[Polpolion]

Okay, heres some things I've noticed about FreeSpace 2:

1. Shivans SUCK. Have you noticed how we were pretty much killing them until they got nine and then eighty juggernauts? If they didn't have the juggernauts, and even if they had two juggernauts, we probly would've beaten them. (I bring this up because I kinda think juggernauts are the same thing as cheating)

2. The myrmadon is able to carry the helios torpedo. There isn't any missions where you can see this in the real campaign, but it can carry helios's (no, my .tbl files weren't hacked). It can only carry 3 or 4, but it still makes an excellent strike bomber. It can't carry cyclopses.

[FireCrack]

1)It's not that the shivans suck, it's that you rock

2) Yeah, this one's well known, it carries 4 at the expense of all other secondaries, twin helioses of DOOM!

[BlackDove]

1) It's that *SCRAMBLEDCOMMUNICATIONPARADIGMSHIFTHARHAROPINONCAN'TSHARESCRAMBLED*

2) Perseus also carries 4 Helios bombs in multiplayer with tab reloading, but seriously, Myrmidon is an experimental craft as far as FS2 goes, so weirdness in capability to carry Helios is pretty well... let's say justified.

[StratComm]

1) Have you actually seen how long your wingmen survive a typical battle?  Shivans are somehow worse than this... because?

2) That's an easter egg.  It's a well-documented and widely known easter-egg at that.  The very fact that it's like that in the retail tables and yet doesn't appear as a valid combination in any main campaign mission would have made it really hard to "accidentally" put in.  But that's not why it's a known easter egg; it's obviously supposed to be like that because the Myrmadon has one bank of REALLY HUGE missile launchers in the model; not big enough to fit a Helios into, perhaps, but bigger than the missile launch ports for any other fighter in the game.

[Galemp]

1. Shivans SUCK. Have you noticed how we were pretty much killing them until they got nine and then eighty juggernauts? If they didn't have the juggernauts, and even if they had two juggernauts, we probly would've beaten them. (I bring this up because I kinda think juggernauts are the same thing as cheating)

I assume by "Shivans SUCK!" you mean "The enemies SUCK!" Try setting your difficulty to Hard. Then try dogfighting with some Dragons, or going head-to-head with a Lilith, and let us know how it goes.

Then try running the Gauntlet missions on multi, and see how the Shivans stack up against the Terran and Vasudan gauntlets.

[CP5670]

He is actually right, at least from a gameplay point of view. Many of the Shivan ships and most of their weapons are somewhat inferior to the Terran or Vasudan counterparts. The Shivans have a few extremely good ships and weapons and then a lot of crap to go with those. As for the gauntlets, the shivan gauntlet is easier than the other two.

However, as far as the story is concerned, the Shivans definitely inflict considerable damage on the GTVA even before the first Sathanas shows up.

[phreak]

Okay, heres some things I've noticed about FreeSpace 2:

1. Shivans SUCK. Have you noticed how we were pretty much killing them until they got nine and then eighty juggernauts? If they didn't have the juggernauts, and even if they had two juggernauts, we probly would've beaten them. (I bring this up because I kinda think juggernauts are the same thing as cheating)
Play on insane where the hostile AI ships maneuver and do damage at full potenital.  On medium, you're only receiving 60% damage whenever you get hit.  Hostile ships also will move faster and turn how they would if a player were at the controls (they just run into things on occasion).

2. The myrmadon is able to carry the helios torpedo. There isn't any missions where you can see this in the real campaign, but it can carry helios's (no, my .tbl files weren't hacked). It can only carry 3 or 4, but it still makes an excellent strike bomber. It can't carry cyclopses.

Its useful in multiplayer.

[Polpolion]

Okay, heres some things I've noticed about FreeSpace 2:

1. Shivans SUCK. Have you noticed how we were pretty much killing them until they got nine and then eighty juggernauts? If they didn't have the juggernauts, and even if they had two juggernauts, we probly would've beaten them. (I bring this up because I kinda think juggernauts are the same thing as cheating)
Play on insane where the hostile AI ships maneuver and do damage at full potenital. On medium, you're only receiving 60% damage whenever you get hit. Hostile ships also will move faster and turn how they would if a player were at the controls (they just run into things on occasion).
Yes, Im sure it would be difficult, but im talking big picture, not just you vs. the comp.       And what if WE were the ones that had 80 juggernats, not the shivans. WE would be the ones who really won. And before any juggernauts, we were winning. Did you notice how they had 32 years to fortify the nebula past Gamma Draconis, yet we still controlled a good part right before the 2nd Sathanas. You see, the Shivans are stupid. They didn't even bother blockading any of the nodes/knossos portals. Any smart person would've done that during a war. Was it because they thought that they would win? probly. But still, they knew they were going to try to kill us again, and they had 32 YEARS to prepare. We thought they were gone forever. most of us did, at least. *sigh* glad I got that out.

2. The myrmadon is able to carry the helios torpedo. There isn't any missions where you can see this in the real campaign, but it can carry helios's (no, my .tbl files weren't hacked). It can only carry 3 or 4, but it still makes an excellent strike bomber. It can't carry cyclopses.

Its useful in multiplayer.
I agree. 

Sigh... This fourm dose not like me     (notice the boxes)

[Ransom]

And what if WE were the ones that had 80 juggernats, not the shivans. WE would be the ones who really won. And before any juggernauts, we were winning.

Whoa, really? Thank goodness we got that cleared up.

The Shivans just flat out had far superior numbers to us. We could never have won, even without the help of the Juggernauts. It's impossible to say just how big the entire Shivan fleet is because we never saw it. Also keep in mind that the Juggernaut fleet didn't engage anything. They just made Capella's sun go supernova.

[Singh]

The Shivans DONT suck. In fact, they were so badly pwning humanity, it wasn't even funny.

The apperance of the SD Ravana alone wiped out a GTVA Corvette, and from the briefings, it also took out another GTVA destroyer and several more ships single-handedly. The fact that they decided to risk deploying an experimental bomber against it suggested a whole lot on how desperate they were to take it out - and even then it only went out to bomber squadrons. In most capital ship engagements, the Ravana won.

When the shivans made it beyond Gamma Draconis, they managed to push allied forces all the way into Capella - at which point you can see that they were delibrately languishing around and waiting for something. The entire key here is that they pretty much could afford to ignore us due to the Sathanas's power. Hence there weren't that many capital ships needed to push into allied space. This was till the Colossus came; at which point they couldn't ignore us anymore, since we had ships with similar capabilities and firepower. And we all know the response to THAT event.

Remember - even in the Bastion mission, allied forces were engaged elsewhere, leaving only 3 Aeolus cruisers in the area. Normally, if the alliance were doing well, they'd at least have a Corvette escort around - if only to protect against larger capital vessels. In hte ending cutscene just before hte supernova we can see how well allied ships fared - a Vasudan destroyer fell to two Shivan vessels in the background of the fight, what appears to be a Lilith and a Moloch. This alone is pretty damn significant of the firepower the Shivans were throwing at the allies in terms of bombers and fighters.

The reason we see them suck so much is because we are seeing them through Alpha 1's eyes. When it comes to the Shivans, or anyone else in the universe, the player is God-like, much akin to the relation between the FEAR point man and the FEAR replicas. We simply have too many advantages that nullate the Shivan's own advantages to actually see how damn kick-ass they are. As mentioned before, try playing in insane or hard and see how easy it is to last against them.

[Flipside]

The Shivans won the first time round because the GTVA didn't have shields for half the campaign and were already on a backfoot before they started on equal terms. Once we were on equal terms we actually started to make a pretty noticeable dent in the Lucifer fleet. In the second one we just got swarmed under by numbers more than anything else.

I don't think it was so much the Sathanas power the Shivans relied on, I don't think the Shivans rely on anything, they just do things, and if some of their number die, no biggy, there's plenty more.

Look at every major space opera... Star Wars, Wing Commander, Babylon 5, Stargate, even Andromeda. The Enemy is always tactically retarded, a crap shot and exists in vast numbers. Theres a reason for this, can you imagine Star Wars with only Sith and no Stormtroopers for the good guys to shoot at and look heroic, if there'd only been Sith vs Jedi, it would have been a great movie (though sort of like X-Men) but most of the rest of the cast would have got gutted within the first 10-15 seconds of combat.

That's why the Shivans suck in combat, so that you can shoot them.

[Odd Writings]

Hm...Maybe the Shivans do suck. But they get to use the tactic known as "The thirty kindergarten kiddies".

They swamp you with numbers. Try fighting 30 dragons or Mara's. Heck, even Astaroths will seriously make you wish you didn't do this; they'll rip you a new one, after taking down every squadmate. And cap ship.

I had trouble taking down 6 dragons on my own (wingmen were nicely toasted by a capship I think; they should know it is not an icecream, those anti-fighter beams...)

...excuse me while I wipe the image of my wingmen flying at a Moloch with a large icecream cone on top of it, playing the icecream song.

[Thor]

The only reason the GTVA didn't really suck it up was thanks to good ole Alpha 1.  If we had just left things to Command...it'd be game over man, game over!

[Col. Fishguts]

Look at every major space opera... Star Wars, Wing Commander, Babylon 5, Stargate, even Andromeda. The Enemy is always tactically retarded, a crap shot and exists in vast numbers.

Only that in B5 it's vice versa. The bad guys (shadows) use a handful of battlecrabs to wipe out dozens of younger races's cap ships, which in turn can only put a dent in the battlecrabs if they use vastly superior numbers.

But yes, you're right. It's mainly a plot-device-thing.

[Flipside]

True, but B5 always struck me as the most 'cerebal' of the bunch, since the 'Enemy' was not truly the Shadows, the enemy, in B5, was quite often caused by Shadow (or Vorlon) interference, but the real danger was of people reaction to that interference, not the Shadows themselves.
As Sheridan points out, the moment he saw the Vorlon planet killer, he knew that the Vorlon could have obliterated the Shadows any time they wanted, but the important thing was about the decisions of the younger races, not the actions of the older ones.

At least, in my opinion

[FireCrack]

Oh god, command makes your wingmates look good!

Anwyas, mabye someday we'l have some better AI for te enemy fighters, then things can realy heat up...

[NGTM-1R]

There is some truth to the GTVA getting ahead, though, at least in terms of fightercraft. Witness the Eryines.

[Polpolion]

The GTVA commmand was pretty dumb, yes i'll give you that. But what if (uh-oh, i used the horrible W-I words  ) command WAS smart? we would've done much better!

You also must notice that we survuved 2 wars with the shivans, while the anctiants (to what we know) only 1. wait, that just says were good, not they're bad....oh well.



P.S. Don't burst my bubble about the shivans stinking     

[Ransom]

The GTVA commmand was pretty dumb, yes i'll give you that. But what if (uh-oh, i used the horrible W-I words  ) command WAS smart? we would've done much better!

But we still couldn't have won.

You also must notice that we survuved 2 wars with the shivans, while the anctiants (to what we know) only 1. wait, that just says were good, not they're bad....oh well.

The second war was cut short. If the Shivans had actually wanted to wipe us out, we wouldn't have had a chance. But they just wanted to make Capella go supernova for some reason.

[FireCrack]

And the first ware we only won by an ironic (very ironic) twist of fate.