[headdie]

The issue there is the time the cruisers spend locked in one area, ie around the sath.  the sgreen the terran cruisers are equipped with is pretty woeful against anything bigger than a freighter so they will be committed to a long engagement and even an Aeolus can be beaten by fighter/bomber strikes (i think there are 2 occasions in the first SOC loop where aeolus cruisers get smacked into debris by small forces) Deimos are a better bet both in their hull and weapons but again shouldn't be a problem for the sath's tactical wing to deal with especially if they happen to have a Ravana spare to back the bombers up.

[Marcov]

That's assuming your Hattie's going to survive long enough not to get defanged by Sathanas bomber wings or for the Sath to not turn around and wonder what on Earth such a small creature was doing spitting at it and promptly rectify the situation using its forward beam cannons.

You have to take it by surprise. The Sathanas might send a wing or two of fighters/bombers, but once the Hattie manages to direct its beam fire towards the fighterbay all hope is lost; all other fighters and bombers going out get immediately fried, and the fighterbay goes down (or just how durable is the Sath's fighterbay anyway?).

One is a step between 2 and 3, which should read "Cross fingers and hope the Sath doesn't figure out how to turn"

Like I said, the Hattie should be able to do it quickly. If it fails at first attempt, it'll just have to follow a "Seal-Shark" method where it'll just stay by the Sath's tail, rendering it harmless, except perhaps for Shivan bombers...but for all we know the Sathanas couldn't even throw out that much bombers in a given period of time (probably due to game balance).

You know what, I simply think stopping that large a Shivan incursion is practially impossible, so I concede. But disabling just 80 Sathani is another matter, which the GTVA might be able to do in a matter of time.

[Dilmah G]

Well if the Shivan Commanders have sense they'll deploy the entire Air Wing once they're under an attack. Also, the Sath's ability to do a 180 is dictated by its engines, not its fighterbay. And believe me, I once tried to FRED a mission to explore different kind of assaults on the Sathanas, the ones that involved disabling it got bogged down quickly because taking out the engines on that thing is HARD. Seriously, you have got to defang the Forward Beam Cannons or you won't stand a chance otherwise.

Trying to stay in its blind spot won't work forever because you'll have to be simultaneously hitting the Fighterbay, and unless you destroy it instantly, you're going to be facing whatever it's got available on the flightdeck very quickly.

Seriously, it's defang or die for anyone going up against the Jug.

[Qent]

1. Shivan bombers from a Moloch use Trebuchets to quickly neutralize Hatshepsut's main beams.
2. A couple of cruisers jump in and take out the Hattie's fighterbays
3. Have several wings of bombers disable the engines
4. You're all Carl's

[MatthTheGeek]

Also, you forget that unless the Sath is a scout like the first Sath of FS2, you Sath will likely be in the same system then a huge Shivan armada that can easily spare a couple of Ravanas or Liliths to dispatch your Hattie in a few seconds.

[Trivial Psychic]

You need an AWACS to jam their transmissions... if that's even possible with the Shivans.

[MatthTheGeek]

That would begin to make a ****ton of "if".

[Polpolion]

I actually had the start of a minicampaign a while back where the GTVA isolated and destroyed a Sathanas that had magically appeared after Cappella, but I stopped making it when I realized that the first mission would have to be like a massive strike with several bomber groups disabling the Sathanas, and that logistically it would probably be easier to destroy the Sathanas with a slightly larger bomber strike than prolonging the engagement and deploying several warships and extra fighter squadrons [/sentence]