[Black13]

Ok, could someone please tell me what I missed -

why is the concept of shields on a capital ship so hard to create?  I mean, we stole every technology we could off the shivans.  We stole the beam cannons of the lucifer off of them (I know that they were really missles with long tails) we stole laser designs and even ship designs (the Thoth, Pegasus and Dragon are all similar in a way)

So why not create a ship that has beam cannons and shielding?  

Please don't play the size card - if you can get shields on a fighter and keep a relatively compact design (see the thoth for that) why can't you do them on a cap ship?

This always bugged me

[Carl]

because the shield would recharge faster than you could do damage to it. remember that when you shoot a fighter it takes only seconds to bring down the shield ot hull, but on a cap ship it takes several minute to destroy it, even with huge beams because they take so long to recharge. if the shield strength is comparable to the hull strength, then in the 60 seconds it takes to being the shield down 10 percent, it would have recharged to full. cap ships would be invulnerable, which means no fun.

also, there were stability problems in the engine with making huge shields.

[Black13]

so basically the arguement is a gameplay one - not a canon / story / technology one

ok - I still don't like it, but I guess I can't argue with that

[StratComm]

No, it's also a story-driven one.  The Lucifer shielding was at least close to one-of-a-kind technology, and since the Lucy's hull didn't stick around, neither did the technology on it to generate the shielding.  The other issue that you're overlooking is that we really have no basis of how shields work, nor do we know that the power requirements grow linearly with the volume, or even the surface area, of the ship they surround.  In fact, all indications seem to show that the requirements for shielding are anything but expandable to larger ships.  What I gather from the briefings and such is that generating a defense field as large and powerful as the Lucifer's was a power and shield-stability issue moreso than you're giving credit for.

[Black13]

stratcom -

I recognize that the lucifer had 5 reactors that were essential to bringing it down - I also hear very well what you are saying.  

Still though, command had 30 years - and in that time they figured out a lot.  Look at the meson bomb, beam cannons, and the big C just for starters - I wonder why the strategy of putting shields on something that big (why not their stations at least? - also why are there no beam cannon defense on stations either?)

I don't know - just seemed kinda odd.

[aldo_14]

Worth noting that the Lucifer shields were described as 'sheath' shielding IIRC, which would appear to be different to the GTVA shield types (and indeed the Shivan fighters').

Also worth nothing that fighter shielding was based on recovered Shivan technology (or scanned at least; I forget the exact details) - the Lucifer was the only large ship to be shielded, it was the only large ship to have 'beam' (like; i.e. in vprime ani) weapons, and it was also totally destroyed (and had a habit of destroying any GTVA ship that got too close).

The Lucifer is in many ways a bit of an anomaly in the Fs universe; not even the Shivans have shielded capships, not to mention that the Lucifer was originally intended to have a blood-red warp-in (from the cut Tombaugh station cutscene script).  If capship shielding could only be reverse-engineered from the Lucifer, then it's quite possible there's just not the basic information to do so - I don't think there's any reason why the physics (or whatever) for shielding a large object couldn't be completely different in terms of shielding a small object such as a fighter.

The Lucifers shields quite possibly only existed to make it literally invulnerable and thus setup the grandstand finish to FS1; if you look at the roughly comparable situation with the Sathanas in FS2, the player had pretty much no role in making the 'deathblow' to it (of course, this would be offset by the simple fact that FS2 wasn't in the end about stopping the Sath).

IMO the reasons Arcadias don't have beam cannons is a) because they're too old to be retrofitted with the technology and b) they make good 'defense' mission centrepieces, and adding more beams, etc, as defense would weaken that.

[NGTM-1R]

I would think the GTVA would make some effort to retrofit Arcadias with beam cannon, though, because otherwise they're at the mercy of any cruiser that happens along. Particularly the experiences of Enif Station during the NTF Rebellion ought to convince people of the necessity of such a refit. I don't imagine they'll have main beams (max outfit of 2 BGreen or 4 TerSlash), but they'll at least be able to drive off a Leviathan or Mentu. If they could retrofit beams to other Great War-era craft, I see no reason not to do so for stations.

The technology for fighter shielding, I imagine, suffers from exponentional growth in power requirements for the area that must be shielded.

[Carl]

It may just be impossible to put beam cannons on Arcadias. If that's true, then I suggest making a new class of installation.

[Cobra]

The shivans have been around for thousands of years, so they had time to perfect the shielding-and-beam-cannon combination.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
I would think the GTVA would make some effort to retrofit Arcadias with beam cannon, though, because otherwise they're at the mercy of any cruiser that happens along. Particularly the experiences of Enif Station during the NTF Rebellion ought to convince people of the necessity of such a refit. I don't imagine they'll have main beams (max outfit of 2 BGreen or 4 TerSlash), but they'll at least be able to drive off a Leviathan or Mentu. If they could retrofit beams to other Great War-era craft, I see no reason not to do so for stations.

The technology for fighter shielding, I imagine, suffers from exponentional growth in power requirements for the area that must be shielded.

Other Great-War era craft had the advantage of being military vessels, though; i.e. there'd be a degree of design flexibility for their armament, probably some consideration made for refitting and upgrading.  The Fenris -> Leviathan design could be considered an example of that in action, albiet on a more drastic scale than refitting.

I don't think it's entirely clear that Arcadias are, or were designed as, military installations.  As such, they may not have had the same capacity for upgrading.  Or, it could simply be that other improvements took precedence; maybe extra docking space, or space for civvies (although this was before any Capellan refugees came along, there could have been consequences from the loss of Sol).

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Black13
we stole laser designs and even ship designs (the Thoth, Pegasus and Dragon are all similar in a way)

Bull****. The Thoth was made way before the shivans ever enterred Ross 128. Or any other PVN/GTA system.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by Raa
The Thoth was made way before the shivans ever enterred Ross 128.

Uh... no?  The Thoth was based on the Ulysses.

[Solatar]

I think it's safe to assume the Ulysses (or a weaker version, without Vasudan help) would have been in development before the Shivans showed up.

[Cobra]

the ulysess would be powerful even without the vasudan's help.

[Solatar]

Well, it might not be as fast or maneuverable, considering the Vasudans seemed to have the better end of engine technology.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by Cobra
the ulysess would be powerful even without the vasudan's help.

*smacks Cobra on behalf of Raa*

[Taristin]

*smacks Cobra, anyway*

*also goes to recheck the FS1 techroom entry for the Thoth*

[Night Hammer]

i thought the HoL made the thoth out in altair

[Taristin]

The HoL held the shipyards for a while, but they didn't design it. They designed the Sekhmat.

[Black13]

by saying that we stole the design for certain ships off the shivans I may have used improper syntax - stolen was a much stronger word than I intended.  

Perhaps inspired would have been a better word to use.  As for the thoth being based on the ulysses - well I'd like to know how the design of the ship resembles the ulysses in any way shape or form.  Thoth being wingless and ulysses primary physical feature being bat like and all.  

Also I am not a level 7 geek yet Raa, so I don't go memorizing the dates that ships that don't play a central role in the game were created.  If the creation date of the Thoth was before the ross 128 incident, I will stand corrected - however the appearance of the thoth is much later in the game which led me to my assumption.  I am sorry if I offended you - and didn't think what I wrote would spark such a reaction from anyone