[Akalabeth Angel]

If the shivans are able to make a super-cruiser version of the Cain, why don't we see a super-version of a Destroyer, or a corvette, or even a super-version of a Sathanas?

       Uh, Lucifer "Super" Destroyer anyone? It's barely longer than a Ravana (400m) but carries impenetrable shields and weapons that just like the LRed can destroy a Terran capital ship in just a few hits (and no, don't tell me "it's only got SReds or something lame").

[BengalTiger]

I've written this some few months ago, and I'll have to do it once more.

Here we go:

Lilith:
Type  Cruiser
Max Velocity  20.0 mps
Hitpoints  75 000
Length  190 m

Shivan Turret Laser  5 x 50 HP hull damage per second
Shivan Cluster  2 x 3
Anti-Fighter Beam  1 x 49.5
Large Red Beam  1 x 1359

Total damage per second:
250 + 6 + 49.5 + 1359 = 1664.5 HP/s

Aeolus:
Type  Cruiser
Max Velocity  30.0 ms-1
Hitpoints  38 000
Length  272 m

Terran Huge Turret  2  x 41.7
Standard Flak  6  x 200
Anti-Fighter Beam  2  x 77
Small Green Beam  2  x 61

Total damage per second:
83.4 + 1200 + 154 + 122 = 1559.4 HP/s

Speed: 20 m/s vs 30 - Aeolus is 50% faster
HP's: 75 000 vs 38k - Aeolus has about 50% the HP of the Lilith
Damage: The Aeolus does 105,1 HP/s less than the Lilith.

And the Aeolus is not intended to fight capships- it's an antifighter unit.

Who still thinks the Lilith is an unbalanced ship?

[colecampbell666]

The main reason the Lilith is unbalanced is because the huge beam lets it chew up destroyers.

[blowfish]

Yeah, anyway, flak never does as much damage as its supposed to and blobs tend to miss sometimes (even capships).  In a broadside, the Aeolus might be a ble to hurt the Lilith a bit but most of its weapons don't activate until you get down to 1000m.

[AlphaOne]

The Lilith can chew up and spit out corvettes and with just a tiny bit of luck destroyers. Still think the Lilith is not overkill??? What seems to be forgotten is the fact that the Lilith beam cannon has a hell of a lot more range and dammage then the Aeolus with its flack cannons which are limited to what 1500m ??

[Ghostavo]

And simply because by some miracle of life the shivans managed to survive till today does not mean they have to be the ubertechfreacks of the universe all knowing and all powerfull. This arguement i find to be the most iritating of them all when defending a shivan atribute that does not fit with the rest of the pack.

They have demonstrated abilities more worring than having a cruiser that has a LRed. If I was assessing Shivan abilities for inbalances, I'd be more worried about their ability to blow up stars than a cruiser that has very good anti-capital ship weaponry.

Again, they're Shivans.

[TrashMan]

Who still thinks the Lilith is an unbalanced ship?

Me. That calculations only work if the Aeolus comes close in and personal - and it will still get pwned.
What would normally happen is that the Lilith would fry the Aeolus with a single shot from the LRed...sometimes it might need two.
The Aeolus might return fire if it's lucky...

And no, I don't think the Aeolus is a fighter-defense cruiser - it's a all-purpose cruiser.
It has roughly the same ammount of anti-capital firepower as other GTVA cruisers. If it was a specialized anti-fighter cruiser it would trade that for more AAAf's.

[Droid803]

Here we go:
Anti-Fighter Beam  2  x 77
Small Green Beam  2  x 61

  AAAfs do more DPS than SGreens? Wow, SGreens are sure useless POS'es.

[BengalTiger]

That's what the FS Wiki says...
Also- if we're into unbalanced ships- the Terran Mara's HP, Shields and secondaries are >can't even find a word to describe how crazy they are<

[IceFire]

The main reason the Lilith is unbalanced is because the huge beam lets it chew up destroyers.

A torpedo boat can sink a destroyer or a cruiser.  Where does the balance come in?

[blowfish]

What would normally happen is that the Lilith would fry the Aeolus with a single shot from the LRed...sometimes it might need two.

It will always take two shots if the Aeolus is at 100% hull integrity.  The LRed doesn't do that much damage per shot.  Unless you have been tinkering with the tables *cough*

[Droid803]

The main reason the Lilith is unbalanced is because the huge beam lets it chew up destroyers.

A torpedo boat can sink a destroyer or a cruiser.  Where does the balance come in?

IIRC, a torpedo boat sunk a battleship... (Pommern)

[Zoltan]

Here we go:
Anti-Fighter Beam  2  x 77
Small Green Beam  2  x 61

  AAAfs do more DPS than SGreens? Wow, SGreens are sure useless POS'es.

While SGreens are pieces of dog poo, he fudged the numbers. The AAA beams should do 24 sustained damage per second damage not 77.

And as for the rest of the conversation, why are so many people obsessed with balance? FreeSpace isn't an RTS...

Edit: It appears that verbs were an undervalued commodity in my first sentence...

[Droid803]

Here we go:
Anti-Fighter Beam  2  x 77
Small Green Beam  2  x 61

  AAAfs do more DPS than SGreens? Wow, SGreens are sure useless POS'es.

While SGreens pieces of dog poo, he fudged the numbers. The AAA beams should do 24 sustained damage per second damage not 77.

And as for the rest of the conversation, why are so many people obsessed with balance? FreeSpace isn't an RTS...

I have no idea...
Some people here are just raving RTS fans (like myself), although, I do not think the Lilith is overpowered in any way. It's just...good.

[IceFire]

Here we go:
Anti-Fighter Beam  2  x 77
Small Green Beam  2  x 61

  AAAfs do more DPS than SGreens? Wow, SGreens are sure useless POS'es.

While SGreens are pieces of dog poo, he fudged the numbers. The AAA beams should do 24 sustained damage per second damage not 77.

And as for the rest of the conversation, why are so many people obsessed with balance? FreeSpace isn't an RTS...

Edit: It appears that verbs were an undervalued commodity in my first sentence...

I'm not even sure where the balance thing comes in.  Its like everything must fit within a certain class and if its outside of that then its wrong...I don't know.

[BengalTiger]

I'm not even sure where the balance thing comes in.  Its like everything must fit within a certain class and if its outside of that then its wrong...I don't know.

Tell that to the Tiger II tank.

[AlphaOne]

The abilaty to blow up stars is not something they do on a day by day basis. It takes a whole lot of jjuggs to do that and more important it takes a lot of time to actualy achieve the desired effect. During this time the FLEET is exposed and by all means the shivans might not have the required whatever they need to blow up a star if you take a few of the juggs out.

Why are we comparing torpedo boats to a Lilith again?


Also the Mara is weaker then its terran counterpart. The game says so.


We can all agree that shivan subspace tech is miore advanced then terran/vasudan tech . However given the rate at which GTVA tech is advancing the shivans might just find themselfs in the not so distant future outpaced by the GTVA in this area. And not just this area. Fotr all we know the shivans have always battled lesser species that did not really stand a fighting chance against them. For all we know they might of never known defeat.

While the GTVA did not defeat them it did manage to survive them on 2 different ocasions altough the second one was a strange and close call.

Also shivans dont battle eachother for all we know and dont have the constant need to improve themselfs like the GTVA does. War bring about tech. advancements. And when not fighting the shivans the GTVA is adept at fighting enemies from within.

[Ghostavo]

The abilaty to blow up stars is not something they do on a day by day basis. It takes a whole lot of jjuggs to do that and more important it takes a lot of time to actualy achieve the desired effect. During this time the FLEET is exposed and by all means the shivans might not have the required whatever they need to blow up a star if you take a few of the juggs out.

It's still something abnormal when compared to anything in the game. The collective mass (or size for the pedantic who want to insist we cannot assume mass without reference) of the Sathanas fleet is incomparably small to their target. A much bigger diference than between the Lilith and any other ship in the game. The other ship of that class, the Colossus, doesn't have that ability either. Should we say that the Sathanas is not balanced too?

Also the Mara is weaker then its terran counterpart. The game says so.

So if the game said that the Lilith was more powerful than the Cain or any other cruiser it would be alright? Wait, what is that in the FS tech description?

FS1 Tech Room Description
While far more rare than its counterpart, the Cain-class cruiser, the Lilith is one of the most ferocious cruisers we have had the misfortune of combating. It has extremely strong weapon systems, as well as a very thick armor which our cannons can barely penetrate. One for one, the Lilith can easily destroy any of our cruisers. It is for this reason that they should be considered a primary target for all bomber squadrons in the GTA.

FS2 Tech Room Description
The SC Lilith class of Shivan cruisers is a far-deadlier foe than the Cain class. Nearly impenetrable armor plating enables it to withstand tremendous punishment, enabling its nine turrets to lash out at warships and combat spacecraft with impunity.

We can all agree that shivan subspace tech is miore advanced then terran/vasudan tech . However given the rate at which GTVA tech is advancing the shivans might just find themselfs in the not so distant future outpaced by the GTVA in this area. And not just this area. Fotr all we know the shivans have always battled lesser species that did not really stand a fighting chance against them. For all we know they might of never known defeat.

The Shivan could have battled two ants and a mushroom, it still doesn't change what is presented ingame.

Also shivans dont battle eachother for all we know and dont have the constant need to improve themselfs like the GTVA does. War bring about tech. advancements. And when not fighting the shivans the GTVA is adept at fighting enemies from within.

You assume something we don't know about the Shivans, which even if it were true, doesn't change anything about what we've seen ingame.

[TrashMan]

I have no idea...
Some people here are just raving RTS fans (like myself), although, I do not think the Lilith is overpowered in any way. It's just...good.

Dude, no one is advocating symetrical balance (at least I am not). What I want is LOGICAL balance. I want things to make sense

[IceFire]

Why are we comparing torpedo boats to a Lilith again?

Because apparently some folks have a hard time understanding whats going on here.  Think back to World War I and World War II naval warfare for a moment.  You have all of the various classes of ships from the tiny torpedo boats up to destroyers, cruisers, battlecruisers, dreadnoughts, and so forth.  All arranged logically in nice displacement/firepower and the bigger one will obviously beat the smaller one.  Right?  Wrong.  Torpedo boats were too small to be bracketed by the larger vessels so the idea is for a torpedo boat to use its inherent qualities as a smaller vessel plus potent torpedoes carried by the larger vessels to kill much larger ships.  Often a single or pair of torpedo boats could lay on serious harm by using big weapons normally carried by larger vessels.

Its an example of one class of vessel not "logically" falling into the balance of naval warfare.  There are many examples of this in warfare.

Is this not clear enough?  Does everything have to be nice and logically aligned in a straight forward fashion?