[Liberator]

Originally posted by Zeronet


You base that on? Destroyers could of attacked it, a Carrier could of taken the fighters into subspace, intersystem drives on fighters were never required.

The problem with this statment is obvious.  The Bastion was the closest ship capable of carrying fighters and she was too far behind and couldn't catch up to the Lucifer.  The 12 fighters and 4 bombers she launched were the only ones with sufficient speed to catch up and destroy the Lucifers while it was vulnerable in subspace.  Why Earth didn't send additional ships is an open ended question that can be answered by the fact that the Luci still had massive forward firepower at her disposal shields or no shields any attacking destroyers and cruisers would have be destroyed before they could bring their weapons to bear.

This also demonstrates how close we were to defeat.

[Havock]

and i doubt you would have to destroy ALL of the reactors to defeat it.

i mean, one reactor wouldn't be able to power both the sields AND the beams if you get my point.

so a damaged lucy would jump in sol, decimate the 1st fleet but would be destroyed by the sheer numbers of the terrans.
i doubt the shivans would ve a craft 5 times the bloody energy it actually needs.

[hobnob1978]

Originally posted by Liberator


The problem with this statment is obvious.  The Bastion was the closest ship capable of carrying fighters and she was too far behind and couldn't catch up to the Lucifer.  The 12 fighters and 4 bombers she launched were the only ones with sufficient speed to catch up and destroy the Lucifers while it was vulnerable in subspace.  Why Earth didn't send additional ships is an open ended question that can be answered by the fact that the Luci still had massive forward firepower at her disposal shields or no shields any attacking destroyers and cruisers would have be destroyed before they could bring their weapons to bear.

This also demonstrates how close we were to defeat.

Bull, if Earth: the last surviving homeworld of the alliance was at stake you`d launch EVERYTHING you had even intot he teeth of the lucifer. If you sent in home fleet (who would be useless after the Lucifer jumps into SOl anyway).
Yes many would be destroyed but the others would have a chance to lauch as many fighters as possible (bearing in mind the destroyers ect have "bunnyhopped them into subspace) and even engage once past the beams. In any case that mission does NOT make sense in that they only send in the bastion (who admitiddly was the onlyone capable of catching up) in from behind without esending in any from the front to create a desperate last wall.

this was the FINAL battle with the luifer depending on being destroyed in SS because it was invincible in normal.

Personally I as an Admiral would have lauched all of home fleet, even knowing a large number would get slaughtered before the Luci was taken out, thats the price of defending a homeplanet ladies and gentlemen.

Oh and PS with the shields gone and the beam cannons vulnerable, why not lauch as many bomber wings from home fleet as possible once facing off against the luci to take em out? You`d loose some destroyers but not all of them.
So send in say Six bomber wings to target each beam cannon and another six each to the reactors with covering squads lauching to defend.

[Knight Templar]

because that would compromise the difficulty and playability of the mission, thus, negating the desprate need to win in the last mission. It wouldn't be much of a uber-final battle if 12 wings of Ursas came in infront of the lucifer followed by 12 wings of Ulysses for support, now would it?

[Hippo]

untill reconstruction, the bastion was the ONLY ship with the subspace tracking... all others would be useless, no matter how close...

[LtNarol]

This thread is old, let it die.

[Woolie Wool]

Somebody lock this now.

*starts torturing forum members at random to find out who votebumped this topic*

[Taristin]

The age of a thread has nothing to do with the quality of it's content...

The thing with the last wave of Terran defenders from Sol would have been better if more than the Lucifer made it into SS. I don't remember the whole hing, so why was it only the Lucy made it?

[StratComm]

I almost hate to dredge this topic any farther, but it's already here so what the heck...  The Lucifer almost always traveled alone; the idea of more than one capital ship in an area at any given time seems to be a strategy not used by either the GTA, VPN, or Shivan forces during FS1.  The accompanying fleet was only seen in one mission in FS1, where Alpha 1 takes the captured Dragon into hostile territory to determine enemy strengths (scanning ships mission).  And with the Lucifer pretty much invulnerable, it was basically running unchecked through Terran and Vasudan systems.  The support ships could perhaps not keep up, or perhaps were engaging the GTA/PVN alliance as a diversion, allowing the invincible Lucifer to destroy all bastions of resistance before a weakness was discovered and exploited.

[hobnob1978]

I thought the Shivans in FS1 were meanto to be a scouting wing? So I presume they had a limited numer of the really BIG cap ships like the Eva and the Lucifer?

Because the lucifer was invincible it could cruise around with abandon.

And yes we all know WHY you don`t get any help from earth due to the unbalancing issues... That was not the point. This was mroe an issue about the "plot" rather than the game. (although I think having the undefended Lucy against a couple of destoryers would have been cool. I mean the mission dfening the Bastion gainast that second Eva class was hard, you HAD to knock out it`s turrets or it mauled the Bastion at close range.

The undefended lucifer against two sol destroyers one with beams the other without, luci wins, player horror at carnage and renewed attempts to take it out before jumping out. Class.

Oh and Subspace tracking is the most imprtant. They could have used a lighter faster ship or modified transport to jump the needed fighters into subspace. The helios equivilant in FS1 was powerful enough but so could enough typhoon bombs.

So they needed tracking to track the Lucifer and assemble a fleet to stop it. I`m sure they would have done things differently (as in sending in sols fleet) if they didn`t have jump capable fighters

We will however never know.

[TopAce]

I voted subspace tracking. It is a bit more important than fighter jump drives. The Ursa and the Harbinger had no great part, I think even Medusas with Tsunami are good. Even 5 Tsunamis can inflict more damage than 2 Harbringers.

Shields are particularly useless for the player, it is mind how strong your shield is, every hit gets throught it.

[comICEMAN]

But it could be better when you must disable the shield reactor and then fly in a fighter bay and destroy the reactor!

[hobnob1978]

Originally posted by comICEMAN
But it could be better when you must disable the shield reactor and then fly in a fighter bay and destroy the reactor!

Hah!

The lucifers big I`ll grant you but not that big. A final level where yuo bounce around really tight corners getting shot at by the thousands of Shivans on board with their plasma cannons is not my idea of fun I`m afraid.

Plus you got that idea from WCIV:The price of freedom when you kill the Admirals ship.

[Solatar]

Originally posted by comICEMAN
But it could be better when you must disable the shield reactor and then fly in a fighter bay and destroy the reactor!

I don't think it would be better, as you'd have to do it yourself (ai probably wouldn't fly into the ship) but it would definantly be awesome.

Originally posted by comICEMAN
Plus you got that idea from WCIV:The price of freedom when you kill the Admirals ship.

 
You make that sound as though just because he didn't come up with the idea that it isn't very good.

[TopAce]

Originally posted by Solatar


.....(ai probably wouldn't fly into the ship) but it would definantly be awesome.

That's certain. We only have to tell the Ai to fly waypoints. And call an SCP guy to tell the Ai to use that damned afterburner![/b]

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Originally posted by hobnob1978
Plus you got that idea from WCIV:The price of freedom when you kill the Admirals ship.

Wing Commander?  We can go back further than that, hasn't anyone seen Return of the Jedi?

On the other hand it was a good idea then and it is a good idea now.  Would be great fun.

[Zeronet]

Originally posted by Liberator


The problem with this statment is obvious.  The Bastion was the closest ship capable of carrying fighters and she was too far behind and couldn't catch up to the Lucifer.  The 12 fighters and 4 bombers she launched were the only ones with sufficient speed to catch up and destroy the Lucifers while it was vulnerable in subspace.  Why Earth didn't send additional ships is an open ended question that can be answered by the fact that the Luci still had massive forward firepower at her disposal shields or no shields any attacking destroyers and cruisers would have be destroyed before they could bring their weapons to bear.

This also demonstrates how close we were to defeat.

There isn't a problem with my statement *looks to the topic*. It says the MOST important, which would be the subspace tracking, fighter engines are not more important than that, as without fighter engines, it might of still be possible to destroy it using other ships from Earth, but if you take away subspace tracking, there is a 0% chance of destroying it.

[TopAce]

Originally posted by Liberator

....  The 12 fighters and 4 bombers she launched were the only ones with sufficient speed to catch up and destroy the Lucifers while it was vulnerable in subspace.  Why Earth didn't send additional ships....

This also demonstrates how close we were to defeat.

Having more friendly fighters in that mission would have made the mission too easy. To balance the difficulty, there would be need for more fighters, and that would probably drop the FPS on machines at the era of FS1 dramatically with the subspace effect going in the background.

I tried to replace the Lucifer's turrets to normal Shivan Turrets(because it has the Shivan Weak Turret in the last mission), and see wonder: It is still almost as easy as the original one. Of course only a few stupid straight-flying Ai died.

[magatsu1]

I voted the drive 'cos the large (cruisers and upwards) are too slow to persue the Lucifier (witness the Bastion being left behind). Subspace tracking is good, but the ship could be tracked entering a jump node.Plus the Shivans made it obvious they were headin' for Sol.

[StratComm]

You know, there is only one route to Sol, so I don't see why the Bastion would have needed subspace tracking to follow her in.  Or for that matter, why the first fleet couldn't have entered the node from the other side and duked it out in passing.  It's a node, not normal space, so it's not like there was any question where the Lucifer was to go.  Of course, if the ship entering the node needed SS tracking to enter the exact same vector and to be able to engage in combat, then that would be a different story.