[Soulrheever]

I'd always operated under the assumption that the Lucifer's shields were blocking some portion of the damage from the high-end beams, but not strong enough to block them entirely. I'd think if they were just passing straight through at full strength that the combined firepower of the Orestes battle group would be able to hull even the infamously durable Lucifer pretty quickly.

I'd also assumed the same was happening when encountering anti cap-ship fire with a fighter: your shields can't repel firepower of that magnitude!
... but then, I'd never really put much thought into how AAA beams just ignore shields entirely, either. 

[The E]

But I thought the whole deal about beams is that they're particles accelerated to relativistic speeds... something the Lucifer was supposed shielded against (unless that was just Battutas head canon, not BP related).

Is there any "official" BP explination for shields yet? I have a personal explination for that but it belongs rather into the headcanon thread.

Shields aren't magic. Every shield system, even the shivan and vishnan ones which operate on deep subspace ****ery, has a defined and finite capacity to disperse and redistribute incoming energy. Beam weapons are, essentially, a way to deliver exajoules of energy on a very small target; this is usually enough to breach a shield system, if only momentarily.

[The E]

Any status on Solaris and 1st Fleet wrt to the War perspective?
Why arent the Fedayeen using the CASSANDRA for the predictions? Why didnt Al Da'wa push CASSANDRA to limits and tell that Calder was about to die?

CASSANDRA is not infallible, and not unassailable. It's a Laplacean demon, but it is not the only such demon in existence, and is not in possession of complete information.

IIRC, all the time, it was told that the loss of a Solaris class Destroyer would be a major loss for UEF. The destruction of the Toutatis is a blow, why wasn't it tried to stop? Why didn't Laporte advise Calder that Steele was a mind messer?

Because that loss wasn't guaranteed, because Laporte does not have access to complete information, and ultimately, because Calder is an Admiral and Laporte is not.

If Al Da'wa had planned well along with LKFV, like in Tenebra, they could have used the experimental weapons and tech to turn the tide of the war. Why didnt that happen?

No single weapon can win a war.

How is the sanctuary involved with Shambhala? What happened to the civilians on board the Sanctuary?
Why arent the shivans getting involved and entering the GTVA space?

The Sanctuary and her passengers aren't all that involved, beyond adding an impetus to finish that particular project; As it turns out, being in a different universe from the one you were born in isn't all that good for your health.

The Shivans are, over the course of WiH, engaging in a whole lot of manipulation literally behind the scenes. Canonically, when Laporte defies them at Capella, they consider this particular experiment a failure and go back to more straightforward omnicidal tactics again.

Does Shambhala use GTVA Tech?

Yes.

Can i please have answers to these questions?

No

[crizza]

Wait what? Supernovas are SSMs?! I thought only the Eos could pull that off
Out of interest: Is an Eos/Supernova able to be fired from one side of a node to the other, emerging in close proximity of a target or will they just exit the node and run out of fuel?
Or must an SSM-strike always originate from within the same system?

Can I get an answer, as in pretty please?

Edit: Oh, and did Karen and her Wingmate somehow survived Delenda Est? Like their fighters being disabled and they're PoWs now?

Third try^^

[Iain Baker]

Beams pierce shields is an established thing.


Which line was it you recall me saying?

Alpha wing! Hit your burners and intercept enemy bombers at will. Do not engage the SD Hyde. We'll deal with the destroyer ourselves.”

“We've got major damage to systems shipwide! Hull breaches in several sections!”

“Recharging jump engines for subspace entry. Estimate optimal charge in ten minutes time.”

“All personnel, evacuate to escape pods! Abandon ship, I repeat, abandon ship!”

“Orestes control to unknown ships, identify yourselves immediately!”

“Commander Bei? The Temeraire? We lost contact with your ships when you left to apprehend the GTC Duke. What the hell happened out there?”

“Shivan forces ambushed us in Ross 128 after we attempted to follow the Temeraire into the system. We retreated back into Delta Serpentis where we were boxed in by the Lucifer.”

“We're making our stand here, but the planet's gravity well prevents us from escaping very far if we should fail to drive off the Lucifer.”

“Every time we gain the upper hand against the Lucifer, the destroyer jumps out and repairs herself for another attack. We need you to either take out the Lucifer's engines or go for each of the reactors for a killing blow.”

“Success! The Lucifer is going down! I repeat, the Lucifer is going down.”

“Commander Bei, the GTD Orestes and her ships are in your and your allies' debt. Without your timely interference, our survival would have surely been uncertain.”

“Commander, we're not detecting any life signs from your fighter.”

“Oh my God...”

“The Lucifer has escaped! All fighters, return to base immediately. We need to get out of here pronto before the superdestroyer returns!”
 

You were the voice of Orestes' control? Nice :-)

Having since watched the mission again on YouTube I realised that I must have imagined you saying that. Doh! Guess I must have assumed that since you say "....we gain the upper hand against the Lucifer..." that the shields were overcome somehow. *EDIT* Just looked at the NEM.NOW entry for the Lucifer again. It states "Analysts believe the Lucifer recognised that it was outmatched and intentionally shut its sheath shield off in order to pursue a strategy of attritional engagement..."

I guess I assumed having read NEM.NOW previously that the Lucy thought "Oh crap - my shield doesn't work against their beams. Better try a different approach" and assumed that beams pierce shields. But now that I think about it a "Oh crap - my shields wont last long against that sort of firepower. Better try a different approach" would also make sense if the beams just batterd the shield into submission.

[Iain Baker]

But I thought the whole deal about beams is that they're particles accelerated to relativistic speeds... something the Lucifer was supposed shielded against (unless that was just Battutas head canon, not BP related).

Is there any "official" BP explination for shields yet? I have a personal explination for that but it belongs rather into the headcanon thread.

Shields aren't magic. Every shield system, even the shivan and vishnan ones which operate on deep subspace ****ery, has a defined and finite capacity to disperse and redistribute incoming energy. Beam weapons are, essentially, a way to deliver exajoules of energy on a very small target; this is usually enough to breach a shield system, if only momentarily.

That's my head cannon too. I have never liked the whole 'shields are impenetrable' sci-fi trope which you see in some Hollywood movies. I figured the Lucy's shields were just extremaly powerful due to having multiple reactors powering them, and that Great War era tech simply couldn't output focused energy fast enough to discharge them.

Funny aside. Aaaages ago I played Frontier: Elite 2. By the magic of cheating I had purchased a Panther Clipper - the largest ship you could buy, and loaded it up with over 100 shield generators. I then deliberately pissed off the police at a space port so all their puny ships would come after me. My shields recharged so quickly that they recharged faster than the space copper's weapons could discharge them, so I was essentially invulnerable Mwa-ha-ha!!!

[Iain Baker]

PS - I'll leave this link here as well since this appears to be the most active BP thread at the moment.

http://coin-drop.com/freespace-blue-planet-masterclass-video-game-storytelling/

Hope ya'll like it :-)

[The E]

Wait what? Supernovas are SSMs?! I thought only the Eos could pull that off
Out of interest: Is an Eos/Supernova able to be fired from one side of a node to the other, emerging in close proximity of a target or will they just exit the node and run out of fuel?
Or must an SSM-strike always originate from within the same system?

SSMs, as currently available to the GTVA, are intrasystem weapons only. They do not have node-traversal capability.

Also: The Eos and Supernova are very similar weapon systems; their main difference is in the warhead they carry. The missile bus is mostly the same, and thus turning them into SSMs is not that hard (SSM capability being centered in the launcher rather than the missile itself).

[The E]

Edit: Oh, and did Karen and her Wingmate somehow survived Delenda Est? Like their fighters being disabled and they're PoWs now?

No.

[Mito [PL]]

Awwww. I've always wondered why at the end of Delenda Est the Tevs didn't just get Yangtze and her fighter corps to surrender. On the other hand I think it would be reasonable for the losing side to do so; the battle is already ended - why waste more lives?

[General Battuta]

They were still Wargods, they weren't going to surrender.

[Phantom Hoover]

But I thought the whole deal about beams is that they're particles accelerated to relativistic speeds... something the Lucifer was supposed shielded against (unless that was just Battutas head canon, not BP related).

Is there any "official" BP explination for shields yet? I have a personal explination for that but it belongs rather into the headcanon thread.

Shields aren't magic. Every shield system, even the shivan and vishnan ones which operate on deep subspace ****ery, has a defined and finite capacity to disperse and redistribute incoming energy. Beam weapons are, essentially, a way to deliver exajoules of energy on a very small target; this is usually enough to breach a shield system, if only momentarily.

what? shields are magic electromagnetic bubbles around ships, beams are electromagic pipes that are used to plumb a stream of very hot plasma into the target. beams pass through shields without interacting, like a wet straw poked through a soap bubble

also if shivan shields work on deep subspace ****ery how on earth did the terran-vasudans use scans of them to develop their own shields within a matter of days? this is the first time ive heard that suggested rather than the parsimonious explanation that they both operate on the same principle

[Nissan]

also if shivan shields work on deep subspace ****ery how on earth did the terran-vasudans use scans of them to develop their own shields within a matter of days? this is the first time ive heard that suggested rather than the parsimonious explanation that they both operate on the same principle

The Terrans and Vasudans didn't develop their shield systems from scans alone. If memory serves, the debrief for the Shivan cargo depot mission mentions that a separate mission was successfully able to retrieve some shield prototypes, and those are the ones that you escort back to Earth in the next mission.

As for how Terran/Vasudan shields differ from the others... (shrug)

[Nightmare]

MX-50 tech description says that the Terrans experimented with some sort of energy-based shielding system.

[Colonol Dekker]

That's true.   

[QuakeIV]

To be fair freespace 1 generally implied that one or both sides had already been working on shield tech (a cutscene of them pretty much immediately working in some shield lab using hardware that didnt look shivan), which would also explain why they succeeded in adopting it so quickly.  The tech was already most of the way there, they just needed a few final problems to be resolved at which point they could pretty quickly start fielding the things.

[Iain Baker]

Yup, I agree with you there. I seam to recall something stating somewhere that the Ross 128 insterlation had a primitive and experimental shield precursor - not that it helped them much when Lucy came a'nocking.

[Nightmare]

https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/GTM_MX-50#Tech_Room_Data

Early experiments with energy based defenses like the deflector array at Ross 128 have shown that this weapon is exceedingly weak against anything besides steel based targets.

To be fair freespace 1 generally implied that one or both sides had already been working on shield tech (a cutscene of them pretty much immediately working in some shield lab using hardware that didnt look shivan), which would also explain why they succeeded in adopting it so quickly.  The tech was already most of the way there, they just needed a few final problems to be resolved at which point they could pretty quickly start fielding the things.

The lab cutscene was after the capture of the Shivan shields though.

[QuakeIV]

Yes, and they were experimenting with what appeared to be principally not-shivan hardware in what appeared to be an established lab despite only just having gotten the shivan shields.

[Colonol Dekker]

The time between capture and cutscene Iis pretty vague.