[S-99]

The main method of attack for ships in fs is externally. Plasma and lasers impacting the heavy armor of another ship eventually making it's way through the hard shell to destroy it. What about something different. We know that initiating your subspace drive to close to a ship will result in a failed warp out sequence which is a proximity safe guard in the subspace drive system of all ships in fs.
With all safe guards in place, they can be disabled. And to good effect.

A1:How'd we defeat the sathanas petrarch?
Petrarch:We set the jump coordinates of an orion to the inside of the sathanas.
A1:Why?
Petrarch:We figured it'd ****'em over in some way.

For this you wouldn't need a meson'ed up orion. You just need an orion with nothing else. Probably be the equivalent of an orion sized asteroid with coordinates to set for the inside of a sathanas. This of course wouldn't destroy the sathanas, but would definitely disable it outright, maybe some explosions depending on what either the displacement of sathanas because of orion or atomic bonding of orion to sathanas. The damage would be irreperairable for the shivans. If the sath getting attacked in this manner doesn't explode, maybe it'd split it in half or something, but definitely turn the sath into a derelict.

[Polpolion]

Why not just slap jump drives onto a meson bomb and jump the bomb into the fighter bay and detonate it?

[eliex]

Sounds pretty good in theory.
It would be the ultimate subspace accident . . . although this round its deliberate. Probably this might happen in heavily congested trade route jump nodes abeit very rarely.

[S-99]

Why use explosives at all? The sheer amount of displacement (like giving a seagull alka-seltzer) or ships bonding together (like some bad teleporter accident) would be enough damage depending on the size of the object you choose to warp in. Imagine it, the ship would either become seriously damaged and disabled or blow up. That's a 50/50 chance you could capture a sath and take care of impending doom regardless of what happens.

Explosives wouldn't be bad at all if for certain you want to make said ship go boomie.

[Polpolion]

Why use explosives at all? The sheer amount of displacement (like giving a seagull alka-seltzer) or ships bonding together (like some bad teleporter accident) would be enough damage depending on the size of the object you choose to warp in. Imagine it, the ship would either become seriously damaged and disabled or blow up. That's a 50/50 chance you could capture a sath and take care of impending doom regardless of what happens.

Explosives wouldn't be bad at all if for certain you want to make said ship go boomie.

Jumping a ship in there instead of a bomb is you losing more resources than you have too. That bomb would only be able to blow up once, yet that orion would be able to keep going, and if used wisely, kill more things than a meson bomb.

[S-99]

I guess it depends on what's a good delivery vehicle. For closing the capella jump node an orion outfitted with mesons was used. This was more doable than say using less resources and souping up a huge asteroid with mesons and a subspace drive for taking out the capella node.

The orion was easier given how fast the gtva needed an explosive vehicle to close the node in urgency. The asteroid would use a lot less valuable resources, but it'd be an entirely new thing to do as opposed to knowing the ins and outs of an orion already for best destructive purposes.

Using something that will cost you more is worth it in some situations. You also wouldn't have to go through the trouble of slapping a subspace drive and bomb placement on ansteroid either.

An asteroid for closing a node would be great, but it'd most likely have to have been made already. Turning a meson bomb into it's own kamikaze ship sounds like an awesome way to get things done too. It could warp into things, be remotely controlled, and not put a freighter crew at risk.

Now warping ships into other ships is extremely crude for a method of 50/50 chance on disable or total destruction of the ship that this happened too. But with certain bombs you could guarantee a desired affect. Not just a meson bomb, but like a mega emp bomb going off on the inside of a ship sounds like it'd be long lasting total ship shutdown.

[Droid803]

Well, they used Decommissioned Orions probably bound for the scrap yard anyway. Isn't that more like reusing something that would have been thrown out anyway?

[Mongoose]

Well, they used Decommissioned Orions probably bound for the scrap yard anyway. Isn't that more like reusing something that would have been thrown out anyway?

Exactly.  It's just like modern navies using hulls of decommissioned ships for live-fire exercises, or sinking them to use as artificial reefs.  Why expend resources to create something new when you have a perfectly good structure lying around that would only wind up as scrap otherwise?

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Use a big rock.  You don't even need to have it land inside the ship just hit it.  Good old mass*velocity.  Ever watch the Hecate run into a chunk of the Orion in RI? 

Of course all of this assumes that subspace drive technology is accurate enough to even hit an area the size of a ship. 

[Getter Robo G]

Instead of an Orion why not a Fenris packed to the brim with Meson bombs?

[NGTM-1R]

This assumes that the GTVA can target accurately enough to do such a thing, which, by all appearances, they cannot. (The Shivans might, probably even can.) Also, it occurs to me that we aren't even sure you can open a subspace portal inside an object. The Sathanas juggernauts managed to do so inside a star, but apparently with difficulty. A ship would have a much higher density.

We've also seen GTVA ships and NTF ships jump into asteroid fields, apparently without worrying they're going to end up half inside an asteroid, and despite the fact GTVA subspace technology is manifestly not very accurate. I suspect it's simply not possible to open a subspace portal inside something, or even particularly close to it in relative terms; we've never seen a ship ram another out of subspace in anything canonical.

[Narvi]

This assumes that the GTVA can target accurately enough to do such a thing, which, by all appearances, they cannot. (The Shivans might, probably even can.) Also, it occurs to me that we aren't even sure you can open a subspace portal inside an object. The Sathanas juggernauts managed to do so inside a star, but apparently with difficulty. A ship would have a much higher density.

We've also seen GTVA ships and NTF ships jump into asteroid fields, apparently without worrying they're going to end up half inside an asteroid, and despite the fact GTVA subspace technology is manifestly not very accurate. I suspect it's simply not possible to open a subspace portal inside something, or even particularly close to it in relative terms; we've never seen a ship ram another out of subspace in anything canonical.

You don't even know that they managed to do it inside the star either. "Subspace disturbances" does not equal "jump nodes inside a star".

That also makes a great deal of sense; objects of high mass/density probably prevent subspace portals from forming inside a certain proximity. This is probably why there are no canonical missions near (as in REALLY close) to astronomical objects like gas giants and the like. They're too big to allow portals to form near them. Nebulae probably aren't dense enough to prevent nodes from forming.

You're awesome.

[S-99]

Ships aren't stars or planets and aren't even close to being massive enough either. What's to say you couldn't warp something inside an object anyway? A subspace portal opening up on the inside of a ship would be no different than a subspace portal opening up in normal space (at first when i started playing fs2, i thought when warping out you warped out, and then warped in immediately to the coordinates of the inside of the fighter hanger...until i saw more use of fighterbays i learned differently). The inside of a ship is full or normal space as well, with or without atmosphere or gravity.

Idk how gtva subspace drives are inaccurate. They take you exactly where you need. And don't forget the obvious safeguards with subspace drives you get to see in game. One such thing i already mention in my first post that i don't care to regurgitate.

[Narvi]

Ships aren't stars or planets and aren't even close to being massive enough either. What's to say you couldn't warp something inside an object anyway? A subspace portal opening up on the inside of a ship would be no different than a subspace portal opening up in normal space (at first when i started playing fs2, i thought when warping out you warped out, and then warped in immediately to the coordinates of the inside of the fighter hanger...until i saw more use of fighterbays i learned differently). The inside of a ship is full or normal space as well, with or without atmosphere or gravity.

Idk how gtva subspace drives are inaccurate. They take you exactly where you need. And don't forget the obvious safeguards with subspace drives you get to see in game. One such thing i already mention in my first post that i don't care to regurgitate.

You missed his point entirely. That subspace corridors might not be able to form properly in close proximity to large solid objects. A corridors' (or even a hangars') width counts as "close proximity".

[S-99]

I didn't miss his point at all. Dismissing things warping inside each other isn't part of the topic anyway. The possibility that subspace portals are affected by close proximity to physical objects is just as plausible as subspace portals forming and intersecting close proximity physical objects.

Or at least to a certain degree. Ships still aren't stars or planets, not as dense as those since people wanted to bring those up for comparison of density that doesn't really hit the spot (we're not trying to warp the colossus inside a planet). After that there haven't been any high orbit missions or close proximity to planet missions in the game at all.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

We've also seen GTVA ships and NTF ships jump into asteroid fields, apparently without worrying they're going to end up half inside an asteroid, and despite the fact GTVA subspace technology is manifestly not very accurate.

That's a very good point you have. And gravity is gravity; if the gravity of a small object, like an asteroid, can prevent a warp hole from forming, then the gravity of a big ship certainly will.
As for what subspace has to do with gravity, feel free to look at the tech description

[Narvi]

I didn't miss his point at all. Dismissing things warping inside each other isn't part of the topic anyway. The possibility that subspace portals are affected by close proximity to physical objects is just as plausible as subspace portals forming and intersecting close proximity physical objects.

Or at least to a certain degree. Ships still aren't stars or planets, not as dense as those since people wanted to bring those up for comparison of density that doesn't really hit the spot (we're not trying to warp the colossus inside a planet). After that there haven't been any high orbit missions or close proximity to planet missions in the game at all.

What... so you agree? I don't really get what you're saying here. Do you mean that a ship wouldn't affect subspace nodes like a planet would? Why not? What about the asteroid example? Asteroids are very closely packed together, but ships never hit them when they jump into an asteroid field.

[S-99]

Subspace nodes is completely different. In system travel is what i think you meant to say. Ships still aren't planets or stars. The ships in the game are no where near as massive or dense or hold as much gravitational energy as the latter. A better way to look at it is that ships don't affect subspace portals anywhere near as much as a planet would. Again, we're not trying to warp the colossus into a planet, but something on the order of a freighter into a sathanas. The rules of creating a subspace portal inside of something with a lot less gravitational (ie...ship as opposed to planet) energy are more lenient for sure despite possibility of it being possible.

Asteroids?
Whenever playing the game and jumping into an asteroid field it's never usually jumping into an asteroid field. Most of the time it's jumping in just outside of the asteroid field or in a very known clear spot in the asteroid field.

Asteroids are very closely packed together, but ships never hit them when they jump into an asteroid field.

Convenience of a space opera with *roid battles.

[Krelus]

I considered that, but for the sake of not making things look silly I decided to pretend that subspace couldn't create a window inside another solid object. I am thinking of an anti-juggernaut Meson bunker-buster, myself. Burrows in a kilometer and KERBLAM.

[Rick James]

How about making use of a GTDr Amazon?

Equip the tiny little sucker with a more powerful subspace drive and order it to warp out inside an enemy capital ship. Provided that the vortex is large enough, it would cut a vessel in half.