[S-99]

While they're at it. They should make a reverse subspace inhibitor. I would find this to be more powerful. You're just in your own ship formation in the shivan nebula and you don't want any other ships in the area besides your own. Use a subspace reverse inhibitor, which would keep ships from warping in. One good way to cut down on surprise attacks.

[Aardwolf]

It doesn't have to be subspace technology, that was just another idea someone threw out there. It's an interesting idea, and could have a lot of potential, though.

Also, as for flak, can it be launched from a fighter? If it can, some sort of acid flak might be an interesting effect. Even non-fighter launched acid flak would be cool. What sort of shield, hull, and subsystem damage do you think such a weapon would cause?

For the subspace inhibitor, I was actually thinking sort of both... it would both prevent warpouts and warp-ins. However, I think preventing or relocating warp-ins would be harder to FRED than preventing ships from jumping out.

The Lamia is kind of cool looking, but I don't particularly like the three-way symmetry. Even for Shivan it looks kind of funky weird. Heh. Even... Shivan... rhyme... and it was accidental too!

Subspace specific ships and weapons don't do it for me... they don't seem to belong. I'm going to start a new thread about subspace, how it works (not the physics but the gameplay), some inconsistencies I noticed, and stuff like that. This thread is still open though. You don't have to limit your tech ideas to ones that will benefit my campaign either, because, although special help would be appreciated, I have barely even got a framework ready. Actually, I don't even have that.

[Tyrian]

Along the lines of a subspace inhibitor; what about a subspace blocker?  Instead of a big, expensive blockade (which could be destroyed by a Juggernaut or larger ship), fit a giant metal sphere with engines and fly it into the node where a subspace portal would open.  The sphere could even be made of scrap metal.  The portal opens, and instead of the ship emerging into realspace, it pops out inside a solid object.  No matter how large a ship hit it, that sphere would do huge damage to the ship.  Also, most ships won't commit to an inter-system jump if the exit is blocked.  Either way, nothing can get through, and it's cheaper and more logistically efficient than destroying the node outright.  It would also leave more ships free for combat operations.

[Aardwolf]

Interesting idea, but it doesn't seem very FreeSpace-y.

[S-99]

When ships come out of subspace, they emerge at a very high velocity like 200m/s. Emerging at that speed into a huge block of **** would probably stop the ship dead in its tracks while having major collision damage and the subspace portal would eventually close on the stopped ship. Cutting it in half/destroying it. Sound like a great idea, i can see the gtva getting away with it using a ton of asteroids reinforced and positioned as a huge node encompassing mass. But, like i said, it'd have to be massive, with a bunch of capships coming out of subspace at 200m/s(especially a sathanas). After a while, that might be enough kinetic energy to transfer over to the blockage if a bunch of huge ships smacked into it to get it some motion to move out of the way.
This idea could work, more than enough cheap resources in the galaxy to do it with (cheap resources like asteroids).
That's an inventive idea.

[Aardwolf]

I didn't say it wasn't creative. I just mean that it doesn't seem like a FreeSpace-style technology.

[Dark Hunter]

When ships come out of subspace, they emerge at a very high velocity like 200m/s. Emerging at that speed into a huge block of **** would probably stop the ship dead in its tracks while having major collision damage and the subspace portal would eventually close on the stopped ship. Cutting it in half/destroying it. Sound like a great idea, i can see the gtva getting away with it using a ton of asteroids reinforced and positioned as a huge node encompassing mass. But, like i said, it'd have to be massive, with a bunch of capships coming out of subspace at 200m/s(especially a sathanas). After a while, that might be enough kinetic energy to transfer over to the blockage if a bunch of huge ships smacked into it to get it some motion to move out of the way.
This idea could work, more than enough cheap resources in the galaxy to do it with (cheap resources like asteroids).
That's an inventive idea.

Erm, sorry to rain on your parade, but you know how the physics engine in FS2 would read that? The large ship would take damage, sure, but not lethal damage, and all the asteroids would be pushed outta the way. I saw this happen in Inferno when I caused a carrier to jump out a little too close to a Melia Installation (that Installation is freaking huge, non-Inferno players, much larger than a Sathanas). The Carrier pushed the object 10x its size nearly 5 klicks!

[darkship]

how bout an area shield? a vast protective bubble much like the fort shield in nexus. friendly ships can go in and out, enemy ships stay out. 

i think that would be perfect for an installation

[Wanderer]

Erm, sorry to rain on your parade, but you know how the physics engine in FS2 would read that? The large ship would take damage, sure, but not lethal damage, and all the asteroids would be pushed outta the way. I saw this happen in Inferno when I caused a carrier to jump out a little too close to a Melia Installation (that Installation is freaking huge, non-Inferno players, much larger than a Sathanas). The Carrier pushed the object 10x its size nearly 5 klicks!

That probably has more to do with lack of any inertia moments in most of the user made mods and also user set model mass values than actual physic engine stuff.

[Colonol Dekker]

Well that would be nice ideea, a subspace destabiliser, (we've seen nodes collapsed by explosions) What if a field generator could dissipate the entry wormhole of a destroyer for example, mid-entry efffectively slicing the ship in half..........?

[S-99]

That'd be awesome, a premature subspace closure device. Any ship can warp in, but the vortex closes prematurely and cuts the ship in half. That would be perfect for blockading a node.

[Aardwolf]

That would be hard to implement, unless you just wanted to destroy or damage the ship. Actually slicing it... probably impossible. Would be pretty cool, though.

[Colonol Dekker]

NI know Geo-mod (dont we all) is practically unfeasible right now, But a weapon (mine / bomb maybe) would be cool if it could disrupt a subspace entry, maybe it would work by saturating an area with some sort of particles for a limited time (10 secs?) causing all entering ships to Phail.........

[Xeandra]

A capital ship mounted mass-driver that launch's small asteroids or something. Maybe use it against some huge station that has too much defenses to launch a normal attack.

[Polpolion]

A Meson Bomb Launcher?


GTVMbL! I had an Idea like that a while ago...

[Nuclear1]

The Gorgon Cannon was essentially just that: a cannon that fired a concentrated beam of Meson particles.

[phatosealpha]

Subspace to realspace beam weapons.  Portal opens, beam shoots from it, portal closes.

Do that just once, and people start looking at those subspace portals a lot closer.


Interstellar Subspace Capable Guided Ballistic Missiles.

[S-99]

unfortunately the thing that sucks about subspace is that, you can only stay in there if you're going somewhere.

[Aardwolf]

Yeah, which kind of goes against the "subspace life-forms" ideas i've seen occasionally. It always seemed kind of stupid to me anyway, but now that you mention it, yeah, it'd also probably be impossible.

Wait... do the things have to be moving somewhere? It would have seemed like it in FS1 up until the battle in subspace. It sort of feels like they have to be moving; in that battle, the velocity of the Lucifer is zero, though. What does that mean? Is it just to make gameplay easier and lessen possible weirdnesses with collisions between fighters and the Lucifer? Can you even exit an inter-system jump somewhere other than at one of the nodes? Also, what happens if you get disabled or your jump drive becomes inoperative in subspace?

[Goober5000]

That's relative speed.  You're still being pulled toward Sol at a FTL velocity, otherwise you'd have all the time in the world to destroy the Lucifer, and not 10 minutes like Command says.  Once you enter subspace, you're more or less being dragged along with no say in the matter.

I have no idea what would happen if you re-engaged your subspace drive while in subspace.  You'd probably be destroyed.