[crizza]

In case of a future invasion, as in Shivan invasion ? If the GTVA gets to there, and have failed to contain the threat, then they'd have already lost and any surviving Orion would probably be used to carry refugees for an exodus.

Touchée my friend, I admit, I thought about some other large scale war...not against the Shivans...strange^^

[headdie]

Use 'em as node busters, like the Bastion.

I would be surprised if the GTVA didn't have dedicated ships built or converted for that purpose on standby either gathered in Delta-Serp or scattered amongst the various fleet home bases ready to deploy.

[redsniper]

Yeah, actually I think that's what they would do too, except keep them in the outer systems. Still, it's just that we've already seen how well old Orions works as meson bomb boxes, and as they get more and more obsolete it seems like as good a use as any. Actually, might be a good job for Fenrii, since they're pretty worthless.

[-Norbert-]

Nice in theory, but a single mesonbomb is larger than a Fenris and the Bastion was stuffed full of these things...

[Scotty]

A lot of single bombs are larger than the Wright flier, too, but planes still drop bombs.  If there's one thing the BP crew has shown, it's that neither side is technologically stagnant.

[headdie]

Nice in theory, but a single mesonbomb is larger than a Fenris and the Bastion was stuffed full of these things...

not so sure about that, yes the model is bigger but there is a lot of crash protection type framework in there and I think the actual bomb is spherical bit in the middle so is about 1/3rd of the model size so you could get probably 2 in a Fenris.  also as stated in Scotty's post tech is ever developing and I get the impression that the FS2 mesons were not far beyond proof of concept prototype stage of development and 18 years is a long time to refine the design.

[-Norbert-]

You don't seem to appreciate the scale here.
Unless I'm misinterpreting the commandbriefing animation, the Bastion didn't just have 4 or 5 or even two dozens of meson bombs on board. It was stuffed with more than 60 of them (and the animation showed a form that looked like a meson bomb with the struts, which indicates they are more than just framework).

Even if you are right about a Fenris being able to house two of the old meson bombs and the GTVA could now build them at half the size (which would be an impressive accomplishment in itself) that would still mean only 4 bombs per Fenris and thus you'd need to send at least 15 of those meson Fenrises into the node at the same time and detonate them simultaniously.

[Aesaar]

Converting the Fenris into a meson bomb fire ship is one way to make the thing useful again.  Boost its engine power and you're set, just probably not for collapsing nodes.

[Scotty]

Even if you are right about a Fenris being able to house two of the old meson bombs and the GTVA could now build them at half the size (which would be an impressive accomplishment in itself) that would still mean only 4 bombs per Fenris and thus you'd need to send at least 15 of those meson Fenrises into the node at the same time and detonate them simultaniously.

I have no idea at all where you're coming up with this number.  We have no confirmation whether the Bastion was packed with the bare minimum required, or if it was massively, massively, massively overstocked with explosives for the job.

[Ryuseiken]

Didn't we blow up the Knossos with just two bombs? Or three if you count the one that failed.

However the Shivans have been known to use uncharted jump nodes or ones too unstable for us to travel in. With all the systems in GTVA control, there's gotta be a few unknown access points to Shivan controlled systems, so I can't imagine that bombing a node is a strategy they're relying on too heavily.

[MatthTheGeek]

Didn't we blow up the Knossos with just two bombs? Or three if you count the one that failed.

Yes, and that toooootally prevented the Shivans to pass through the node regardless.

[headdie]

Didn't we blow up the Knossos with just two bombs? Or three if you count the one that failed.

Yes, and that toooootally prevented the Shivans to pass through the node regardless.

How much of that was because the bomb detonated in realspace rather then while transiting between or in subspace.  While the Bastion briefing does indicate more than 3, how important is the fact that the ship is transiting into subspace?

[MatthTheGeek]

Valid questions, but they have no definite answers. All we have is wild speculation.

The amount of required meson bombs is ultimately irrelevant. The GTVA knows they can't defeat the Shivans militarily, they know destroying nodes is the best way to keep them away from their core systems, and they know a sufficient amount of meson bombs can destroy nodes. Hence you can be pretty sure they have produced stockpiles of node-busting meson bombs for that purpose and are ready to deploy them should the need arise.

[-Norbert-]

Even if you are right about a Fenris being able to house two of the old meson bombs and the GTVA could now build them at half the size (which would be an impressive accomplishment in itself) that would still mean only 4 bombs per Fenris and thus you'd need to send at least 15 of those meson Fenrises into the node at the same time and detonate them simultaniously.

I have no idea at all where you're coming up with this number.  We have no confirmation whether the Bastion was packed with the bare minimum required, or if it was massively, massively, massively overstocked with explosives for the job.

I'm coming up with the number by counting the red mesonbomb symbols in the commanbriefing animation telling you about the Bastion blowing up the node.
Sure we do not know how many of those where actually necessary, but I really don't think that the GTVA would use a fifteen times as big safety margin from what they calculated to be enough to blow the node.
And considering the importance of jumpnodes, the number of bombs sufficient to seal one isn't exactly something that you can just test out.

[headdie]

Even if you are right about a Fenris being able to house two of the old meson bombs and the GTVA could now build them at half the size (which would be an impressive accomplishment in itself) that would still mean only 4 bombs per Fenris and thus you'd need to send at least 15 of those meson Fenrises into the node at the same time and detonate them simultaniously.

I have no idea at all where you're coming up with this number.  We have no confirmation whether the Bastion was packed with the bare minimum required, or if it was massively, massively, massively overstocked with explosives for the job.

I'm coming up with the number by counting the red mesonbomb symbols in the commanbriefing animation telling you about the Bastion blowing up the node.
Sure we do not know how many of those where actually necessary, but I really don't think that the GTVA would use a fifteen times as big safety margin from what they calculated to be enough to blow the node.
And considering the importance of jumpnodes, the number of bombs sufficient to seal one isn't exactly something that you can just test out.

given that the GTVA was operating a 1 in 3 failure rate when blasting the knossos that would mean you would need 1 redundent bomb for every 2 needed, given that these were probably built in a hurry compared to the ones used previously (if my understandign that they are still prototype weapons and thus not previously built in any notable number) then you will probably want a bigger safety margine.

[Luis Dias]

They might have built special very armored freighters with meson bombs in it, ready to be deployed next to every single GTVA node (or -somewhat- near any space station next to the nodes). They might have created a "Meson Protocol" ready for action, the moment the Shivans start to appear again.

Other kinds of freighters specially designed for quick evac from planet annihilation might have been also built. The "Meson Protocol" would comprise of both the placement of the bomb, the coordination of these special evac freighters that could be (perhaps) stationed in multiple places around every planet ready to take off at all times, along with all the emergency management of all the people in the planets for really fast procedures.

Instead of taking hours, days for evac, a designed procedure with lots of resources poured into it would minimize the time to several minutes, perhaps one or two hours before all the evac freighters are leaving their planets. Not only the populations would massively require some sort of this kind of planning, the military would also pretty much want this to happen, for the losses suffered against the Shivans trying to slow them down while the populations evacuate in the events leading to the Cappella incident were tremendous.

edit: wait, I read the title and realize, this is extremely off topic!! Sorry

[Phantom Hoover]

I asked Battuta (who seems to have changed his forum name for some reason) about that and he confirmed that the GTVA have dedicated meson bomb ships for node collapses. We just haven't seen them yet.

[General Battuta]

I asked Battuta (who seems to have changed his forum name for some reason) about that and he confirmed that the GTVA have dedicated meson bomb ships for node collapses. We just haven't seen them yet.

You shouldn't count on anything that's not in a released campaign or piece of fiction. Also this was inflicted upon me by Goob

[Ranger1]

Converting the Fenris into a meson bomb fire ship is one way to make the thing useful again.  Boost its engine power and you're set, just probably not for collapsing nodes.

Worst idea ever.  The Fenris is about as durable as a wet paper bag.  They wouldn't even get remotely close to a target.  The only reason the Bastion did its job was the fact it had 3 Aeolus' as cover and Alpha 1 since their wingmen are about useless.

[redsniper]

I always thought they basically just took ALL the meson bombs and put half in the Bastion and half in the Nereid so they'd have the best possible chance of blowing the nodes. It was an all or nothing gamble. I mean think if for example, it takes the yield of 55 bombs to blow a node. You load up 60 bombs and just barely make it, sweet. Or you load up 10-20 bombs since you don't want to be wasteful, you don't blow the node, and now oh **** I don't have enough bombs to blow ANY nodes and I can't build more of them fast enough to stop the shivan rush. (In which case I guess you could try and pull a Good Luck II and kill a Sath in transit, which would actually be pretty cool.)

Regarding the Fenris idea, like most of the things argued about here, it doesn't really matter because it can be fluffed either way. Maybe there are higher yield meson bombs in the future. Maybe with further subspace research, the GTVA found that yeah, five bombs would have actually been enough. Maybe you can jacket a meson warhead in whatever subspace drives are made out of and it emits tons of [REDACTED]-rays, which destabilize nodes way more than a conventional explosion. Or maybe not.

Converting the Fenris into a meson bomb fire ship is one way to make the thing useful again.  Boost its engine power and you're set, just probably not for collapsing nodes.

Worst idea ever.  The Fenris is about as durable as a wet paper bag.  They wouldn't even get remotely close to a target.  The only reason the Bastion did its job was the fact it had 3 Aeolus' as cover and Alpha 1 since their wingmen are about useless.

Hardly. Once again, you could fluff this in a way that still reasonably fits in the FS-verse. They could be up-armored Fenris hulls (which also doesn't necessarily make them Levis either, it's not a binary choice...). You could inject all the crew areas with the stuff warships use for in-field repairs, since no one's going to be living there anymore. You could also just not wait for things to get as bad as they were at the end of FS2 before deploying your node busters.

Whatever. It's more worthwhile to poke holes in other peoples' ideas than to try and see how they could work.