[FS2_playa613]

The Sathanas is actually slightly smaller than the Colly...

The Colossus is 12 times the size of the Lucifer.

he said sathanas, not lucifer

[Iron Wolf]

Alpha 1 only made a brief scan.

Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?

[Bob-san]

Alpha 1 only made a brief scan.

Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?

You can't get everything from a scan... it was more of a point in the right direction then a scan...

[Unknown Target]

I dont like the idea of the Shivans being a completely xenocidal race which wants to kill everything not Shivan. I like to think of them as a planning, strategically thinking species.

I know I'm skipping over a lot of discussion by replying directly to this, buuut...I agree. In fact, in one of the Ancient's monolouges, the speaker notes that the Shivans are "not just the Great Destroyers, but also the Great Preservers". I think the Shivans work to maintain balance in the universe, by destroying species when they grow too great.

[miskat]

Which, in turn, makes them Great Destroyers.  They had yet to ever be stopped (to our knowledge) when they attacked the first time.  Defeat was _unthinkable_ during the Great War.  What was their biggest flaw?  Arrogance.  Why wouldn't they send their biggest, baddest, tech?  Arrogance.  They knew our limitations, and expected us to be trapped by them.  They did not expect us to adapt to their power and to learn the things we learned from the Ancients.  They were arrogant and failed to make a plan B.

[Mars]

I sometimes wonder if Terran, Vasudan, and Shivan beams are diverse yet related technologies... there's no canon evidence for this mind you, but they look different... and there's the citation of Flux vs. Photon beam cannons.

[NGTM-1R]

Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?

To be fair, the beams themselves do not seem to be the problem. They do decent enough damage output per firing and tend to compare well in that category. The problem is more likely in power generation or heat dissipation. The GTVA is getting killed on the rate of fire.

If I had to make a guess, I'd say that it's heat dissipation. The Mjolnir, which is unmanned and has that big rotating thingie that could be a radiator, is a superb weapon even by Shivan standards. The Shivans may have devised better ways to dissipate the heat, ways to generate less of it, or given their apparent environmental tolerances (they can withstand vacuum for example) they just may not care.

[S-99]

Makes you curious what the shivans use for heat dissipation then. I really don't think vacuum is the best way to radiate heat, it really helps if you have some type of medium to carry heat away. But yeah, the way shivan ships look on the inside it seems like they're pretty overly warm, after that a shivans body is cybernetic and organic, it most likely doubles as an environmental/hazard suit for the shivans. So yeah, they care about heat, but definitely not as much as humans do. Even if they're ships are abnormally hot on the inside.

[aldo_14]

Makes you curious what the shivans use for heat dissipation then. I really don't think vacuum is the best way to radiate heat, it really helps if you have some type of medium to carry heat away. But yeah, the way shivan ships look on the inside it seems like they're pretty overly warm, after that a shivans body is cybernetic and organic, it most likely doubles as an environmental/hazard suit for the shivans. So yeah, they care about heat, but definitely not as much as humans do. Even if they're ships are abnormally hot on the inside.

Or their ships are composed of a material that is more naturally resistant to heat.  Or - my favourite - they use some form of subspace technology to create a micro-apeture in order to vent heat out.

[Iron Wolf]

Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?

If I had to make a guess, I'd say that it's heat dissipation. The Mjolnir, which is unmanned and has that big rotating thingie that could be a radiator, is a superb weapon even by Shivan standards. The Shivans may have devised better ways to dissipate the heat, ways to generate less of it, or given their apparent environmental tolerances (they can withstand vacuum for example) they just may not care.

That makes sense...

[Agent_Koopa]

Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?

To be fair, the beams themselves do not seem to be the problem. They do decent enough damage output per firing and tend to compare well in that category. The problem is more likely in power generation or heat dissipation. The GTVA is getting killed on the rate of fire.

If I had to make a guess, I'd say that it's heat dissipation. The Mjolnir, which is unmanned and has that big rotating thingie that could be a radiator, is a superb weapon even by Shivan standards. The Shivans may have devised better ways to dissipate the heat, ways to generate less of it, or given their apparent environmental tolerances (they can withstand vacuum for example) they just may not care.

You know what? I think you're right, except for they "may just not care" part. It doesn't matter what the Shivans think of it, materials melt. Do you think the captain of the Colossus gave a **** if his crew were sweating or not? No! If he diverted any more power to beams the beams themselves would cease to work. The delicate systems would melt under the heat generated. If you could just divert heat, just like that, to the crew compartments, you would be hailed as a brilliant engineer and paid lots and lots of money.

Alpha 1 only made a brief scan.

Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?

You can't get everything from a scan... it was more of a point in the right direction then a scan...

That's what I'm talking about. You may not be able to work out nuclear fusion from the sun, but remember that we can make nuclear fusion work, just not containably, and the sun is simply a demonstration of principles we understand. We know why the sun burns all day and all night long. But the GTVA didn't "get" beams until after the Great War, possibly after observing the Lucifer's. Hypothetically speaking, GTVA scientists could have hit a dead end in large-scale directed-energy weapons, until observing the Lucifer's neutrino emissions, or some other **** like that. That would hint at them, "Use the neutrinos!", and Alpha 1's scan would reveal something of what the Lucifer's beam weapons were comprised of, for example, revealing the layout and makeup of the energy conduits, or some other technobabble. Or maybe, the Lucifer showed the GTVA what was possible. Maybe, after seeing the beams in action, the scientists thought, "Oh, I guess we could do that, just give us a couple of years."

[NGTM-1R]

You know what? I think you're right, except for they "may just not care" part. It doesn't matter what the Shivans think of it, materials melt. Do you think the captain of the Colossus gave a **** if his crew were sweating or not? No! If he diverted any more power to beams the beams themselves would cease to work. The delicate systems would melt under the heat generated. If you could just divert heat, just like that, to the crew compartments, you would be hailed as a brilliant engineer and paid lots and lots of money.

That depends on the amount of heat you're diverting. Couple hundred degrees makes it difficult to work, you know?

[Bob-san]

You know what? I think you're right, except for they "may just not care" part. It doesn't matter what the Shivans think of it, materials melt. Do you think the captain of the Colossus gave a **** if his crew were sweating or not? No! If he diverted any more power to beams the beams themselves would cease to work. The delicate systems would melt under the heat generated. If you could just divert heat, just like that, to the crew compartments, you would be hailed as a brilliant engineer and paid lots and lots of money.

That depends on the amount of heat you're diverting. Couple hundred degrees makes it difficult to work, you know?

Well it appears to me that the GTVA use heatsinks (which aren't exactly great for hot stuff). Perhaps they should change to some other system? Or they could simply house the beams outside of the ship... let the vacuum of space take the heat. But seriously... it appears to me that many ships that face "weak turrets" is actually "excessive heat"--you have to find a way to keep firepower and keep it cool; house the systems outside and you compromise longevity for heat; in the end the turrets are mass-produced and easily replaced.

[RiflemanIII]

Well it appears to me that the GTVA use heatsinks (which aren't exactly great for hot stuff). Perhaps they should change to some other system? Or they could simply house the beams outside of the ship... let the vacuum of space take the heat. But seriously... it appears to me that many ships that face "weak turrets" is actually "excessive heat"--you have to find a way to keep firepower and keep it cool; house the systems outside and you compromise longevity for heat; in the end the turrets are mass-produced and easily replaced.

Vacuum isn't good for heat dissapation, either. While it is cold, there's nothing for the extra heat to dissapate into.

[Bob-san]

OK... whatever... but it still isn't the problem of roasting the crew and other subsystems; the problem becomes the turrets.

I, for one, think that the GTVA have pretty efficient blob turrets; perhaps only the older models of ships still need to use the less-efficient turrets. IT would explain why new ships like the Deimos has such good guns...

[S-99]

Yeah, radiating heat into a vacuum is not very good at all. Vacuums are very cold, but they  have no pressure, and pressure makes a huge difference on how much you will experience cold or heat.

[MarkN]

Radiating heat into a vacuum is no worse than radiating into a fluid or solid, and could even be considered better due to the lack of absorbing materials nearby. However, what is missing in a vacuum is the other two types of heat loss, conduction and convection. Because of this heat sinks would be very different in a vacuum than in a fluid such as an atmosphere. A space heat sink would be optimised for maximum radiative effect, and due to the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which states that the radiation density emitted by an object is approximatly proportional to the 4th power of it's temperature, space heat sinks would want to run at as high a temperature as possible. Also, to maximise the emissions from a heat sink it would want to be black (Kirchoffs law of thermal radiation states that the absorptivity equals the emissivity when in thermal equilibrium; in this case thermal equilibrium is when the heat sink is operating at maximum heat flow). Also the rate of emission is reduced when elements of the object are radiating heat between them, as in situation where fins are present.

So in short, a space-going heat sink would want to be very hot, black, and either flat or convex.

[S-99]

If you wanted to, you could a different medium like water or atmoshpere to absorb the heat. And then vent the heated atmosphere out of the ship. Rapid heat loss.