[shadowhunter100]

Hello, I am shadowhunter100, brand new to HLP/FS universe forums!

I've been reading about way too many things about freespace and the universe of it...
Anyway, this post is about my take on the events in the freespace timeline and some stuff about the techs.
It may be long, but I'm pretty sure everyone has time to kill when we're contributing to the wiki project 
PLEASE note again* This is purely MY take and it may not agree with all of you.

"The Freespace 1 story"

-After going through the freespace bible that I have found online and reading so many other theory/stories, I have concluded the single player campaign begins in the later days (perhaps the last year or 2 of the 14 year T-V war, this is based on "operation thresher" in the opening briefing of FS1).

-Now how long was "The Great War?"  That is my question... I have never figured it out but I am assuming at least one year long, not including the mop-up of remaining shivans after the Lucifer was destroyed.

-The Hammer of Light is an interesting part that isn't discussed much about (i.e, NTF campaigns are made, but HoL campagins are never discussed).  
<off topic>I've read about talks of the early days of the "T-V War", what's the story behind it?  </off topic>

"Silent Threat"

-It made me wonder if the main character (Alpha 1) plays the role of admiral Aken Bosch in this campaign 

-In FS2, Bosch in one of the cutscenes talked about his motive for ETAK and he mentioned he was a young pilot that battled against the GTI and their secret project (See GTD Hades).

"The Reconstruction period"

-After the mop-up of all the Shivans in GTA/PVN Space.

-Lasted about 3 decades, with the formation of the GTVA in place some time in between.

-During this whole time, HoL isn't discussed, but it should be assumed they had some power that was enough to lead up to "Operation Templar" that occured late in the period.

-The Neo-Terra Front was formed after this period, within their influence are the Polaris and another system that I can't recall.

-Sometime during the formation of NTF, Bosch took command of the Iceni and assumed it as the flagship of the NTF.

"Freespace2"

-The campagin begins about 18 months into the GTVA war with the NTF. (Corrected by you guys, thanks, it was during the first briefing of FS2).

-How long did this second great war last?  No time stamps were given.  I am again assuming at least a year (Because I simply don't believe the GTVA can be pumping out new advance fighters/guns/missiles everyday, and that hulls of destroyers/warships can be repaired in 10 hours).

Techs

-Beam weapons have rendered shields useless.
All the campaigns about how indestructible the Lucifer is, in MY OPINION, bogus.
(Sorry, that includes the Lucifer of the "Derelict" campaign.  Great campaign, but that part about the Lucifer being superior to the Collossus really bothered me).

Now some of you might be wondering why I said this... On this subject, I referred to my Freespace bible.
(I found the link to download it, check http://www.volition-inc.com/fs/downloads.cfm, its at the bottom).

-Also note, that when you played FS2, beams goes right through your shields and knocks your hull rating off rather quickly.

...The emergence of beam turrets have created a new dimension in space warfare because they practically reduce the threat of heavily shielded warships by being able to pump flows of energies that would not allow shields to form at the area of impact. (At least that is what I believe).

-The Thoth in the tech room was probably a type by the original staff of FS2... it ain't 40 years, but 30 

-I don't care what any of you guys say, but the Terran Corvette (Deimos) is better than everything BUT destroyers/crazy things.  If you read the tech room description of its most energy-per-ton output... just imagine slapping a couple of those together to make a battle ship... 

-Note* FS warship classes are based on navy terms(?).
There are:

Fighters/bombers are just air units again, nothing new.

-Gunboats
Well, you got cruisers...  Aeolus class is probably the best example... taking down bombers and fighters like umm... a diamond saw through the trees? 

Corvettes-
Bigger and badder than Cruisers... but not as expensive or as slow as destroyers, excellent when used to assault convoys.  Deimos is the best example of a good corvette in freespace.

Frigates-
Only one in FS, and that is the NTFFr Iceni... Nifty, Frigates is considered a class below destroyers but packing more firepower than a corvette... Just like how the Iceni can waste a cruiser and/or a corvette.

Destroyers-
In FS2, those things dub as semi-carriers... pretty handy considering the fact if an "actual carrier" comes in FS, it would be just be a giant hanger that launches freebies for multiple cruisers/corvettes on strike missions.  I would put the Ravana or the Hatshepsut here because they pack the firepower to attack or defend a battlegroup.

Carriers-
See above...  But if you gotta put one here, I would go with the Hectate... not so good against other warships, but sure can carry a decent amount of fighter crafts.

Submarines-
Unless someone comes up with a stealth warship in freespace... then being nullified by the common AWACS in deployment

Battleships-
Closest thing to it? the Shivan Juggurnauts...  In navy terms, they pack the most firepower in ship-to-ship combat but weak Anti-air (weak vs aerial bombers), often requiring cruisers/anti-air carriers to assist them.  (Quite impractical in my opinion, too costly and quite imposing to maintain, but, as FS2 indicated... overwhelming numbers + firepower > all defenses).

I know there will be some arguments maybe even flames, but I think I'll leave what I have here until proven otherwise.

I'll have to update this post some other time, cause I gotta go. 

[karajorma]

I'd say that this is more of a general freespace thread so it's moving


Nothing particularly new here. One correction though. The NTF war went on for 18 months before the player starts the game.

After 18 months of fighting, Admiral Bosch's Neo-Terran Front has become the most significant threat to regional security since the Great War ended 32 years ago.

[Colonol Dekker]

Welcome to the HLP Station, All references to FS and the number 3 must be removed from  your person to prevent accidental . Do not feed the redident Shivan Carl as he will become voracious and chew your leg off. Flamethrowers can be found under your seat but due to financial constraints have been re-filled with holy water, Phased Plasma rifles (40 watt range of course) can be found in storage lockers. To prevent act of n00b however, These can only be opened by Moderators, or a hyperintelligent shade of BluE. In the event of catastrophioc hull failure please board the nearest lifeboat which is pre-programmed for autonymous flight to our sister station the Game-Warden outpost.

[Goober5000]

Hello, I am shadowhunter100, brand new to HLP/FS universe forums!

Welcome, shadowhunter100.

Some other corrections:

-After going through the freespace bible that I have found online and reading so many other theory/stories, I have concluded the single player campaign begins in the later days (perhaps the last year or 2 of the 14 year T-V war, this is based on "operation thresher" in the opening briefing of FS1).

From the tech descriptions and briefings during FS1, the T-V war has already been going on for 14 years when the game begins.  This means Operation Thresher takes place either during the 14th year or at the beginning of the 15th.

-Now how long was "The Great War?"  That is my question... I have never figured it out but I am assuming at least one year long, not including the mop-up of remaining shivans after the Lucifer was destroyed.

That's easy.  From the appearance of the Shivans to the destruction of the Lucifer was less than three months (a little before 1/10/35 to a little after 3/28/35).  Mopping up of Shivans probably went on for another month or two.

-The Hammer of Light is an interesting part that isn't discussed much about (i.e, NTF campaigns are made, but HoL campagins are never discussed).

A lot of campaigns involving the HOL were made after FS1 was released, but not so many nowadays.  However, there is one stellar HOL campaign (in two parts) that was released fairly recently, Shrouding the Light.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,26961.0.html

-Lasted about 2 decades, with the formation of the GTVA in place some time in between.

Three decades -- there were 32 years between FS1 and FS2.

-The campagin begins about 2~3 months into the GTVA war with the NTF.

18 months, as karajorma said.

[Mobius]

Welcome!Sorry for this bad English but I think you are happy to see members from other countries(Are you English,Australian or American?)

[Dark Hunter]

-Beam weapons have rendered shields useless.
All the campaigns about how indestructible the Lucifer is, in MY OPINION, bogus.
(Sorry, that includes the Lucifer of the "Derelict" campaign.  Great campaign, but that part about the Lucifer being superior to the Collossus really bothered me).

The Nyarlathotep didn't have any shields.
It did have regenerating armor and apparently some amount of sentience though.....

[Mobius]

That's how a civilization can stop the Lucifer.Is it protected by shields,right?if it can fire its beam penetrating it shields,a beam cannon would damage it.

[Dark Hunter]

Ahhhh, but the Lucy didn't fire beams, it fired flux cannons. They might affect shields differently...







Off-topic:
MY 1,000^th POST! YAAAAAAAAAAAY! 

[shadowhunter100]

Ahhhh, but the Lucy didn't fire beams, it fired flux cannons. They might affect shields differently...

Hahaha, yeah.   Different words, but... the word definitions of the two words (beam/flux) in a dictionary is quite similar.

Beam can be defined as a narrow stream of electrons that are emitted from the electron gun of a cathode ray tube.
Flux can be defined as a continous flow energy.

I picked up the definitions from dictionary.com

So the difference between a "flux cannon" and a "beam turret" is nil, just different words 

Also note... with the Orions having beam turrets in FS2, how many Orion class destroyers would you need to destroy a Lucifer?

Thanks for correcting me btw everyone   

[IceFire]

Considering how powerful Shivan beam cannons tend to be...you'd need a few Orion class destroyers...maybe 5 or 6 to beat the Lucifer.  Thats assuming that at least one of them can't be directly attacked by the main cannons on the Lucifer and assuming that the Terran beam weapons can defeat shields.  I suspect they can...but only with continual pounding.

[Blue Haired Maniac]

Plus, you can't forget the Shivan's knack of either...

a) Jumping in with a brutal flank attack.
b) Jumping right in for a full frontal assault.

[Speeder]

That's how a civilization can stop the Lucifer.Is it protected by shields,right?if it can fire its beam penetrating it shields,a beam cannon would damage it.

Terran fighters have shields, which can protect them from any kind of primary weapon fire. Can they fire their primary weapons penetrating their own shields?

The Hatshepsut's captain somewhere says if I remember right "power up photon beam cannons" photons are light particles. Soooo, beam cannons are simple lights imo. Of course, naturally why would you see them from outside them and there are many many things that are not logical in FS phisics. So, imo, there's no point in starting an argument about beams, they just exist, and as long as V doesn't say anything "official" about the Lucy's shield, we should probably just not build up any theorys about it What's for sure tho, is that it can stop anything but maybe beams ^^

As for "which ship's better" or "how many ships to take one down"... Shivan ships are all offensive oriented, as they have their beams at concentrated places, while Terran ships are all defensive oriented, having their weapons spread throughout. If the Colossus had all of its beams on it's fore and a Sath jumped in before it, it'd vaporize it! (if I remember right, the colly has 6 or 8 big beams?) So, as my thoughts go, every ship can have an advantage over the other. Say, terran and shivan ships facing each other, shivan advantage. Both ships with their aft to each other, terran advantage.

[Blue Haired Maniac]

Of course, we can't forget that since the Shivans are the "Destroyers" they live by a simple creed. "We don't play defense, just offense."

Thinking back on the first Sathanas, it decimated two blockades, one in Gamma Draconis at the Capella node, and one in Capella once it exited subspace, before it even engaged the Colossus (unless you destroyed all of its beam cannons).

The Colossus was not a bad ship. It was built to take on the Lucifer and win. It was built to swat fleets of ships by the wayside. But it was not built to take on a ship of equal strength than could bring all of its firepower to bear on a single target.

[Mobius]

Speeder:I was talking about beams.