[Ghostavo]

Yeah, I mean it just destroyed at least a destroyer and a corvette before that mission and it still took a cruiser down and engaged a corvette and yet another cruiser not to mention fighter and bomber wings from the rest of the fleet, how weak.

Technicely, we never saw it destroy those ships. WE don't know how that battle went. Was the GTVA fleet attacked by the Ravana head-on? Were they ambushed by swarms of fighters and bombers, weakened, and then attacked by the Ravana from behind?

To me this is the most plausable scenario, since there's no way a Ravana can take on a Orion head-on (or a fleet for that matter) without taking considerable damage itself. Yet the Ravana in the mission was at 100%. Either [V] didn't care about relism or the GTVA ships never managed to fire back - meaning there were either disarmed or crippled and ambushed.

It still destroyed those ships, that's the point in question. The command brief said those ships were destroyed and that's final. Not to mention that the fleet was at that time on alert as a corvette had already been destroyed. Even if the outcome depended on various tactics it might have used, those tactics are only possible because of the superiority of the Ravana, which again is the point in question. There was only a ship in the entire game that we've seen survive a barrage and it still was heavily damaged, the Colossus. It's about 3 times it's size in length and if we go by the Colossus cutscene it has over 12 times it's volume (I assume the Lucifer is bigger than the Ravana).

Anyway the ravana managed to take down those by surprise then the other ones because GTVA command decided to bet on  a sheer volume of firepower and take the ravana head on no special tactics.

Anyway the easyness with which the ravana can be disarmed is ridiculous.

In the first sentence I assume you confirm the superiority of the Ravana in terms of... well... everything since you have to resort to "special tactics".

The second sentence is Alpha 1 syndrome.

[Mars]

If somone with a scoped bolt-action rifle and someone with a semi-auto shotgun got in a gun fight at 2,000 yards, who would win?

That doesn't mean that the rifle is better in all scenerios, it just means it's better at long range.

Just because the Ravana got the jump on the 3rd fleet doesn't mean that the ships involved were inferior, just equipped for different scenerios.

The game plot definitely speaks very highly of the Ravana, but the mission design suggests otherwise.

[Nuclear1]

Plus I think certain people in here are looking at this from an omniscient standpoint. It's not as if Terran Command can open FRED and press K repeatedly to find where the Ravana's turrets were. Was it maybe a bad idea to not recon the Ravana before attacking it? Sure.

The Ravana's tech room description says it does an excellent job blowing away corvettes and cruisers head-on, which is probably what its meant to do: deliver a lot of firepower on the initial run and have that be it.

[Gamma_Draconis]

Don't forget, the Ravana was in the nebula. The GTVA ships probably had trouble acquiring target while the Ravana was pounding away at them.

[AlphaOne]

Actualy GTVA ships never saw what hit them when the ravana first appeared. The GTVA at that point in time did noty deploy the awacs and the large cap ships were relying on sensor data sent back by the pilots of the fighter/bomber wings deployed.

You dont believe me? Go play the game.

It was only after the GTVA deployed the AWACS ships that they were able to penetrate the nebula environment to a degree and see what was around them and even then not too clear at very long ranges.

Also need i remind that the shivans have more advanced subspace tech?? I mean that would explay how they are able to deploy a Lilith cruiser just a few hundred meter outside of its beam cannon firing range. At the same time the GTVA had problems getting a ship within 10 km of another ships at some point in the game.  Also the shivas already had a pretty extensive knoledge of the nebula and its secrets. The GTVA was just starting to scratch the surface. Even so the GTVA managed in a very short amount of time to explore realatively deep in the nebula and at the same time gather enough rare gasees as to start production of the Prometheus canons.

Production of these cannons was discontinued shortly after the Sol node colapsed because they did not have any raw materials to work with since the only place they could be found before was in the Sol sistem.

Also please note that the shivan warships such as the ravana are not overwhealming because they have larger hangar bays or more advanced sensors or subspace tech but becuase the beam cannons are ridiculously overpowered . The bigges one of all beeing the BFReed. However the GTVA is fast gaining ground in this area with beam cannons such as the Mjolnir the second most powerfull beam cannon in the game. It already has more advanced fighters and it has already proven that it can improve on shivan tech.

Also the Orion may be boxy and stuff but it is the thing that says:  "terrans built this motherfraking thing and we are gonna kick you arse if ya mess with us . Unless you are the shivans in which case would you pretty please take some cookies and go home??? They are chocolate cookies and Xena has offered to give away free autographs on your Miss Shiva 2365 posters. "

[Ghostavo]

I find it amusing that people are trying to excuse the Ravana from being superior by saying it's superior or the other ships were inferior.

Of course it has better tech, if it hadn't it wouldn't be superior in the first place! You can try as much as you like to come up with excuses such as "If it hadn't got those beams/shields/weapons/whatever, it would be worse/better/whatever.". The technology involved in a ship will also be part of it's design. If it hadn't got those characteristics what would be the point of designing a ship like that? If a Sathanas didn't have beam technology what would be the point of those 4 arms? If the Pegasus didn't have stealth would it even be survivable in battle? Those questions don't and cannot make sense because, like I said before, the technology involved is part of their design. So yes, the Ravana is superior thanks to the technology used in it, which is masterfully put into action as soon as it appears in the theater of war, end of story.

[Droid803]

Who the hell said that the GTD Delacroix is an Orion!? For all we know, it could be a Hecate (or some other unmentioned class of Terran destroyer). In which case, the Ravana would have it for lunch, especially if it were a Hecate and was attacked from the rear/side where it hasn't got a single beam cannon to fire back with.

The Ravana is a purely offensive weapon. Having it try to guard something (or even itself) is futile, since it was never meant to do that. It is meant to jump in, roast a ship, then jump out. Preferably before its beam cannons are destroyed. It works WONDERS doing that job (well, assuming there are no omniscient fighter pilots who know exactly where it will jump in and take out its beams the moment it does).
If the Shivans needed a destroyer to defend something, I think they would use a Demon...

During The Great Hunt (FS2), the Shivans used the Ravana well. Jump in, roast a corvette, jump out. Although, on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, in the next mission (Slaying Ravana) the Ravana was retarded. It sat there, and sat there, and died.

[AlphaOne]

On the next mission as far as i can rmember the Ravana was unable to leave the field of engagement due to it beeing disabled i believe. But im not too sure about that.

Also ppl here dont think the ravana is an inferior ships to terran shisp hell if anithing its more advanced subspace tech and beam cannons prove it is a superior ship but only to a point and in a very specialized way.

When considering if a ships is superior or not we or at least I try to view all of its + and - add them all up and try to do an acurate asumption on how it will perform.

For example the Ravana is THE BEST offensive ship destroyer class that is in the entire game. There is no doubght about that. The only other ships that is as formidable in offensive capabilaties is the
Iceni but that is another class of ships and another story altoghether.

However because the Ravana is purely and offensive ship that relies heavely on ambushing the enemy and destroyng it before it knows what hit him it is incredibly vulnerable to ambushes itself . It has close to 0 defensive capabilaties and niot to mention it has poor armour around its subsitems which mean just one lucky shot and the ravana is disabled and unable to leave the battlefield as it should do.


We are looking at ships in an overall category. asigning them qualifications based on the overall performance etc. at least I do.

Then i split the ships into each specific slot wih is better overall which has and emphasis on defence which on offence etc.

Both in overall and defensive capabilaties the Ravana scores poor to below average but it scores very high in PURE lightning ambushes against enemy assets. Get inj fast destroy the designated objective in one salvo perhaps 2 then get out before it can take any damage. However such a tactic is a very risky one and such a design is useless when you are put on the defensive even in the slightes because of you total inabilaty to stryke back at the enemy in an efective manner .

Overall for example the Orion scores very well in defensive actions is scose below average because of its lack of adequate aaaf defences. Altough they are better then the Ravanas they are not that powerfull as the Hecates for example but they are a LOT better the what the Ravana can hit you with.
also it scores very high in offensive capabilaties due to its very powerfull beam weaponry(someone still has to explain to me how the Hattie with less firepower managed to take down the Orion with 2 times the amoun of heavy beam cannons that it can bring to bear on one target) .

So the Orion would be considered by some The best destroyer in game however it is second best because the Demon has imilar aaf abilaties and overall capabilaties but its superior beam cannons means it has more of a bite to it then the Orion.

Also IMO the Hattie is also second in game. It has more Hp therefore it can take the field  and hold it much longer. It has good beam cannons firepower altough not as good as the Orion. It has good aaaf capabilaties therefore in theory it should be above the Orion but because its weaponry is only good if you are coming from above and rm the front in order to bring its full battery of beam cannons at you well it would have a harder time dealing with everithing .

The Hecate is 3'rd because of its adequate beam cannons firepower. Very good aaaf defences and superior command an control capabilaties as well as having a very large fighterbay.
However the Hecate is only usefull when it does not engage enemy units head on since it doesnt really have the power to take them down  however should it be necesary it could coordinate with its bommber pilots to take out multiple warhips in case of an emergency with the Bommbers taking out the weaponry and disabling the enemy warships while the Hecate does the best it can to take out the ships with the beam cannons however this is much more of a support role then a absolute design feature.

Now do you see why some of us believe the ravana is not such a good destroyer because every other destroyer in game aide form the typhon has at least 2 different things that it can do very well or at least adequate. Hoever this is open to speculation and the tipe of battle that you are fighting. But this should not be the prime reason for clasification but rather just one more reason to take into consideration.

[Nuclear1]

The Orion can pretty much dominate in any circumstance. The Hatshepsut takes second simply because it's brimming with anti-capital and anti-fighter death.

[blowfish]

It is meant to jump in, roast a ship, then jump out. Preferably before its beam cannons are destroyed. It works WONDERS doing that job (well, assuming there are no omniscient fighter pilots who know exactly where it will jump in and take out its beams the moment it does).

You know, my first impulse when a hostile Ravana jumps in is to take out its main beams.  That kinda got me in trouble a while ago, when I was playing a mission where the Ravana had to destroy something for the mission to progress...

The Orion can pretty much dominate in any circumstance. The Hatshepsut takes second simply because it's brimming with anti-capital and anti-fighter death.

I'm pretty sure that a Ravana facing an Orion will win, all other things being equal (eg. no fighters or other warships involved).  If all of an Orion's firepower was focused on one side, it might be able to kill the Ravana about the same time as the Ravana killed it.  But the Orion would probably die normally.  The LRed is just so much more effective than the BGreen (because of refire rate).

[AlphaOne]

Actualy its not the refire rate that is a murder but the sheer time period at which that thing keeps firing 10 seconds as oposed the the BGreens 3 seconds. But youa re correct the sheer refire rate is a killer. 5 seconds to refire was it???

However should all thing be equal then an Orion would have to be sideways to a Ravana . Or at the worst slightly in its line of fire before moving to the side and sticking there and hammering the ravana for dear life.

However all things considered a fair fight is anithing but normal in Fs since we see shivans using theyr favorite tactic ambush and destroy then jump out before they can get hit in any significat manner.


The Hattie is again a superb ship however due to its well lest just say its belly is wide oped for torute.... and leave it at that. Just add a few more beam cannons to the Hattie even 2 more BVas and 1 more slasher would do wonders for that shisp and it could beccome the most powerfull destroyer in game . I mean when facing a Ravana it could bring to beam what...6 or 7 beam cannons of which 5 would be BVas and the other Vas slashers....! And with its increased HP it could probably atke out a Ravana. I mean it would only have one more heavy beam cannon then the Orion. And well since we know the fishies can do it thanx to theyr superior reactors it should not be much of a problem.

[blowfish]

Actualy its not the refire rate that is a murder but the sheer time period at which that thing keeps firing 10 seconds as oposed the the BGreens 3 seconds. But youa re correct the sheer refire rate is a killer. 5 seconds to refire was it???

BGreen fires for 4 seconds and waits 30 seconds, LRed fires for 7 seconds and waits 10 seconds.

[Droid803]

You know, my first impulse when a hostile Ravana jumps in is to take out its main beams.  That kinda got me in trouble a while ago, when I was playing a mission where the Ravana had to destroy something for the mission to progress...

Well, the FREDer should have used fire-beam and have what is supposed to die self destruct. Most foolproof way to get what needs to die to die. Even if they player does something unexpected, the ship will still blow itself up But yes, the Ravana's main beams could use a slight armor buff to the cannons. Although, when the cannons are ghost and untargetable... Ravanas can be so f*ckign annoying, as demonstrated when I tried to play blue planet with ghost Ravanas.

LReds barely need to recharge at all...lol. It does, however, have a lower sustained damage rating (not that it matters).

[AlphaOne]

Must of mistaken all the stats there! And as you pointed out it doesnt matter if it has less sustained gamage the fact that it can last longer and fire faster means it does a hell of a lot more dammage.

[blowfish]

You guys have your terminology wrong.  Sustained damage takes into account refire rate and beam lifetime.  I think you're talking about just plain old damage/sec (at least that's the terminology the wiki uses).

[MP-Ryan]

This poll fails.  No Charbydis.

[Admiral_Stones]

Actually, the Ravana would be useful in a node blockage, because most of it's Firepower is located on the front (Where the node is).

[AlphaOne]

Well not unless you can somehow make its beam cannons impervious to trebs. Otherwise it is pretty much useless agains fighter/bommber assaults.

[Mobius]

BGreen fires for 4 seconds and waits 30 seconds, LRed fires for 7 seconds and waits 10 seconds.

Actually, the Ravana would be useful in a node blockage, because most of it's Firepower is located on the front (Where the node is).

You underestimate its speed and turn capacity.

[MP-Ryan]

You underestimate its speed and turn capacity.

We really do need to get that Warzone re-release going.  You gents almost done with the cutscene?