[headdie]

More relevant to the topic, to Bosch, the battle for Sirius III was utterly pointless since it was in the opposite direction to which he wanted to go

how much of the GTVA fleet did that action put out of position for his lunge at Gamma Draconis

[Snail]

Uh.

2 fighter wings?


Okay no seriously, you got a point thar. Still didn't help him much though. 99% of his forces got destroyed.

[potterman28wxcv]

Freespace Universe is sometimes not logic.

After the capture of the Taranis, the player is informed that a destroyer (the Lucifer) made a great assault to retake the Taranis.
In the little animation, there are a lot of shivan fighters escaping from Lucifer's fighterbay... I didn't count them, but I estimate them to one hundred fighters approximatively.

Surprise : in the last mission (where you have to destroy the Lucifer's reactors), there are no more than 2 wings of fighters protecting the Lucifer at the same time...

[headdie]

Freespace Universe is sometimes not logic.

After the capture of the Taranis, the player is informed that a destroyer (the Lucifer) made a great assault to retake the Taranis.
In the little animation, there are a lot of shivan fighters escaping from Lucifer's fighterbay... I didn't count them, but I estimate them to one hundred fighters approximatively.

Surprise : in the last mission (where you have to destroy the Lucifer's reactors), there are no more than 2 wings of fighters protecting the Lucifer at the same time...

the problem is we don't know how many were destroyed between the Lucy's last replenishment and the subspace attack

[T-Man]

Concerning the topic, i recall that the FS1 Harbinger is described in its introduction during the campaign as origionally being purely for planetary bombardments, so the GTA seem to have specialised equipment for such roles. I suspect Elysiums are a big role, but there may have been other ship classes and technologies that we simply did not see in the campaigns.

Another thing to consider is having orbital support during a landing. Considering simple fighter missiles in Freespace (if what i've heard is correct) have power equalling modern nukes, Harbingers, beam cannons, maybe even the ol' plasma blobs are on the 'wipe out entire enemy base\battleline\regiment in one go' level. A group of Elysiums each carrying say 300-500 or so soldiers, entering the atmosphere to land at an LZ, sound silly and easy pickings for ground defences or ships. A group of Elysiums doing the same after an Orion with its fighter/bomber complement and attending cruisers have taken up position over the LZs hemisphere (if not the whole world) and are making the sky rain fire, suddenly become much harder to resist successfully. You might be able to stop them long-term with a determined gurilla or subterranean war (like in Vietnam), but trying to hit them while they're landing would be risky unless you can retake orbital dominance with ships of your own.

So yeah, your landing teams might seem small, and would probably use fragile ships like Argos and Elysiums, but the key is what's covering up above (like today's wars really). The Lucifer glassed the whole of Vasuda Prime single-handedly in just over half a day. I'd vote its not to hard to imagine an Orion and its beams supressing a planet enough for a quick takeover.

[Hades]

Concerning the topic, i recall that the FS1 Harbinger is described in its introduction during the campaign as origionally being purely for planetary bombardments, so the GTA seem to have specialised equipment for such roles. I suspect Elysiums are a big role, but there may have been other ship classes and technologies that we simply did not see in the campaigns.

Another thing to consider is having orbital support during a landing. Considering simple fighter missiles in Freespace (if what i've heard is correct) have power equalling modern nukes, Harbingers, beam cannons, maybe even the ol' plasma blobs are on the 'wipe out entire enemy base\battleline\regiment in one go' level. A group of Elysiums each carrying say 300-500 or so soldiers, entering the atmosphere to land at an LZ, sound silly and easy pickings for ground defences or ships. A group of Elysiums doing the same after an Orion with its fighter/bomber complement and attending cruisers have taken up position over the LZs hemisphere (if not the whole world) and are making the sky rain fire, suddenly become much harder to resist successfully. You might be able to stop them long-term with a determined gurilla or subterranean war (like in Vietnam), but trying to hit them while they're landing would be risky unless you can retake orbital dominance with ships of your own.

So yeah, your landing teams might seem small, and would probably use fragile ships like Argos and Elysiums, but the key is what's covering up above (like today's wars really). The Lucifer glassed the whole of Vasuda Prime single-handedly in just over half a day. I'd vote its not to hard to imagine an Orion and its beams supressing a planet enough for a quick takeover.

With the harbinger's payload, it'd be used more for glassing planets. A fury would be enough to wipe out a base with its payload, and if you're shooting off nukes at the planet, why even land there?
Beams would likely have a similar effect as the Lucifer's bombardment beams.
(Note, the Harbinger has 5 gigatons of power. The Fury has 3 kilotons, the equivalent to a modern day tactical nuke.)

[Dilmah G]

The problem with the Orion beaming a planet is that the beam's effective range wouldn't be far enough to hit it from orbit accurately.

[Snail]

Given how modular beam cannons are (High Noon) I'd say it can't be hard to calibrate beams for planetary bombardment.

[potterman28wxcv]

Freespace Universe is sometimes not logic.

After the capture of the Taranis, the player is informed that a destroyer (the Lucifer) made a great assault to retake the Taranis.
In the little animation, there are a lot of shivan fighters escaping from Lucifer's fighterbay... I didn't count them, but I estimate them to one hundred fighters approximatively.

Surprise : in the last mission (where you have to destroy the Lucifer's reactors), there are no more than 2 wings of fighters protecting the Lucifer at the same time...

the problem is we don't know how many were destroyed between the Lucy's last replenishment and the subspace attack

Ok, right in this point. But, when we first meet the Lucifer (and when she destroys the Galatea with her beams), there isn't so many fighters protecting her.. And, another thing I don't really understand is that the Lucifer has a great shield system that makes her indestructible out of subspace. Why the superdestroyer Sathanas doesn't have this shield system ? Did the Shivans lose this technology with the Lucifer's destruction ?

Another thing I find bizarre is with the upgrade of the weapons.

Let's take the Avenger : the damage potential per energy unit is : 66.7 45.3 18.7 (Hull Shield Subsystem)
Now, let's take the Subach : 67.5 52.5 22.5
 Ok, there's a little improvement, but not enough..

Another one : let's compare the Flail with the Morning Star :
Flail : 15 119 6
Morning Star : 4.4 11.4 1.8
Yeah it's the damage potential per energy unit, let's see the potential damage per second :
Flail : 10 80 4
Morning Star : 23.3 60.7 9.3

If I had to choose between FS1 weapon or FS2 weapon, I'll choose FS1 weapon ! 

[-Norbert-]

For the Sath not having shields I have a theory (apart from gameplay issues that is). Maybe they couldn't fit them with the shield, because of that subspace thing the Sath' used in the end-cutscene.

[Scourge of Ages]

Or they were entirely different classes of ships, like the Lucifer was a dedicated destroyer/carrier, and the Sath was... something else? It's been theorized that they were some sort of colony ships.

Or, that the GTVA figured out how to nullify the Lucy's shields so that their weapons could pass through.

[-Norbert-]

I don't think the GTVA can actually nullify the shield, but if the Shivans though that, because of the loss of the Lucifer, it would make sense to send ships that pump the power into much stronger weaponsystems instead.

[General Battuta]

I'm of the belief that beams would pierce the Lucifer's shields like any other.

[Scourge of Ages]

I'm of the belief that beams would pierce the Lucifer's shields like any other.

There is that theory, but then what about GTVA bombs and blobs?

[General Battuta]

I'm of the belief that beams would pierce the Lucifer's shields like any other.

There is that theory, but then what about GTVA bombs and blobs?

Do bombs or blobs pierce shields in FS2? No.

Do beams pierce shields in FS2? Yes, all the time.

edit: owait, you mean defending against them? It's a fair question. If you want an in-universe explanation - they just didn't give a crap.

[NGTM-1R]

Certain primaries have an annoying habit of piercing shields partially, for reasons I've never determined.

[Hades]

Certain primaries have an annoying habit of piercing shields partially, for reasons I've never determined.

It's probably the horribly outdated collision detection in the code.

[Ravenholme]

[ think of the range and power of beams mounted on destroyers

Hrm...less than ten kilometers...

now what range and power would fixed planetary based systems put out.

Probably about the same since they'd have to actually support their own weight, but we'll be optimistic and give them hundred times the range, at a thousand kilometers...still not enough to reach geosynchronous orbit. Not even close.

The Lucy could bombard Vasuda Prime from orbit all day long, but even if you decide to extend the range of beams to realistic values, it's still just easier to drop rocks on things. No weapon at the bottom of a gravity well will stand a chance when you can just RKV it.

and what to you do about local aero/space fighters, by the time you arrive in orbit the enemy know your coming so can have reserves in the air or otherwise disbursed away from fixed bases to make them harder to find and render any intelligence you have on those locations unreliable.

Look at them flying around, wait for them to land, drop rocks on them.

Sorry to bring this post back up, but this is relevant - Rocks. They throw rocks.

[NGTM-1R]

Sorry to bring this post back up, but this is relevant - Rocks. They throw rocks.

Well if you're going to do that...

Rocks are NOT “free”, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within reach of the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel.

Then the tech priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthyness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrappers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the tech priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still weeks (or months) away.

After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact on the planet (assuming the Emperor’s warship does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:
Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials.
Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI
Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI
Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI
Paint, Titan class warship: 0.9 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI
Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasting with the following:
5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI
One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI
One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI
Total: 2.9 MI

Given the same amount with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His office of Imperial outlays – hereby orders you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance. Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administatum Building CXXI, Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.

For the Emperor,
Bursarius Tenathis,
Purser Level XI,
Imperial Office of Outlays.

[BlueFlames]

Sorry to bring this post back up, but this is relevant - Rocks. They throw rocks.

Well if you're going to do that...

Rocks are NOT “free”, citizen.

...

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:
Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials.
Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI
Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI
Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI
Paint, Titan class warship: 0.9 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI
Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasting with the following:
5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI
One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI
One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI
Total: 2.9 MI

I wonder how competetive the exchange rate between Imperials and Centauri Ducats is....