[blowfish]

The Lilith is exactly the same size as the cain.  IIRC it originally used the same model.

[Thanatos45]

The Lilith is exactly the same size as the cain.  IIRC it originally used the same model.

I thought it still did... they just have a slightly different skin.

Anyway, IMHO it´s way overpowered with that beam, it packs more than 3x the anti-capship firepower of a Moloch and has the same HP. The only thing thats keeping it from being totally unbalanced is the fact that it´s main beam cannon is quite easy to disable with a duo of Trebs fired from the right angle, after that it will just be a heavily armored sitting duck.

[Akalabeth Angel]

The only thing thats keeping it from being totally unbalanced is the fact that it´s main beam cannon is quite easy to disable with a duo of Trebs fired from the right angle, after that it will just be a heavily armored sitting duck.

    That's assuming you're packing Trebs. I've found it takes 3 missiles to take out the Turret myself, but maybe I hit the wrong angle, who knows. But again, balance is a part of mission design not the ships themselves (at least the canon ones).

[Thanatos45]

The only thing thats keeping it from being totally unbalanced is the fact that it´s main beam cannon is quite easy to disable with a duo of Trebs fired from the right angle, after that it will just be a heavily armored sitting duck.

    That's assuming you're packing Trebs. I've found it takes 3 missiles to take out the Turret myself, but maybe I hit the wrong angle, who knows. But again, balance is a part of mission design not the ships themselves (at least the canon ones).

I carry a rack of them in most missions they are available and assuming my chosen fighter/ bomber can carry them... it's a habit I got after getting pounded to death by flak cannons and AAA beams one time too often while trying to disarm capships

Anyway, I thought that 2 Trebs was enough to take out a LRed provided you score a direct hit and the mission desgner hasn't been fiddling with it's toughness... might be me or the difficulty I'm playing on though (medium).

[IceFire]

Sure I'd agree that size is definitely a factor.  Bigger ship means more space to make power needed to channel through to the beams....but we know that even Terran and Vasudan technology can put a very powerful beam on the same size of platform (namely the Mjolnir).  If you compare the Lilith to the other cruisers in terms of its other capabilities it is weaker so it stands to reason that its focused on ship killing and is sort of like a mobile and defended version of a Mjolnir...and thanks to superior Shivan technology they can go ahead and do just that.

The Lilith, for its LRED beam up front isn't all that great in other attributes.  Armor is very strong but anti-fighter defenses are weak with a single anti-fighter beam and just a few turrets all of which have low protection and can be easily destroyed including the main beam.

A Mljonir is a cannon - it's got no engines, no compartments/space for crew (let's not forget shivans are big) and no other weapons...and is somewhat smaller than a Lilith to boot.

If the shivans can put a weapon of that power on a cruiser, why aren't their destroyers packing more power then? According to you a BFRed on a destroyer would be perfectly normal for shivans. What would a Sathanas use then?
I don't mind Shivans having X amount of power, as long as it's CONSISTENT. As it's stands, it isn't.

The Lilith has the greatest armor of all cruisers and excellent speed (compared to GTVA ships). It's anti-fighter defences are somewhat weaker, but it's not easy prey. The fact that the player can take it out sez nothing, since the player can take out most ships.

I realize the Mjolnir is a cannon and I've already stated that it doesn't have those particular features. This is not new to me.  Theres also no reason to assume that a destroyer class would similarly step up to a BFRed.  The Ravana and Demon both sport four main ship killing beam cannons of which two are LRed.  Thats allot more power than the Lilith.  Given how little we know about Shivan crew...it could be possible...although not specifically supported by canon that the Lilith and most other Shivan ships are relatively short on crew except when needed...so a Destroyer with fighters needs a bigger crew but a cruiser with primarily offensive operations in support of a larger fleet need only a minimal number.  Depending on how automated their systems are...which we can assume are relatively automated given their tech level.

Level of power for a beam doesn't have to be consistent across an entire line.  Development happens organically. Nobody just starts out with a completely empty roster of ships and decides that they want a fleet from top to bottom with the classes all perfectly aligned with the smallest being the least powerful and the biggest being most powerful. We can then speculate that perhaps the Lilith has been retrofitted with a better reactor system than other ships in the fleet and thus sports a powerful weapon for its size.  Or it makes compromises in terms of cruise duration where as the Cain could be on a prolonged scouting operation.

[Mars]

The even if the Lilith was just meant to offensive strikes, and the Cain was supposed to be a scout... the Leviathan is designed as a "mobile defense battleship"

In my view means that it's supposed to be a kind of mobile heavy sentry gun... and yet all it packs is a Fusion Mortar and a SGreen.

This might have more to do it's age, but does that mean, that if the GTVA created a new defensive cruiser it would pack a BGreen? Most definitely not.

A BGreen is vastly inferior to a BRed, but cruisers just don't mount that kind of fire power.

Except the Lilith

[Droid803]

Look, you can strap a Mjlonir to the front of a Leviathan and it'll probably be able to move it around.
No talk about reactors and crap since you're just strapping the stand-alone platform onto a ship so it moves.

It'd probably work...(just that now, the Levy will be moving at 5m/s instead of 10)

[Akalabeth Angel]

The even if the Lilith was just meant to offensive strikes, and the Cain was supposed to be a scout... the Leviathan is designed as a "mobile defense battleship"

In my view means that it's supposed to be a kind of mobile heavy sentry gun... and yet all it packs is a Fusion Mortar and a SGreen.

       What's defensive about an SGreen and a Fusion Mortar? Those are offensive ship to ship weapons. Defense Battleship? Hell with 4 AAAf and the hitpoints to take a beating from any flight of fighters, I'll take that.
       

[Mawhrin]

A Mljonir is a cannon - it's got no engines, no compartments/space for crew (let's not forget shivans are big) and no other weapons...and is somewhat smaller than a Lilith to boot.

If the shivans can put a weapon of that power on a cruiser, why aren't their destroyers packing more power then? According to you a BFRed on a destroyer would be perfectly normal for shivans. What would a Sathanas use then?
I don't mind Shivans having X amount of power, as long as it's CONSISTENT. As it's stands, it isn't.

The Lilith has the greatest armor of all cruisers and excellent speed (compared to GTVA ships). It's anti-fighter defences are somewhat weaker, but it's not easy prey. The fact that the player can take it out sez nothing, since the player can take out most ships.

Is there actually any canon proof that Shivan cruisers actually carry crew? Hall Fight was aboard a freighter.

While I'm sure power would be a function of size, it could also be a function of cost. Maybe Liliths are high cost ships, which would also explain their rarity in FS2.

[Droid803]

Small, Powerful, Cheap

Have any two of the three.

[blowfish]

What's powerful and cheap?

[Mawhrin]

I subscribe to the Shivans-as-artifical-race-that-got-their-tech-from-their-creator theory to explain their lack of progress. AFAIK the wheel was invented by humans around five thousand years ago - which is three thousand years after the Shivans nuked the Ancients.

      While not a bad idea it doesn't explain the technological progress the Shivans display between FS1 and FS2.

We've had this conversation recently before.

Two possible options:

1. The Lucy fleet wasn't low tech so much as it was cheap. This could be a product of strategic overstretch. It is suggested the Knossos portal goes to a distant part of space, far from Ross 128, so Shivan territory could be vast. Shivans can use more nodes than the GTVA can, so could spread more easily, and had a lot of time in which to do so. Beams could be particularly expensive. Perhaps most of the expensive bit are embedded deep in the hull, and not in the turret that can get blown off, or the economic value of them at all would be questionable. They sent the Lucy as they wanted some beam weapons to kill big stuff quickly, and the Lucy's shields prevent the GTA and PVN getting lucky hits and knocking out the beams. As the GTA/PVN started to field shields and better weapons, the Shivans sent less rubbish fighters into combat.

2. Modified from your idea: the Lucy fleet was the fleet that killed the Ancients and got trapped as the Knossos portal closed. During 8K years even the dumb Shivans can shrink beam weapons and mount them on smaller ships. Apparently they can't do the same with Lucy shields. It's quite impressive to keep a fleet functioning for that long though.

I note that some of the better FS2 Shivan fighters and bombers are also in FS1 (Dragon, Seraphim). They also still use the same dogfighting weapons. IIRC the only evidences of advancing technology are better torpedoes, beams, and a few new ship designs, which are generally improvements. And the Sathanas. Apart from the torps, these could equally be explained by cost cutting in the Lucy fleet. Torps are easier to handwave than beams.

[Mars]

       What's defensive about an SGreen and a Fusion Mortar?

My point exactly.

Those are offensive ship to ship weapons. Defense Battleship? Hell with 4 AAAf and the hitpoints to take a beating from any flight of fighters, I'll take that.

You assume that any attack will be carried out by fighters only. As I said, one would assume a DEFENSIVE vessel would not only be armored but also armed well, both anti-fighter and anti-capital weapons are in order, and the SGreen doesn't cut into the "well armed" department.

What's powerful and cheap?

Alpha 1... kinky 

[Mawhrin]

What's powerful and cheap?

Alpha 1... kinky 

True. What the GTVA ought to concentrate on developing for the next fight against the Shivans is better co-operative multiplayer abilities. 

[Akalabeth Angel]

Those are offensive ship to ship weapons. Defense Battleship? Hell with 4 AAAf and the hitpoints to take a beating from any flight of fighters, I'll take that.

You assume that any attack will be carried out by fighters only. As I said, one would assume a DEFENSIVE vessel would not only be armored but also armed well, both anti-fighter and anti-capital weapons are in order, and the SGreen doesn't cut into the "well armed" department.

      So what makes a ship offensive or defensive exactly? You're just describing a good warship. Is the only thing that makes a ship defensive its speed? If so, isn't avoiding being outflanked or alternatively responding quickly to a situation part of defense??

[FreeSpaceFreak]

2. Modified from your idea: the Lucy fleet was the fleet that killed the Ancients and got trapped as the Knossos portal closed. During 8K years even the dumb Shivans can shrink beam weapons and mount them on smaller ships. Apparently they can't do the same with Lucy shields. It's quite impressive to keep a fleet functioning for that long though.

You're talking about the Shivans, you know. They could have been in 'hibernation', or have a life span of thousands of years...

[Colonol Dekker]

If they can power an impenetrable super shield and fire beams out their (assuming) faces.......


Who's to say indeed as mentioned that they, like the duracell bunny, go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, etc.....

[blowfish]

Well, they obviously need something to power their ships, as evident from the presence of gas miners ...

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Indeed, they probably didn't have lots of supplies with them. That still doesn't rule out the possibility of hibernation, however.

[Colonol Dekker]

Well, they obviously need something to power their ships, as evident from the presence of gas miners ...

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