Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: FreeSpaceFreak on February 09, 2008, 09:33:19 am
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(Man, I'm going to get :hammer:, :headz: and :beamz: for this)
What exactly do we know about the numerical advantage of the Shivans?
- They've got 80+ juggernauts.
- Yes, but what if the Saths are the Shivan equivalent of our planet bases?
- They had very few destroyers and other ships attacking us. In Dunkerque, they didn't even have a spare cruiser to take HQ down. Now compare that to the NTF in The Sixth Wonder...
- They had loads of fighters attacking us.
- Of course, they had 80 juggernauts attacking us.
Furthermore, the GTVA was on the offensive after it had defeated the 1st Sath, although the Shivans had a big technological advantage. That indicates... that we outnumbered the Shivans...
Until the other Saths showed up, that is. I got the idea of them being the "home planet" of the Shivans from here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,50408.msg1040618.html#msg1040618) and I love it.
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The Shivans do seem to be quite low numerically in the Destroyer department, but they do have an awful lot of cruisers. It may also be something to do with comparative size of controlled areas, the Shivans may have to bring resources in from a very large area, whereas the GTA only have to focus on one particular spot, and they were already fully mobilised because of the NTF.
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They did bring in 80 Saths, and that's quite a logistical operation. You would think that bringing in "only" 20 destroyers or so wouldn't be too difficult for them. And I think we had an awful lot of cruisers too, though I haven't yet counted them. Lots of them defected to the NTF, so I'll count those in as well... I'll take a look at it when I have some spare time.
EDIT: Got it. The GTVA and the NTF have roughly twice as many cruisers as the Shivans. I know there are probably cruisers we don't hear about, but that goes for both sides.
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Well, Logistics is based in part about distance, if you have 80 Saths in the Area, diverting another 20 Destroyers from somewhere is is kind of like throwing a bucket of water at a Tsunami victim....
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I've advanced the possiblity that the Shivans made their real investment in the juggernauts, and that they don't have all that much else, before.
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Well, Logistics is based in part about distance, if you have 80 Saths in the Area, diverting another 20 Destroyers from somewhere is is kind of like throwing a bucket of water at a Tsunami victim....
But those 80 Saths were all 'tied' to the Capella star, they couldn't do anything but launching fighters.
I've advanced the possiblity that the Shivans made their real investment in the juggernauts, and that they don't have all that much else, before.
The idea of a Sathanas guarding a cargo depot just doesn't sound right to me.
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It wouldn't be, they're where the cargo goes.
To expand upon the concept, the GTVA seems to be winning the technological race against the Shivans despite their relative youth. The Shivans have had millenia to construct 80 Sathanas; the GTVA built one equivalent ship in 20 years. The GTVA's fightercraft are superior in almost all cases. The Shivans had millenia to develop beams and flak cannon. The GTVA managed that in 20 years or less too. Shivan beam cannon are superior, so far, but this may not be the case the next time around. The same Shivan destroyers keep being mentioned over and over; the Nebiros is present both in Into the Lion's Den, and is launching the wings attacking 6th Fleet Headquarters in Dunkerque. The number of Shivan cruisers doesn't seem to be much more than the number of GTVA cruisers.
The Shivans put most, nearly all, of their resources into the development and construction of the juggernaut fleet. This still gives them vastly better resources then the GTVA, nothing to be trifled with...but the GTVA's more balanced efforts have resulted in a more balanced military, whereas the Shivan fleet is very nearly all-or-nothing on the juggernauts.
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Somehow I think the shivans brought their entire fleet to capella, supernova'd the sun and used the wormhole created to jump somewhere...
Else?
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Well it's something like:
Would you prefer two Orions or one Colossus?
You know, I think normal people like me and you would chose the one colossus (Although there is no law or rule against chosing two orions instead)
Man, I really wish Volition could develop FS3...
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The Shivans do seem to be quite low numerically in the Destroyer department, but they do have an awful lot of cruisers. It may also be something to do with comparative size of controlled areas, the Shivans may have to bring resources in from a very large area, whereas the GTA only have to focus on one particular spot, and they were already fully mobilised because of the NTF.
I'm surprised. I expected a different comment from an experienced member.
The number of Shivan destroyers has always been normal. They didn't send many destroyers in Capella because... they would have been useless. No subspace distortion ability and 20 mps Vs. 25 mps of the Sathanas. They went there to blow the star up, not to invade all GTVA space.
And you're currently basing your opinion on Alpha 1's experience(FS1 and FS2), I don't think we can discuss about a correct or almost-correct cruiser-to-corvette-to-destroyer-to-juggernaut ratio in the Shivan fleet.
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The number of Shivan destroyers has always been normal. They didn't send many destroyers in Capella because... they would have been useless. No subspace distortion ability and 20 mps Vs. 25 mps of the Sathanas. They went there to blow the star up, not to invade all GTVA space.
I agree, after Alpha 1 successfully helped/co-ordinated in destroying:
x2 Ravana
x3 Demon
x1 Lucifer
AND
x1 Sathanas
I can imagine how pissed off the shivans are...
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Interesting conjections, yet we have no clue how many shivan destroyers there actually were in Capella or GD for that matter.
the Saths didn't engage our warships and still all GTVA ships in Capella were busy fighting shivans. I'd say they had quite a few destroyers there, only you don't hear about them, since it's not important for your current missions.
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nubbles526: they're insignificant units for the Shivans(maybe not the Sathanas). The Shivans don't get pissed off...the destruction of a destroyer like the Ravana means "Hey, there's something to do here! A Species to crush!"
UomoImmondizia di Napoli(:P): The number might have been considerable but still too low to fit the regular destroyer-to-juggernaut ratio. Destroyers attack enemy assets directly, even 10 of them would have been too much...
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Still, in Dunkerque, there's not even a cruiser bombarding HQ. Most civvies were already evacuated, so there really isn't much to do for TMan's destroyers, apart from :beamz: HQ. Yet there are none. Instead, the SD Nebiros, which was already encountered in Into the Lion's Den, is launching fighters & bombers from somewhere else. That means it's too busy to pass by itself, even though it would take only five minutes.
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Sdeng...FreeSpace it's a game, what's the point in taking part of a 20 seconds mission? And how can the GTVA evacuate the crew with the Nebiros in the area?
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it's a game
I think kara talked about some dire consequences if someone used that argument in a debate.
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This time was necessary...try to imagine the Nebiros attacking the installation from the beginning of the mission!
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The Shivans do seem to be quite low numerically in the Destroyer department, but they do have an awful lot of cruisers. It may also be something to do with comparative size of controlled areas, the Shivans may have to bring resources in from a very large area, whereas the GTA only have to focus on one particular spot, and they were already fully mobilised because of the NTF.
I'm surprised. I expected a different comment from an experienced member.
The number of Shivan destroyers has always been normal. They didn't send many destroyers in Capella because... they would have been useless. No subspace distortion ability and 20 mps Vs. 25 mps of the Sathanas. They went there to blow the star up, not to invade all GTVA space.
And you're currently basing your opinion on Alpha 1's experience(FS1 and FS2), I don't think we can discuss about a correct or almost-correct cruiser-to-corvette-to-destroyer-to-juggernaut ratio in the Shivan fleet.
Actually, I was going by the briefings. Count the number of Destroyers list in Frespace 1 & 2 and compare it with the amount the Shivans had in both games, the GTVA outnumbers the Shivans with destroyers on the battlefront, I'd suspect that's more because a Lilith can do the job, and the Shivans never seemed to care about casualties.
You forget that the Second Great War was NOT Capella, it was an incursion into Shiven space by the GTVA, Capella was merely the end of it.
Everybody always assumes that this was the Shivan's 'plan' from the moment they discovered the GTVA, and not simply the most expedient way of telling us to Bugger off. Since we don't know the disposition of the Shivan fleet, let alone its contents, conjecture towards it is pretty pointless.
You also didn't read my second post, which more or less said that you didn't need Destroyers when you had 80 Saths....
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I think kara talked about some dire consequences if someone used that argument in a debate.
I still think that is just a joke, but I am not taking any risks...
nubbles526: they're insignificant units for the Shivans(maybe not the Sathanas). The Shivans don't get pissed off...the destruction of a destroyer like the Ravana means "Hey, there's something to do here! A Species to crush!"
LMAO :lol:
Well, let's put it this way. The shivans are tired of repainting the scratches and burns on their fleet which were caused by the GTVA.
Still, in Dunkerque, there's not even a cruiser bombarding HQ. Most civvies were already evacuated, so there really isn't much to do for TMan's destroyers, apart from :beamz: HQ. Yet there are none. Instead, the SD Nebiros, which was already encountered in Into the Lion's Den, is launching fighters & bombers from somewhere else. That means it's too busy to pass by itself, even though it would take only five minutes.
Well, my guess is that Voltion ORIGINALLY planned to do that, but it was probably too powerfull, so they probably removed it.
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The thing about the Shivans is that we really don’t have the information to give anything other than conjecture. We don’t know the size of their controlled Space, who’s to say the Sath’s weren’t some kind of base-defence fleet that were re-diverted to deal with the Human incursion and were only 20 jumps away, whereas their nearest active assault fleet, which would consist of the smaller, more flexible Destroyers was 120 jumps away? There are millions of stars in this Galaxy alone, who knows how far they had to travel?
Take the US Army, if there was trouble with, say, Pirate activity near the coast of the US, would they pull a fleet back from the Gulf to deal with it, or simply dispatch the nearest home fleet?
Without any concept of Fleet Construction, Logistics, and Disposition of Shivan forces, we were fighting the war blind, I’m personally of the opinion that the Shivans could have rolled us over any time they particularly wanted to during the Second War, but for some reason they did not, possibly because they were busy elsewhere. It seemed to me that, despite their obvious superiority, they weren’t fighting to defeat us, merely to close the door and possibly to send a message, that, in itself, poses some interesting hypothetical questions, because I don’t, for one moment, think they were nervous of us, even with the Colossus. they just, for some reason, couldn’t be bothered to deal with us,
Without knowing what percentage of their entire military might made up the Sathanas Fleet, there's no way we can really say for sure.
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Flipside: :P
I don't know how the briefings can give informations regarding. MANY of the Shivan units that survived the Great War have been eliminated after the destruction of the Lucifer. Are you going to exclude/consider the presence of at least one more Demon and who knows how many cruisers?
The nebula was Shivan space? Shivan controlled space, but not something close to the core of the Shivans.
From the post above I assumed that you think consider the number of Shivan destroyers is very low. I'm sorry for any misunderstanding, as I said in my now nuked signature English is my third language blah blah blah...
nubbles526: Sometimes it's necessary.
Have you ever watched FS1_Endgame and Bosch's cutscenes? Do you know what they say about the Shivans? And what does the game experience suggest about the Shivans' fleet and their behaviour?
It think that mission would have been better with the Nebiros closing in from open space and the GTVA fighting hard to get the transports out of there in time...
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Take the US Army, if there was trouble with, say, Pirate activity near the coast of the US, would they pull a fleet back from the Gulf to deal with it, or simply dispatch the nearest home fleet?
The US Army doesn't control any fleet. The US Navy does :p
:nervous:
*runs*
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Pignolo Polentone! :P
The point is that we can't even discuss about Shivan systems and what makes a Shivan system "one of their main systems".
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@Dysko : Picky Git :p
@Mobius
As for Shivan Space, maybe they just didn't want us nosing around in there, as you say, there's no telling whether one of those Knossos devices didn't lead to the very heart of the Shivan 'race', or something similar, maybe that's what the Ancients did, found an unstable node, fixed it, and then found out they'd opened the door to their own destruction.
Either way, consider the Falkland Isles in the UK, I won't try and go into the political aspect, but no-one even knew where the damn isles were before Libya invaded it, but we had to respond in kind, regardless of political pressures simply because it had to be shown that incursions would not be tolerated, even on islands in the ass-end of nowhere that are almost entirely populated by Sheep and Penguins.
Take the Lucifer, it's generally considered that the Lucifer was a very old ship, and yet it had shields, we call the Ravanna a new Destroyer class, but is it new to the Shivans? It could well be that the Ravanna and Demons out-date even the Lucifer, and they were, more or less, pulled out of a Mothball fleet just to deal with the GTVA nosing around in a Nebula in Shivan controlled space, most noticeably, blowing stuff up.
I think we can both agree that we can guess our way all over this, there's far too little information ;)
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Either way, consider the Falkland Isles in the UK, I won't try and go into the political aspect, but no-one even knew where the damn isles were before Libya invaded it, but we had to respond in kind, regardless of political pressures simply because it had to be shown that incursions would not be tolerated, even on islands in the ass-end of nowhere that are almost entirely populated by Sheep and Penguins.
:wtf: I must be missing something. I always thought it was Argentinia.
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Is "Picky Git" the English for "pignolo"?
[offtopic]Libya? :rolleyes:
I can't consider the Falkland Isles in the UK in 2008. I don't even know why the rest of the world isn't doing something to strip the UK of its "colonies". The British Empire no longer exists, those territories are to be given to more legitimate owners. What a mistery...[/offtopic]
Well...about the other part of your post...there are many things to say. First of all, FreeSpace is a game. :v: might have decided to come out with interesting designs like the Rakshasa, the Mara and the Ravana, because their modding abilities, their imagination and/or computers allowed to do it. They have also added a fearsome number of cruisers and beam cannons... Colony Wars 3 is the only game of that period in which warships had formidable anti fighter and anti bomber capabilities. There was the problem to make the "betterized stuff" fit in the Universe so the most common theory to explain this is that "the Ravana is more recent than the Demon". Shivan ships might be VERY old, but I don't want to invent theories to explain the obvious - :v: made FS better without providing explanations, but people still talk about the classic "why do the Shivans in FS1 fights without beams?" and stuff like that...[/i]
:wtf: I must be missing something. I always thought it was Argentinia.
Argentina. One of the most beautiful places of the world(until a few decades ago). The UK gave a "small" contribute to its downfall :doubt:
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Yup, Argentina, there's been so many little scuffles over the last 30 years, I lose track of who invaded where :p Libya had a bit of a face-off with Egypt, as well as a few other countries, so things got a bit confusing around that time.
[offtopic]As for British Colonies, ask an Australian, to be honest, being a British Colony is little more than a label anyway. The Falkland isles didn't request to be invaded.
The UK didn't contribute to the downfall in the slightest, the invasion of the Isles was an attempt to distract the populace from what was going on, it held no strategic or resource value for either side, it was just a convenient place for both countries to say 'My Dick is bigger than your Dick.'[/offtopic]
As for the main topic, yes, it's a game, that's why we are only theorising, attempting to extrapolate meaning from plot devices as it were ;) It's always fun, but I gave up expecting it to be fruitful a long time ago :D
Edit: If you want a rather humorous look into English Colonialism during the Thatcher years, I suggest you watch 'Water' with Micheal Caine, not only is it pretty funny, but it gives a great window on how 'firmly' the British overlook their colonies ;)
Edit: Yup, the Falkand war was '82, all the posing between the US and Libya was only a few years after.
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Sdeng...FreeSpace it's a game, what's the point in taking part of a 20 seconds mission? And how can the GTVA evacuate the crew with the Nebiros in the area?
I know, but my point is that there wasn't even a Cain. A Cain would take ages to destroy it.
Take the US Navy, if there was trouble with, say, Pirate activity near the coast of the US, would they pull a fleet back from the Gulf to deal with it, or simply dispatch the nearest home fleet?
:wtf: The USN carriers and other large ships are at the front line, the older ships are in the home fleet. So yes, they would dispatch the home fleet. Now if that was only their home fleet, I'm :shaking: for their front line fleet.
Without any concept of Fleet Construction, Logistics, and Disposition of Shivan forces, we were fighting the war blind, I’m personally of the opinion that the Shivans could have rolled us over any time they particularly wanted to during the Second War, but for some reason they did not, possibly because they were busy elsewhere.
Exactly.
It seemed to me that, despite their obvious superiority, they weren’t fighting to defeat us, merely to close the door and possibly to send a message, that, in itself, poses some interesting hypothetical questions, because I don’t, for one moment, think they were nervous of us, even with the Colossus. they just, for some reason, couldn’t be bothered to deal with us.
And yet they sacrificed several juggs to clarify their message :confused:
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Losses almost never seem to mean anything to Shivans, once again, it's a murky area, could have been something as simply as malfunctions because they were older ships for all we knew, though that would kind of be an anti-climax, maybe it was just to symbolise their determination to defeat us, a lot of hive-mentality races will willingly sacrifice a massive portion of their population to defend a threatened nest. Ignore the whole 'nest' aspect and look at it in a larger term, and it could be explained that way.
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Well, sounds clear for me that the Shivans are the way too numerous to have one "main system". I don't believe in a Shivan fleet divided in clans, either. There aren't many Shivan-like species in sci-fi(eufemism), I can make some kind of comparison with Warhammer 40,000's Tyranids but it won't help me out in finding a solution.
They must be very well organized and programmed, which means that, I don't know, superdestroyers and juggernaut, can "replace" the Hive Mind when it is too far to give straight orders. So far we have never heard of Shivan "messengers" bringing orders to units fighting in the frontline.
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I think kara talked about some dire consequences if someone used that argument in a debate.
Actually I'm deadly serious. But it's not the phrase itself so much as the suggestion that certain topics aren't worth talking about cause it's just a game.
It's basically spamming if 10 people are debating a topic and someone comes along and tells them to stop because it's just a game. It doesn't add anything to the debate and if you aren't interested in the subject go read something else.
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This time was necessary. The Nebiros would have easily destroyed the Headquarters: its appeareance at the beginning of the mission would have been ridiculous.
Ok when finding solutions and theories but we can't forget that FS2 is a game. When people discussing Slaying Ravana talk about the number of GTVA bombers in that mission an "it's a game!" reply becomes obvious. Even in films and books there are "cool things to show", factions rarely go for the most logic solution, they always put up a show.
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This time was necessary.
Which is why you're still here. :p
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I know it perfectly :P
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I still believe shivies had a lot more than what we saw (heard about).
I don't think all those fighters came only from the juggs - GTVA had a lot of destroyers and fight bases in the system, far better AAF defenses on it's ships.
Heck, Alpha 1 usually kills abut 1000 shivies (not counting all the shivan fighters that perish when you blow their destroyer before they got to launch)
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Without any concept of Fleet Construction, Logistics, and Disposition of Shivan forces, we were fighting the war blind,
Ah, but that's why you look at comparative capablities, not just numbers.
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Exactly, if we get 80 Saths for sticking our nose in the door, what do we get for trying to trash the dining room?
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Actually, what I meant was in terms of ships. We can't know how deep the Shivan fleet runs, but we can make a reasonable assumption that we've seen most of the types of craft they employ. So we can make reasonable assumptions about their state of technological progress relative to the GTVA.
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If you're saying that's a reasonable assumption then it follows that you're claiming the Moloch, Sathanas, Ravana and every other new class in FS2 is under 32 years old since we didn't see them in the 1st Great War.
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Yep, during the Interbellum, we thought we had seen most of the types of craft they employ as well. That's why we (= the GTVA) came up with the Colossus, and we all know how that ended...
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If you're saying that's a reasonable assumption then it follows that you're claiming the Moloch, Sathanas, Ravana and every other new class in FS2 is under 32 years old since we didn't see them in the 1st Great War.
Why not? The GTVA certainly put a lot of new classes into service.
But more to the point, this speculative blah blah blah pie-in-the-sky fleet is, well, speculative, and must bow to the existance of those ships that actually made it into ships.tbl for this sort of discussion. If FS2 hadn't existed, it would be perfectly reasonable to say the FS1 Shivan fleet comprised the majority of Shivan ship types in existance.
So no. I don't have to be making that claim. I can embrace the totality of what we know as having always existed, only we didn't know it all before. But I've still got .tbl files vs. your maybe-there's-more. Which trumps?
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We already know Volition were talking about planet-sized vessels, I'm assuming Shivan unless the '3rd' was to be set several thousand years in the future, so it's already certain that there is more than is in ships.tbl, I don't see even the Shivans being able to construct a ship that big outside of a considerable amount of time. Since we are talking hypothetical here, what if that was what they had in mind for Shivan 'worlds'?
Personally, I don't see the Moloch or Sathanas (particuarly the Moloch) being 'new' designs, the Mara and the Ravanna, however, I could almost accept it, they are almost a direct reply to the Terran vessels of FS1, the Orion and the Apollo/Ulysses etc, but built to Shivan standards. The sheer quantity of the Sathanas suggests to me that it is a workhorse of the Shivan fleet, which is a scary thought.
But then then it does not explain why a ship nearly 8000 years older has shields.It also means that the Demon Class vessel must also be extremely old.
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Here is a question we can all agree that the shivans have superior numbers to the GTVA at least in terms of Jugg class. they have ...well they have 80 or so the GTVA had 1 . Now while i do find the arguement that the jugg's might me theyr most expensive endeavour and/or theyr main battlefleet. I do not believe they have such a huge numerical advantage when it comes to destroyers and the works.
Cruisers yes by all means especialy the Lilith which ios more then capable of tearing appart a corvette and even a destroyer with the right circumstances.
However what is really more interesting is were those jugg's equiped with the same weapons as the lucifer or were the beam cannons already there? this question comes to mind when looking at the timescale of the shivans. Also are the later Demon class destroyer refits like the Orion or are they simply newer constructed ones?
Beacause of various game things we can asume that the Demon is at least as old as the Lucifer . At least that is what i believe. I could be wrong .
If this is the case and lets asume the Demon's we see are in fact refits then where the hell was it refitted . since it would mean that the shivans have at least some sort of base of shypyards near GTVA space. Perhaps 10 or 15 jumps away.
The jugg's might of been equped with beam cannons from the start but i also believe that the beam cannons tech was available to the shivans prior to the FS1 era. They just never got around to refitting the FS1 Lucifer fleet or there was no need for it. since the lucifer has those fricking powerfull fluxcannons which i believe do more dammage then even the BFRed.
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The Lucifer had shields because they were still effective. My theory is though that the beam cannons are too powerful to be stopped by shields, which is also supported by the fact that AAAf, AAAh, S-AAA and such anti-fighter beams trepass fighter and bomber shields. Why waster enery on it then?
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The Lucifer cannons are nowhere near as powerful as the BFRed.
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Some retard said that Shivan Super Lasers are more powerful than any beam on veteran comments. I am disgusted.
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I was also shocked by this blatantly idiotic comment. Burn him, I say!
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It was Mars! *gasp* The canon enforcer has made a grave mistake!
But then again, our failure to notice it for almost 2 years is embarrassing as well...
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I noticed it the first look I ever took at the SSL entry.
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Shivan Flux Cannon is the weakest of all heavier beams..it takes..what? 8 hits to destroy a damaged Orion ..pfft.
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The damage per shot doesn't matter that much. The sustained DPSec is way more important. Yes, it may take 8 shots to destroy an Orion, but the reloading time is - 10 seconds? The BGreen, for example, destroys an Orion in 4 hits, but it needs to recharge for nearly half a minute between shots. So the SFC mows through its enemies much quicker.
The LRed does less damage per shot than the BGreen, but it recharges much faster. Its S.DPSec is nearly twice that of a BGreen. That's its greatest strength. The MjolnirBeam does even less damage per shot, but it recharges even faster. And we all know what that one can do.
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Some retard said that Shivan Super Lasers are more powerful than any beam on veteran comments. I am disgusted.
The Jihad has struck.
Your comments are eliminated.
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I was expecting someone to do that.