[sigtau]

Never seen one in my life.

How do you guys think the Shivans re-arm--even though they rely more on primary weapons, the bombers have to have some kind of support as well, don't they?

[Droid803]

Well, I was using a pof-edited Azrael...then a reskinned Nepthys for Shivan rearming craft, but canonically, it doesn't seem like they HAVE support ships.

[General Battuta]

Shivans rely more on primaries? Since when? A lot of their combatants have real trouble killing without secondaries.

I'd guess that Shivan fighters are all expendable assets and not worth rearming.

[sigtau]

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Shivans

May I direct your attention to the "Technology" section, third paragraph into the section. 

Shivans seem to depend more on primary weapons than secondaries, as evidenced by their bombers' low payload capacity.

[General Battuta]

That's fan-written, my dear sigtau. I'll go edit it out now - it's pretty nonsensical, since Shivan primaries are by no means effective (although they can do okay in massive banks.)

EDIT: Good lord, that article needs an overhaul or a non-canon tag. Between the speculation on Shivan architecture and statements like "it is evident that the Shivans exponentially increase their power between campaigns against other beings", it's riddled with problems.

[0rph3u5]

I'm using a modified Shaitan as fighter salvage-craft in "The Lost Generation"

[Dilmah G]

Still, has anyone ever seen the NTF call in Support? I'd be very interested to see it

[sigtau]

Someone needs to add support for the enemy to call in their own support ships.  That would make things very interesting

[Qent]

Still, has anyone ever seen the NTF call in Support? I'd be very interested to see it

In "Love the Treason..." the NTF reinforcements came with a support ship, although it was FREDded in, not an actual fighter calling in support.

[Snail]

That's fan-written, my dear sigtau.

Actually, it's not! (shock horror)

It's an almost direct quote from the FreeSpace 1 Shivan tech database entry for the Dragon. In FS1 it was clear the Shivans favored primary weapons to secondary weapons, at least for the first half of the campaign. Later on the Shivans wisened up to the problem and sent in the Nephilims.

[General Battuta]

Interesting!

To be fair, it's still from the in-universe perspective of a Terran analyst. I just can't see how it makes sense to say the Shivans favor primaries when their primaries are...well.

That article is still full of rubbish.

[Snail]

Yeah, I agree.

[Qent]

The Dragon does have the smallest secondary capacity ever, so it could have been bad intel a wrong assumption on the Terrans' part.

Edit: Actually it's perfectly correct that Dragons have a tiny missile bank.

[Mobius]

IMO, there's something in the code that prevents the full implementation of hostile support ships.

I tried to modify the table entries so that hostile units should be able to call in support ships, but nothing happened. I think the code doesn't allow the presence of any support ships other than those called by the player's faction (even in case of treason).

Now that I think of it, it would also be nice to have more than one support ship on the battlefield at the same time. In a plausible environment, a faction would rely on several tankers/rearming craft.

[Aardwolf]

Maybe they don't have support ships.

So what if they can't rearm in-mission? Get in, do your job, and get out. It's not as though Shivan fighters aren't designed for survivability, and aren't expected to rendezvous with a carrier of some sort after a sortie.

Note: Shivan fightercraft definitely are capable of surviving battles--as long as you play on a high enough difficulty.

[Snail]

Note: Shivan fightercraft definitely are capable of surviving battles--as long as you play on a high enough difficulty.

Yeah, the Shivans just have no qualms about sacrificing them.

[General Battuta]

Insane is the way to play.

[headdie]

not really an insane thing when you think about it. 

1) in the real world, currently we are only able to refuel craft in the air, maybe the Shivans didn't bother researching down this line.

2) support craft from their size i would suggest are as carrier dependent as the fighters they service so removing them could probably allow for an additional fighter squadron to be based on a destroyer

3) shivans from their first engagement in Ross 128 to the final battle seem to prefer fast attack tactics with fast fighters, powerful bombers (how many rearms would it take a wing SB Seraphim to kill an unprotected destroyer?) and cruiser support in these rapid situations a rearm ship would probably be a liability

4) relating to my first point the Shivans could have a blind side to re-arm tactics at the same time consider us Terrans stupid for not considering other tactics, remember the Shivans are really old as a race if the ancients are to be belived

[sigtau]

That's fan-written, my dear sigtau.

Actually, it's not! (shock horror)

It's an almost direct quote from the FreeSpace 1 Shivan tech database entry for the Dragon. In FS1 it was clear the Shivans favored primary weapons to secondary weapons, at least for the first half of the campaign. Later on the Shivans wisened up to the problem and sent in the Nephilims.

I was *just* about to post about that, but you beat me to it. 

[Nuke]

i think it would be kinda fun to fight a battle with attrition, prevent the enemy from reloading their guns and you can guickly turn a loosing battle into a turkey shoot.