[Drogoth]

Sending the Bastion would be a good plan, so when it blows up, its debris will kill the Lucifer 

Command: Admiral Shima, we're throwing you away on a useless suicide mission where you hope chunks of your glorius ship might inflict the damage of a few harbinger bombs.

Shima: Wtf srsly?

Command: yeah its a great plan. You have Alpha 1 as back up. he's never failed a mission. Ever.

Shima: Why not send in Alpha 1 while we cover him?

Command: You know, that sounds logical, but we think blowing your ship up would be far more spectacular.

^ I wouldve loled if that took place

[Marcov]

chunks of your glorius ship might inflict the damage of a few harbinger bombs.

Wrong. I was using a Sathanas against another Sathanas. I blew up my enemy and I died simply because I was hit by debris.

If debris can blow up a ship with 1,000,000 hp it should also blow up one with 800,000 hp.

[Droid803]

There are few things in FreeSpace deadlier than speeding debris.
:/

Nothing is immune, short of the mighty ship-invulnerable.
Debris damage is without a damage type, no amount of set-armor SEXP will save you (though seriously, I want a debris damage type so I can set shields to take 0% from debris...and have shield debris collision, but hey, that's venturing into dreamworld again D:)

[TrashMan]

From nowhere. It's just a guess.

Back when FS1 was developed, all sci-fi games I know of suffered the same problem: capships were tough, but extremely weak. They couldn't defend themselves and relied on pathetic blob turrets. That, of course, didn't mean those capships were supposed to be equally weak in the universes they were based on.

This isn't just an issue from "back then". It's still true today. Player = fighter pilot. Ergo, games is balanced in that regard, since gameplay > fluff.

Imagine just how "fun" it would be to attack an Orion with 100 flak/aaf turrets?

[NGTM-1R]

You don't get it. We absolutely don't have any canon info suggesting that it's possible to intercept in subspace a ship that is travelling in the opposite direction. You know that in subspace ships travel at various light years per minute, right? How can you even hope to intercept a ship if the combined approach speed would be double?

That has absolutely nothing to do with what I posted. At all. What are you talking about?

Or better yet, what are you on?

[KyadCK]

I personally agree with the idea sol had defenses, but if the Lucifer got through they couldn't do anything anyway so what would the point be? Stationing something at the sol-end of the node would just result in death.

Unless perhaps on it's exit from sub-space the Lucifer's shields were still down (being half in, half out) and it rammed into said blockade, that might have done something to at least damage it, if only the front reactors

[MatthTheGeek]

They also could have hoped that if the Bastion team didn't destroy the Lucifer, they could have destroyed enough reactors to reduce the efficiency of its shields to a reasonable level.

[T-LoW]

They also could have hoped that if the Bastion team didn't destroy the Lucifer, they could have destroyed enough reactors to reduce the efficiency of its shields to a reasonable level.

Another great alternate storyline.

The desperate battle against the Lucifer in earth's orbit. Thousands of people die but finally they crush the damn thing!

[TrashMan]

Indeed.

I always postulated that the Lucifer never was truly invulnerable, but rather the GTVA needed more gun.

If you brig every single fight capable ships in T-V space together and attack the Lucy simultaneously, even it's shields would end up failing. Death of a thousand cuts..action and reaction and all that jazz.
After all, Lucy's five reactors cannot possibly outproduce all the reactors on all GTVA warships combined.

[Snail]

You missed the part where the Lucifer was said to be immune and not merely resistant to GTA weapons.

[T-LoW]

Like the ships in independence day were immune against nukes (but I'm certain, that their shield-systems lost some power to that big bang).

Only knows the true shield-capacity for sure.

[General Battuta]

Yeah I'm pretty sure that getting every able spearman in Neolithic France isn't going to stop an MBT

[BengalTiger]

...but finally they crush the damn thing!

On it's way out, after blowing up half the planets in Sol.

[TrashMan]

You missed the part where the Lucifer was said to be immune and not merely resistant to GTA weapons.

I believe the exact working of the briefing was "appears to be immune, not merely resistant, to all of our weapons"

Yeah I'm pretty sure that getting every able spearman in Neolithic France isn't going to stop an MBT

Not really comparable, given that shield is not really armor and plasma guns aren't spears. But if you want to get technical, bash a armored vehicle with a hammer long enough and hard enough...and it WILL get destroyed. Sure, it might take 10000000000000000000000000000000000 hits, but still. Even stone gets eroded by wind and rain with time.
Or if you want another example, how about rolling a massive boulder on the vehicle? There's a limit to any armors endurance.
NOTHING in the universe is truly invulnerable and indestructible. Such things simply don't exist.

Again, action and reaction. Conservation of energy. Thermodynamics. Pick your poison.

It's simple logic at work. Stopping destructive energy requires effort (counterforce). Effort = power. Power is not infinite and has to come from somewhere.

[Dilmah G]

Actually, I think in that context, Battuta's analogy holds fairly well, based on the information given in the game. Lucifer's shields being impenetrable by all armament, etc and so on.

And if you want to get really technical, my gut feeling is that the heads of those spears would break before coming anywhere close to penetrating the hull. And of course, this is assuming that they can even get that close to an MBT.

[Buckshee Rounds]

Even if the entire GTA/PVN commited to an assault on the Lucifer and even if their weapons could cause any kind of damage at all I don't think they would have enough ships. Maybe if the Lucifer sat still and did nothing for years, decades, centuries, but of course that wouldn't happen.

Sure the Lucifer might have been destroyed through a thousand cuts, but it wouldn't have ever happened. In fact I'd compare it to trying to kill a Shivan fighter with just the ML-16. (Don't even know if the ML-16 causes enough shield damage vs shield recharge time)

[Satellight]

In fact I'd compare it to trying to kill a Shivan fighter with just the ML-16. (Don't even know if the ML-16 causes enough shield damage vs shield recharge time)

You can destroy a fighter in the FS1 Plato escort mission, but it's a little bit...slow.
Except if you're QD, for sure. 

[NGTM-1R]

ML-16 does zero shield damage, so no.

[T-LoW]

You sure? I think I first shot that fighter with just mah laz0rz

[Snail]

Even if the entire GTA/PVN commited to an assault on the Lucifer and even if their weapons could cause any kind of damage at all I don't think they would have enough ships. Maybe if the Lucifer sat still and did nothing for years, decades, centuries, but of course that wouldn't happen.

I somehow have a feeling that the Lucifer's shields had a recharge rate that was faster than the damage output of the Terran/Vasudan combined fleet.