[FreeSpaceFreak]

(Man, I'm going to get , and for this)


What exactly do we know about the numerical advantage of the Shivans?

• They've got 80+ juggernauts.
  • Yes, but what if the Saths are the Shivan equivalent of our planet bases?
  • They had very few destroyers and other ships attacking us. In Dunkerque, they didn't even have a spare cruiser to take HQ down. Now compare that to the NTF in The Sixth Wonder...
• They had loads of fighters attacking us.
  
  • Of course, they had 80 juggernauts attacking us.

Furthermore, the GTVA was on the offensive after it had defeated the 1^st Sath, although the Shivans had a big technological advantage. That indicates... that we outnumbered the Shivans...

Until the other Saths showed up, that is. I got the idea of them being the "home planet" of the Shivans from here and I love it.

[Flipside]

The Shivans do seem to be quite low numerically in the Destroyer department, but they do have an awful lot of cruisers. It may also be something to do with comparative size of controlled areas, the Shivans may have to bring resources in from a very large area, whereas the GTA only have to focus on one particular spot, and they were already fully mobilised because of the NTF.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

They did bring in 80 Saths, and that's quite a logistical operation. You would think that bringing in "only" 20 destroyers or so wouldn't be too difficult for them. And I think we had an awful lot of cruisers too, though I haven't yet counted them. Lots of them defected to the NTF, so I'll count those in as well... I'll take a look at it when I have some spare time.

EDIT: Got it. The GTVA and the NTF have roughly twice as many cruisers as the Shivans. I know there are probably cruisers we don't hear about, but that goes for both sides.

[Flipside]

Well, Logistics is based in part about distance, if you have 80 Saths in the Area, diverting another 20 Destroyers from somewhere is is kind of like throwing a bucket of water at a Tsunami victim....

[NGTM-1R]

I've advanced the possiblity that the Shivans made their real investment in the juggernauts, and that they don't have all that much else, before.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Well, Logistics is based in part about distance, if you have 80 Saths in the Area, diverting another 20 Destroyers from somewhere is is kind of like throwing a bucket of water at a Tsunami victim....

But those 80 Saths were all 'tied' to the Capella star, they couldn't do anything but launching fighters.

I've advanced the possiblity that the Shivans made their real investment in the juggernauts, and that they don't have all that much else, before.

The idea of a Sathanas guarding a cargo depot just doesn't sound right to me.

[NGTM-1R]

It wouldn't be, they're where the cargo goes.

To expand upon the concept, the GTVA seems to be winning the technological race against the Shivans despite their relative youth. The Shivans have had millenia to construct 80 Sathanas; the GTVA built one equivalent ship in 20 years. The GTVA's fightercraft are superior in almost all cases. The Shivans had millenia to develop beams and flak cannon. The GTVA managed that in 20 years or less too. Shivan beam cannon are superior, so far, but this may not be the case the next time around. The same Shivan destroyers keep being mentioned over and over; the Nebiros is present both in Into the Lion's Den, and is launching the wings attacking 6th Fleet Headquarters in Dunkerque. The number of Shivan cruisers doesn't seem to be much more than the number of GTVA cruisers.

The Shivans put most, nearly all, of their resources into the development and construction of the juggernaut fleet. This still gives them vastly better resources then the GTVA, nothing to be trifled with...but the GTVA's more balanced efforts have resulted in a more balanced military, whereas the Shivan fleet is very nearly all-or-nothing on the juggernauts.

[Grizzly]

Somehow I think the shivans brought their entire fleet to capella, supernova'd the sun and used the wormhole created to jump somewhere...

Else?

[nubbles526]

Well it's something like:

Would you prefer two Orions or one Colossus?

You know, I think normal people like me and you would chose the one colossus (Although there is no law or rule against chosing two orions instead)

Man, I really wish Volition could develop FS3...

[Mobius]

The Shivans do seem to be quite low numerically in the Destroyer department, but they do have an awful lot of cruisers. It may also be something to do with comparative size of controlled areas, the Shivans may have to bring resources in from a very large area, whereas the GTA only have to focus on one particular spot, and they were already fully mobilised because of the NTF.

I'm surprised. I expected a different comment from an experienced member.

The number of Shivan destroyers has always been normal. They didn't send many destroyers in Capella because... they would have been useless. No subspace distortion ability and 20 mps Vs. 25 mps of the Sathanas. They went there to blow the star up, not to invade all GTVA space.

And you're currently basing your opinion on Alpha 1's experience(FS1 and FS2), I don't think we can discuss about a correct or almost-correct cruiser-to-corvette-to-destroyer-to-juggernaut ratio in the Shivan fleet.

[nubbles526]

The number of Shivan destroyers has always been normal. They didn't send many destroyers in Capella because... they would have been useless. No subspace distortion ability and 20 mps Vs. 25 mps of the Sathanas. They went there to blow the star up, not to invade all GTVA space.

I agree, after Alpha 1 successfully helped/co-ordinated in destroying:

x2 Ravana
x3 Demon
x1 Lucifer
AND
x1 Sathanas

I can imagine how pissed off the shivans are...

[TrashMan]

Interesting conjections, yet we have no clue how many shivan destroyers there actually were in Capella or GD for that matter.

the Saths didn't engage our warships and still all GTVA ships in Capella were busy fighting shivans. I'd say they had quite a few destroyers there, only you don't hear about them, since it's not important for your current missions.

[Mobius]

nubbles526: they're insignificant units for the Shivans(maybe not the Sathanas). The Shivans don't get pissed off...the destruction of a destroyer like the Ravana means "Hey, there's something to do here! A Species to crush!"

UomoImmondizia di Napoli(): The number might have been considerable but still too low to fit the regular destroyer-to-juggernaut ratio. Destroyers attack enemy assets directly, even 10 of them would have been too much...

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Still, in Dunkerque, there's not even a cruiser bombarding HQ. Most civvies were already evacuated, so there really isn't much to do for TMan's destroyers, apart from HQ. Yet there are none. Instead, the SD Nebiros, which was already encountered in Into the Lion's Den, is launching fighters & bombers from somewhere else. That means it's too busy to pass by itself, even though it would take only five minutes.

[Mobius]

Sdeng...FreeSpace it's a game, what's the point in taking part of a 20 seconds mission? And how can the GTVA evacuate the crew with the Nebiros in the area?

[Jeff Vader]

it's a game

I think kara talked about some dire consequences if someone used that argument in a debate.

[Mobius]

This time was necessary...try to imagine the Nebiros attacking the installation from the beginning of the mission!

[Flipside]

The Shivans do seem to be quite low numerically in the Destroyer department, but they do have an awful lot of cruisers. It may also be something to do with comparative size of controlled areas, the Shivans may have to bring resources in from a very large area, whereas the GTA only have to focus on one particular spot, and they were already fully mobilised because of the NTF.

I'm surprised. I expected a different comment from an experienced member.

The number of Shivan destroyers has always been normal. They didn't send many destroyers in Capella because... they would have been useless. No subspace distortion ability and 20 mps Vs. 25 mps of the Sathanas. They went there to blow the star up, not to invade all GTVA space.

And you're currently basing your opinion on Alpha 1's experience(FS1 and FS2), I don't think we can discuss about a correct or almost-correct cruiser-to-corvette-to-destroyer-to-juggernaut ratio in the Shivan fleet.

Actually, I was going by the briefings. Count the number of Destroyers list in Frespace 1 & 2 and compare it with the amount the Shivans had in both games, the GTVA outnumbers the Shivans with destroyers on the battlefront, I'd suspect that's more because a Lilith can do the job, and the Shivans never seemed to care about casualties.

You forget that the Second Great War was NOT Capella, it was an incursion into Shiven space by the GTVA, Capella was merely the end of it.

Everybody always assumes that this was the Shivan's 'plan' from the moment they discovered the GTVA, and not simply the most expedient way of telling us to Bugger off. Since we don't know the disposition of the Shivan fleet, let alone its contents, conjecture towards it is pretty pointless.

You also didn't read my second post, which more or less said that you didn't need Destroyers when you had 80 Saths....

[nubbles526]

I think kara talked about some dire consequences if someone used that argument in a debate.

I still think that is just a joke, but I am not taking any risks...

nubbles526: they're insignificant units for the Shivans(maybe not the Sathanas). The Shivans don't get pissed off...the destruction of a destroyer like the Ravana means "Hey, there's something to do here! A Species to crush!"

LMAO

Well, let's put it this way. The shivans are tired of repainting the scratches and burns on their fleet which were caused by the GTVA.

Still, in Dunkerque, there's not even a cruiser bombarding HQ. Most civvies were already evacuated, so there really isn't much to do for TMan's destroyers, apart from HQ. Yet there are none. Instead, the SD Nebiros, which was already encountered in Into the Lion's Den, is launching fighters & bombers from somewhere else. That means it's too busy to pass by itself, even though it would take only five minutes.

Well, my guess is that Voltion ORIGINALLY planned to do that, but it was probably too powerfull, so they probably removed it.

[Flipside]

The thing about the Shivans is that we really don’t have the information to give anything other than conjecture. We don’t know the size of their controlled Space, who’s to say the Sath’s weren’t some kind of base-defence fleet that were re-diverted to deal with the Human incursion and were only 20 jumps away, whereas their nearest active assault fleet, which would consist of the smaller, more flexible Destroyers was 120 jumps away? There are millions of stars in this Galaxy alone, who knows how far they had to travel?

Take the US Army, if there was trouble with, say, Pirate activity near the coast of the US, would they pull a fleet back from the Gulf to deal with it, or simply dispatch the nearest home fleet?

Without any concept of Fleet Construction, Logistics, and Disposition of Shivan forces, we were fighting the war blind, I’m personally of the opinion that the Shivans could have rolled us over any time they particularly wanted to during the Second War, but for some reason they did not, possibly because they were busy elsewhere. It seemed to me that, despite their obvious superiority, they weren’t fighting to defeat us, merely to close the door and possibly to send a message, that, in itself, poses some interesting hypothetical questions, because I don’t, for one moment, think they were nervous of us, even with the Colossus. they just, for some reason, couldn’t be bothered to deal with us,

Without knowing what percentage of their entire military might made up the Sathanas Fleet, there's no way we can really say for sure.