[Marcov]

I just want to know any theories of yours on why the Lucifer had 800,000 hitpoints despite being just slightly larger than other destroyers.

Is the armor made of a different material? Why would they need to armor it that much if it had shields?

The way I see it, is that the Lucifer was a rather special kind of ship, a true command ship rather different from the Sathanas. The flux cannons also are an interesting case. Not being true FS2-era beams, they act as a kind of archaic form of beams - notice the FS2 intro, how it charges up and acts almost the same as FS2 beams, puncturing through the Orion and is in all aspects like a Shivan beam excepting the color.

Of interest is the Lucifer's armament as well. There seem to be four beams in total around the ship - two claw beams, the bombardment beam, and the one used to destroy the Orion.

I will confess that I have not had played Freespace, so I was never aware how closely the Icey Jones cutscene resembles the original animation, but if it does, then the bombardment beam is much closer to Freespace 2 beams.

Finally, how would one "modernize" the Lucifer? What if the Shivans decided to deploy one in Freespace 2? I don't think SReds would be used. Maybe at least LReds would be used. I remember a certain romped-up Lucifer (was it the Derelict one?) which had a rather darker model and TONS more turrets. I particularly liked that version. Would this be, in your view, the Lucifer the Shivans would use in Freespace 2? Obviously the Shivans had no reservations "updating" their warships to meet (exceed) GTVA standards by the second war. How they did, is another question - did some surviving Shivans communicate these changes? Were there Shivans spies? Etc.

[Nightmare]

My guess would be that the increase in HP is to make up for the effect of beams piercing through shields. Lucy's shields are capable of holding off some of the damage, but in the end they "leak" too. How Lucy being vulnerable to bombs fits into the that - don't know.

Using LReds instead of the small ones will turn it into a major shredder that's capable of becoming a danger to the Colossus too with its HP/firepower combination.

[General Battuta]

...Marcov???

[0rph3u5]

The high HP are to facilitate that you would actually do the "destroy reactors" objective rather than just bomb it to death.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

From a gameplay standpoint, it's so beefy to ensure that blasting the reactors is the most practical way to take it down.

In-universe though, well we know that Shivans can make some ships unbelievably tougher than others of similar size (see the Lilith), so it's possible they just make some more of their more critical ships with more expansive materials, while everything else gets mass-produced on the cheap (including the Saths). I mean if you plan on making just a handful of Lucis to cover your planet glassing needs vs. the hundreds of Saths required for your star-blasting needs, the extra-strong armor per Luci is not gonna cost you that much, so why not add some extra-insurance to back up the shield.
Or maybe it's the other way around, Lucifers used to be pretty cheap, then their victims started focus-firing on them, so they beefed up the armor, and when that still wasn't enough they slapped the shield on.


As for "modernizing" the Lucifer - making it more than an extra large target, well some extra turrets would certainly be nice, preferably with more modern guns. It certainly should be using the LRed, or FSPort's version of the Super Laser as its main guns, plus maybe some custom beam type for the side beams, which would at least put it above the Ravana in firepower.
If you can't add more guns, then you probably want to make them extra-resilient and use stronger weapons with extended range, like AAAs, flak guns and better missiles.

[starlord]

Derelict’s nyarlathotep is a good example of this.

[0rph3u5]

My guess would be that the increase in HP is to make up for the effect of beams piercing through shields.

I can't find the canonical mention that the Lucifer's shields can be pierced by the beam-fire. (and in retail the Lucifers $Shields: value is still 0 - FS1 used the invurnable flag to fake the invincible shields)

Yes, mechanically beams pierce through fighter shields but they are also meant to be almost instant death (as evident that your ship vaporizes if destroyed by a beam cannon).

[Nightmare]

Lucifer didn't had a shield mesh so there's no point in having more than 0 Shield HP. Giving it more HP is a good nod to Lucy being special w/o major changes.

[potterman28wxcv]

The high HP are to facilitate that you would actually do the "destroy reactors" objective rather than just bomb it to death.

I actually did try to bomb it to death - I had a very tough initial situation (almost no wingman alive) and i didn't want to go back to the previous mission, so i tried to find a sitting spot in the fighterbay and just laser it to death from there. The strategy could have worked well, but turns out the missiles from the missile launcher turret actually goes through the Lucifer to hit you inside the fighterbay. Also, i'm not sure if there is an actual timer on that mission..

[Nightmare]

AFAIK, THere's no bad ending, so the "time limit" doesn't exist.

[Novachen]

Of course there is a time limit.

But it is no problem to cheat it... you only have to disable the Lucifer for it.

[Iain Baker]

Yup, definitely a time limit, if you don't kill or cripple it fast enough it gets to the jumpgate and Earth goes by by. It's what happend to me the first time I played the last mission in retail FS1 20 odd years ago ;-)