[Carl]

This has probably been discussed here before, or i'm missing something.

When they're about to blow up the knossos device and the shivans jump in, they want you to clear them out before they can detonate the meson bomb. But wouldn't the bomb take care of them for you?

[jdjtcagle]

They want you to take out any fighters taht threaten the Sobek and then watch as the meson-bomb takes out 12 dragons.

[karajorma]

I think the idea is to stop the fighters from blowing up the meson bomb and thus disabling it. The problem is that when you blow up the meson bomb it does exactly the same amount of damage as if you let it explode.

[Carl]

well if they had just detonated it right away...

[an0n]

They probably didn't want the fighters jumping out as the bombs exploded and creating a 'Lucifer effect', sealing the system off and collapsing all the nodes.

[Blaise Russel]

Surely the 'Lucifer effect' only affects the one node, that node being the one in which the bomb is currently present? If it's not in subspace, how can it collapse any node at all?

[ARothers]

Perhaps the explosion of the Lucifer was so great it destroy all jump nodes leading from Earth.  And the Bastion and the Neried explosions weren't powerful enough.  The Meson warhead only destroyed the portal but didn't collapse the subspace.  But the Sathanas was already in subspace when the Knossos blew up.  So the Shivans had more advanced subspace technology so they managed to get through.

[Blaise Russel]

There was only the one node from Sol anyway. We speculate that the others were too unstable to use anyway, because FS1 is riddled with so many background holes that it's a wonder it can stand upright at all.

The Meson warhead was only intended to destroy the Knossos portal, as they reckoned that without the portal's stabilising influence, the node would collapse anyway. They were wrong; while being stabilised by the Knossos, the node had become stable in its own right, and no longer needed the portal to keep it usable.

I don't think you can collapse subspace with an explosion in real space anyway.

[Taristin]

Originally posted by an0n
They probably didn't want the fighters jumping out as the bombs exploded and creating a 'Lucifer effect', sealing the system off and collapsing all the nodes.

But... wasn't the point of that mission to seal off the node anyway?

[Ghostavo]

Maybe the bomb was charging up, who cares...

[Flaser]

No. They thought that without the Knossos, the node would dissolve WITHOUT the Luciferish effect.

The idea was that it was the Knossos that kept the node in check.

[Johnmike]

Oh, boy.

[an0n]

There could be a much simpler explaination: Command didn't want Shivan ships seeing their new super-weapon.

[WMCoolmon]

Or Command doesn't like Alpha 1.

[Hellbender]

Heh - dunno, but myself I'd've built the meson bombs into shielded, heavily armoured, sub-space capable RPBs and used them to go Sathanas hunting instead of destroying a valuable resource like the Knossos portal.

Mission design-wise, protecting the meson bombs from fighter attack is more interesting to a player than a bombing run against an unarmed static installation.

[Blaise Russel]

Or they wanted to protect the guys who put the bomb in place.

[Lightspeed]

Nice to see you back at the forums BR

[Blaise Russel]

Exams are fun.

[Lightspeed]

I know, I know.

[Star Dragon]

One, perhaps the bomb needs to be put in an exact position before allowing it to detonate (which prematurely would still waste everyone in the area, but may not affect the Knossis as desired if not close enough using their calculations for placement and damage potential of the meson bomb).

  Two, it's another mission for the player.