wasn't sure if beam cannons were effective against massive scale shields or not, in canon. Now I know. :)
The bomber theory is the one that I was considering as most likely. The Lucifer seems to be a ship specifically designed for mopping up lesser races, as opposed to the Sanathas, of which I believe it's primary mission role is to nuke stars to make nebula's. Shivans don't terraform planets, they terraform star systems. But I digress. Once the lesser races learned how to track and follow the Shivans into subspace, the invincibility of the Lucifer class became much less assured- probably not enough to justify building such a hideously expensive ship (if the shielding of the Lucifer is indeed that hard to manage.) And since they have all these insanely powerful Juggernauts laying about...
And while a lot of people think the SSL is more powerful than a BFRed, that's just perception. 4 BRed salvos (One blast from a Sathanas) can take out an Orion, it took 5 or 6 for the Galatea. I can see why you'd think it, the SSL was so much more powerful than anything else in Freespace, I thought the same myself for a while.
FRED testing says you're right. The Super Laser has an insane range, which could be a great advantage of it's own, but if the Shivans have the insanely powerful BFRed laying around, they'd most certainly use that. The SSL leaves you vulnerable to clever manuvering (jumping in close,) whereas the BFRed just rips apart anything in it's way.
The GTVA weren't just arrogant re: the Shivans, they were ignorant as well. We knew from the Ancient Monologues that they were a civilisation spanning galaxies, and we knew that there were enough impervious vessels to destroy a civilisation spanning galaxies. That should have told the GTVA all they needed to know about their chances against the Shivans. Although if the GTVA had been realistic and sealed off the Shivans immediately, it would have made for a piss-poor game.
Indeed. I've been going back and forth on how the Shivans managed to aqquire eighty Juggernauts when we could make but one- is it that they've built them up over many long centuries? But if that is true, how is it true that Terran and Vasudan tech is at least within shouting distance of theirs in terms of weaponry and ships? (As evidenced by the fact that their development of beam and flack cannons is somewhat parallel to ours, and when they first attacked during the Great War, their Capships were roughly equivalent in technology, if a bit stronger.) Either they've stayed at the same tech level for many millenia and only began upgrading when we surprised them with their first ever defeat, or (the explenation I prefer) their civilization is simply much, much more massive, and with it the production and manufacturing capacity. Which is, as you say, supported by the Ancient Monologues.
That also makes it more likely that the Sanathas ships were indeed warships first and star killers second, because they could have been cranked out as a new generation of warship in 30 years, rather then having to be a centuries old star nuking fleet, by dint of it taking centuries just to assemble that number.
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In addition what if blowing up Capella actually requires 80 Sathanas Juggernauts in order to work? What if blowing one up at the wrong time can cause the whole thing to fizzle? Hell they might not even need to kill the entire ship either. Blowing a beam cannon or two might do it. And the Shivans know damn well that a bomber wing can do that very quickly.
I find it interesting that the throw the Beast at the Colossus even though it should be pretty obvious it can't possibly win and only send in the Sathanas once victory is much more likely.
And for that matter it could be that evacuation always was the plan but things were scuppered by the Colossus turning up and blocking the escape route. The ships we see in the last mission are mainly smaller capships. We don't know what happened to the Nebiros. Maybe it did evacuate.
The way I see it, the Shivans might have little to no idea that it was the Colossus that was defending, at least at first. First, several Shivan transports get blown up by allied forces, and are reinforced, IIRC, by Shivan cruisers. These are promptly blown up, and perhaps manage to transmit a message to other Shivans about a huge ship. A Ravana is then sent to settle the conflict, and discovers that it is the Colossus that has been destroying all Shivan transports and generally being a nuisance. When it is destroyed, it is decided to divert a Sathanas, and end the annoyance once and for all. Escalation, and the element of surprise are enough motivation for whatever is in charge to send a Sathanas along simply to save the transports further trouble. The Shivan Master Plan is almost underway, and perhaps they can spare one juggernaut for the fifteen seconds it takes to nuke the Colossus. In any case, we have no indication that the star-nuke went off smoothly. Juggernauts were destroyed, and so were Shivan forces within the system. It is possible that Petrarch's hunch was correct, and that it was a jumpgate to their home system. If so, it was not a very effective one if several juggernauts were left behind. Perhaps the supernova was an unintended side-effect. Maybe they lost control of the carefully-focused subspace wave. Unless they were accomplishing some higher purpose, the loss of any juggernauts cannot have been on purpose.
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Maybe everything did go wrong and the supernova was a horrible accident that stymied the Shivans' plans.
Maybe it was because the marine detachment onboard the Colossus EVAed onto the hull of the attacking Sathanas, boarded the vessel, exorcised the demons of the decades-old defeat in the Hallfight cutscene by fighting their way to the juggernaught's command center, and, in a heroic sacrifice motivated by grief over the destruction of their beloved home ship and its crew, sabotaged the Shivan's supergate construction efforts!
Totally an FPS tie-in opportunity there!
Yeah.
Disclaimer: jest.
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Er, assuming your first sentence was not in jest, that's impossible because some Shivans jumped out at an apparently preordained time. Where were they going, if not through a newly-made node? They can't have escaped the supernova they knew was coming for them, because the supernova would have obliterated the entire system. They can't have made an intersystem jump because there's no node near the sun, not one large enough to span the entire diameter and vicinity of the star. Thus, they must have succeeded, at least partially.
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Actually, the sentence was in jest, but now I have to point out that you're wrong. :p
First off, if the juggernaughts saw something was going horribly wrong (holy red faceting, Batman, an imminent supernova!) they might have all attempted to flee. Some just didn't make it, and in an attempt to crash-load their jump drives (or some other technobabble process) they disabled themselves.
Those that did leave could easily have jumped to an intersystem node far from the star -- maybe one of those patented Shivan transient nodes. They would've had a good few seconds before the supernova shock reached them; it can't move faster than lightspeed.
Maybe, as is often suggested, they were just going to linger in subspace for a while and then reemerge into the hot ionized environment, which they would proceed to gather like enormous glorified gas miners. Then they would spew baby Astaroths and Cains, growing a new fleet for the future and final annihilation of the GTVA. Maybe Sathani are armored against a post-supernova environment.
The point is that we just don't know.
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Ah, I had forgotten about the transient nodes. (We never see the Shivans use one, but meh.) Assuming the juggernaut fleet didn't pull one out of their collective alien orifices, the Sathanas has precisely the same hitpoints as the Colossus. Note that it has no special armour. Note also that it has no special defenses against beams, which, might I remind you, are assumed to be superheated plasma. There is no way of telling what the Shivan Master Plan was. But some of the juggernauts escaped, and some of them screwed up and died, somehow.
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Beam weapons are probably highly directed relativistic particle streams (i.e. relativistic plasma beams.) I haven't checked up on the astronomy, but isn't it possible the post-supernova environment might be less hazardous? The plasma far less diffuse and energetic?
I am not entirely naive when it comes to the physics of a situation like this. It's a question of magnitudes, and I haven't the background to be sure.
Not that I'm really interested in defending this crackpot random theory of mine -- just idle curiosity.
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(http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/1560/edgeworthdamagebb4.gif)
Gah! You're right. And I'm not terribly interested in pursuing your random crackpot theory of yours, either. Arguing is just fun.
However, the plasma would still be as hot, and it would cover every square inch of that Sathanas. Of course, it really doesn't matter, since FreeSpace's canon story is over and done with... :doubt:
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I don't have any way of doing the math, but keep in mind that even a sun has a finite amount of volume that's miniscule compared to a solar system. I don't think we have any concrete stats on how far the GTVA can use jump drives to get away from the sun, much less the Shivans, so it's possible that they simply jumped to a distance where the shockwave & plasma would be less dense and therefor survivable.
I can't think of anything to say on the subject of Shivans blowing up the Capellan sun that hasn't been done to death already. :p
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There were no ships at the Gamma Draconis node after the Colossus was destroyed. So we have no idea if ships were leaving the system.
Besides you're assuming again that the GTVA would give every scrap of information they had to a squadron leader. Which isn't how they work at all.
I have no idea if that is correct. But the GTVA does have scouts, science vessels, long-range sensors... I find it unlikely that shivans pulling ships out (and thus breaking combat in other places in-system) would go unnoticed.
As for command not telling you everything - true. They classify things they deem to voilitale for you to know. I fail to see how shivans runing would fall into that category - if anything it might be a morale boost. It is still possible tough, but if command managed to put 2+2 together, why didn't it order and evacuation before the nova? Why are there still shivan warships in system (the Moloch in the sutscene, I belive there was also a demon fighting a hatshespsut in the far background)
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I DID try to remake Their Finest Hour into Their Truly Finest Hour...but I got bored midway and didn't complete it. I didn't bother to check, but I believe that I have attached that very mission to this post.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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interesting mission, completely new though .. was funny when the ravana jumped in right into demon-debris and died instantly :P
i'm working with [V]'s mission to try to make it better - the Big C can move, i've fixed the beam frees, i've added assignments to attack ships
[edit]
it can use more work.. but thus far my cahnges have already made this one hell of a broadside duel - but the S couldn't deliver the finishing blow - big C's ai path took it just out of range of the S's broadside batteries at 1% health! lol.. time to make some adjustments
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Sounds cool, Kazan! Thanks for the work.
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i think i've got it set up to be a GREAT slugfest between C and the Beast as well as between C and the Sath (the Sath comes out of subspace with a poor firing solution on the C so it takes a minute before the Sath can bring her main guns to bear)
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interesting mission, completely new though .. was funny when the ravana jumped in right into demon-debris and died instantly :P
Yeah...I did try making the Ravana invulnerable in the first few seconds after its arrival so it won't die...but it still blows up here and there. Volition should've remade the damage calculation tables such that flying debris couldn't kill destroyers so easily. Sometimes, in High Noon, Sathanas debris can actually knock the hull strength of the Colossus from 100% to about 60%. That just seems wrong in my opinion.
I've always wanted to throw in the Memphis, so I did. I also used it to see if the Sathanas really was that vulnerable on its behind. Apparently, it really isn't.
This mission was a bit of a headache as I had to make waypoints for all the large ships. Large ship AI is so terrible that they tend to collide (or, in the case of the Colossus, turn like a baseball bat) often.
Anyway, I lost interest in finishing it off, so no cheers to me. Boo. :blah:
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i think i've got it set up to be a GREAT slugfest between C and the Beast as well as between C and the Sath (the Sath comes out of subspace with a poor firing solution on the C so it takes a minute before the Sath can bring her main guns to bear)
Yay for Kaz! finish it! :D :D :D :D
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it's hard to get the C v S fight balance - don't want the C to die too soon, but neither do we want the sath to get out of a firing position.