[deathfun]

B.t.w. - 8 Lucifers would rape  a Sathanas.

Is it possible to have 8 Lucifers battle a Sath in FRED?

This immediately made me think about trying it out

[Mongoose]

Completely possible, though the results would be somewhat suspect.  Remember, FS2's variant of the Lucifer has SReds in the two forward beams for some reason, so the Sathanas would wipe the floor with it in that configuration.  If you were going for any degree of "accuracy," you'd have to either change them over to Shivan Super Lasers or use the FSPort's SSLBeam, both of which do equivalent damage.

[Paladin327]

We've been over this before.

Fact:  the GTVA build the Colossus to defeat any other Lucifers.
Fact:  the Lucifer has shields.
Fact:  in order for the Colossus to defeat a Lucifer, it must pierce the shields.
Fact:  Beams pierce shields on a smaller scale.
Fact:  The Colossus has beams.
Therefore:  The Colossus could pierce the shields of the Lucifer with beam fire.

Fac: Beams pierce fighter and bomber shields
Fact: Lucy's shields are considerably higher powered than fighter shields
speculation: if beams can pierce the lucy's shields can be pierced, it will take a very long time.

And by your logic, any beam can pierce lucy's shield. however, the GTVA doesnt even know if the lucy's shields can be pierced with beams. beam technology was developed after lucy went boom, and any remnants of the shield system are in a system that is unreachable. therefore, the GTVA was never able to test their beams on a lucy shield system

[Droid803]

High powered doesn't necessarily mean that it reacts different to beams.
Fighter shields aren't overwhelmed by a beam, they remain fully intact after being hit. The beam behaves as if the shield is not there. You're missing an assumption (that time to pierce shields is proportional to shield power, and it's not. I can give myself 9000000000000 shield points in FRED and beams still go right through like they weren't there) before jumping straight to your speculation.

Besides, it's not specifically stated that the Lucifer's shields are different from a really damn high-HP fighter shield in any way...so any argument either way is just as baseless, unfortunately.

And by your logic, any beam can pierce lucy's shield. however, the GTVA doesnt even know if the lucy's shields can be pierced with beams. beam technology was developed after lucy went boom, and any remnants of the shield system are in a system that is unreachable. therefore, the GTVA was never able to test their beams on a lucy shield system.

We've been over this before.
GTVA command has never expressed the incompetence required for the Colossus not to work for its intend purpose...
They spent 20 years building it for the specific purpose of hunting prospective Lucifer-class destroyers. If they weren't very sure that the beam system would work, they wouldn't build such a massive, expensive platform for it.

We're going in circles...again...

[Black Wolf]

We've been over this before.
GTVA command has never expressed the incompetence required for the Colossus not to work for its intend purpose...
They spent 20 years building it for the specific purpose of hunting prospective Lucifer-class destroyers. If they weren't very sure that the beam system would work, they wouldn't build such a massive, expensive platform for it.

Without a Lucifer to test it on, there's no way to be certain it would work. In fact, nowhere in FS2 does it say the Collossus is capable of defeating the Lucifer -

We vanquished the Shivans in the Great War but the hard questions remained. How would we confront the threat of future invasion? The Shivans might return at any time, any place, without warning. How would we fight the next threat to the very existence of our species? In 2345, on the tenth anniversary of the Shivan attack on Ross 128, the Vasudan emperor Khonsu II addressed the newly-formed GTVA General Assembly. The emperor inaugurated an ambitious and unprecedented joint endeavor: The GTVA Colossus.

Khonsu II: Together we built a civilization on the ruins of the Great War, and now we stand on the threshold of a new era of prosperity and harmony. With Project Colossus, the Vasudan people celebrate our shared covenant of peaceful co-existence and mutual defense of our Terran allies.

Narrator: The Colossus is the most powerful space faring warship ever constructed. Spanning six kilometers from bow to stern, the Colossus has taken over twenty years to complete. Twelve Lucifer-class destroyers can fit within its massive hull. Its state-of-the-art weaponry includes forty-five laser turrets, fifteen flak guns, twelve missile batteries, and twelve beam cannons. The Colossus wields more firepower than five Orion-class destroyers combined. Sixty fighter and bomber wings are housed in its vast hangar and its crew numbers over thirty thousand. Among its major contractors are industry giants Triton Dynamics, Subach-Innes, and the Akheton Corporation. The alliance now wages war on multiple fronts: in Deneb, Alpha Centuri, Epsilon Pegasi, and the mysterious nebula beyond Gamma Draconis. Once deployed the Colossus will end these conflicts swiftly and decisively. If ever the Shivans return to threaten our worlds we will be ready to face the challenge, securing peace for today and for generations to come.

It also says nothing in its tech description, or in Lucy's tech description. It says the Colossus is intended to fight the Shivans, that's all. For all we know, their plan is to zap the next Lucifer in subspace the same way they did in 2335 and then use the Colossus to stop the other ships from causing the kind of damage they did in the Great War.

The colossus, I suspect, was pretty much a case of "Take the most advanced weapons and materials we can get our hands on and build the biggest, toughest most hardocre ship we can. If that's not enough to stop the Shivans, we're boned anyway". Since nobody would have been able to offer a cast iron guarantee of success from any potential anti-Shivan weapon, the Collossus obviously got greenlit as the best available option, but there's no evidence the best would have been good enough. Moreover, I've already posted a bunch of other potential reasons to build the collossus in addition to stopping Lucifers, so there would have been plenty of advantages to go along with it even if it turned out to be incapapble of stopping a Lucy.

[Liberator]

What they did show a colossal ineptitude for is underestimating the shivans.  Which would suggest that the beams would less than fully effective.

The Collie is a very well designed platform, mostly, it's designed to jump into the middle of an engagement obliterate the enemy from they're flank and jump out.  This exploits a known Shivan failing tactically, they focus well over 50 percent of the ships available firepower in the forward 45 degrees.  It's only major failing is that without escorts she's horribly vulnerable to concentrated bomber attack.

Command basically failed to do vs. the shivans what the designers of the Collie didn't, they didn't exploit the weakness of the Sathanas at all.  Instead they used they're super ship as a bludgeon which resulted in a massive amount of damage that could have been avoided.

[Ziame]

hey, hey, hey. Didn't GTI copy EVERYTHING onto Hades? I mean, it's stated somewhere that only the defense systems weren't operational. And due to tech entry stating taht GTVA considers continuation of Hades project, then that can mean, that GTVA HAD the means to test the technology. Of course, it's only speculation. Didn't anyone contact asking for it? x)

[NGTM-1R]

What they did show a colossal ineptitude for is underestimating the shivans.  Which would suggest that the beams would less than fully effective.

Assumes facts not in evidence. Command's underestimating the Shivans was not avoidable.

[Kie99]

What they did show a colossal ineptitude for is underestimating the shivans.  Which would suggest that the beams would less than fully effective.

Assumes facts not in evidence. Command's underestimating the Shivans was not avoidable.

Yes it was, and it was stupid.  It was said in the ancient monologues that there enough Shivan ships to blacken the skies, yet after destroying the first Sathanas, they thought they had 'nothing more to fear'.  At that point Gamma Draconis should have been sealed off and an end put to any potential invasion.

[freespacegundam]

A huge amount of fighters on the part of the Shivans would have been sufficient to 'blacken the skies' of an ancient planet.   We have no idea of knowing how much of the ancient monologue was factual statements, and what was poetic license from an obviously distraught individual looking towards the twilight of his or her race.

Given that the only experience Command had with the Shivans was the Lucifer engagement during the Great War, it isn't unreasonable to think that the destruction of the Sathanas dealt a crippling blow to the Shivans when the destruction of the Lucifer accomplished precisely that the last time. Granted, caution should still have been the order of the day, but given that no second lucifer was ever sortied, why exactly was it safe to assume a second Sathanas was on the way?  Command thought they had the Shivans on the ropes, just like last time.

And it isn't like Command acted irrationaly after the destruction of the Sathanas.  They pulled the Collossus back for repairs, deployed advance elements of the fleet to sweep the nebula, and continued the evacuation of Capella.  They relaxed, but did not lower their guard.  Sealing off Gamma Draconis was not an option, as the portal had already long since stabilized the node.  The only effective method of sealing the node would have been to use meson warheads packed in destroyers, and command didn't believe sacrificing a destroyer was necessary at that point.

Command acted cautiously, but optomistic, and no one could fault them for doing that.  The sudden appearance of 80 Sathanas class juggernaughts was an event no planner could have forseen, nor could they have prepared for such an event other than they did.  They sacrificed the fleet to protect the refugees, and sealed the nodes to Capella. Under the circumstances, they did the best they could.

[NGTM-1R]

Yes it was, and it was stupid.  It was said in the ancient monologues that there enough Shivan ships to blacken the skies, yet after destroying the first Sathanas, they thought they had 'nothing more to fear'.  At that point Gamma Draconis should have been sealed off and an end put to any potential invasion.

Which do not represent actual in-game knowledge the GTA has, natch. Besides, it doesn't take much to blacken the skies posistioned correctly. One of the Lucifer CB anis does it with just one ship. And furthermore, you're reading a poetic phrase literally.

And why should they have believed they had anything more to fear? You're missing the key point. All the usual sources of Order of Battle intelligence (comms intercepts, captured documents, even prisoner interrogations) are useless with the Shivans. The only viable information on Shivan fleet composition came from the Great War. Lest we forget, the Lucifer was not a cut-off isolated ship, as we know the Lucifer fleet was bringing in supplies from somewhere beyond Ross 128. The combined Shivan forces of the Great War were considerably less than the GTA/PVN forces arrayed against them.

The GTVA made great strides, and clearly the Shivans had done the same, but there was no reason to hand to assume they had anything like the forces they did. They had a Sathanas, sure. The juggernaut was unwelcome, but not terribly surprising considering the GTVA could build the Colossus. There was no reason to believe, based on the way the Shivans just quit the Great War after mid-Silent Threat, that they had anything like the manufacturing capablity to sustain a long war against the GTVA, much less build 80 juggernauts. That kind of thing came entirely out of left field.

[Lucika]

The only effective method of sealing the node would have been to use meson warheads packed in destroyers, and command didn't believe sacrificing a destroyer was necessary at that point.

Come on! Since they've destroyed the Knossos device, they've wanted to seal off the node! And they should've taken no risks and sacrifice a destroyer. For instance the Phoenicia that blows up anyway.
Yeah, the problem is that it would've cut down half the campaign, so in FS-sense it could not happen. But that WAS a mistake from Command since they DID take an unnecessary risk.

[Droid803]

Well no not really.
After the Sathanas was destroyed, they thought it wasn't necessary to collapse the node anymore.

EDIT: lol this turned into "what are command mistakes, redux"

[NGTM-1R]

They may not have had the bombs available yet. They almost certainly didn't even have the idea to do that. They thought that killing the Knossos would be enough. They definitely didn't have a meson-packed destroyer on standby.

It wasn't until the Capella situation developed that they probably even started work on how to collapse a node, threw together some calculations on a sufficent blast size and put together a means to deliever it.

[Mav]

Even though I'd love to believe that the Lucy's shields are invulnerable to beams, I am afraid it can't be.
Why?
The reason is simple: if this ship would've been invulnerable to conventional weaponry AND beams, then the Shivans would've built a huge Lucifer fleet instead of a Sathanas fleet.
Let's assume that (since the Colly is the size of 12 Lucys and a Colly is, for instance, equals a size of a Sathanas) - being really pessimistic - that you can build 8 Lucifers on the "price" of one Sathanas. If so, the Shivans could've had a fleet of 640 invulnerable ships instead of the 80 Sathanii. It is clear that the Shivans would've built the Lucys - but they didn't. Thus it is proven that the Lucy isn't invulnerable to beams.

Note: It IS possible that the Lucy needs some special resources the Shivans lacked at the time. But this is unlikely, considering the probable size of the Shivan empire and the way the canon campaigns go.

I'd think that either the Sath-fleet was older than the Lucy one, And/or that that the Sath's were specifically sent there for collapsing Capella for *some* reason, and thus battlereadiness wasn't really prioritized...

As for reasons, the "Shivans!"-mod has a funny explanation .

We've been over this before.

Fact:  the GTVA build the Colossus to defeat any other Lucifers.
Fact:  the Lucifer has shields.
Fact:  in order for the Colossus to defeat a Lucifer, it must pierce the shields.
Fact:  Beams pierce shields on a smaller scale.
Fact:  The Colossus has beams.
Therefore:  The Colossus could pierce the shields of the Lucifer with beam fire.

Fact: bombs were the most damaging anti-cap weapons GTA/PVN had.
Fact: bombs have a very minimal shield damage modifier.
Fact: shields regenerate the more damage, the larger they are.
Fact: beams don't have such a puny shield-multiplicator.

Thus, I'd assume it as a valid guess, that "the Colossus being designed to thwart another Lucifer attack" could mean just that it has enough beam armament to overcome the regeneration rate of eventual Lucifers' shields.

...though I have to admit I'm biased here - I actually never realized that AAA-beams were piercing my shields while first playing the campaign.
Furthermore, I'd assume the Shivans to NOT simply have sit on their hands, doing nothing research-wise during the last 8000 years - and neither do I think it believable that the GTVA should be that easily able to catch up on that!
And also, I'd like to have effective capship-shields which can't just be pierced... It'd add an additional level/layer to capship battles.

[Lucika]

Well no not really.
After the Sathanas was destroyed, they thought it wasn't necessary to collapse the node anymore.

EDIT: lol this turned into "what are command mistakes, redux"

The Knossos was destroyed to stop the very first Sath.

[Droid803]

Yes, and after the first Sath was destroyed, no need to close the node.
The GTVA had no evidence of further Sathanas-class warships. If the Shivans behaved like they did in FS1, they would have rolled over and died a short while after their biggest ship got killed.
So why collapse the node? The Nebula is good for gas mining.

If you think they should have tried collapsing the node right after blowing up the Knossos failed, why would they bother? The Sathans got through already.

[Ziame]

If you think they should have tried collapsing the node right after blowing up the Knossos failed, why would they bother? The Sathans got through already.

Well, maybe cuz like, there're shivenz inside.

[Droid803]

So...while being attacked by the Sathanas, they would develop a way to collapse the node which wouldn't even stop it? That's freaking smart....NOT.

[Lucika]

So...while being attacked by the Sathanas, they would develop a way to collapse the node which wouldn't even stop it? That's freaking smart....NOT.

What do you mean? They tried to seal off the Draconis-nebula node before the first Sath would've arrived. But the destruction of the Knossos wasn't enough.