[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by FireCrack
I highly doubt theyre using starship lasers, those things are probably HUGE.

Agreed.  Especially since FS fighters are about the size of a house.  The gun barrels on the front of a Herc, for example, are a couple of feet in diameter.

[FireCrack]

well, the herc has relativly large (heavily armoured?) gun barrels, so it's probably not theb est choice, but nonetheless an ML-16 is at the shortest a good 5 meteres long, probably 8 though, and about 2M on the long direction of width

in conclusin, starship guns are the size of samll automobiles.

[Charismatic]

But they only took down One shivan out of 3-4 + they ALL fired at that One. How stuipd? How much metal can those guys take!
Why in the hell did they wait so dam long to fire? They wouldent think they were comeing to peacable greet them did they? It was the 2nd great war with these bastards. Ovisuly they werent gona cooperate.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Charismatic
But they only took down One shivan out of 3-4 + they ALL fired at that One. How stuipd? How much metal can those guys take!
Why in the hell did they wait so dam long to fire? They wouldent think they were comeing to peacable greet them did they? It was the 2nd great war with these bastards. Ovisuly they werent gona cooperate.

I think when faced with a new alien species - one which was powerful enough to annihilate entire fleets - in the wild you'd be inclined to hesitate.  They weren't on a search and destroy so much as recon mission anyways; possibly they never expected the Shivans to be still alive onboard.

And as for firing... well, they shot at the nearest and more threatening target.

Read the fsref bible scripts; they explain exactly why it happened the way it did.  No normal human would just wander into that sort of situation gung ho and trigger happy, regardless of what Hollywood might like to tell you.........

EDIT;
[q]
Emerging from the dark end of the corridor come 3 Shivans.  They are huge, easily towering over the soldiers.  They move both by jumping/walking and grabbing onto the ceiling, unhampered by the zero-g..  They approach the boarding party but stop about halfway.  They pause and appear to be studying the Terrans.  They carry no discernible weapons.

[closeup of the front soldier’s eyes over his gunsight, as they widen in shock]

Spice:      What the hell is that!

[cut to medium shot of soldiers]

Flex:      Oh my God…. look how they move….
 

[brief pause, as the Terrans recover from shock]

Soldier-1:   Open fire!

Massive automatic gunfire erupts from the Terrans.  The Shivans react very quickly and start to jump toward the party.

Zombie:      *screaming* Die!

[Cut to closeup of a Shivan bounding towards the Terran unit.  It’s visibly taking the brunt of the Terran’s firepower, and goes down about 8 meters away.  The two behind it quickly bound around/over it and continue on, undamaged.]
[/q]

[Thorn]

Uh, it was the first, and they were still trying to figure out wtf they were.

[Charismatic]

Heh. Ok ok.. ty. But they knew if they fired at the more threatoning target, they would be overrun by the other 2, who were chargeing at them also..?
But yes, hesitation would be correct. Sorry.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Charismatic
Heh. Ok ok.. ty. But they knew if they fired at the more threatoning target, they would be overrun by the other 2, who were chargeing at them also..?
 

You're assuming the 1st Shivan wasn't also acting to block the fire and protect the other 2 behind it.

Or, of course, the marines underestimated the strength of the Shivans 'skin', and thought by focusing their fire on the nearest one they could take each Shivan in turn without any getting close.

And it's unlikely the GTA would have a set doctrine for that kind of 'infantry' engagement, of course; the Vasudans probably don't bound at high speed along the ceilings, after all.

[Charismatic]

Yah, sorry, didnt think about that. Good observations, Aldo 14. I'v enjoyed this discussion. Thank you.

[Taristin]

And it's unlikely the GTA would have a set doctrine for that kind of 'infantry' engagement, of course; the Vasudans probably don't bound at high speed along the ceilings, after all.

No, they walk up to the Terrans, grab them by their throats, and slam them onto the ground, where they procede to trample them.

[WMCoolmon]

Except for two problems: One, have you listened to the noise those guns make? They don't sound like chemical-reaction propellent guns. They hum. Two, consider the size of the bore. They're firing 80mm or greater rounds. I'm sorry, there is not room for more the five or six of those there, and they fire sustained fully automatic bursts lasting several seconds.

They were in a tightly contained space, with an unknown composition of metal on the walls and chemicals in the air. The guns would also be fitted with suppressors to keep the soldiers from going completely deaf. The humming could be caused by some sort of rotation mechanism.

I remember definitely hearing some automatic-projectile sounds, eg explosions as the weapons fired, which an energy weapon wouldn't make.

A bizzare thought - if the soldiers were in a vaccuum, having bullets in the traditional shape wouldn't be as necessary. You could use thin metal plates , which would also lessen the chance of penetrating the hull. Thus you'd still have a wide bore, but the actual projectiles would take up very little space.

You'd need some sort of VERY tough metal to withstand an explosion inside the gun's chamber, but the GTVA's got 367 years or so to come up with new ones.

[Charismatic]

Lol, possible names for the new metals. We woudl get some wired names then, if people tried to come up with some. *hint hint*

[pecenipicek]

my idea is that they are using some lasers from ships which are much smaller and demand less power so that they could be deployed by infantry...
of course that was simply random...

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon


They were in a tightly contained space, with an unknown composition of metal on the walls and chemicals in the air. The guns would also be fitted with suppressors to keep the soldiers from going completely deaf. The humming could be caused by some sort of rotation mechanism.

I remember definitely hearing some automatic-projectile sounds, eg explosions as the weapons fired, which an energy weapon wouldn't make.

A bizzare thought - if the soldiers were in a vaccuum, having bullets in the traditional shape wouldn't be as necessary. You could use thin metal plates , which would also lessen the chance of penetrating the hull. Thus you'd still have a wide bore, but the actual projectiles would take up very little space.

You'd need some sort of VERY tough metal to withstand an explosion inside the gun's chamber, but the GTVA's got 367 years or so to come up with new ones.

One of the soldiers was carrying a different weapon, apparently some kind of grenade launcher, also apparently as a squad support weapon. She fired it only once, but that appeared to be what finally took the Shivan down. If it takes an armor-piercing grenade to stop one...

Considering there was fog in an earlier section of the transport, they did not pass through any airlocks, and they didn't have faceplates, they were in an atmosphere of some sort, one that was thick enough and non-toxic enough to not be immeditately dangerous to an exposed human.

[FireCrack]

^ i noticed the grenade launcher too but i thaught it was just me


Close observation of the scene indicates that when they encountered the shuvans they were at the bottom part of the transport.

[WMCoolmon]

I didn't notice the grenade launcher, actually.

IIRC, they were wearing some sort of protective masks that would've let them breathe from a self-contained air supply. They didn't cover their complete face, just their nose and mouth.

I thought they actually did pass through an airlock, too, between the Shivan ship and the other ship.

[NGTM-1R]

Yeah, but there was some sort of yellowish fog onboard the Shivan transport.

Exposure to vacuum is not good for you, whether you can still breathe via your oxygen tank or not. Particularly for your eyes.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
I didn't notice the grenade launcher, actually.

IIRC, they were wearing some sort of protective masks that would've let them breathe from a self-contained air supply. They didn't cover their complete face, just their nose and mouth.

I thought they actually did pass through an airlock, too, between the Shivan ship and the other ship.

The airlock could/would be to prevent the atmosphere in the Shivan ship from being sucked out the bloody great breaching-hole, though.... or even if it's a dockpoint they're using (I'm not sure), maybe the Shivans simply don't have a physical airlock (they can survive in vacuum after all) - either none atall or an energy based forcefield airlock.  The latter which could be disabled due to damage or simply as a defensive mechanism.