[AlphaOne]

What nonesence shivans dont need resources then what the hell did you blow up in that nebula you know the big rouded things which were called gas and ore miners??? remember those?? Oh yeah and the BIG BOOM you got from them? Shivan resources are not ulimited They can be hurt ! All you have to do is prove to be a much too costly endeavour for the shivans! But by that time they should of already suffered serious damage to ther numbers because of theyr one line tacttics. Sned in as many ships as you have regardless of the fact that they get slaughtered ! This is the shivan approach!

Also shivan tech regarding subspace is very impressive they are at least 50 or 100 years perhaps ahead of the terrans however while theyr beam cannon tech is for the moment ahead of the GTVA most anything else is somewhat inferior! Theyr ships suck big time if they are not on the offensive which limits in a severe manner the way it performs other roles.  Also while the shivans tend to relly on "send in the destroyers " the GTVA seems to be gooing along with "send in a corvette 1 wing of bommbers and 2 wings of fighters to take out that dammned destroyer" Its cheaper faster and a lot safer! The GTVA tried already the shivan way of dooing things and they got bashed since GTVa warships are not ourely offensive in theyr designs but rather allround kinda ships with defensive accents. The only truely offensi ships i can think of Are the Iceni (sure its not GTVA standard yet) the Sobek and the Deimos. Other then that even the mighty Orion and Hatshepsut are allround ships with defensive capabilaties emphasized.

Notice i did not put in the Hecate since that piece of junk has trouble taking out even a cruiser let alone a destroyer but on the other hand that is not what it was designed for so for what it was designed iot is a superb ship.

SoI believe that with smaller more capable ships more specialized ships the GTVA could socre victories much more easy and fast. However i do agree 100% now that big heavy hitter must be around to provide the extra firepower.

[ShadowGorrath]

Heavy ships . Light ships can be lost from time to time , and eventually you'll have very little of them . Heavy ships ensure that they'll survive a lot of battles . And if used wisely , they can survive almost everything . So basically , if you build heavy ships , you ensure that the crew ( in-game , a crew doesn't matter ) will surive . If they're on a light ( but fast ) ship , something can go wrong ( accidentaly go into primary weapon fire zone , secondaries can kill you too , bombers , a hell lot of fighters ) , and your ship is dead . The crew is dead too , and so you have less people wanting to join the GTVA fleet's , and you have less people to place into new ships . As you will always loose a few of the lighter ships .

By the way , the Sathanas isn't really a good example of the Shivan ships . I would choose the Demon or the Ravana as representers of the Shivan fleet .

[General Battuta]

You have a point there, AlphaOne: if the Shivans were truly a post-scarcity society they wouldn't need gas miners.

I won't withdraw my suggestion, but I will admit that it's less likely than I first considered.

However, Trashman, the fact that they're built along the same lines as Terran or Vasudan ships doesn't mean they're not 'replicated' or grown. And there certainly can be effectively unlimited quantities of something; what if the Shivans have von Neumann miners that can simply convert an entire planet directly into Maras, or even into ship components?

The gas miners might be gathering elements not available through that method - but only necessary for certain specialized tasks (say, the Sathanas' subspace weapons.)

They could draw energy directly from stars, from subspace, or even from zero-point energy.

I'm not saying this is the case, but I am saying it's a possibility, one that should be taken into account in any strategic analysis.

As for the topic itself, I'll stand by my idea of getting rid o

[TrashMan]

Hehe...that's still not unlimited.

If you look at FS1 and fS2 shivan ship, they certanly don't look grown.

They have a alien design but they are clearly metalic, not organic.

Replicating ships? That level of tech is too impossible and redicolous for me to even consider (but then again, the shivan DID blow up a start, which is also a redicolouslyimpossible level... )

[General Battuta]

I'm not saying they're grown or replicated. I'm saying they're built, but in a very efficient manner.

Von Neumann machines are machines programmed to build more of themselves using available resources. If the Shivans dropped a von Neumann machine on a planet, or into an asteroid belt, the Neumann could convert 10% of the available mass into more of itself.

These Neumanns could then use the remaining mass to build Shivan technology.

It's certainly the technique I would use, if I were the Shivans. Why bother with centralized factories?

And you've hit upon a point. If you can blow up stars, there's no reason to believe they can't pull off other feats of technology. It's not unlimited resources, but it's orders of magnitude more than we can imagine.

[Gamma_Draconis]

General Battuta has a point. Why bother with complicated battle doctrines when you can just simply outproduce everything your opponents can bare. For all we know, the Shivans may not even be binded to the Milky Way Galaxy. They could have an entire universe or two under their control. This may explain why Shivan technology seems so spread out. They might be having trouble updating their fleets simply due to their massiveness. Another explanation could be that the Shivans don't bother to update their ships. They could just build newer fighters and weapons without bothering to update their older ones.

[AlphaOne]

this is ridiculous! Shivans do not have unlimited numbers they just have a massive fleet! They dopnt pop out ships out of magic hats!

They are not bound to the milky way that i agree. Also if shivans had unlimited numbers then the Ancients would of been wiped out in days ! I'm pretty sure that the Ancients could of matched the shivans in terms of warship numbers however the fact that the shivans were imprevious to the ancients weapons means that numbers were useless. Or rather the Lucyfer class of ships were invulnerable so all they could do was take out lots of smaller warships but no means to actualy inclict serious damage to the shivans. The GTVA however does not have such dificulties animore.

About the smalle warships tactics people need to remember that the GTVA is/would probably go berserk in researching shivan tech adapting and improving shivan tech. They can already produse supperior overall smaller warships such as cruisers and corvettes and if the Iceni is to be taken into acount then we might as well say friggates. The shivans on the other hand while adept at building superb offensive ships suck at anithing else.

We need to remember that tech in the GTVA is developing at light speed compared to the shivans.

I believe that one of main ships in the future of the GTVA fleets would be a variant of the Iceni class friggates. Perhaps even more powerfull beam cannons with improved aaaf defences. coupled with the Deimos corvettes and some sort of poket sized destroyers and dedicated carriers with the big ships holding out at the back of the line for emergenci deployments.

Lets us not forget that an Iceni class friggate depending on the conditions can take out a destroyer faster then a Hecate could ever hope or even fater then a Orion since and orion would need precious seconds to get into optimal firring position.

the Iceni has all of its beam cannon firepower concentrated into a forwards exterior firing ark which give it super offensive capabilaties comparable to those of a Ravana (except the fact that GTVa beam cannons are significantly weaker) but also some broadside firepower for defensive purposes which shivan warships lack. Couple that with superior manouverabilaty and speed and you have a true hunter killer warhips for taking out enemy warships.

The Iceni for example is in my opinion the perfect ballance between heavy armour huge firepower (it has 3 BG) and incredible speed and amanouverabilaty. Hell even the shivans should be envious about such a ship.

As to the trend the GTVA is gooing we can allready see the GTVA moving towards dedicated ship building with ships such as the Deimos with its overwhealming AAF firepower and the Sobek with its obvious offensive design , the Hecate which is more of C&C carrier then a true destroyer and the Hatshepsuit which is designed for offensive/defensive prelonged battles with its superrior armour and weaponry.

What the GTVA need is to lear how to use all of these advantages it has in decent coherent tactic since its pretty abvois that gooing about another war with the shivans using brute force and shivan tactics would result in massive losses for the GTVA.

I believe that the single greatest failure on the part of the GTVA is that it tried waging the war on shivan terms and tactics instead of using their own. The only reason why things are not worse is because at some point the GTVA learned how to use theyr superrior defensive abilaties to theyr advantage.

[TrashMan]

Good post.

I actually think that the terran designs are becoming more dedicated, while vasudan ones tend to be more the jack-of-all-trades type.

[AlphaOne]

well the Hatshesut class destroyer seems to be designed for heavy combat ! It is more capable at offensive battles then defensive as oposed to the Hecate class destroyer which has superior aaaf defensive capabilaties. Also whyle the vasudans have on theyr destroyer good aaa defences when gooing with the more havy weaponry on it it is clear what its role is and that is to engage enemy warships at close range more succesfully then the terran designs! So we might conclude that the vasudans are spacializing theyr large warships for offence whyle terrnas go for defensive fighter projection tipe destroyers with the smaller warships beeing designed to get up close and personal.

[TrashMan]

The Hattie seems like a blend of a Orion and Hecate, vasudan style. It has big guns, but not as much as an Orion. It has AAAf defense, but not as much as Hecate. But all around it's one heck of a warship.

[jaedub51]

First off: I think the reason that you see Only offensive type shivan cap ships is because we've only encountered Shivan ships on the offensive.

Second, Sathanas Jugs seem to be the quintessential Shivan capitol ship. Where has there ever been ANY indication that any class of shivan destroyer existed in amounts that we saw Sathanas warships?

To answer AlphaOne's question: it's really easy: you build Big ships. The answer is not immediately obvious because of the way FS2 plays. The FS universe is set up in such a way that a defensive force has a HUGE advantage. You MUST use nodes for intersystem travel. So, set up a competent blockade with large vessels, with fighter cover and RBC support, and you will be able to prevent the shivans from entering. I mean, if there were 80 guys trying to get to me, and they have machine guns, but they all have to come through a door, and I have a machine gun too, I can take up a defensive position, and just pelt the individual guys as they come through the door, even if they have better guns than me.

Build big ships, and bockade nodes.

[ChronoReverse]

The only issue is the possibility of Shivans coming in through uncharted and unstable (for Terrans and Vasudans) nodes like how the Lucifer out-manuevered us in FS1.  In that case, it won't do much good if your fleet is Somewhere Else (TM) when the Shivans arrive.

[Colonol Dekker]

This is just an analogy in my head before i get <flamed>

You know in an RTS toward sthe end of the mission where you control the majority of resource points and are building units at top rate, but cos your income is so high the resource count is still screaming towards the roof. Thats the shivans, now imagine that your playing an AI at that point and you've just started and have encountered firstly a wave of scout units, That would be the great war, now you've killed a group of scout units and a few tanks, thats FreeSpace 2............


God knows what :V: would have put out for us to face if we waited for top level tech to reach us

[jaedub51]

The only issue is the possibility of Shivans coming in through uncharted and unstable (for Terrans and Vasudans) nodes like how the Lucifer out-manuevered us in FS1.  In that case, it won't do much good if your fleet is Somewhere Else (TM) when the Shivans arrive.

I thought about that too. But how often did the Lucifer do that? I can't remember.

[Dark Hunter]

It first arrived in Ross 128... then somehow appeared in Ribos, without going through Delta Serpentis or any of the inbetween systems.
Later it completely evaded the Vasuda Prime blockade and jumped around to Deneb.

So at least twice.


I'm wondering if maybe the Sirius-Delta Serpentis jump node that doesn't seem to exist in FS2 is one of those that the GTVA deems too unstable for travel, but they used it at the end of FS1 simply for lack of any alternative?

[TrashMan]

IIRC, the GTVA can detect unstable jump-nodes, but it can't use them.

So they can technicly blocakde even those.

[BengalTiger]

And when all nodes are blocked, the Shivans do a Sath-rush and overrun our positions with minimum losses, using the Sathanas just as it was designed to.

The only situation they can't Sath-rush the GTVA is when their's no blockade to bust and they're constantly ambushed by frigates and bombers taking pot shots from behind in an attempt to disable them.
Once a Sath is disabled, a couple larger ships can finish it off in a few minutes.

[Dark Hunter]

Do you know how many engines (yes, plural) a Sath has? That in and of itself would take forever!

[TrashMan]

And when all nodes are blocked, the Shivans do a Sath-rush and overrun our positions with minimum losses, using the Sathanas just as it was designed to.

A good blockade can turn a Sath into scrap metal before it can turn around.Aand you don't even need that many ships. Try a FRED scenario or two, you'll see just how easy it can fall.

[jaedub51]

And when all nodes are blocked, the Shivans do a Sath-rush and overrun our positions with minimum losses, using the Sathanas just as it was designed to.

Which might work if the Saths could exit at the same time, but since they can't, 2 or 3 large destroyers combined with a few RBCs and Corvettes, and the Saths would be chopped liver.