[Viper01]

Why don't the Shivens get support ships? This has been bugging me ever since I bought the game. Does anyone know why?

[Mars]

Because they're just that sexy... sorry... that's the best answer I can give you.

[Charismatic]

Well i dont recall flying any other shivan ship sides the Terran Mara. From that i gather Shivan ships have a high missle capasity.
That with the fact they dont last long agienst Alpha 1, its pritty clear why they dont bother with support ships-- their just another free kill for Alpha 1.

But seriously, Shivans are...well, Shivans. They can blow everything over with their slightest whim. They probably dont care for the wellbeing of their fighters as much as GTVA does, because they have More pilots, and a bigger number of people\soldiers to get pilots from. GTVA is tiny compared to the shivans. Why send support ships? Tell your shivan boys to either get the job done, or dont come home (can anyone quote that shivan mission, it was non cannon, and a Muliplayer mission).

Where one shivan pilot dies, they have 5 more ready to replace him.

[Taristin]

Shivens do.

Shivans don't, though. They dont tend to survive long enough in battle to need them anyway.

[Cobra]

Well i dont recall flying any other shivan ship sides the Terran Mara. From that i gather Shivan ships have a high missle capasity.
That with the fact they dont last long agienst Alpha 1, its pritty clear why they dont bother with support ships-- their just another free kill for Alpha 1.

But seriously, Shivans are...well, Shivans. They can blow everything over with their slightest whim. They probably dont care for the wellbeing of their fighters as much as GTVA does, because they have More pilots, and a bigger number of people\soldiers to get pilots from. GTVA is tiny compared to the shivans. Why send support ships? Tell your shivan boys to either get the job done, or dont come home (can anyone quote that shivan mission, it was non cannon, and a Muliplayer mission).

Where one shivan pilot dies, they have 5 more ready to replace him.

Ummm, horrible spelling aside...

1) Some Shivan fighters (the dragon, for instance) have a really ****ty missile capacity.
2) Shivans are hardly people.
3) They don't replace pilots. Think of the Shivans as counterparts to the Borg. They act as if they have a collective intelligence, and the Borg just grab a few components off of their dead before vaporizing them, while the Shivans just press on with their vast numbers.

Shivens do.

Shivans don't, though. They dont tend to survive long enough in battle to need them anyway.

Yeah, why need  a support ship when you have swarms of cannonfodder?

[Mars]

The Shivans are known to have fighter repair depots, usually a cruiser surrounded by replacement parts and sentry emplacements with a transport that caters these items around... I think that's as close as they come.

[MP-Ryan]

The swarm nature of the Shivans (and their seemingly inexhaustable numbers) lend credence to the possibility that they have either a collective intelligence, or that the individuals we see are merely drones of some kind with no real "value" to the species as a whole.

But basic Shivan strategy uses attrition - throw the most resources into battle, and you'll win.  While the presence of one Lucifer vessel somewhat contradicted that, the appearance of multiple Juggernatus seems to support it.

[Charismatic]

Well i dont recall flying any other shivan ship sides the Terran Mara. From that i gather Shivan ships have a high missle capasity.
That with the fact they dont last long agienst Alpha 1, its pritty clear why they dont bother with support ships-- their just another free kill for Alpha 1.

But seriously, Shivans are...well, Shivans. They can blow everything over with their slightest whim. They probably dont care for the wellbeing of their fighters as much as GTVA does, because they have More pilots, and a bigger number of people\soldiers to get pilots from. GTVA is tiny compared to the shivans. Why send support ships? Tell your shivan boys to either get the job done, or dont come home (can anyone quote that shivan mission, it was non cannon, and a Muliplayer mission).

Where one shivan pilot dies, they have 5 more ready to replace him.

Ummm, horrible spelling aside...

1) Some Shivan fighters (the dragon, for instance) have a really ****ty missile capacity.
2) Shivans are hardly people.
3) They don't replace pilots. Think of the Shivans as counterparts to the Borg. They act as if they have a collective intelligence, and the Borg just grab a few components off of their dead before vaporizing them, while the Shivans just press on with their vast numbers.

Shivens do.

Shivans don't, though. They dont tend to survive long enough in battle to need them anyway.

Yeah, why need  a support ship when you have swarms of cannonfodder?

What, did I spell Shivan wrong or something? Lay-off the spelling.

And so now you are saying Shivans are not people? Just wait till the ISR comes after you. (Interstellar Species Rights groups)
Shians are most certainly people. Well, can Terrans be mistooked as having collective intellegence as well? We are organized and all fight togeather in battle, just like the shivans.
"Oh the shivans come at us with brute force, they must have a hive mind" is bull. How will we fight the Shivvys if we had the troop numbers that the Shivans had? Brute force..

So now we have a collective mind as well.

[Taristin]

Shivans aren't human. They're left vaguely identified because they are meant to be alien. And anything alien, by definition, cannot be conceived by human minds.

[Snail]

There is no canon info that the Shivans are a hive mind, but it is mentioned in the tech room as a possibility of the Shivan's motives. Besides, it's probably acknowledged by (a majority of) the community that they are a hive mind.

[karajorma]

I've never acknowledged that fact. I'm happy to use it as a basis for MindGames but I'm certainly not going to say that it is anything more than one possibility out of many.

Hell using the Battle of Rorke's Drift or Thermopylae as a model would probably result in you concluding that since the Zulus and Persians used swarm attacks they must also be a hive mind by the logic shown on this thread.

Hivemind/groupmind is a possibility. Nothing more. They could all be fanatics who believe death fighting an enemy is glorious. They could all have some kind of ridiculous overconfidence due to having had millions of years or evolution without any natural predators. They could reincarnate like the Cylons in BSG.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Couple of guesses:

1.  They don't need them with their jump capability.  They can jump out rearm and return.

2.  Kind of links in to the first one.  Even the Corvettes have docking bays so they do rearming by landing. 

3.  Beam weapons.  Why have heavy bomb loads when your caps have that kind of range. 

Maybe at some point the GTVA will do away with support.  After all you don't see a GTVA support ship just separate Terran and Vasudan.

[Snail]

Maybe the Shivans don't have support ships because the Shivans rely more on primary then secondary weaponry.

[Mongoose]

I've never acknowledged that fact. I'm happy to use it as a basis for MindGames but I'm certainly not going to say that it is anything more than one possibility out of many.

Hell using the Battle of Rorke's Drift or Thermopylae as a model would probably result in you concluding that since the Zulus and Persians used swarm attacks they must also be a hive mind by the logic shown on this thread.

Hivemind/groupmind is a possibility. Nothing more. They could all be fanatics who believe death fighting an enemy is glorious. They could all have some kind of ridiculous overconfidence due to having had millions of years or evolution without any natural predators. They could reincarnate like the Cylons in BSG.

I always thought that the main justification for the hive mind theory was the behavior of the Shivan fleet after the destruction of the Lucifer, not necessarily the fact that they tend to use superior numbers in battle.

[Snail]

Most people think that the Shivans were not able to coordinate strikes after the destruction of the Lucifer. This is untrue. Play the mission Hellfire from Silent Threat. The Hellfire cruiser group was attempting to return to the main Shivan fleet. They were definitely organized even after the Lucy's destruction. My personal belief is that a secondary emergency hive activated when the Lucy died.

[TrashMan]

Wether or not they are a hive mind, one things is certain - they couldn't care less about their pilots. They just throw wave after wave  after wave of fighters till they wear you down.

Did anyone bother to count the total number of shivan fighters that appeared in the FS2 campaign missions (and got destroyed) and compare that to allied fighters lost?

The ratio is 10:1 at least (in our favor )

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Maybe all Shivan fighters/bombers are drones and have no pilots.

[Snail]

Maybe all Shivan fighters/bombers are drones and have no pilots.

They would've found out when they captured the Dragon and the Maras. There is no evidence of that.

[Charismatic]

Yeah i agree with Snail.

What fun would FS bee without any real killing going on?

[Snail]

Hey, FreeSpace messed up my conscience. Shut up.