Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: ARMEDnPISSED on December 27, 2010, 06:52:58 pm
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The Orion-class ships in FS1 don't seem to have any kind of weaponry like the Lucifer to defeat capital ships. The Galatea got destroyed very easily by the Lucifer... what is the point in sending the Bastion after the Lucifer when the Lucifer can just as easily destroy it?
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fighters.
to kill it in subspace.
the bastion carries fighters, you see.
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It could also engage the Lucifer safely with the its shields down, because remember, in fluff, capital ships all had good weaponry (but not as good in game because it'd have been hard for anything unshielded otherwise)
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Rearm and repair, and also a turret soak. The Bastion can drive in close and the bombers can use it as a shield while they obtain lock, then duck out to fire. Also, in a shieldless environment, the Bastion being there to soak up the attention of defending Shivan fighter wings simply by being large (and perhaps adopting a collision course with the Lucifer?) would help a lot to keep the bombers safe.
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I always thought they sent it because the player was stationed on it. :)
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I always thought they sent it because the player was stationed on it. :)
NO WAY!.... wait....naaa, no way, that was just coincidence :p
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Apart from the beams, the Lucifer is underarmed for her size and those beams only fire forward, while the Bastion would have come in behind the Lucifer. But the real reason for ordering the Bastion to attack the Luci was simple desperation. It was the only destroyer in a position to carry out the attack.
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I think shivans know better than to blow up a destroyer class with beams while in subspace. The lucy and all shivans would be focused on defending the Lucifer, it had 800k HP, so they could make it. I just think they didn't realize that terans didn't know they'll collapse the node and thought they are not stupid enough to do thet. Well, **** happens, they were :D My point is that the battle would have the same outcome no matter what the terrans sent, even if it were 10 fenrises. Shivans would have disarmed/disabled them and leave them to rot in subspace.
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The Shivans will destroy anything that opposes them, except those who offer free samples of Bosch Beer for life. :p
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The Shivans will destroy anything that opposes them, except those who offer free samples of Bosch Beer for life. :p
Will you please stop giving ideas to Axem? :mad:
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But Bosh Beer HQ was already destroyed. :P
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That would've been great in an alternate reality campaign (maybe in 'What if' ;) )
The Bastion actually follows the Lucifer through Subspace and accelerates until the ships are side by side. And when there are only ten seconds left to destroy the reactors the Bastion rams the damn thing out of this universe. What a suspense "NOOOOOOO!!!"-moment :shaking:
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Funny thing about both ships is that they have the same maximum velocity, so unless the Lucifer is disabled, has it engines damaged a little, slows down to allow the Bastion to catch up or some other fluke, the Bastion, in real space, cannot catch up to the Lucifer at all.
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Engine-overload is the magic word here. It'd make the thing even cooler because the Bastion sustains serious damage to it's reactor cores (hull breaches in the rear sections etc). Goosebumps all over that mission!
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I always figured that the Bastion got sent in because she was simply the closest ship with a reasonable complement of strike craft on hand when the Lucy went into the node.
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I always figured that the Bastion got sent in because she was simply the closest ship with a reasonable complement of strike craft on hand when the Lucy went into the node.
And also because it hauled a bunch of ursas and harbingers. It took two jumps to follow the lucifer, and shivans have much more accurate jumps - i think command knew they can't catch them. What i'll never understand is why they didn't send the Orion from Sol to Delta Serpentis to give the Lucifer a warm welcome at the node. There was no point for waiting at the SOL side of the node as they won't breach the shields anyway if the shivans got through.
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Is that Orion in Sol even canon?
If yes, it was in no position to do so. If it was waiting in Delta Serpentis at the node, the Lucifer would simply have blasted her out of the way with her beams. And since there is no evidence for it to be possible, that Orion couldn't enter into the Lucifers tunnel and then turned around inside subspace, to engage her.
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I would have bet that all of the destroyers and most of the cruisers would have been out of Sol to deal with the Shivans attacking the other systems.
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Is that Orion in Sol even canon?
No. In fact, it might even be run contradictory to canon, since it was not present at the node in the ending cutscene of FS1.
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I thought there was a GTD Washington closer to Earth, and therefore impossible to see out at that distance.
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I thought there was a GTD Washington closer to Earth, and therefore impossible to see out at that distance.
That's only in the FreeSpace Port (and thus non-canon) to my knowledge.
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Wait what? FSPort should be canon in the same way that the FSU project is canon.
Unless there were significant changes in port that I'm unaware of.
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Wait what? FSPort should be canon in the same way that the FSU project is canon.
Unless there were significant changes in port that I'm unaware of.
Uh. No. No. No, no, no, no.
Nothing is canon except for the original games. No. Just, no.
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I do not understand. If the FSPort had a GTD Washington, then the original FS should have had a Washinton too. While the upgrade is not itself canon, it's based completely on canon.
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I do not understand. If the FSPort had a GTD Washington, then the original FS should have had a Washinton too. While the upgrade is not itself canon, it's based completely on canon.
The mission in which the GTD Washington appeared actually didn't appear in the original at all.
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...oh.
Well, that answers that :)
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I always thought they sent it because the player was stationed on it. :)
Excellent, practical application of anthropic principle. :p
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...oh.
Well, that answers that :)
I'm pretty sure it was there to help provide a sort of ending for those who didn't have the cutscenes installed(Command Brief for that mission had all the text from Endgame, and reused the monochrome Lucifer explosion ani from the FS2 command brief files).
Would have been pretty anti-climactic without it(or possibly cause some to wonder if there was a bug), in that case:
~last Lucifer generator goes down, mission immediately stops~
~movie would play here, but doesn't exist~
~game drops you directly back to Galatea mainhall~
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Wasn't that last "mission" put in as an ingame credits sequence?
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That too, but you have to admit that the potential abrupt end of the campaign is a pretty good reason to stick something there, as well.
There had to be a mission attached to the command brief standing in for the cutscene, so I honestly don't know whether the proverbial chicken or egg came first, in this case.
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There didn't necessarily have to be a mission attached....remember that neither campaign was built using fred. hm....the plot thickens. Fred was built for people who can't program.
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Both campaigns were made using FRED. Volition used FRED to make all the missions. Even if Volition didn't use FRED to create the missions, that'd be irrelevant, since the FSPort team certainly did, necessitating the presence of the extra mission.
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i thought that neither used fred. I understand that port did. I got lost in the convo...this is what 12 work days and rum will get you.
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The FS1 box had a picture of FRED on the back, and the manual included a section (albeit short) on using FRED, so one can assume they had it available to them.
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i've never seen anything in-game that would indicate V didn't use FRED. they really wouldn't have a reason not to.
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I could have sworn that I read that they didn't. Of course, I also could have sworn that my ex was "the one" and we see how that turned out. But I guess I stand corrected.
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I thought FRED is the exact same tool :v: uses to make FreeSpace missions.
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Of course, I also could have sworn that my ex was "the one" and we see how that turned out.
You and me both, brother.
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"Why did command send the GTD Bastion after the SD Lucifer?"
If the plan to kill the Lucy in subspace failed, the GTA would have needed every available ship to evacuate each colonized planet in the Sol system.
They'd also probably try a last ditch kamikaze run or something. If that failed, they'd need another destroyer to keep following the Lucifer and destroying any transports, freighters and gas miners that might want to resupply the SSD. Those 5 external reactors must suck a lot of deuterium, and one day the Lucy would have to run out of gas.
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Actually we don't know how Shivan reactors work. I think it's pretty clear they work differently from ours. We also don't know what those Rahu miners were mining for...
In fact, if you look very closely at the FS1 command briefing animations, you can see them labelled "Xenon-Zarium" reactors (on the Hades ani anyway). The Lucifer's reactors have bits labelled "Elemental Harvesters".
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What's Zarium? :eek:
Now that I think of it, the Bastion may have even rammed the Lucifer into subspace. Desperate situations call for desperate actions.
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Now that I think of it, the Bastion may have even rammed the Lucifer into subspace.
Why would the Bastion do that? I thought it was supposed to either prevent the Lucy from entering subspace or destroy it in subspace.
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And what if all bombers were down or uncapable of destroying the Lucifer in time? An epic kamikaze run would have been the only option.
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Actually we don't know how Shivan reactors work. I think it's pretty clear they work differently from ours. We also don't know what those Rahu miners were mining for...
In fact, if you look very closely at the FS1 command briefing animations, you can see them labelled "Xenon-Zarium" reactors (on the Hades ani anyway). The Lucifer's reactors have bits labelled "Elemental Harvesters".
So you think it could harvest elements such as deuterium (since it has harvesters, looks like it has to) to keep on going and going and going like the Energizer bunny?
Even if it could, wouldn't it need to take a pit stop in a nebula or gas giant once in a while?
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So you think it could harvest elements such as deuterium (since it has harvesters, looks like it has to) to keep on going and going and going like the Energizer bunny?
No, that's not my point. I never said anything about how long it could operate without refuelling. All I said is that we don't even know if they use deuterium in their reactors.
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Their thruster colors are red, so they must use different fuel.
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naw, they just dump some stuff into it to make it look red cause its cooler.
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Their thruster colors are red, so they must use different fuel.
Emission at different wavelengths does not mean different fuel. It means different operating properties of the engine. The fuel could be damn near anything.
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Their thruster colors are red, so they must use different fuel.
(http://www.journaldugeek.com/files/2008/09/delorean_01.jpg) (http://www.journaldugeek.com/files/2008/09/delorean_01.jpg)
The same fuel that powers this engine? :lol:
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Emission at different wavelengths does not mean different fuel. It means different operating properties of the engine. The fuel could be damn near anything.
But it's quite unprobable that Terrans, Vasudans and Shivans use the same kind of fuel, without any kind of specific processing. Our cars don't.
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When you get up to fusion power sources, the concept of different fuels gets laughable.
I mean seriously, it's nuclear fusion. It can only run on so many elements and generate power, and hydrogen indisputably works better than the others and is indisputably easier to get.
If they're antimatter, maybe, but I suspect that's true there too and I'm simply not familiar enough to say so.
In the end you're down to very basic physical processes now, not complex (though the conditions to make them occur can be hard to create) and so complexity isn't going to avail you much.
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And do you know for sure that the shivan reactors work with fusion or fission? Maybe they just called the things in the Lucifer only reactor because they serve the same functions as reactors in terran and vasudan ships, while they really are something completely different.
But they create power for the ship, and if the get damaged badly enough they cause a big explosion. So calling it reactor is sufficient for the pilots. They don't need to know the details or the physics behind it, only how to put bombs into them.
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Everything depends on technology and availability. I find the idea of Shivan engines working just like Terran ones to be... quite weird, even if things are really that way.
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i'm pretty sure nightmewunner is correct on all counts
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And do you know for sure that the shivan reactors work with fusion or fission?
Well I know they're not fission.
My point was more about Terran and Vasudan ships. I'm not going to touch the Shivans because they're ridiculous sillytech like ZPE at which point needing power generation is questionable at best.
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IIRC they are stated to run on Deuterium, thus it's most likely fusion.
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If it's ever actually said that they use deuterium or fusion anywhere, it certainly overrules any nonsense CBAnim text only visible at 2x magnification that I've been staring at. :P
It's still interesting though.
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It is mentioned that the GTVA uses deuterium sometime in the middle of the FS2 campaign.
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The tech descriptions for the GTVA gas miners say it, but I don't know that we ever hear it about the Shivans.
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I always thought that the Lucifer's reactors were Meson reactors, since they bare some resemblance to the Meson bomb. If you think about it, Shivans make meson reactors to power the Lucifer, GTI manage to copy the principles of such a reactor and builds a prototype aboard the Einstein, Einstein goes boom but a portion of its plans are salvaged by escape pods and after the Hades rebellion is crushed, their research is shelved for many years until it is dusted off and resumed by GTVA during NTF rebellion. GTVA then succeeds in the creation of a Meson detonation device, but they are nowhere near as advanced as the Shivans' ones. This is evidenced by the fact that it took the Lucifer's 5 reactors blowing to collapse the Sol-Delta Serpentis jumpnode, while it took quite a number of the GTVA's meson bombs in a gutted Orion to seal the Capella-Epsilon Pegasi jumpnode. That's my theory.
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Hey, that makes a lot of sense.
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I always thought that the Lucifer's reactors were Meson reactors, since they bare some resemblance to the Meson bomb. If you think about it, Shivans make meson reactors to power the Lucifer, GTI manage to copy the principles of such a reactor and builds a prototype aboard the Einstein, Einstein goes boom but a portion of its plans are salvaged by escape pods and after the Hades rebellion is crushed, their research is shelved for many years until it is dusted off and resumed by GTVA during NTF rebellion. GTVA then succeeds in the creation of a Meson detonation device, but they are nowhere near as advanced as the Shivans' ones. This is evidenced by the fact that it took the Lucifer's 5 reactors blowing to collapse the Sol-Delta Serpentis jumpnode, while it took quite a number of the GTVA's meson bombs in a gutted Orion to seal the Capella-Epsilon Pegasi jumpnode. That's my theory.
Would explain why none of the other shivan ships have mega shielding either. Probably an experiment by the shivans with powering a vessel using extremely volatile substances. As it turns out, not so great a plan.
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Well it worked for the ancients, combined with the blitz tactics - when they figured out how to get past the shields they already had nothing to do so with. Terrans and Vasudans would have suffered the same fate, but the improbable happened and by accident the ancient outpost was found along with the technology. It was just luck that allowed them to defeat lucifer, nothing else.
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That was kind of a Deus Ex Machina, that Ancient site.
And as for the meson reactor theory- I think at least regular Shivan ships run on deuterium, when you kill a Cain, you don't have to be a mile away to survive it's explosion...
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I thought we were talking specifically about lucifer's reactors, but it doesn't blow that much either. You guys also assume that the fuel is actually what you see thrusting out. The reactors might be used for power generation and some other material, much better suited for that might be used for generating thrust via VASIMIR type engine. It would be much better to generate thrust with heavier ions than just hydrogen. It might be any kind of ionized stuff, hence the different colors.
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That's an interesting idea indeed, Trivial Psychic, but if Meson bombs were the result of research on Shivan technology, we would know it. As far as I remember, however, development of the Meson bomb has nothing to do with the Shivans. (But, you know, that is not strictly true.)
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That's an interesting idea indeed, Trivial Psychic, but if Meson bombs were the result of research on Shivan technology, we would know it. As far as I remember, however, development of the Meson bomb has nothing to do with the Shivans. (But, you know, that is not strictly true.)
Yeah, there's no canon info to suggest meson technology came from the Shivans.
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I might guess that the Meson bomb overkill was more just making absolute sure the node was going down. Time and # of ready spare Orions were probably limited, and as we all know, just cracking the Knossos took more damage than originally planned(though the GTVA was ready to resort to overkill in case of the initial failure).
Also, even if it was more conventionally powered, simply by size, the Lucifer's explosion really should have taken out the whole strike force responsible for killing it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoEndorHolocaust), but that would probably have been too much of a downer ending.
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Uhm, why? The strike force was far enough when the Lucifer blew up. Unlike those fighters and bombers, it came out of subspace relatively slowly, thus giving our heroes the time to escape.
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Subspace emergence and departure speeds are pretty fast for big ships; it'd have probably taken the better part of a minute for that much of the Lucifer to emerge if it were only coming out at 'fighter' speed.
The Ursas, as I recall, do at least try to maintain suspension of disbelief by breaking sideways out of the warp event instead of trying to outrun the Lucifer like everyone else. The Hercs and Ursas should be a little crispy, at least, though I suppose a little more time could have lapsed than was actually shown between the emergence and the actual explosion(there is a cut just before it explodes, IIRC).
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Apart from the beams, the Lucifer is underarmed for her size and those beams only fire forward, while the Bastion would have come in behind the Lucifer. But the real reason for ordering the Bastion to attack the Luci was simple desperation. It was the only destroyer in a position to carry out the attack.
That might have been the case, but I can't imagine there wasn't an Orion stationed at Earth that couldn't have gone into the node on the other side and either engaged the Lucifer or tried to just ram it.
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Apart from the beams, the Lucifer is underarmed for her size and those beams only fire forward, while the Bastion would have come in behind the Lucifer. But the real reason for ordering the Bastion to attack the Luci was simple desperation. It was the only destroyer in a position to carry out the attack.
That might have been the case, but I can't imagine there wasn't an Orion stationed at Earth that couldn't have gone into the node on the other side and either engaged the Lucifer or tried to just ram it.
They're fighting a war, they'd have needed all their destroyers in the systems currently under attack to keep them from falling to the Shivans
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Apart from the beams, the Lucifer is underarmed for her size and those beams only fire forward, while the Bastion would have come in behind the Lucifer. But the real reason for ordering the Bastion to attack the Luci was simple desperation. It was the only destroyer in a position to carry out the attack.
That might have been the case, but I can't imagine there wasn't an Orion stationed at Earth that couldn't have gone into the node on the other side and either engaged the Lucifer or tried to just ram it.
They're fighting a war, they'd have needed all their destroyers in the systems currently under attack to keep them from falling to the Shivans
It was already proven by that point that no weapon they had would have worked against the Lucifer unless it was in subspace. Unless there was some sort of superweapon held in reserve onboard that destroyer, the supposed Orion and any other ships in Sol would have been turned to dust. The only way they would have had a chance to defend Sol was to engage the Lucifer in subspace.
The only other theory I see is that there was no destroyer in Sol, which means they would have left the system virtually undefended. Either way, it's a tremendous poor choice on behalf of Command.
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The only other theory I see is that there was no destroyer in Sol, which means they would have left the system virtually undefended. Either way, it's a tremendous poor choice on behalf of Command.
That's what Hades is saying, that all destroyers were deployed to systems where the Shivans already were. By the time the Shivans are in Sol, it's too late, so Command sent his destroyers to fight the Shivans elsewhere.
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Wait a jiff, I'm missing something. Didn't the Bastion enter the Lucifers subspace corridor? And the Bastion was in FS2. How did it get out of Sol when its jump finished? I'm obviously missing something here.
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Wait a jiff, I'm missing something. Didn't the Bastion enter the Lucifers subspace corridor? And the Bastion was in FS2. How did it get out of Sol when its jump finished? I'm obviously missing something here.
It dn't make the jump, it sent its fighters and bombers ahead so they could destroy it
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Wait a jiff, I'm missing something. Didn't the Bastion enter the Lucifers subspace corridor? And the Bastion was in FS2. How did it get out of Sol when its jump finished? I'm obviously missing something here.
Yeah, go play the last (two) mission(s) to find out what you're missing. :P
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No destroyers in Sol? There must have been some considering the importance of the system.
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It's possible that the GTA's resources were being stretched. If that was the case, I think it makes little sense to have valuable fleet assets guarding a backwater system that has only one way in or out.
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Yeah, but considering how the frontlines changed, I don't think the GTA would have left Sol without destroyers. Not to mention that ships may have entered the system for repairs because other places were too unsafe for that.
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No destroyers in Sol? There must have been some considering the importance of the system.
The point is, by the time that the Shivans are in Sol, it's already too late. They probably sent the destroyers out to intercept the Shivans rather than allow them to get into Sol.
On top of that, in FS1 we have reason to believe that there were few active Terran destroyers (at least compared to FS2). There were less than ten destroyers named in FS1 (I count seven - the Amadeus, Galatea, Bastion, Minnow, Intrepid, Krios and Soyakaze), and fewer still that would have been active at that point in the campaign (scratch the Galatea and Amadeus). So it's natural that the GTA would have moved ships out of the reserves (Sol) in order to prevent the Shivans from getting in.
Not to mention that ships may have entered the system for repairs because other places were too unsafe for that.
Even if that were true, those ships would have been in no position to intercept the Lucifer.
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So, in poor words, you think Sol was pretty much undefended? Didn't the GTA knew that the Shivans used unknown nodes (or worse, that they didn't use jump nodes at all)? Doesn't that justify the deployment of forces in Sol, regardless of how things were going on the battlefront?
About repaired ships - well, depending on the damage they sustained, they may have been rushed on the battlefield if necessary.
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So, in poor words, you think Sol was pretty much undefended? Didn't the GTA knew that the Shivans used unknown nodes (or worse, that they didn't use jump nodes at all)? Doesn't that justify the deployment of forces in Sol, regardless of how things were going on the battlefront?
In poor words, Sol was left undefended because by the point Mr. Lucifer has his gun pointed at your forehead it's a bit too late. We know the Shivans used uncharted nodes and nodes too unstable for travel by the Terrans and Vasudans, but by that point in time the GTA still thought the Shivans didn't know where Sol was. Remember that the Lucifer was only a few jumps away from Sol at one point (in Ross 128) but decided to go after Vasuda Prime first.
The point here is basically why the Terrans didn't send something ahead of the Lucifer from the Sol side of the jump node. If you can find a better explanation then I'd be all for believing the Terrans had 500 Orions in Sol but decided not to send any of them to intercept the Lucifer. And this explanation had better not be ":v: didn't think that far."
About repaired ships - well, depending on the damage they sustained, they may have been rushed on the battlefield if necessary.
Which would have been another monumentally pointless waste of life, unless they stood a chance against the Lucifer there wouldn't have been a point sending them in.
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Petrarch stated in FS2 that the Shivans relied on intersystem jumps without using nodes to start the Great War. That capability could be easily interpreted as "they used unstable nodes", but none of these conditions would have allowed the GTA to ignore the possibility of watching Sol fall ever before the Lucifer could reach it.
About the last part - desperation calls for desperate actions.
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Like I said, this is all tangential. The discussion is about why the Terrans didn't send something from the Sol side to intercept the Lucifer. One possible explanation is that the GTA simply didn't have any destroyers in Sol. That's one explanation I hold to make a lot of sense given the circumstances.
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The other obvious explanation is that all GTA assets in Sol were busy protecting/evacuating the most important colonies of the system, in preparation for a counterstrike.
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The other obvious explanation is that all GTA assets in Sol were busy protecting/evacuating the most important colonies of the system, in preparation for a counterstrike.
Protecting them from what, exactly?
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The Lucifer? :nervous:
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They knew the Lucifer (or, more in general, the Shivan fleet) was coming, so they must have reacted somehow. Unless you pretend them to sit and wait after what happened to Vasuda Prime.
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The Lucifer? :nervous:
You could have as many fighters and bombers you want running around in Sol, once the Lucifer is in-system with its shields up, all the attacks are fruitless - It's what happened in VPrime.
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The Lucifer itself was nearly invincible but the GTA needed assets to protect its most densely populated system. You can't leave it nearly undefended, knowing that the finest ships are fighting the enemy elsewhere (but still potentially capable of jumping directly to Sol via a weak node or intersystem jump drives).
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About repaired ships - well, depending on the damage they sustained, they may have been rushed on the battlefield if necessary.
Which would have been another monumentally pointless waste of life, unless they stood a chance against the Lucifer there wouldn't have been a point sending them in.
Cannon fodder. If the Shivans are too busy shooting the damaged ships, those that have a mission might just get through.
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This all makes perfect sense except for the fact that it doesn't explain why none of the destroyers in Sol tried to intercept the Lucifer from the Sol side of the jump node, which really is what this discussion boils down to.
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Because they simply couldn't, for whatever their reasons. There was one destroyer pursuing the Lucifer, and that was the Bastion... I don't know how likely the GTA were to send a destroyer from Sol at that point. It may have been dangerous for the Bastion, or simply (and apparently) not convenient for GTA strategists who thought it made a lot of sense to let the other destroyers protect the colonies while the Bastion engaged the Lucifer.
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Because they simply couldn't, for whatever their reasons.
I WIN
Well, okay not really. But I think my explanation still makes the most sense. :)
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Whatever their reasons can mean a lot of things. As I said the GTA were probably concerned about protecting the main colonies, or simply couldn't send another destroyer into subspace while the Lucifer and Bastion were there.
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I don't buy that. The Bastion is repeatedly referred to as Sol's last hope. If there were other destroyers in Sol then the Bastion's mission wouldn't have been nearly so critical.
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It could still be Sol's last hope as I'm not sure if it is possible to intercept a ship going through the node one way with a ship going the other way.
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Droid said it. They'd be both travelling at many light years per minute, effectively turning any attempt to intercept into a failure.
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Droid said it. They'd be both travelling at many light years per minute, effectively turning any attempt to intercept into a failure.
A destroyer in Sol would be in Sol (0 jumps away from Sol). A destroyer in Beta Aquilae would be in Beta Aquilae (2 jumps away from Sol). Why would you send the destroyer in Beta Aquilae to intercept the Lucifer?
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The destroyer in Sol would have to jump to Delta Serpentis then follow the Lucifer back (assuming you can only enter the same tunnel if you're going the same way).
Now, emerging from the Delta Serpentis-Sol jump node would put you right in front of the Lucifer. You sure you want to do that?
Staying in Sol wouldn't do too much, seeing as it can't kill the Lucifer when it's not in subspace.
Thing is I don't think you can intercept it going the other way, seeing as you probably need to see it jump out to track its jump and thus wind up in the same tunnel.
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Snail, as Droid indicated we're discussing the Delta Serpentis-Sol jump node here. The two of us think it would have been quite impossible to intercept the Lucifer from the Sol side of the corridor.
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Snail, as Droid indicated we're discussing the Delta Serpentis-Sol jump node here. The two of us think it would have been quite impossible to intercept the Lucifer from the Sol side of the corridor.
Makes sense.
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Wow, a discussion ended the good way. :D
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Wow, a discussion ended the good way. :D
I still think the possibility that there were no other destroyers in Sol is valid. Just that the other argument also makes sense.
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I'm with Snail on this one. I don't see why you'd have a destroyer still in Sol under these circumstances. (You could have sent it to lurk in Delta Serp and wait for the Lucifer to pass by; there was sufficient warning for that.)
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There's plenty of proof to backup both theories, afterall. Everything depends on a) how badly did the GTA want to protect their main system and b) how many combat-ready destroyers they had at the time. A relatively high number of destroyers, for example, would justify the presence of 2-3 of them in Sol, while a serious shortage of them in a not so promising conflict would have called for the nearly total depletion of all forces stationed in Sol to reinforce the frontline.
Then, we have the possibility to jump to Sol directly and all its implications to GTA strategies. Another parameter to add to the equation.
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I personally wouldn't put a destroyer between the Lucifer and where it wants to go seeing as it'd probably get 'vaped like the Phoenicia. If it were lurking Delta Serpentis there's no guarantee the Lucifer won't just jump it and kill it.
Then again, at that stage, the GTA probably would have tried it anyway...(and it probably would have had to deal with the HLD Prophecy too...)
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Lurk DSerp -> have to fight the HLD Prophecy.
And thereby prevent it from bushwhacking the Bastion at the node. It's still accomplishing something of use. The point is, there's nothing for a destroyer to actually accomplish in Sol. If it stays there it will be destroyed by the Lucifer with ridiculous ease. Smaller forces can actually do something, since the Lucifer won't be everywhere at once and they can hold off Shivans attacking the evacuation, but a destroyer is simply going to loldie and not accomplish anything by so doing. It took the Lucifer, what, less than two minutes to destroy the Galatea?
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First of all, unless there are canon sources saying otherwise, the Shivans don't detect ships istantly so if there were destroyers trying to protect fleeing convoys, the Lucifer would have hardly detected them one second after it entered Sol.
With all the vital assets in the system, even if the Lucifer was invulnerable the GTA would have never left everything unguarded. Also:
[...]
There is no more important symbol of Terran Pride than a ship like the Galatea or the Intrepid cruising past a colonized planet, patrolling the system and ensuring safety.
[...]
That actually leads me to believe that, regardless of the odds, there were destroyers in Sol. More importantly, don't forget that subspace tracking tech was extremely primitive, so thay may validate Droid's statement according to which a destroyer operating in Sol would have been unable to intercept the Lucifer into subspace if it entered the Gamma Draconis jump node.
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I don't think the Lucifer would be able to get a shot at the Bastion if they were parallel to each other. Also, I don't think the Bastion would be sent after the Lucy simply because of firepower; those blob turrets would take forever to destroy a ship with nearly a million hitpoints. The Bastion probably has dozens of other small support craft, e.g. rearm and repair ships, kamikaze drones, gunboats, others.
And, having a huge ship on your side, even if its weapons are ineffective against the primary target, will significantly increase the morale of the pilots.
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Well, in the universe the Orion was probably supposed to be more heavily armed than it was in the game. Strategically speaking, the Bastion should have been able to inflict notable damage to the Lucifer.
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Where do we see the implication that the Orion has lots more firepower than in-game?
Aside from the "dozens of turrets" techroom description?
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From nowhere. It's just a guess.
Back when FS1 was developed, all sci-fi games I know of suffered the same problem: capships were tough, but extremely weak. They couldn't defend themselves and relied on pathetic blob turrets. That, of course, didn't mean those capships were supposed to be equally weak in the universes they were based on.
This is a speculation, so don't take it too seriously.
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First of all, unless there are canon sources saying otherwise, the Shivans don't detect ships istantly so if there were destroyers trying to protect fleeing convoys, the Lucifer would have hardly detected them one second after it entered Sol.
No. But we know from the experience of Vasuda Prime that Shivans will make an attempt to attack any convoys trying to escape. At such short ranges, orbital rather than interplanetary, detection is easy. A destroyer would immediately draw the Lucifer down on any ships it's escorting and accomplish nothing positive. In fact, it would actually get anything it's guarding destroyed more rapidly.
With all the vital assets in the system, even if the Lucifer was invulnerable the GTA would have never left everything unguarded. Also:
That actually leads me to believe that, regardless of the odds, there were destroyers in Sol.
I'm not suggesting they're unguarded, though as I noted any destroyers (and possibly any cruisers) will simply ensure a more rapid destruction by drawing the Lucifer onto what they're guarding. Fightercraft are the only safe method of escort at this point, because they're not something the Lucifer is equipped to attack and will be ignored.
You're conveniently omitting the rest of the description, which says that Orions are only committed to active battle zones or areas that will become them: "where an Orion goes, war is sure to follow."
More importantly, don't forget that subspace tracking tech was extremely primitive, so thay may validate Droid's statement according to which a destroyer operating in Sol would have been unable to intercept the Lucifer into subspace if it entered the Gamma Draconis jump node.
The Bastion may have carried the only working prototype, but that's not strictly relevant. The Bastion itself never actually entered the subspace corridor. It's clear that the information can be transmitted to other ships and used by them.
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You don't get it. We absolutely don't have any canon info suggesting that it's possible to intercept in subspace a ship that is travelling in the opposite direction. You know that in subspace ships travel at various light years per minute, right? How can you even hope to intercept a ship if the combined approach speed would be double?
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I always wondered how even the fighters could catch up with the Lucifer because it jumped at least two or three minutes earlier (despite the fact that you were the only one who ran to the waypoint and than *poof* all your friends are with you - but that was more a lack of mission design).
But there could be the explanation that low masses travel fast in subspace and become slower when the mass is increasing.
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Yeah, it was something like that.
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I sort of agree with NGTM at this point I think GTA command will have gotten the idea that a destroyer - or any large warship for that matter - will simply draw the Lucifer's attention and therefore only fighters and strikecraft will have had any real chance of protecting fleeing convoys from Shivan strikes. But those fighters have to be launched from somewhere and if not a destroyer then at least an Arcadia or other installation.
We've seen canon confirmation that the GTA and PVN were willing to throw away destroyers against the Lucifer despite the odds. Namely the battle of Deneb shown in the FS2 intro. I'm definitely willing to bet that in a last act of desperation the PVN threw everything they had against the Lucifer to save Vasuda Prime from destruction and so it must have been for Sol. It's the freaking birth place of humanity! The GTA must've had at least some large warship or installation imho. It doesn't matter that if the Lucifer gets through we're all screwed you will have wanted your best military assets on hand to do something, anything!
I think through sheer desperation there must have been a destroyer in Sol at least on the outside bet of temporarily drawing the Lucifer away from Earth.
EDIT: And since the Shivan fleet had the Terran core worlds surrounded it won't have had many other options on where to go.
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Sending the Bastion would be a good plan, so when it blows up, its debris will kill the Lucifer :nod:
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Sending the Bastion would be a good plan, so when it blows up, its debris will kill the Lucifer :nod:
Command: Admiral Shima, we're throwing you away on a useless suicide mission where you hope chunks of your glorius ship might inflict the damage of a few harbinger bombs.
Shima: Wtf srsly?
Command: yeah its a great plan. You have Alpha 1 as back up. he's never failed a mission. Ever.
Shima: Why not send in Alpha 1 while we cover him?
Command: You know, that sounds logical, but we think blowing your ship up would be far more spectacular.
^ I wouldve loled if that took place
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chunks of your glorius ship might inflict the damage of a few harbinger bombs.
Wrong. I was using a Sathanas against another Sathanas. I blew up my enemy and I died simply because I was hit by debris.
If debris can blow up a ship with 1,000,000 hp it should also blow up one with 800,000 hp.
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There are few things in FreeSpace deadlier than speeding debris.
:/
Nothing is immune, short of the mighty ship-invulnerable.
Debris damage is without a damage type, no amount of set-armor SEXP will save you (though seriously, I want a debris damage type so I can set shields to take 0% from debris...and have shield debris collision, but hey, that's venturing into dreamworld again D:)
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From nowhere. It's just a guess.
Back when FS1 was developed, all sci-fi games I know of suffered the same problem: capships were tough, but extremely weak. They couldn't defend themselves and relied on pathetic blob turrets. That, of course, didn't mean those capships were supposed to be equally weak in the universes they were based on.
This isn't just an issue from "back then". It's still true today. Player = fighter pilot. Ergo, games is balanced in that regard, since gameplay > fluff.
Imagine just how "fun" it would be to attack an Orion with 100 flak/aaf turrets?
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You don't get it. We absolutely don't have any canon info suggesting that it's possible to intercept in subspace a ship that is travelling in the opposite direction. You know that in subspace ships travel at various light years per minute, right? How can you even hope to intercept a ship if the combined approach speed would be double?
That has absolutely nothing to do with what I posted. At all. What are you talking about?
Or better yet, what are you on?
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I personally agree with the idea sol had defenses, but if the Lucifer got through they couldn't do anything anyway so what would the point be? Stationing something at the sol-end of the node would just result in death.
Unless perhaps on it's exit from sub-space the Lucifer's shields were still down (being half in, half out) and it rammed into said blockade, that might have done something to at least damage it, if only the front reactors
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They also could have hoped that if the Bastion team didn't destroy the Lucifer, they could have destroyed enough reactors to reduce the efficiency of its shields to a reasonable level.
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They also could have hoped that if the Bastion team didn't destroy the Lucifer, they could have destroyed enough reactors to reduce the efficiency of its shields to a reasonable level.
Another great alternate storyline.
The desperate battle against the Lucifer in earth's orbit. Thousands of people die but finally they crush the damn thing!
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Indeed. :nod:
I always postulated that the Lucifer never was truly invulnerable, but rather the GTVA needed more gun.
If you brig every single fight capable ships in T-V space together and attack the Lucy simultaneously, even it's shields would end up failing. Death of a thousand cuts..action and reaction and all that jazz.
After all, Lucy's five reactors cannot possibly outproduce all the reactors on all GTVA warships combined.
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You missed the part where the Lucifer was said to be immune and not merely resistant to GTA weapons.
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Like the ships in independence day were immune against nukes (but I'm certain, that their shield-systems lost some power to that big bang).
Only :v: knows the true shield-capacity for sure.
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Yeah I'm pretty sure that getting every able spearman in Neolithic France isn't going to stop an MBT
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...but finally they crush the damn thing!
On it's way out, after blowing up half the planets in Sol.
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You missed the part where the Lucifer was said to be immune and not merely resistant to GTA weapons.
I believe the exact working of the briefing was "appears to be immune, not merely resistant, to all of our weapons"
Yeah I'm pretty sure that getting every able spearman in Neolithic France isn't going to stop an MBT
Not really comparable, given that shield is not really armor and plasma guns aren't spears. But if you want to get technical, bash a armored vehicle with a hammer long enough and hard enough...and it WILL get destroyed. Sure, it might take 10000000000000000000000000000000000 hits, but still. Even stone gets eroded by wind and rain with time.
Or if you want another example, how about rolling a massive boulder on the vehicle? There's a limit to any armors endurance.
NOTHING in the universe is truly invulnerable and indestructible. Such things simply don't exist.
Again, action and reaction. Conservation of energy. Thermodynamics. Pick your poison.
It's simple logic at work. Stopping destructive energy requires effort (counterforce). Effort = power. Power is not infinite and has to come from somewhere.
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Actually, I think in that context, Battuta's analogy holds fairly well, based on the information given in the game. Lucifer's shields being impenetrable by all armament, etc and so on.
And if you want to get really technical, my gut feeling is that the heads of those spears would break before coming anywhere close to penetrating the hull. And of course, this is assuming that they can even get that close to an MBT.
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Even if the entire GTA/PVN commited to an assault on the Lucifer and even if their weapons could cause any kind of damage at all I don't think they would have enough ships. Maybe if the Lucifer sat still and did nothing for years, decades, centuries, but of course that wouldn't happen.
Sure the Lucifer might have been destroyed through a thousand cuts, but it wouldn't have ever happened. In fact I'd compare it to trying to kill a Shivan fighter with just the ML-16. (Don't even know if the ML-16 causes enough shield damage vs shield recharge time)
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In fact I'd compare it to trying to kill a Shivan fighter with just the ML-16. (Don't even know if the ML-16 causes enough shield damage vs shield recharge time)
You can destroy a fighter in the FS1 Plato escort mission, but it's a little bit...slow.
Except if you're QD, for sure. :D
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ML-16 does zero shield damage, so no.
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You sure? I think I first shot that fighter with just mah laz0rz
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Even if the entire GTA/PVN commited to an assault on the Lucifer and even if their weapons could cause any kind of damage at all I don't think they would have enough ships. Maybe if the Lucifer sat still and did nothing for years, decades, centuries, but of course that wouldn't happen.
I somehow have a feeling that the Lucifer's shields had a recharge rate that was faster than the damage output of the Terran/Vasudan combined fleet.
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ML-16 does zero shield damage, so no.
I'm pretty sure it does like a teensy weensy bit of shield damage. Hold on I'll check the wiki...
0.5 damage to shields. That probably means it's less than the recharge rate right? Speaking of which I agree with Snail's comment above.
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Yeah I'm pretty sure that getting every able spearman in Neolithic France isn't going to stop an MBT
Not really comparable, given that shield is not really armor and plasma guns aren't spears. But if you want to get technical, bash a armored vehicle with a hammer long enough and hard enough...and it WILL get destroyed. Sure, it might take 10000000000000000000000000000000000 hits
you're right, something will get destroyed, and it's the hammer
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It's possible to kill shielded fighters with only ML-16, I did it. You need to pound it for a ****ton long time, and constantly, and it's much easier on low difficulties, but its feasible. Things go muuuuuuuuuch quicker if you just unload Furies on it. Also, note that Disruptors do slightly more shield dps than ML-16.
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It's possible to kill shielded fighters with only ML-16, I did it. You need to pound it for a ****ton long time, and constantly, and it's much easier on low difficulties, but its feasible. Things go muuuuuuuuuch quicker if you just unload Furies on it. Also, note that Disruptors do slightly more shield dps than ML-16.
Maybe on Very Easy, but I'm pretty certain that's impossible on any other difficulty. 0.5 has got to be less than the recharge rate, and that's assuming you're firing at it constantly and never giving it a chance to regain any ground, which is unlikely given the maneuverability of most Shivan fighters (and even the worst Shivan fighter in FS1, the Basilisk, had a ****ton of shield points; same with the Shaitan). I don't think it's possible let alone feasible on the higher difficulties.
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No weapon in the GTVA arsenal can penetrate the Lucy's shields. Oh, but debris don't count as weapons, do they?
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They could be, but they are weapons of mass, in the same sense as missiles being weapons of mass. Unless you chuck debris the size and quantity of a Sathanas, I doubt you could damage the Lucy with debris.
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Debris ignore shields, if I'm not mistaken.
Debris can kill a Sathanas, so it's obvious that they can kill the Lucifer, too.
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Uh, dude, the Sathanas didn't have shields, remember?
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I somehow have a feeling that the Lucifer's shields had a recharge rate that was faster than the damage output of the Terran/Vasudan combined fleet.
Had to believe. After all, FS ships have fusion reactors. That's a LOT of big and small fusion reactors working together. Lucy had only 5. Even if they were anti-matter, the efficiency difference (matter-to-energy conversion efficiency of fusion is roughly 60& IIRC) isn't enough to offset the numerical advantage.
If we are to generously assume a lucy reactor has a 10 time bigger output than a terran one, that still mean 51 terran reactors will outperorm lucifer.
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You know that you're talking about theoretical theory here?
Aren't these Mesonreactors? I think I read this somewhere...
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Uh, dude, the Sathanas didn't have shields, remember?
Debris ignore shields, if I'm not mistaken.
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Okay, my bad.
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I somehow have a feeling that the Lucifer's shields had a recharge rate that was faster than the damage output of the Terran/Vasudan combined fleet.
Had to believe. After all, FS ships have fusion reactors. That's a LOT of big and small fusion reactors working together. Lucy had only 5. Even if they were anti-matter, the efficiency difference (matter-to-energy conversion efficiency of fusion is roughly 60& IIRC)
ahahahahahahahahah
you do not remember correctly
the reason I laugh is because the conversion efficiency is not 60%, it is .3%
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Had to believe. After all, FS ships have fusion reactors. That's a LOT of big and small fusion reactors working together. Lucy had only 5. Even if they were anti-matter, the efficiency difference (matter-to-energy conversion efficiency of fusion is roughly 60& IIRC) isn't enough to offset the numerical advantage.
If we are to generously assume a lucy reactor has a 10 time bigger output than a terran one, that still mean 51 terran reactors will outperorm lucifer.
However, both protagonist races can't afford to throw in a force large enough to take down the Lucy's shields in hyperspace. And, hell, the zods had 8,000 Bakhas, which is already a rare type of bomber. So that means thousands of gigaton-class warheads can't penetrate Lucy shields, thus making it simply unstoppable to non-beam armed forces.
But I think it's rather funny that, considering the statement you said, the Lucy can supply a shield that can hold back that much firepower. Well, its explosion collapsed a node, so that means it has at least the power of an Orion filled up with meson bombs. Not that much, considering the Lucy can probably hold off thousands (or at least hundreds) of Harbingers in hyperspace.
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Bakha is an FS2 design, not to mention nowhere is it stated that it's rare (and they have 6000 of them), quite the opposite, actually (...it's a craft of choice for attacking cruisers and corvettes...). We don't see them too often, but then, we don't see any Vasudan bombers too often (Sekhmet, the second FS2 Vasudan bomber was in one secret mission).
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I somehow have a feeling that the Lucifer's shields had a recharge rate that was faster than the damage output of the Terran/Vasudan combined fleet.
Had to believe. After all, FS ships have fusion reactors. That's a LOT of big and small fusion reactors working together. Lucy had only 5. Even if they were anti-matter, the efficiency difference (matter-to-energy conversion efficiency of fusion is roughly 60& IIRC)
ahahahahahahahahah
you do not remember correctly
the reason I laugh is because the conversion efficiency is not 60%, it is .3%
After a bit of looking around, it seems you're wrong too. The lowest number I ran across is 0,7% And the highest number is totally wrong.
Alright, we can assume increased efficiency in the future. Not sure by how much.
BUT even if Lucy's reactor are 100 times more efficient, it still leaves another problem (if looking at this realisticly. Which is a bit pointless, but fun). Heat. The amount of waste heat generated by the Lucy should be so high that the ship would vaporize/melt. Cooked lobster for dinner anyone?
Either way, assuming damage done in hyperspace by at the attack, and reduced shield performance, a mass attack should do something. And when I say mass attack, I don't just mean capships fireing blobs. While reactors are good at producing energy, there are more efficient ways of concetrated energy release. Like bombs.
Lucy being pelted by harbingers, tsunamies, regular missiles, plasma and laser fire along with fire support from capships.
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no, we can't assume increased efficiency, because the conversion efficiency is part of the fundamental laws of nature
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I mean overall efficiency. Not just in power production, but power transfer.
But then again, the shivies probably also have increased efficiency in that regard, so I guess it evens out again :P
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On the topic of throwing massive weight of ships at the Lucifer, what about briefing after Tombaugh? I'm probably not quoting correctly because it's been awhile, but didn't wolf say
"Multiple Terran and Vasudan cruisers and destroyers engaged the lucifer, and were wiped out quickly, all attacks from the nearby installations have been defeated" < definitely not a perfect quote, but the idea is there. Point being, Tombaugh was 'a fortress' and came across as the major bastion of GTA power short of earth itself. And the Lucifer came, destroyed, and wasn't even scratched. Ditto to Vasuda prime. If the Lucifer can walk into the strongest systems in GTA/PVN space without being harmed then I find the idea that everyone teaming up together could harm the lucifer to be laughable at best
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Unlike the shields on the Shivan fighters and bombers, this shield appears impervious, not merely resistant, to all of our weapons.
AND
We've just received some discouraging news from Terran Command, pilots. At 0300 today, after the captured Taranis was towed to Tombaugh installation in the Ribos system, the Shivans staged a major ambush. There isn't a lot of confirmation from the footage yet, but it's clear that a Shivan destroyer of massive proportions jumped in and destroyed Tombaugh station, along with all its defenses. We have designated this new class of Destroyer "Lucifer".
Debris from the station is still falling from orbit on Ribos 4.
Terran and Vasudan fighters and cruisers engaged the Lucifer, but were wiped out quickly. Footage suggests that the Lucifer was using a new type of shield, impervious to any of our attacks. Needless to say, this is grim news. If the Shivans indeed have managed to shield a vessel of that magnitude, it's merely a matter of time before they wipe out all front-line installations and march through to our home systems.
Fighters and cruisers. This was also before the Harbringer bomb.
Adding more guns is (IMHO), in this case similar to increasing the caliber of a gun. Tank armor won't be scratched by 5.56, 7,62 mm etc...as you keep increasing the caliber, up until it reaches a certain treshold, the armor will shrug it off.
In other words, increase hte pressure more and more, and after a certain point, the shield will collapse.
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Harbingers, like all FreeSpace bombs, do jack **** to shields, unfortunately.
Yeah, its probably impervious to everything the GTA/PVN has at the point, but something like a BGreen or a BFGreen would probably be able to punch through it (or just deplete it if it didn't), hence why they said the Colly could beat Lucifers.
Blobs wouldn't have cut it though.
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AAA beams cut through fighter shields all the time
I think it's only a small logical leap to assume that beam cannons generally bypass shields.
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Harbingers, like all FreeSpace bombs, do jack **** to shields, unfortunately.
Which is a gameplay choice, not pure fluff.
If a regular missile can destroy a shielded fighter, how is it possible that a more powerful missile can't? And explosion is an explosion.
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Different...types of explosions?
Why do ML-16s suck against shields but Promethues's don't?
A laser is a laser...yet much of the plot revolves around this.
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Especially since both the ML-16 and the Prom are Argon-based lasers.
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The Prom is a carefully calibrated argon laser.
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Different...types of explosions?
Fusion, fission, anti-matter - it's the same thing. The only difference is the quantity of energy released.
As for lasers..the question is how do shields block lasers? Could be difference in frequency of the lasers or something?
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Different...types of explosions?
Fusion, fission, anti-matter - it's the same thing. The only difference is the quantity of energy released.
Very much untrue.
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Stop nitpicking. you know exactly what I meant by that.
Differnet processes, but the end result is the same. Energy.
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Stop nitpicking. you know exactly what I meant by that.
Differnet processes, but the end result is the same. Energy.
No, it's really not. If by 'energy' you mean 'photons', which is what you're trying to say, you are wrong, and if you are not trying to say 'photons' you are simply oversimplifying to the point of meaninglessness; you might as well say 'stuff'
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Harbingers, like all FreeSpace bombs, do jack **** to shields, unfortunately.
This is totally untrue. FS1 bombs have meaningful shield-damage values. A Harbinger hit will kill any fightercraft, though this is impossible to obtain with any sort of deflection.
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Harbingers, like all FreeSpace bombs, do jack **** to shields, unfortunately.
This is totally untrue. FS1 bombs have meaningful shield-damage values. A Harbinger hit will kill any fightercraft, though this is impossible to obtain with any sort of deflection.
I heard that 32 shields points worth of damage (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Harbinger) is really meaningful and will kill fightercraft. God forbid I get hit by a Tsunami with its whopping 30 points of shield damage (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Tsunami)! We're all doomed! I heard that the Shivan's Unknown (Mega)Bomb does staggering amounts (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Unknown_Bomb#Statistics_.28FS1.29) of shield damage (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Unknown_Megabomb#Statistics_.28FS1.29) in FS1! Even more than in FS!
I mean, what am I going to do with my other 668 shield points as a SF Dragon? Might as well just blow up and die, right?
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Direct Harbinger hit would, on the other hand, put fighter's hull in the max damage radius of a torpedo, so a shockwave would swat it.
FS torpedoes don't damage shielding in any meaningfull way, though blast can sometimes damage a fighter anyway.
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Actually, bombs can be used to kill fighters and bombers rather decently. I've killed a Dragon with dual helios bombs on insane difficulty with a direct hit.
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I mean, what am I going to do with my other 668 shield points as a SF Dragon? Might as well just blow up and die, right?
I suggest you actually break out your FS1 copy rather than trust the Port. Or, for that matter, test it by experiment. A Harbinger exploding among a flight of Lokis in the last mission of Silent Threat will destroy or severely damage every one of them.
The wiki lies to you. :P
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Don't have one, never did! :P
I just go by stats on the wiki, which I presume are accurate. If they're not, go change them! Put in how much damage it actually does!
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I just go by stats on the wiki, which I presume are accurate. If they're not, go change them! Put in how much damage it actually does!
I'd love to, but I'm not myself sure where they go wrong. The table figures appear transcribed correctly, but empirical experiment denies this. :P
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Probably something with Blast damage then.
[13:12] <@Zacam-AFK> *damage = max_damage * dist_to_outer_rad_squared/total_dist_squared; ;; *blast = (min_dist - outer_rad) * max_blast /(inner_rad - outer_rad)
[13:12] <jobtwota> oh god
[13:13] <@Zacam-AFK> That's for the radius calculation.
[13:13] <@Zacam-AFK> WITH (at point of impact) it is max_damage and max_blast.
[13:13] <@Zacam-AFK> So the tabled value as directly represented.
[13:15] <@Zacam-AFK> So if your weapon has (for example, Cyclops) 2000 damage anda 1000 blast force, when it Hits an object, it will do 3000 damage directly to the hull unless there are armor/shield/subsystem factors at play.
maybe that?
still feels a bit off though (some things with a massive blast force do considerably less damage than this would suggest...some with small blast forces and shockwaves do considerably more...)
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Unlike the shields on the Shivan fighters and bombers, this shield appears impervious, not merely resistant, to all of our weapons.
AND
We've just received some discouraging news from Terran Command, pilots. At 0300 today, after the captured Taranis was towed to Tombaugh installation in the Ribos system, the Shivans staged a major ambush. There isn't a lot of confirmation from the footage yet, but it's clear that a Shivan destroyer of massive proportions jumped in and destroyed Tombaugh station, along with all its defenses. We have designated this new class of Destroyer "Lucifer".
Debris from the station is still falling from orbit on Ribos 4.
Terran and Vasudan fighters and cruisers engaged the Lucifer, but were wiped out quickly. Footage suggests that the Lucifer was using a new type of shield, impervious to any of our attacks. Needless to say, this is grim news. If the Shivans indeed have managed to shield a vessel of that magnitude, it's merely a matter of time before they wipe out all front-line installations and march through to our home systems.
Fighters and cruisers. This was also before the Harbringer bomb.
Adding more guns is (IMHO), in this case similar to increasing the caliber of a gun. Tank armor won't be scratched by 5.56, 7,62 mm etc...as you keep increasing the caliber, up until it reaches a certain treshold, the armor will shrug it off.
In other words, increase hte pressure more and more, and after a certain point, the shield will collapse.
FS1 Tech Room
The fact that it is protected by a sheath shielding system which makes it completely impervious to any kind of kinetic or plasma damage makes it impossible to destroy.
Although you could argue that means with our level of firepower.
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My bad about the Bakha.
But still, it would give us an idea that there are probably several hundreds of heavy bombers out there (GTB Ursa, Osiris, etc.) so it means that the are also several hundreds of anticap warheads.
I think I'll drop the concept about anticap bombs doing horribly low damage to shields. I think the reason for that is simply for game balance - intercepting bombs wouldn't be fun and would kill you all the time. Considering that, it's probably the reason why the GTVA thought of such a thing as the Colossus.
If hundreds of 5 GT torpedoes can't do any noticeable damage to Lucy's shields, then beams can. I mean, the Colly doesn't have the firepower of hundreds of mentioned missiles, which leads me to believe that beams are really designed to ignore shields.
Not only does the game's mechanics prove this, but also the fact that the GTVA didn't bother to shield their ships; knowing that their enemies were now capable of arming beam cannons.
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My bad about the Bakha.
But still, it would give us an idea that there are probably several hundreds of heavy bombers out there (GTB Ursa, Osiris, etc.) so it means that the are also several hundreds of anticap warheads.
I think I'll drop the concept about anticap bombs doing horribly low damage to shields. I think the reason for that is simply for game balance - intercepting bombs wouldn't be fun and would kill you all the time. Considering that, it's probably the reason why the GTVA thought of such a thing as the Colossus.
If hundreds of 5 GT torpedoes can't do any noticeable damage to Lucy's shields, then beams can. I mean, the Colly doesn't have the firepower of hundreds of mentioned missiles, which leads me to believe that beams are really designed to ignore shields.
Not only does the game's mechanics prove this, but also the fact that the GTVA didn't bother to shield their ships; knowing that their enemies were now capable of arming beam cannons.
Actually the Colossus has as many missile batteries as it does beam cannons. And what do you mean by GTVA shielding their ships? Lucifer is the only example of a larger than fighter size vessel with a working shield system. Even the Shivans can't seem to shield any other capships. How would the GTVA know the Shivans had beam cannons on their capships by FS2 when they were expecting their beamless great war nemesis?
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Large bombs doing little shield damage is a gemaplay decission, (same as shockwaves not damaging subsystems) so players don't die too damn often. a bomb getting shot down and killing a planer is not really fun, now is it?
With FSO we have arm time so bombs have a dinky explosion if they didn't reach their intended target.
Also, if a 10KT missile does more damage than a 5KT one, then it's safe to assume that explosions do affect shields. Because they do. We've seen it happen. It's logical. And bomb shockwaves, nerfed as they are, can still kill you.
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With FSO we have arm time so bombs have a dinky explosion if they didn't reach their intended target.
Er no we don't, not unless you tabled it in yourself or you're playing BP.
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How would the GTVA know the Shivans had beam cannons on their capships by FS2 when they were expecting their beamless great war nemesis?
Well, there must be other enemies within the GTVA, such as Bosch and his lackies. They, too, have beams, so what's the use of putting on shields?
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How would the GTVA know the Shivans had beam cannons on their capships by FS2 when they were expecting their beamless great war nemesis?
Well, there must be other enemies within the GTVA, such as Bosch and his lackies. They, too, have beams, so what's the use of putting on shields?
Well call it hunch but probably because they don't have the tech? Like I said the Lucifer is the only large ship to have ever sported a shield system. If the GTVA had that capability but chose not to implement it I would have thought it'd be mentioned.
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Shield system would have given them a huuuge advantage against bombers. I don't really see any good reason why they would not have used that tech if they had it, really.
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Inverse cube law I suppose.
Exponential growth in power requirements as the shield gets bigger.
Hence why Lucy needed 5 super-reactor. Not because it's shield was uber-super-special..but because shielding a ship of that size simply required that much power.
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Shield system would have given them a huuuge advantage against bombers. I don't really see any good reason why they would not have used that tech if they had it, really.
The Lucifer required five reactors of incredible size and power to handle a shield system, which have the side effect of blowing up like an Orion packed with Meson Bombs if the ship is badly enough damaged. Expense is always a factor.
And creating a natural failure point in your fleet that just might take a node down and cut off a significant portion of your forces is something a sane commander will think twice about.
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Shield system would have given them a huuuge advantage against bombers. I don't really see any good reason why they would not have used that tech if they had it, really.
The Lucifer required five reactors of incredible size and power to handle a shield system, which have the side effect of blowing up like an Orion packed with Meson Bombs if the ship is badly enough damaged. Expense is always a factor.
And creating a natural failure point in your fleet that just might take a node down and cut off a significant portion of your forces is something a sane commander will think twice about.
Lucky the Shivans are anything but sane.
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Well, to be fair to them, they did not realize it was possible.
The GTA/GTVA not only knows this is possible, but has actually executed such an attack.
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Well, to be fair to them, they did not realize it was possible.
Orly? I think there was some motive behind following the Rosetta and the transports to Altair (or wherever that was) and actually appearing in-mission to block the node in that one mission I forget the name of.
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Orly? I think there was some motive behind following the Rosetta and the transports to Altair (or wherever that was) and actually appearing in-mission to block the node in that one mission I forget the name of.
For the lulz of it. Lucifer detected targets in a system, Lucifer attacked targets. If they had really been so certain of the danger, they would never have jumped from Delta Serp to Earth without being sure they'd cleared the system.
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Orly? I think there was some motive behind following the Rosetta and the transports to Altair (or wherever that was) and actually appearing in-mission to block the node in that one mission I forget the name of.
For the lulz of it. Lucifer detected targets in a system, Lucifer attacked targets. If they had really been so certain of the danger, they would never have jumped from Delta Serp to Earth without being sure they'd cleared the system.
I is calling bull. Shivans aren't mindless animals who attack things "for the lulz of it".
(anon is mindless animals lolol)
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To be fair, unless you're really good, the Lucifer almost succeeded in repelling the subspace attack.
I know that my Ursa and one Herc were the only ones left alive last time I played.
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I is calling bull. Shivans aren't mindless animals who attack things "for the lulz of it".
(anon is mindless animals lolol)
Considering that at that point in the game, they not only can but their target priority is probably dictated by the lulz (they've smashed Vasuda Prime but may not yet have a location for Earth), why the hell not?
I mean, doing it for the lulz actually requires some level of intelligence. :P
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I is calling bull. Shivans aren't mindless animals who attack things "for the lulz of it".
(anon is mindless animals lolol)
Considering that at that point in the game, they not only can but their target priority is probably dictated by the lulz (they've smashed Vasuda Prime but may not yet have a location for Earth), why the hell not?
I mean, doing it for the lulz actually requires some level of intelligence. :P
Still not sold. The Shivans in FS1 repeatedly prioritized targets of strategic importance (the shield systems, the transports to give a couple examples), they weren't just acts of random lulzy destruction (no matter how much lulz they caused).
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Yeah, that's one of those weird issues; if the Shivans knew the information was out there, why didn't they just send an Azrael full of Shivans down to the planet sometime in advance in order to destroy the information repository in detail? Simple arrogance/overconfidence?
I do have a sub-theory that the Shivans somehow developed some sort of loose alliance/non-aggression pact with the Hammer of Light(obviously some time after the Ramses, and La Ruota della Fortuna), explaining how HoL forces to continue to exist in Shivan-controlled space seemingly unimpeded, and in fact seem to come to back up the Shivans on at least 2-3 occasions(Reaching the Zenith, Black Omega, and of course, the Prophecy in The Great Hunt), and the Sekhmet(Shivans sharing primitive Nahema schematics?).
In this case, the HoL in Altair picked up the scientists' broadcast, and told the Shivans the contents of the transmissions. It's possible the HoL may not have known how significant it was at the time, but the Shivans may have known what the Ancients had discovered about them prior to their demise.
OTOH, the FS Ref Bible did point out the similarities between the Ancient and Vasudan languages, so it's possible that the Shivans, over the time spent eradicating the Ancients' multi-galaxy empire, learned to 'decode' Ancient, and were thus able to understand and/or communicate Vasudan. The Shivans could have simply considered the HoL irrelevant for the moment, and ignored them, as HoL forces seemingly never engage the Shivans(based on the how the Ramses chooses to just roll over and die when the Taranis attacks).
Without this(or significant parts thereof), there just doesn't seem to be a reason to send the flagship of the Shivan armada after a couple transports and a science cruiser(unless they were just trying to kill Alpha 1 :P).
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Still not sold. The Shivans in FS1 repeatedly prioritized targets of strategic importance (the shield systems, the transports to give a couple examples), they weren't just acts of random lulzy destruction (no matter how much lulz they caused).
There's no evidence for any of that. Altair could well have been on their line of travel to Earth, and the briefing for the shield transport mission makes it clear that the Shivans have been hitting everything that comes out of that station, shields or no shields.
Plus you're crediting the Shivans with having done some kind of actual intelligence work, to which I must ask...how?
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Subspace tracking? We only realized they could do it after Tombaugh. They took note of where the shield prototypes had been taken(the Command Brief suggests that they were built from actual captured Shivan shield generators, and not mere scan data as you were sent to collect), and were taking no chances in letting them get away(apart from taking the station itself out, which itself perhaps suggests some level of restraint, or perhaps again, overconfidence?).
It's also pretty well expressed in the briefing that attacking the Zenith was a way of breaking through a relative weak point in the Shivan fleet, shown well aside from the Lucifer, and Altair looks a little out of the way between Sol and Beta Aquilae, where the Lucifer had been seen last (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Official_Volition_Node_Map), and for that matter, in the opposite direction of Delta Serpentis, where the Lucifer would jump from, to Sol.
That does lend a little more credence to the thought that the HoL over in Altair could have been simply irrelevant to the Shivans for the moment, and could be cleaned up after the Lucifer had attacked Sol.
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To be fair, unless you're really good, the Lucifer almost succeeded in repelling the subspace attack.
I know that my Ursa and one Herc were the only ones left alive last time I played.
Failing this mission is non-canon. There is no cutscene for that pilot !
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Subspace tracking? We only realized they could do it after Tombaugh.
Assumes facts not in evidence. The Tombaugh station problem was believed to be the result of beacons aboard the Taranis. There is no evidence the Shivans even possess the same subspace tracking technology. It makes sense considering they appear able to keep up in general with Terran/Vasudan work, but there's nothing to support that conclusion in either game. They have consistently managed to locate remotely stationed ships that were not making subspace jumps by unknown means, so there's a very real question as to whether they even need tracking.
For that matter, any sort of subspace tracking would have been totally unnecessary to find it, since it was taken to the same system it was trying to run to. The Taranis was attempting to withdraw to Ribos and link up with Shivan forces there.
They took note of where the shield prototypes had been taken(the Command Brief suggests that they were built from actual captured Shivan shield generators, and not mere scan data as you were sent to collect), and were taking no chances in letting them get away(apart from taking the station itself out, which itself perhaps suggests some level of restraint, or perhaps again, overconfidence?).
How? They would have had to have eyes on the ships taking them, and at that point in the game there is no way in hell the GTA could have pulled off an opposed capture operation. Your own attempt to do just that pretty much proves the point. Similarly, why did the Shivans not attack them before they reached Ribos then, in a system where there were more Shivans to do the attacking with? There is absolutely no evidence the Shivans were aware of the shield prototypes in the slightest.
Also recall that at this point in the war the Lucifer is still futzing around somewhere by Ross 128. It's quite possible they couldn't assault the station successfully with forces on hand.
It's also pretty well expressed in the briefing that attacking the Zenith was a way of breaking through a relative weak point in the Shivan fleet, shown well aside from the Lucifer, and Altair looks a little out of the way between Sol and Beta Aquilae, where the Lucifer had been seen last (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Official_Volition_Node_Map), and for that matter, in the opposite direction of Delta Serpentis, where the Lucifer would jump from, to Sol.
It's also quite clear by this point that GTA Command cannot maintain tracking on Shivan forces in general and the Lucifer in particular due to their use of unknown jump nodes.
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There's no evidence for any of that. Altair could well have been on their line of travel to Earth, and the briefing for the shield transport mission makes it clear that the Shivans have been hitting everything that comes out of that station, shields or no shields.
The GTA clearly thought the Shivans would place higher priority to convoys carrying shield systems. Why else would they have deployed a decoy? And on top of that, the earlier scouting wings started attacking probably out of routine, but evidently the attack grew much more intense (and targeted the cargo containers specifically - "Krishna wing is targeting the cargo!") once the Shivans found out what they were carrying.
Also I really doubt Altair was on the way to Earth. Even if the Shivans didn't know where Sol was at that point.
Plus you're crediting the Shivans with having done some kind of actual intelligence work, to which I must ask...how?
They knew their cargo was stolen. They just needed scans to confirm Theta wing was carrying it. I still don't understand why the Shivans would deploy the Lucifer itself to intercept the Rosetta convoy just for the lulz of it. That's completely illogical.
Even from a storytelling perspective it makes no sense. Casting the Shivans as another mindless race of zerg-rushing space bugs? Please no.
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The GTA clearly thought the Shivans would place higher priority to convoys carrying shield systems. Why else would they have deployed a decoy? And on top of that, the earlier scouting wings started attacking probably out of routine, but evidently the attack grew much more intense (and targeted the cargo containers specifically - "Krishna wing is targeting the cargo!") once the Shivans found out what they were carrying.
A decoy because they don't know what the ****, just like the Shivans don't, but the GTA is currently in a tailspin with Shivans everywhere ****ing up everything. Evidence from previous debriefings ("It has been determined because of your successful performance that you are a Shivan spy...") indicates that the GTA is in headless chicken mode and suspects the presence of spies, intelligence leaks, and christ on a pogo stick knows what else. They have yet to recover or to begin responding rationally.
And frankly, you're describing an attack on a target of opportunity as meaning they knew all along. That makes no sense.
Also I really doubt Altair was on the way to Earth. Even if the Shivans didn't know where Sol was at that point.
...I still don't understand why the Shivans would deploy the Lucifer itself to intercept the Rosetta convoy just for the lulz of it. That's completely illogical.
Give their ability to use jump nodes of which the GTA, and by definition us, are unaware, anything could be on the route to Earth. Or the Lucifer could have been the only heavy ship available to attack the Rosetta convoy, or the only one they thought could do so successfully; recall Beta wing is packing more of the stuff you earlier used to destroy the SD Eva. Even if they had anything else handy, they might have thought you would destroy it. Why risk a ship when you can use the Lucifer risk-free?
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Evidence from previous debriefings ("It has been determined because of your successful performance that you are a Shivan spy...")
And frankly, you're describing an attack on a target of opportunity as meaning they knew all along. That makes no sense.
What, at the first part. I don't remember that in any debriefings.
No, he said the Shivans had sent scouting wings that scanned the cargo pods and found that they were carrying shield systems, read what he said again.
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What, at the first part. I don't remember that in any debriefings.
It's a little-known debriefing for a successful run of Pandora's Box, which you are supposed to lose. FS1 was fun like that.
No, he said the Shivans had sent scouting wings that scanned the cargo pods and found that they were carrying shield systems, read what he said again.
No, he said that initial attacks on the transports were by scouting wings and found they were carrying the shields systems so Krishna was scrambled to attack a target of opportunity. That hardly means the Shivans knew the shield systems were there all along.
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It's a little-known debriefing for a successful run of Pandora's Box, which you are supposed to lose. FS1 was fun like that.
What mission outcome causes this one to display?
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What mission outcome causes this one to display?
Successfully scanning the containers that blow up as you approach. (I am not entirely sure this is legitimately possible, but if they put in a debrief, I assume it it is.)
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Well you believe what you want to believe but I firmly stand by my principles.
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I honestly considered that as nothing more than an easter egg (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Briefing_texts_(FS1)#Debriefing_7), like 'Mr. Cuddles' in WiH. Or Admiral Wolf/Shima accusing you of cheating/Admiral Petrarch telling you to go read a book, upon reaching the upper ranks. Though there are no other debriefs quite like that, so I suppose YMMV.
Subspace tracking? We only realized they could do it after Tombaugh.
Assumes facts not in evidence. The Tombaugh station problem was believed to be the result of beacons aboard the Taranis. There is no evidence the Shivans even possess the same subspace tracking technology. It makes sense considering they appear able to keep up in general with Terran/Vasudan work, but there's nothing to support that conclusion in either game. They have consistently managed to locate remotely stationed ships that were not making subspace jumps by unknown means, so there's a very real question as to whether they even need tracking.
For that matter, any sort of subspace tracking would have been totally unnecessary to find it, since it was taken to the same system it was trying to run to. The Taranis was attempting to withdraw to Ribos and link up with Shivan forces there.
Where are these beacons? (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Briefing_texts_(FS1)) The word 'beacon' doesn't appear at all, the Taranis is never mentioned again after Tombaugh, and 'track' yields only references to radar tracking of Shivan fighters,
The Tombaugh Attack
Terran Intelligence has spent the last two weeks analyzing flight data from the Tombaugh station attack. The data on the Shivan Lucifer has been given special attention. Intelligence believes the Shivans were tracking the captured Taranis Cruiser through subspace to the station.
The Lucifer
Intelligence doesn't know how the Shivans tracked the Taranis escort, but they've got a team of engineers trying to figure it out.
and
New Information
From the records you retrieved in Altair, we have discovered the means to destroy the Lucifer. As you know, our shield systems do not work in subspace. The same holds true for the Lucifer. More importantly, the records contain the information to enable us to track a capital ship into and inside subspace.
If we can track the Lucifer into subspace, we believe a small strike force may be sufficient to destroy it.
Canonically, they considered the Shivan tracking significant. Canonically, the Ancients figured out how to track capital ships in subspace thousands of years ago. Endgame suggested that the Shivans would be capable of reopening the Sol jump nodes, given enough time. I believe it was the FS2 tech room Shivan article that stated the Ancients claimed the Shivans were sensitive to subspace disturbances. And the various references to their use of uncharted/unstable nodes.
It may not be outright stated, but unless the Shivans were actually plotting a Xanatos Gambit involving the possible capture of the Taranis(putting beacons on it just in case?), I think it's a little unreasonable to assume the Shivans did not then have the subspace technology/expertise to track large ships just as the Ancients did 8000 years prior.
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Canonically, they considered the Shivan tracking significant. Canonically, the Ancients figured out how to track capital ships in subspace thousands of years ago. Endgame suggested that the Shivans would be capable of reopening the Sol jump nodes, given enough time. I believe it was the FS2 tech room Shivan article that stated the Ancients claimed the Shivans were sensitive to subspace disturbances. And the various references to their use of uncharted/unstable nodes.
It may not be outright stated, but unless the Shivans were actually plotting a Xanatos Gambit involving the possible capture of the Taranis(putting beacons on it just in case?), I think it's a little unreasonable to assume the Shivans did not then have the subspace technology/expertise to track large ships just as the Ancients did 8000 years prior.
There are many things wrong here.
The first is that the GTA (at large?) at the time had no conception of how Shivan comms worked or ability to intercept them.
Endgame doesn't know what the ****. The guy's just talking to himself like a lunatic. There's absolutely no reason, anywhere else in the game, to assume the Shivans can do anything he says. ST and FS2 don't help the case either. EDIT: Or put another way, Endgame is about the same level of usefulness as Petrarch talking about what the Shivans were doing at Capella. It's an ingame character talking about something he has no possible way of knowing or understanding. The chances of Unreliable Narrator are very high.
The Techroom claims subspace disturbances, which could mean nearly anything. Given what the FS1 Techroom also claims about Shivan strategic priorities, it is far more likely that this means subspace nodes than anything else.
The Taranis is a combatant Shivan ship and you are seriously telling me that it won't have a functional comm system that could be used to send a distress call, or an emergency beacon to indicate the ship is in distress. To quote Heinlein, any race capable of building spacecraft is not stupid. There were Shivan ships in the system it was taken to, explicitly, during the mission it's taken there. It would have taken them only minutes to get out a distress call to those ships and from there the Shivans could have shadowed it at long range back to Tombaugh.
While I generally agree with the proposition the Shivans have similar subspace tracking capabilities to the GTVA, there is no actual evidence for that proposition. It's all well and good to say it's so, but if you have to prove it, you're out of luck. And we can't prove it.
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Actually the Taranis was supposedly the only real fighting force left in that system, IIRC.
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Actually the Taranis was supposedly the only real fighting force left in that system, IIRC.
In the system you took it in. However it was fleeing towards the same node that the Hawkins pulls it into at the end of the mission to regroup with other Shivans in that system.
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Endgame doesn't know what the ****. The guy's just talking to himself like a lunatic. There's absolutely no reason, anywhere else in the game, to assume the Shivans can do anything he says.
i think he was contacted by quantum pulse transmissions which whispered madness in his dreams
the geometries were non-euclidean and the truths were unspeakable
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i think he was contacted by quantum pulse transmissions which whispered madness in his dreams
the geometries were non-euclidean and the truths were unspeakable
Stop blaming Ken for other people's problems!
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frankly i agree that the fs1 ending was kinda of lolwutty, a narrative appendix tacked on to provide some semblance of closure, but it's there and i suppose we've got to work with it - and the guy's narrative suggests all those crazy Ancient visions Actually Happened To Him, so something went down that he never reported
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Still not sold. The Shivans in FS1 repeatedly prioritized targets of strategic importance (the shield systems, the transports to give a couple examples), they weren't just acts of random lulzy destruction (no matter how much lulz they caused).
Didn't they attack EVERYTHING? It's hard to talk about smart target selection and prioritizing when you attack everything.
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Still not sold. The Shivans in FS1 repeatedly prioritized targets of strategic importance (the shield systems, the transports to give a couple examples), they weren't just acts of random lulzy destruction (no matter how much lulz they caused).
Didn't they attack EVERYTHING? It's hard to talk about smart target selection and prioritizing when you attack everything.
:rolleyes:
It's about which targets they sent the most force at. They clearly marked certain targets with higher priority than others.
Look guys. If you want to think of Shivans as mindless bugs attacking everything that moves, feel free, I just think they're a bit more intelligent than that.
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It may not be outright stated, but unless the Shivans were actually plotting a Xanatos Gambit involving the possible capture of the Taranis(putting beacons on it just in case?), I think it's a little unreasonable to assume the Shivans did not then have the subspace technology/expertise to track large ships just as the Ancients did 8000 years prior.
IIRC, subspace tracking requires one to be there while a ship jumps out. You have to have a sensor/scanner/ship in the area.
It is possible there were shivan ship on the Ribos side of the node that tracked the transport hauling the Teranis.
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frankly i agree that the fs1 ending was kinda of lolwutty, a narrative appendix tacked on to provide some semblance of closure, but it's there and i suppose we've got to work with it - and the guy's narrative suggests all those crazy Ancient visions Actually Happened To Him, so something went down that he never reported
The way I see it it doesn't suggest anything. All those visions and dreams are bullc*** theories. Nothing more.
It's about which targets they sent the most force at. They clearly marked certain targets with higher priority than others.
Look guys. If you want to think of Shivans as mindless bugs attacking everything that moves, feel free, I just think they're a bit more intelligent than that.
Well, since they do target the cargo, that does imply intelligence. After all, a convoy is all about the cargo, regardless what it is. By destroying the cargo, evne if hte conovy itself survives, you basicly destroyed it's whole purpose for being there. Mission failed (for the enemy side).
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Look guys. If you want to think of Shivans as mindless bugs attacking everything that moves, feel free, I just think they're a bit more intelligent than that.
I have no idea how you draw that conclusion from my sum postings on the subject. Or even the original ones.
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Look guys. If you want to think of Shivans as mindless bugs attacking everything that moves, feel free, I just think they're a bit more intelligent than that.
I have no idea how you draw that conclusion from my sum postings on the subject. Or even the original ones.
Shivans attacking things for the lulz.
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Shivans attacking things for the lulz.
Yes, because bugs do things for the lulz instead of as response to fairly simple biological imperatives. Clearly.
Oh wait.
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Shivans attacking things for the lulz.
Yes, because bugs do things for the lulz instead of as response to fairly simple biological imperatives. Clearly.
Oh wait.
You know what I mean. :rolleyes:
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You know what I mean. :rolleyes:
No, I honestly don't, and that should be pretty clear from my posting afterwards.
EDIT: And to be fair, maybe you don't know what I mean either. "For the lulz" is pretty much as valid a motive for the Shivans to have done anything, including everything in both games, as any other, and reflects a belief on my part that assigning motives for any Shivan action beyond the purely tactical scale in a single engagement is not possible given what we know. I tossed out plenty of reasons why the Lucifer might have been there that have nothing to do with them having inside information on Omega wing. (I'll add another: the Shivans are responding to your attack on the Zenith and see a breakout attempt in progress, they have no real interest in stopping the operation in and of itself, only what it looks like.) But in the end, "for the lulz" remains as valid as any of them.
I do think your proposition that the Shivans are somehow aware of these things is weaker, because there's multiple ways of explaining it that do not require some form of Shivan knowledge of the event and there's pretty much nothing that says the Shivans are remotely interested in acquiring or using knowledge about Terrans and Vasudans. It could still be valid, but it is less likely than the alternative.
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If I understand you right NGTM (which is an unsure bet at best) then you're saying that the Shivans are purely instictive in nature like a group of ants? I'm not sure how far you can take that though. I mean how far can pure instict go in relation to running a spaceborne armada? Shoot this shoot that yeah, but running a spacecraft with all the technicality that involves??? We know the Shivans have comparable ship systems to Terrans/Vasudans, such as Engines, Weapons, Sensors etc. and that they have electronics. I just can't see that a species that isn't at least partially sentient would be able to do everything the Shivans do.
Unless I missed your point completely. :)
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If I understand you right NGTM (which is an unsure bet at best) then you're saying that the Shivans are purely instictive in nature like a group of ants? I'm not sure how far you can take that though. I mean how far can pure instict go in relation to running a spaceborne armada? Shoot this shoot that yeah, but running a spacecraft with all the technicality that involves??? We know the Shivans have comparable ship systems to Terrans/Vasudans, such as Engines, Weapons, Sensors etc. and that they have electronics. I just can't see that a species that isn't at least partially sentient would be able to do everything the Shivans do.
Unless I missed your point completely. :)
I don't think the Shivans operate on instinct at all. (Again the words of Heinlein, any race that can build spacecraft is not stupid.)
I simply think that trying to ascribe a correct motive to why they do anything where the decision wasn't made in front of the player by people (ships, really) the player could see isn't possible with what we know about them. There are theories that make less sense than the average, but there are none that arrive at a correct answer.
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It may not be outright stated, but unless the Shivans were actually plotting a Xanatos Gambit involving the possible capture of the Taranis(putting beacons on it just in case?), I think it's a little unreasonable to assume the Shivans did not then have the subspace technology/expertise to track large ships just as the Ancients did 8000 years prior.
IIRC, subspace tracking requires one to be there while a ship jumps out. You have to have a sensor/scanner/ship in the area.
It is possible there were shivan ship on the Ribos side of the node that tracked the transport hauling the Teranis.
Perhaps, but also let us remember the Shivans subspace tracking MAY be far superior to the GTVA's, and not subject to the same limitations. Conversely, it could be inferior, but I find that unlikely.
As for this argument over 'for the lulz', NGM is definitely right. We don't know why the shivans are xenophobic maniacs we just know that they are. Maybe they evolved on a planet where the only possibility of survival was to crush anything approaching your intelligence, and thus by definition, a potential threat.
Or maybe our use of subsace is bad for them (cus of their 'sensitivity')
Or maybe they are megalomaniacs and just do it 'for the lulz'. We can't know, we don't know, but all theories are just as valid.
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Perhaps, but also let us remember the Shivans subspace tracking MAY be far superior to the GTVA's, and not subject to the same limitations. Conversely, it could be inferior, but I find that unlikely.
The only limitation is a hard one..a basic, logical one if you wish.
You cannot percive sensory input, without having a sensory device present. It's a limitation on the most fundamental level possible.
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I remember when I first played The Great Hunt, it had taken me about 50 goes to beat Clash of the Titans (I was about 9, hadn't clocked on that you had to take out bombers, sent my fighters to attack the Tantalus), I was half expecting the Lucifer to turn round and destroy the Bastion with it's flux cannons.
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Perhaps, but also let us remember the Shivans subspace tracking MAY be far superior to the GTVA's, and not subject to the same limitations. Conversely, it could be inferior, but I find that unlikely.
The only limitation is a hard one..a basic, logical one if you wish.
You cannot percive sensory input, without having a sensory device present. It's a limitation on the most fundamental level possible.
Yeah but who's to say the Shivan's don't have tech that would allow them to track jumps system wide? The shivans need not have the hardware in the 'field of engagement' to track that kind of thing, as such it may not be subject to the same limitations as ours, in so far as range is involved.
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At the very least, if they've got it, they've probably got it better than the GTVA. Shivan fighters in the Nebula are consistently unaffected by their environment, suggesting better sensors.
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At the very least, if they've got it, they've probably got it better than the GTVA. Shivan fighters in the Nebula are consistently unaffected by their environment, suggesting better sensors.
Exactly
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Perhaps, but also let us remember the Shivans subspace tracking MAY be far superior to the GTVA's, and not subject to the same limitations. Conversely, it could be inferior, but I find that unlikely.
The only limitation is a hard one..a basic, logical one if you wish.
You cannot percive sensory input, without having a sensory device present. It's a limitation on the most fundamental level possible.
Yeah but who's to say the Shivan's don't have tech that would allow them to track jumps system wide? The shivans need not have the hardware in the 'field of engagement' to track that kind of thing, as such it may not be subject to the same limitations as ours, in so far as range is involved.
That's exactly what I meant. Supposedly they didn't have any more ships in the system in which Taranis was captures.
BUT, they did have ships in Ribos, which is where the transport hauling the Taranis jumped too.
But even then, I suspect the shivans had to have had ships close. The resolution of any sensory input has a tendency to downgrade with distance.
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Since we're way off topic now: what ever happened to the NTC Alexandria?
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Wasn't it the ship which Snipes was fleeing in the SOC Loop, just before Into The Lion's Den ?
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YEs.
Anbd the asnwer - no one knows.
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In fact what happened to all those other warships the GTVA left behind?
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In fact what happened to all those other warships the GTVA left behind?
The warships unaccounted for when they decided to nuke the Knossos? They probably got through if they weren't destroyed by the Shivans, since the jump node back to Gamma Drax from the nebula was still open.
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Since we're way off topic now: what ever happened to the NTC Alexandria?
On a side note, has anyone ever stopped to think just how ungainly the Alexandria, being either a Fenris/Leviathan or an Aeolus, would look with an Argo sticking out of the side? They seriously should have made the Grall an Elysium, then have an escape pod recover the survivors.
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Since we're way off topic now: what ever happened to the NTC Alexandria?
On a side note, has anyone ever stopped to think just how ungainly the Alexandria, being either a Fenris/Leviathan or an Aeolus, would look with an Argo sticking out of the side? They seriously should have made the Grall an Elysium, then have an escape pod recover the survivors.
Pretty bad lol. I guess if the Aeolus grew a docking port on the bottom it would look kind of like a mini colossus.. but i always hated how the coli looked like a big water pistol.