[Aardwolf]

Gen B or someone who is part of the team created some BP info about the motives of the GTVA and why they started the fight against the UEF, and more here: http://blueplanet.hard-light.net/ under media/prose.

Definitely was General Battuta.

[-Norbert-]

The economic and industrial manner in which the Shivans would be defeated, if that's possible, is going to be based on the Soviet Union post-WW2, with a professional military force plus massive stocks of equipment and material awaiting rapid mobilization in time of trouble.

This is because in the face of a Shivan invasion, the most precious of commodities is time, measured in weeks and days. There are no natural barriers worthy of the name to retard Shivan progress. Only force of arms can do that, and the force the Shivans can bring to bear increases exponentionally the longer the conflict lasts. Unless you can match that exponential increase in weeks, there's no reason to believe you'll win. Even being extremely generous and saying the UEF can produce a formidible war effort in three years...that's going to be two years and eleven months too late when dealing with the Shivans. Unless the ships are there in service or in mothballs, the fightercraft and weapons lines running a constant low-rate or even full-rate production in anticipation, then none of it is going to make a meaningful contribution to a war against the Shivans.

Why wouldn't the UEF try to prepare for the next Shivan invasion?  Isn't it mentioned at the end of FS1 that the Shivans will return, and that they have the technology to reopen the Sol-Delta Serpentis jump node?  If I was in control of the Earth government, I would definitely try to have an extremely powerful navy in case the Terrans and Vasudans outside Sol fell and the Shivans reopened the node.

You two seem to forget something. The UEF didn't know about the second Shivan incursion at the beginning of the war. With their current fleet they most likely would have easily wiped out the whole fleet the Shivans deployed in the great war. The only problem would have been the Lucifer.
So as far as the UEF knew before the Sanctuary and part of the 14th battlegroup joined them, they were already prepared for another war against the Shivans.

[NGTM-1R]

You two seem to forget something. The UEF didn't know about the second Shivan incursion at the beginning of the war.

Not at all. (Though lacking beam cannon, I'm curious how you'd imagine they deal with a Lucy.) I'm presenting the GTVA's point of view. If the UEF isn't prepared to sustain major military commitments (and apparently they're not), they're a danger.

[-Norbert-]

How to deal with a Lucifer? I think they quite sufficiently dealt with the first one. The only reason the GTA and PVN weren't able to take the Lucifer down much earlier was, that they didn't have the necessary knowledge sooner.
Since they now have that knowledge, any future Luficers are vulnerable as soon as they make a jump, unless they make sure the system they are jumping out of is clear.
And the UEF would even have far superiour fighters to get that job done. With a bit of planning and/or luck they might even be able to stir the Lucy into an unimportant node.

If it's still far out they might even make a little experiment and try what happens if they only blow up some of the reactors. That might leave the beams and/or shields inoperational.

I'm presenting the GTVA's point of view.

Didn't notice that, I though you were speaking of your own point of view there.
But the GTVA should know that the UEF didn't have the knowledge of the the second incursion. If they learned how bad the Shivan threat really is. The GTVA wouldn't have lost anything if they gave them some time. Since the UEF absolutely didn't expect an attack, they wouldn't even have lost the moment of surprise if they decided to attack at a later date.

[The E]

Since they now have that knowledge, any future Luficers are vulnerable as soon as they make a jump, unless they make sure the system they are jumping out of is clear.
And the UEF would even have far superiour fighters to get that job done. With a bit of planning and/or luck they might even be able to stir the Lucy into an unimportant node.

Only problem with this is that Sol is at the end of a jump chain. If a Lucifer appears at the node, it can be expected to stay in-system until the job is done. You can only defend yourself against one if you have enough depth to do so; in the UEF's case, their only hope is that their new weapons can penetrate a Lucifer's shields and do some damage.

Oh, and given that the GTVA doesn't know anything about the Shivan target selection process, trying to lure it somewhere could be somewhat difficult.

[-Norbert-]

The Shivans seem to take their cruisers being captured quite personally (remeber the Taranis). This might be used against them.
But about the Lucifer appearing in Sol already is a good point.
Do we know wether the UEF weapons are stong enough to crack the shields of a Lucifer? After all the 14th battlegroup managed to batter down the shields with just one destroyer and two corvettes. Maybe it's just a matter of applying enough force in a very short timespan.

[General Battuta]

The Lucifer in 'Curse of Prescience'/'Fallen Angel' had, I believe, deactivated its shield generators (which were basically useless against beam weapons) to power its main guns. You'll note that its weapons are drastically more powerful than the usual 2xSRed layout.

[Fury]

O rly? Then explain why Lilith or Ravana doesn't have generators to power ridiculous LReds. LRed is 2.25 times stronger than beams (HRed) the Lucy uses. If you seriously want to explain lack of shields on Lucy in those two BP missions, it is easy. Anti-capital beams caused Lucy's shields to fail. Since UEF doesn't have beams, they wouldn't have such luck with second Lucy.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Didn't the Orestes say that their weapons were strong enough to penetrate the Lucy's shields?

[General Battuta]

Yeah, you might be right.

[rubixcube]

Well, the Orestes is using beam cannons, which shields are useless against

[General Battuta]

Yes, thus

which were basically useless against beam weapons

[Aardwolf]

How do we know the UEF's new weapons aren't equally effective at piercing sheath shields? I mean, the GTVA developed beams during the time between the wars... why would the UEF not have also been working on anti-Lucifer weapons tech? For all we know, those railguns they've got were designed for that role!

[The E]

We don't. Which is why I said

their only hope is that their new weapons can penetrate a Lucifer's shields and do some damage.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Missile splash damage can pierce fighter shields on occasion, so I'm pretty certain that a large enough missile and/or explosion may stand a chance of piercing the Lucifer's shields.

[SpardaSon21]

Do railguns have a blast radius?

[High Max]

;-)

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I don't, but beams piercing shields is canon. Even in retail, AAA beams can still pierce through any fighter shield, even that of the Shivans.

Do railguns have a blast radius?

They used to, but I think the blast radius of railguns has either been greatly reduced or removed completely.

[SpardaSon21]

I was thinking beams forced their way through shield matrices by overloading them at the point of contact, allowing them to force their way through without disrupting the rest of the shield's integrity.  Of course, that explanation doesn't work very well for slash beams.

So I suppose the simplest answer is: A Game Designer did it!

[NGTM-1R]

But does anyone here have theories on why beams can bypass shields?

Some weapons can do it too; the Ancients ones from INFR1 could do it with disturbing regularity, and Dawn of Sol's Photon Lancer could do it on occasion.

The basic theory I came up with is that a shield's ability to stop incoming fire is directly proportional to the incoming fire's energy density. Regular cannon bolts are easily 16+ inches, and most missiles are of similar size. The higher the raw energy per square whatever, the better a weapon is able to penetrate shields. AAA beam cannons are extremely high-energy and have a relatively small impact area, meaning they burn straight through fighter-sized shields. Anti-capital beams, however, simply massive-overkill the target, delievering so much energy in their large area that you'd need to harness the total output of a star or something equally ridiculous to stop one.

(Missiles don't work well against shields in FS1 because they weren't entirely sure of the principles behind this. Presumably they developed a countermeasure or just better fuzes by FS2.)