[Kie99]

Put a Sathanas in one of the last two missions and you'll see how pointless the Colossus's sacrifice was.

[Snail]

May I remind you they had 80 of them. And that they were by no means being forced to fight the Colossus?

[High Max]

Did you notice that the Colossus was disabled? That makes it a sitting duck. Perhaps the CO just didn't mention that to Command. FREDing-wise, it shouldn't matter if it is disabled or not, as far as I know. Just don't code it to move in the mission file and it won't. So perhaps it being disabled was the real reason why the C didn't get out, because it couldn't whether it wanted to or not.

Why would command order it to jump out if it's jump drives weren't working? the Collossuss CO doesn't say they can't jump out - he sez they won't.

I thought about how command didn't notice it was disabled and wondered why as I was posting that previous comment. Who knows why it was disabled? Volition are the FRED experts so they shouldn't have to use that tag unless retail was very limited in its coding abilities. I have heard it was much harder to FRED in retail.

[The E]

...


Really, people, would it hurt to do some research? There is evidence (in the mission file itself) that V planned a more epic last battle, with the Colly following a set of waypoints. It was scrapped before release, probably due to time constraints during development.

[High Max]

I was reading about FS2 in wikipedia yesterday and it said it also scrapped atmosphere battles and certain weapons like a subspace missle. Strange that other games delay releases to fix things or improve upon things while Volition didn't. Maybe they should have create that so called epic battle even if it meant a month delay to fix things. Also strange that V could complete a game so quickly while so many companies seem to slack and take much longer to release sequels.

[The E]

In game development you will always have to make compromises between what you want to do and what you can do, given the time and money constraints. No developer will say no to an extra month of development, but at some point they will have to release something if they want to continue getting paid.
That being said, they were probably happy with the version of FS they finally put out there. That they did it on time and on budget probably made the publisher happy.

Also, remember that the engine was not developed from scratch. It was a refinement on the FS1 engine (which, in turn, was a development based on the Descent code). As such, it was possible to prototype a lot of stuff using the tools developed for the FS1 engine, while the FS2 engine was still in development.

Other companies that were capable of developing their games the same way can release their games faster as well, just look at the evolution from GTA 3 to Vice City to San Andreas. Each of those games added a lot more content, while the core engine was refined (but not redeveloped from scratch) along the way.

[TrashMan]

Put a Sathanas in one of the last two missions and you'll see how pointless the Colossus's sacrifice was.

Totally pointless.
Or are you assuming that it was the Collossuss that stopped the jugs from attacking the convoys? What was stopping them from just jumping in and vaporizing them? Nothing.
The most the collie could do was delay one for 15 seconds - one that apparently wouldn't have even moved away from the star if the collie didn't come in the first place.

[QuantumDelta]

Although E is quite right the mission probably would have been significantly better if the game devs had had time, the mission as it stands doesn't make much sense.
Not that I put any stock in the collie anyway, useless thing.

[crossfire92]

Just a passing thought - why are they called Shivans?
Ideas on the etymology of the name?

[Black Wolf]

It's explained in FreeSpace 1. Shiva is the destroyer in hinduism, and the GTA thought it was a good name for some odd reason.

[Desertfox287]

It's explained in FreeSpace 1. Shiva is the destroyer in hinduism, and the GTA thought it was a good name for some odd reason.

I guess because they destroy things, and it rolls of the tongue well.

[Paladin327]

and if they arent called the shivans, the STV gauntlet will be poorly named... ok, that was bad, i know

[Bob-san]

It's explained in FreeSpace 1. Shiva is the destroyer in hinduism, and the GTA thought it was a good name for some odd reason.

I guess because they destroy things, and it rolls of the tongue well.
[/quote]
And in the Ancient Monologues, they are referred to as "The Great Destroyers"; a god or goddess of destruction would fit that description and "explain" how foreign these aliens are.

Anyways, it's still my opinion that the GTVA Supersoaker should have been evacuated with the military and civilian assets when Capella came into direct threat. There's no way in hell that one damaged super-ship could stand up to one powerful ship, much less the threat of eighty. Were the Shivans concerned about decimating us, they'd probably have blockaded all jump nodes from Capella with at least a corvette and a few fighter wings. Transports stand no chance against a Moloch and to break the blockade would cost many ships (judging by how the GTVA throws cruisers, then corvettes, then destroyers to engage a single destroyer). That would entirely cut the chance of escape and could have cost millions more lives during the supernova.

[High Max]

I found it silly how the GTVA boasted about its technological superiority when nothing could be further from the truth. The Colossus only won the first time because the Sathanas' beam turrets were disabled. Also silly that the tech description of the Sathanas says that it appears to be comparable to the size and power of the Colossus when the Colossus isn't nearly as powerful as the Sathanas when it comes to anti-warship firepower.

[Bob-san]

I found it silly how the GTVA boasted about its technological superiority when nothing could be further from the truth. The Colossus only won the first time because the Sathanas' beam turrets were disabled. Also silly that the tech description of the Sathanas says that it appears to be comparable to the size and power of the Sathanas when it isn't nearly as powerful as the Sathanas when it comes to anti-warship firepower.

Uh what?

[High Max]

There is no way you can argue against my comment. Also, your link isn't clickable. GTVA warship weaponry is NOT superior to the Shivans and the Sathanas' beams are superior to anything the Alliance has. The only exceptions are that the GTVA has better primaries and better fighter/bomber armor on average. But the GTVA does not have tech superiority. How can you argue against that?

I'm guessing that link was directed to the Sathanas because I see the words underlined in my quote. I will check the quote code and the code in your post to be sure and then I will read your intended link.

Edit: you never attached any links. Oh, I said the wrong thing.

Sorry, I meant Colossus. Silly me.

[Scourge of Ages]

A very long, well written Von Neumann theory on page 3.

<joke>I've got it! There were two races before the Ancients. One who built the Shivans (Let's call them "M"), and another with a lust for knowledge (Let's call them "S"). The S purchased a liscense to use the Shivan technology from the M for use as an advanced scout program. Unfortunately, the guy in charge of the Shivan scout project set the priority for self-replication a little too high. Shortly therafter, he lost the slip of paper that he wrote the self destruct code on.
Then the Shivans get out of hand with their self-replication and kill everyone.  </joke>
(I like the second part of your theory)

Seriously though, I have a half thought out theory:
So the Shivans are really old, and they kill pretty much everyone they come in contact with. Sometime before they killed the Ancients, they became whatever type of hive mind. And then in all that time, they just leisurly build ships, explore the universe, philosophize, and become intimately familiar with subspace. Ancients show up and start causing havoc, using subspace a lot to spread that havoc.

See, the Shivans have become rather possessive of subspace itself in all those millenia. When somebody else shows up and starts messing with it, the Shivans react negatively, becoming absolutely focused on destroying them. Maybe it was the construction of the Knossos portals that bugged the Shivans.

So, another *very long* time passes, during which the Shivans continue to build and expand. They have no enemies and therefore no reason to build new technology.

Eventually two more races appear. They're both using subspace to fight eachother, and not treating it very well. Shivans are all, "Can't let you do that, new guys," and send the Lucifer fleet to teach them a lesson they won't survive to learn from.
To their surprise, these two races are far more adaptable and resiliant than expected and they actually beat the Lucifer.

Shivans decide that they'll need a different plan this time. For the first time in millenia they need to think originally and make strategies and new weapons. BAM! Lucifer beams for everyship! BOOM! New fighters and bombers! POW! Send in the Sathanas(es)! WHOOMPH! Blow up a star! That'll teach 'em.

Also to their surprise, instead of dying or fleeing, one guy decides that he want's to try to talk to the Shivans. They don't remember any non-killing form of contact with any other race ever, so they are intrigued. 'Course, the rest of the upstart species still need their spanking.

The theories about shipyard/carrier/battleships are good too, they make sense.

EDITed for readability.

[el_magnifico]

Also silly that the tech description of the Sathanas says that it appears to be comparable to the size and power of the Sathanas when it isn't nearly as powerful as the Sathanas when it comes to anti-warship firepower.

Well, the Colossus was almost as powerfull as the Colossus on that battle against the Colossus. So judging by the power output of the Colossus' beams, you can't possibly argue against my theory that the shivans were playing subspace volleyball with the Capella star's core.

Sorry. I just had to...

[High Max]

I'll go back and fix the typo

[Kie99]

Put a Sathanas in one of the last two missions and you'll see how pointless the Colossus's sacrifice was.

Totally pointless.
Or are you assuming that it was the Collossuss that stopped the jugs from attacking the convoys? What was stopping them from just jumping in and vaporizing them? Nothing.
The most the collie could do was delay one for 15 seconds - one that apparently wouldn't have even moved away from the star if the collie didn't come in the first place.

What do you think would happen if the Colossus jumped out?  There was a serious risk that the Sathanas would simply follow it, and the only place worth jumping to for the Colossus would be a jump node to Terran-Vasudan space, the final missions take place between those nodes.