[Snail]

the Sath was a big surprise and came trough rather quickly. It's doubtfull the GTVA could have brought any significant number of ships there at such short notice, especially considering that GD was on the far side of nowheere and that they had a lot of resources invested in fighting the NTF.

IIRC, every single ship save for six of them were pulled out of the nebula in preparation for the collapsing of the Knossos.

Bottlenecks. They kinda make numerical superiority less of a advantage. A whole fleet with Mljonirs coming the node could take out a Sathanas in a single salvo. It couldn't hold forever against the shivan numbers, but the point is to inflict as big as losses you can with as little as investments.
Alltough none-poping is the soundest strategy to use, yes.

What would happen if you just flooded the node with destroyers, cruisers, corvettes, juggernauts, freighters, transports, fighters, gas miners and space marines, coming in one after another, ten at once? The Mjolnirs and the sixty-four destroyers you stationed at the node wouldn't last very long.

There would be a lot of Shivan casualties, but they don't have "Shivan rights" groups and the families of dead Shivans protesting.

EDIT -
MjolnirBeams are more powerful than BGreens, only they shoot in one direction IIRC.

EDIT2 -

I'm sure even the most loyal of your soldiers would run away if the Shivans simply flooded the battlefield with hundreds of ships.

[Kie99]

Great as that image is, it couldn't happen through a normal node.

[TrashMan]

WE don't know which ships were in the nebula or GD for that matter. Probably only cruisers and a few corvettes. How much time do you think passed from the sighting of the Sathanas till it's apperance in GD? Very little to be sure.


Secondly, what part of bottleneck don't you understand? They can't just send in 10 Saths at once - the node isn't big enough. that's why node blockades are so effective to begin with. If there's enough firepower on the other side of the node to take out a Sath in a single salvo, then it won't have much trouble with several corvettes or destroyers for that matter.

The blockade can't hold forever, as at least some shivan ships would get a shot off and the damage wound mount.. Let's not forget the shivan fighters/bombers.
It's whole purpose it to inflict asymetrical damage - for every one of your ship down take 10 shivans ones.

[Dark Hunter]

Seeing as the Shivans always seem to ridiculously outnumber us... I don't think that would be much of a problem for them...

[Snail]

WE don't know which ships were in the nebula or GD for that matter. Probably only cruisers and a few corvettes. How much time do you think passed from the sighting of the Sathanas till it's apperance in GD? Very little to be sure.

There were SIX GTVA warships in the nebula when they attempted to close the node with the Meson Bombs in "A Flaming Sword" That's all we know.

Secondly, what part of bottleneck don't you understand? They can't just send in 10 Saths at once - the node isn't big enough. that's why node blockades are so effective to begin with. If there's enough firepower on the other side of the node to take out a Sath in a single salvo, then it won't have much trouble with several corvettes or destroyers for that matter.

The blockade can't hold forever, as at least some shivan ships would get a shot off and the damage wound mount.. Let's not forget the shivan fighters/bombers.
It's whole purpose it to inflict asymetrical damage - for every one of your ship down take 10 shivans ones.

The Shivans could send in multiple ships one after another, but many smaller ones at the same time. Seven freighters, then one destroyer, sixteen fighters, four cruisers, twelve fighters, twelve bombers, one more destroyer, a juggernaut, then another destroyer. The node blockade would be overwhelmed.

[TrashMan]

There were SIX GTVA warships in the nebula when they attempted to close the node with the Meson Bombs in "A Flaming Sword" That's all we know.

Precisely! The sath came out of nowhere and they barely had time to pull the other ships. The GTVA doesn't hve endless resources nor are they at their disposal everywhere 24/7.
GD is a sistem with no planets of little importance - thus the GTVA had no military presence there. Capella was not part of the frontlines with the NTF so It's doubt a full military presence was to be expected there.
With the NTF still alive and kicking, most GTVA resources would be focused here, not in GD or the nebula, where shivan presence was not considered a threat before the Sathanas came.
It's safe to assume that a Sath can reach the Capella node from the nebula faster than any reinforcements can come from the frontlines to Capella.

The Shivans could send in multiple ships one after another, but many smaller ones at the same time. Seven freighters, then one destroyer, sixteen fighters, four cruisers, twelve fighters, twelve bombers, one more destroyer, a juggernaut, then another destroyer. The node blockade would be overwhelmed.

Not really that simple. Bigger ships have a bigger exit speed and slide more before coming to a stop. If you send several cruisers and then a Sath, the Sath would kill them when jumping in, by simply running them over.
Secondly, if you can shread a sath with 80+ beam cannons, then you can shread cruisers with ease.
Granted, cruisers are more likely to get a shot off than a sath, since they don't travel that far when exiting GTVA ships would prolly still be in it's fireing arcs, while a sath would leave it's rear end exposed to all the GVA firepower and would have to turn first.
That said, debris from dying ships are dangerous and forming a choke point would be very benefitial to the GTVA, as any shivan ships entering would very likely be hit by debris or cought in hte shockwave of dying ships that came before them.

In time the blockade would fall, but it would take a while.

[Snail]

I still think flodding can get past any blockade.

EDIT:
After posting this, I realized I was pulling a Mobius.

1) Send in a lot of non-combatants and cruisers and ships of unimportance to get past the blockade. They would slip through, or provide a diversion for the larger ships.
2) You can shred a Sath with 80+ beam cannons, but can you shred sixty cruisers and THEN a Sath?
3) If you deploy enough ships, they will provide a kind of herd, and some will get through. Safety in numbers sort of thing. 90% will fall, but the 10% of stuff that survives will still be able to wreak a bit of havoc.
4) They wouldn't do too much damage, and even if they did... Send in more soon-to-be-debris ships.

[BengalTiger]

The first problem:
Why should they wait 32 years to send the Sath? If the GTA/PVN is a high threat level, why not send in a whole lot more while they're still weakened by the first fleet's attack? Or better yet, if the GTA/PVN is now a high threat level, send in the beam equipped ships immediately, send in lots of newer capships, to pawn them as quickly as possible, then get on with the other conflict. Why wait 32 years to let the GTA/PVN (now GTVA) recover and develop beams themselves?

They simply didn't have a spare fleet in our sector during FS 1, so they decided to bomb the living s*** out of Vasuda Prime and Earth, and then just chase down survivors when the GTA and PVN would be falling apart due to lack of leadership.

Second:
It is implied that the Shivans nuked stars before Capella (during the Ancients). The Sathanes and the idea of star nuking was around for long before the GTVA. It was not a new creation.

@goes to FS wiki....

Though their empire was at one point extensive, they are believed to have been made extinct by a massive Shivan assault around 8,000 years prior to the events of Freespace 1 (i.e. circa 5,500 BC, note that this is also near the time the Crab Nebula would have been a supernova, hence leading to the question of whether the Shivans used their anti-stellar weapons on the Ancients).

It is not a proven fact that the Shivans nuked stars before FS 2, or that the Ancients lived in what became the Crab Nebula.
Also- I think the Shivans really just wanted to make Capella heavier through 'ghey subspace magic' in order to regenerate the nodes that the GTVA either collapsed or was preparing to, so they could continue pwning us on the other side. And here's their second epic failure, when the star colapsed and went Supernova.

Third:
Shivan Commander: Let's scare the GTVA by making a big jump node! They'll soil their pants!
Shivan Lieutenant: How will making a new jump node scare the GTVA? Why don't we use our shiny new @$$-kicking Saths to attack the GTVA?

Shivan Commander: Without the new nodes we're stuck, along with our shiny new @$$-kicking Saths here in Capella. Oh, and you're demoted.

Forth:
The Shivans not need plan do. Use Saths/retired Lucys/everything they've got. Why do they need a plan? They can kill us right now anyway. Making large tactical errors, like sending a small fleet to deal with a small threat which turns out to be a very big one, then doing some ghey fancy magic tricks, only for them to go wrong and lose half their Saths... This makes GTVA Command look like the wisest man in the universe.

Well nothing cannon implies that Command isn't wise
And since they assign threat levels to anyone they fight, it's because they need most of their fleet somewhere and they don't have resources to waste unless it's a real emergency. One more thing- what does a huge fleet give them when they can't move it to enemy space due to destroyed nodes?

Fifth:
The Lucifer did not fail entirely. Look what it did:
1) Destroyed a lot of ships
2) Destroyed Vasuda Prime
3) Destroyed yet more ships.
4) Got through all of GTA space to the very core, ONLY JUST failing. Two more minutes and Earth would've been a giant crop circle.
5) Collapsed the node anyway, effectively cutting off Earth.

Well since it was the first time in thousands of years when someone survived their assault the destruction of Lucy WAS an entire failure, from the Shivan point of view:
1)they didn't kill us all
2)we killed them all, including their 'immune to primitive races' flagship
3)we actually weren't limited to hiding deep in a far away nebula and we were able to rebuild what they've destroyed (save 1 planet and 1 jump node)
4)who cares about a collapsed node when there are survivors on both sides?

The FS1 strategy failed only by the skin of the GTA's teeth. If the FS2 fleet tried the FS1's fleet tactics, the GTVA would be no more. Instead, the Sathanas fleet decided to do this:
1) Nuke themselves.

Before the cataclysm, the Sathanes used to nuke stars and other large objects of immense gravitational mass to create artificial Supernodes to travel large distances.

I actually use a very similar idea, but to recreate the normal nodes the GTVA was destroying.
But this time, after hundreds of succesful star nukings (I think that there were countless civilisations that tried to block off the Shivans, so they developed node-recreation technology), they made a supernova. And that's why only some ships warped out- the others simply didn't notice something went wrong untill it was too late.

If the Shivans could wipe out the GTVA just with sheer brute strength immediately, why wait?

Maybe because the Sath fleet had to come from some very remote place (they can be seen in transit in the 'DIVE DIVE DIVE' mission)?

[TrashMan]

I still think flodding can get past any blockade.

Did I said it can't?
nope..only that it's not as easy as you make it sound and that the attacker would suffer horrible losses if the defender is dug in well enough. Horrible loses however, don't seem to stop shivans from pushing further.

[Snail]

blahblahblahBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH...

Hmm... well thought out then...

nope..only that it's not as easy as you make it sound and that the attacker would suffer horrible losses if the defender is dug in well enough. Horrible loses however, don't seem to stop shivans from pushing further.

Damn it, I misspelled flooding again.

Anyway, what I meant was "I still think flooding is an excellent way to get past any blockade"

[terran_emperor]

Actuall, has anyone ever noticed that there seems to be a front and back to the Jump Nodes?

They could position themselves so their behind the node, so to speak, insted of the front and give it to the Sathanas right up the Jacksie

[BengalTiger]

blahblahblahBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH...

Hmm... well thought out then...

  Thanks...

So now I'll work on the details a bit...

Where do you sign up to have it hosted on the wiki, along with the other theories?

[Snail]

Actuall, has anyone ever noticed that there seems to be a front and back to the Jump Nodes?

They could position themselves so their behind the node, so to speak, insted of the front and give it to the Sathanas right up the Jacksie

There has to be a reason they didn't do this. Maybe they can't, without messing up their subspace drives or something...

[TrashMan]

Actuall, has anyone ever noticed that there seems to be a front and back to the Jump Nodes?

They could position themselves so their behind the node, so to speak, insted of the front and give it to the Sathanas right up the Jacksie

They don't need to. When a Sath jumps our he crosses a few klicks before he comes to a full stop. The GTVA ships need to stand to the front of the node and to the sides and the rear of any large warship jumping in will present itself to them. Unavoidable beam raping for big ships. Small ships don't have that problem, but will still get carved from the front.

So your best bet for setting up a blockade would be the following. Project a cylinder from the node along it's exit vector, cylinder should be a bit bigger than a sath. Positions your ship outside that cylinder along it's whole length, prefering the broadsides for the Orion and Hatties, and above position for Hecates.
Maximum ownage of whatever ship, big or small.

[karajorma]

Except if they are smart enough to counter that by simply sending a meson bomb through first. In which case they've just taken out your entire fleet with no casualties.

[TrashMan]

IIRC, Shivans don't have Meson bombs.

And given their positioning outside of that imagined cylinder (radius of minimum 2 klicks) and the radius of a meson bomb, it's damage, and damage falloff, only a few warship would be caught in the outer edges blast in a best case scenario for the attacker.

Unoless of course you deploy even bigger bombs..or the defender can send one trough to cripple the attackers massing at the other end.

[Goober5000]

Gravity moves at the speed of light.

It moves faster actually.

[karajorma]

Not according to the general theory of relativity it doesn't.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2238452.stm

IIRC, Shivans don't have Meson bombs.

They took a very good long look at the ones the GTVA deployed.

And given how quickly the GTVA managed to copy Shivan designs and even improve on them it's taking a big risk to assume the reverse isn't possible.

[Gamma_Draconis]

I would send in a very big Shivan bomb to clear the node of fighters.  Then send in swarms after swarms of fighters and bombers to clear out the rest of the fleet.

[Ryan]

I just thought of something. Why don't the GTVA just put a small subspace drive on afew menson bombs or missles, then jump them  inside of th sathanas? The hull is moderatly damaged, half the crew dead... and a gaping hole in the ship.