[TrashMan]

TMan not to be annoing or anithing but we have no idea of the power requirements for a subspace jump!

Read the techroom a bit. Even large capships need a minute or so to charge their jumpdrives for a NORMAL jump, let alone a inter-system one.
Fighters need 15 minutes to charge their drives for such a jump.

Also I do agree that a nebula was something that GTVA ships are not used to operate in but then again nebula or no nebula it had nothing to do with subspace interference now does it?

Possibly. Does nebula have any gravitic effect at all? It has mass, since it's made out of stellar matter...

You keep giving me the problem with power requirement now then i dont believe it can be more then powering up a 6 km long warships sending it through subspace or powering dozens of weapons sistems beam cannons etc. Think dedicated ship!

Logic. It takes a planet to generate enough gravity to stop a ship from jumping close to it (and I don't even think this is canon, is it?) We know that it takes a huge mass - star sized mass - for jumpnodes to bet created.

We're talking about artificially creating enough gravity to mimic a star. Best case scenario, to mimic a planet. By ANY Logic, that would require HUGE, HUGE amounts of power.

If the power requirements are that high then just biuld a ships which is basicly one giant powerplant in order to power such a device!

If it only were that simple....

But since we already saw it happen once then we can safely assume that perhaps it can be done again this time to be somewhat more powerful and used on command. Like a 20km area where ships would be allowed to exit but not leave there at least not in one piece!

I doubt such a high level of control can be established to create opposite effects. We know susbspace jumps are gravity related. So I doubt you could make it both allow jumping in and block jumping out at the same time - it's like wanting gravity of the planet to pull you down and push you up at the same time.

If it's a gravitic distrurbance of high enough magnitude, then jumping in our out would be impossible. BUT, in theory you could wait for the enemy to come and then turn the device on...

[Fearless Leader]

I dont think it is. Laying a ring around a node sounds pretty logical. Imagine a huge grid of Mjolnir Beam Cannons! Toasted Sathanas! 

Wow, finally somebody likes one of the ideas I put in here! 

The next question is, what types of ships to support it? Light fast ones, or heavy slow ones?

[Admiral_Stones]

Heavy slow ones. I just looked it up - Actually, a BFGreen, which the Collosus has in High Noon when overloaded, can destroy a GTC Leviathan. And one hit of a BGreen - fired by the Collosus when in non-overload mode - Can destroy a GTC Fenris in one hit and seriously damage a Leviathan, actually like 3/4 of 35'000 Hit Points will be gone. And a 4 hits of a BGreen will destroy a GTCv Deimos.

[TrashMan]

A node blockade is about killing off enemy ships as quickly as possible - so they don't overwhelm you, and so they do as little damage to you as possible.

Ergo, ships with the most firepower are prefered. Orions and Hatties.

[AlphaOne]

well TMan the idea came to me when thinking of the Knossos! However i do agree that witgh the still limited subspace tech available to the GTVA they could not pull something like that however i do believe that perhaps shivans or even the Ancients could of pulled something like this ! Maybe not by creating a huge gravity well but in some other way! Also for a node blocade i do agree you would need large heavy warships however the problem with the node blocade is that if you can not take out the enemy fast enough then youre pretty much done. Especialy since were talking about the shivans. They have a much more massive fleet then the GTVA all they need to do is bring in a Sath .

And since the Sath travelles further after exiting subspace then a smaller ship they can imediately jump in a Ravana Even if you manage to take out the sath in 3 shots minimum and the Ravana gets hammered down by GTVA warships the ravana would still be able to shoot at least once in theory and when the ravana fires at least once you loose one destroyer! Basicly if the shivans want to bust through a node blocade in the end they will succced unless you can hold out long enough for theyr reserves to run out which is highly unlikeli!


Then again if you somehow managed to birn a couple of Collossus size warships with the abilaty to fire all its beam cannons at once you could in theory beat the shivans no matter how much reserves they have.

[TrashMan]

Or if you bring 12 Orions

[AlphaOne]

Well that would bring those orions to about the firepower that 3 maybe 4 collosus class warships couldd bring to bear ! The only difference is that all those beam cannons would fire at once and most of them would BG or overloaded version of the BG such as the BFG or the LRBG .

Also i was thinking about the whole overloading the beam cannons thing. I mean would it be possible to arm destroyers or friggates with overloaded versions of the BG beam cannons?? Or better yet can the vasudan beam cannons be overloaded. I seem to remember they can but im not exactly sure I believe the Psamtik did it once.

The reason i was asking this was because if you can mount overloaded beam cannons on smaller sized vessels without the inherent risk of blowing up the beam cannons or reactors then that would make smaller classes of ships even more deadly and usefull then i believed.

[TrashMan]

12 Orions = 12* (4 BGreens, 3 TerSlash) = total of 84 beam cannons (48 BGreen & 36 TerSlash)

6 Colossus = 6*(6 BGreen, 7 TerSlash) = total of 78 beam cannons (36 BGreen & 42 TerSlash)

I'd take the Orions any day for blockade purposes.

[Admiral_Stones]

Well, mainly cooling is the problem. Fusion generator plasma reaches ~100 Million °C, or even more. You need giant heatsinks to support full constant firing, and again huge reactors with big heat sinks to bring the power to the beams.

[BengalTiger]

After reading the last page or so of this topic I noticed this:
If the Psamtic failed to jump out in the nebula where it was planned to do, then a subspace tunnel is somewhat like a funnel- you enter the narrow end (jump node) and exit through the wide one (at least up to 9 km from the node marker).

So what happens when the Shivan fleet warps out 5 km's from the blockade on purpose?

[TrashMan]

ERm...the Psamtiks jump in that case was a in-system jump, not a node jump.

[BengalTiger]

Ooops...
//Need to play FS 2 again sometime....

[Dark Hunter]

After reading the last page or so of this topic I noticed this:
If the Psamtic failed to jump out in the nebula where it was planned to do, then a subspace tunnel is somewhat like a funnel- you enter the narrow end (jump node) and exit through the wide one (at least up to 9 km from the node marker).

So what happens when the Shivan fleet warps out 5 km's from the blockade on purpose?

I doubt they could. The incident with the Psamtik notwithstanding, subspace jumps appear to be highly accurate, at least to within 1 or 2 kilometers. I cite as a bit of proof the fifth (?) mission of FS1 (the "capture McCarthy" mission), in which the briefing states "you will jump in approximately six kilometers away from the exchange"... and then you do. That's what I call accuracy.

Now: Every single jump that has been executed in a node has come out the opposite end in the node, and not even a couple hundred meters away. If it were so easy to bypass a blockade, we would have seen them doing so. The NTF in particular could have used such a tactic when running through mulitple GTVA blockades, but they didn't, and got butchered as a result. I don't think it's possible for a ship to jump in several klicks away from a node when incoming through that same node.

I explain the Psamtik thus: I believe that subspace nodes (and Knossos devices) generate a kind of subspace "turbulence" around them, extending for a couple of klicks in all directions. I see no other reason why the many ships we see travling jump nodes jump in so far away from them. I think the Psamtik might have tried to jump in very close to the Knossos, and this turbulence kinda threw them a few klicks off-course.

[Mustang19]

It's been discussed before that the Psamtik missed the node so it would end up in the Sathanas' narrow fire arc. Or else it would just be... awkward. A Hatshepsut can easily destroy a Sath from the flank. Regardless, there must be some kind of subspace turbulence as you call it around jump nodes, or else transit-to-the-node escort missions like the last FS2 mission would make no sense.

[Dark Hunter]

Obviously, that's why made the Psamtik miss, but I was looking for a specific in-universe explanation.

[TrashMan]

Obviously, that's why made the Psamtik miss, but I was looking for a specific in-universe explanation.

And it's a good one. Makes sense that the area around the node itself has either some gravitic influence or subspace one.
We never see a ship that's heading towards the node jump a 1000m from it. It's always at least 5 klicks out, if not more.

[Freyr]

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.

Assuming the Shivans use fusion engines like the GTVA does, wouldn't they still need the gas for fuel?



On the jump node blockade thing, I think they do have to jump in on a set point.  The NTF obviously had to when they were running the blockades.  Given, the Shivans are a lot more advanced than the NTF, but unless they came in through a different node and then jumped onto the node I think the nodal defense strategy is the best one. 

A (massive) globe of RBC's backed up with Corvettes and Aeolus class cruisers (for the flak guns/aaaf's) and a strong fighter screen would be my preferred option.  Enough RBC's removes the need for destroyers (they aren't good against fighters) on the node, corvettes can help defend against fighter runs on the RBC's.  The best anti fighter defense would probably be Ares wings armed with Trebuchet's for breaking up fighter wings, and Erinyes and Perseus fighters for mopping up.

It wouldn't hold indefinitely, but this would kill anything RBC's could target, so anything above fighter/bomber size is instantly history.  This leaves fighter/bomber attrition against the RBC's, which would probably be the deciding factor making anti fighter defenses the deciding factor.  When, inevitably the Shivans start breaking the blockade I would start throwing robot piloted meson bombs through the node for the Shivans; not to take the node out per se, but I bet the Shivans would have follow up waves parked within 3KM of the other side of the node, and I am not a particularly graceful loser.

That, and not being able to get within 3KM of the node safely should buy enough time for remaining mobile forces to get a good head start to the next node.   If the Shivans want to send in capital ships in the meantime then fine, whatever is left of the RBC's should should make that expensive.  Finally, periodically dropping those previously robot piloted meson bombs on top of the fallen node should make things interesting for the ships coming through.

Maybe I do play RTS's a little to much.

[TrashMan]

Definately NOT a greaceful loser. But I wouldn't want to fight against you

Sound strategy. Alltough I would add a Orion or two.

[Admiral_Stones]

I'll just throw in a few ACSC Hopes.
And yes, it IS a insider.

[Freyr]

Well, the real danger I see to my blockade is fighter assaults so I don't know that Orion's would be able to add a huge amount.  Other than more fighters of course.

What the GTVA really needs is a real anti fighter turret thats armed with something better than a couple of plasma blobs/Subach's.  Like a bigger platform touting flak guns and an anti fighter beam laser for instance