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For the tech of my Empire I want to use essentially a modified Honorverse-Starfire system.

All the hypercapble combatants will be using the Honorverse system. For fairnesses sake I'll limit the speed (FTL and STL) to merchant standards. I won't be insisting on only EMP weapons can penetrate the sheilds though the that would require specialized (ie only I've got them right now) pen-aids.

The major difference would be replacing the LACs with starfire-verse fighters. Gunboats would be limited to system defense only. Also Trek Style subspace FTL sensors.

Ground forces I have yet to decide though I'm leaning towards Honorverse.

EDIT: Changed the title and made this the official tech thread - Phong

I would be interested in a grittier, less hyperadvanced tech level.

How bout we keep it pretty simple- Charged Particle beams, lasers, mass drivers, missiles for weapons, reaction drives for propulsion, and a magical, limited use FTL drive- let's say, one which can't be used in gravity wells, and sucks huge amounts of power, so requires vessels to spend a great deal of time recharging between jumps. Vessels take weeks to travel from Earth to the transfer point out beyond Uranus.

This is the tech I want to use. *shrug*

Think it keeps the technology reasonable while still maintaining a lot of room for big explosions and mass slaughter. You can make your tech grittier but I'd prefer mine for myself.

Honorverse really is about the DS9 tech level, possibly slightly more, but not really...

You are shitting me, right? I bet there is a Manticore Vs. Federation thread aroun d here somewhere...

Thirdfain wrote:You are shitting me, right? I bet there is a Manticore Vs. Federation thread aroun d here somewhere...

Don't blame me when ST uses it's tech stupidly, and builds shoddily. Honorverse weapons are in the mere MT level at best.

Mine will be pretty low-tech, as it is, making up for it in sheer bang-for-buck. Lowest ships will be old Space Shuttles and Soyuz's for surface to orbit missions. Highest will be around Homeworld-esque levels. All of them will be extensively refit, though there will always be the occasional bug..

The generation ships themselves are AM powered, without true interial compensasion, using a B5 Jump point type system. They, and just about every else big enough to carry them, have antimatter missiles and bombs as primary armanant.

As for personalized special tech, I claim two: Phase Cloaks, and Piggybacker drives. Piggybackers are built on some strange principle not fully understood by the Lost, but allow a ship so equipped to mimic another ship's FTL for faster-than-light combat. Can only be engaged at close range, to eliminate those trying to escape and alert others where the convoy is. Think of them as those who remove those who might be a danger to the fleet.

Thirdfain wrote:You are shitting me, right? I bet there is a Manticore Vs. Federation thread aroun d here somewhere...

There is. It went no where.

The Honorverse isn't that different tech wise from UFP-Klingon-Romulan tech levels. It's just applied in a much more effective way.

Don't blame me when ST uses it's tech stupidly, and builds shoddily. Honorverse weapons are in the mere MT level at best.

correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't ST weapons generally in the MT level?

Thirdfain wrote:

Don't blame me when ST uses it's tech stupidly, and builds shoddily. Honorverse weapons are in the mere MT level at best.

correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't ST weapons generally in the MT level?

That's what makes them equal.

Thirdfain wrote:

Don't blame me when ST uses it's tech stupidly, and builds shoddily. Honorverse weapons are in the mere MT level at best.

correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't ST weapons generally in the MT level?

By the high end levels estimates they are. And I'm assuming we'll be generous about it.

The best Honorverse firepower calcs put them at Trek levels.

North American Union

FTL System: Honorverse hyperspace, but using Babylon 5-style transitions (jumppoint/jumpgate) from realspace to hyperspace. Interband transition is accomplished in a similar method to Honerverse. Jump-point generators can generate a Warshawski sail. FTL speed is average.

Powerplants: Fusion. Energy efficiency and yield is superior.

Engines: Ion. Acceleration is subpar.

Space Weaponry: Primary weapons are long-ranged X-Ray lasers, short-ranged particle beams and bomb-pumped grasers. Enhanced-radiation fusion devices are common. Firepower is average.

Inertial Damping: Inferior; limits ships to relatively slow acceleration.

Artificial Gravity: Efficient power-wise.

Armor: Multilayered scheme comprised of void spaces, belts, explosive-reactive armor and other fun stuff. Strong and massive.

Shields: Weak against energy weapons, above-average against KE weapons as the generators are braced against the keel of the ship itself.

Spaceframe: Heavily overbuilt to withstand punishing combat.

Sensors: Tachyon, EM, both active and passive. Subspace passive sensors (ESM) stolen from other nations.

Well, waddaya know.

Here's what the Floaters use.

Propulsion: Floater vessels generally use Ion engines to travel, floating across a system. Acceleration is very low, but Ion engines are extremely efficient. Power is provided by fusion reactors, huge, delicate solar-panel wings, or matter/antimatter reactions. Many Floater vessels mount fusion torch engines, which use plasma jets to provide propusion. This device has a much greater acceleration than the ion engine, but is much less efficient. Floaters rarely use fusion torchdrives.

FTL: Floaters rarely use FTL drives, but those vessels that do mount FTL drives use Honorverse hyperspace. These vessels use their Warshwaski sails only for FTL travel, and rely on other propulsion means insystem, as Floaters prefer to avoid using any sort of gravetic manipulation technology due to religeous beliefs.

Warships: Floater warships come in three sorts- Cruisers, Attack Carriers, and Lancers. Cruisers are medium warships (400-600 kilotons) which are generally heavily armoured and built with a great deal of compartmentalization and redundancy. Lacking shield technology, Floaters use a huge variety of decoys, drones, and assorted ECM to confuse enemy targetting sensors. Weapons include magnetic mass drivers, X-ray lasers, and nuclear missiles. Antimatter cannon are used in short range (500,000 KM), as all Floater dedicated warships use M/AM reactors. Standard engagement range for a Floater warship is 1/4 AU.

Attack Carriers are larger vessels designed to act as fuelling and supply bases for swarms of Floater Militia fighters and lancers. Attack Carriers are ten times the size od cruisers, carry thrice the armament, and can launch hundreds of fighters and lancers.

"Lancer" is a generic name given to the small, fast moving warships piloted by Floater militia. Lancers are anywhere from 60-500 tons in weight, and carry crews ranging from a single pilot to 15 gunners and pilots. Some lancers try to board enemy vessels, some hurl nuclear missiles, some are armed with AM cannon, all are deadly.

All large Floater warships have FTL drives.

Floaters never use artificial gravity. Floaters live in zero-g. Inertial dampening fields are used to stave off the effects of acceleration and preserve a low G environment- of course, few Floaters ever find themselves needing to accelerate at more than .1 gs.

Thirdfain wrote:Well, waddaya know.

So, I figure it would be best if we all work out a basic set of capabilities for everyone, to keep any one person from appearing too powerful.

i.e, restrict all players to having a maximum FTL speed.

There should be leeway, however, so everyone can have some degree of specialization. My ships, for example, are generally going to be big, with the philosophy of sneak up and beat the opposition to death with big missiles and bombs in one stroke. They'll be crap in extended fights, with the exception of the generation ships.

Also, to make thing a little more reasonable I'll reduce the physical size of the wedge to 15km instead of the hundreds.

Remember, while FTL speeds may be relatively high (ST:DS9), actually colonizing a world is damned expensive to do and fraught with failure. This alone should limit people from grabbing dozens of worlds and settling them. I'm also going to assume that there aren't that many habitable worlds out there, limiting exploration. Only the wealthiest of nation-states and megacorporations can afford both exploratory and colonization missions.

The Floaters, of course, have an advantage here, as they need no planets, but they also use sublight colonization ships to balance things out.

More expansive on my tech..

Shields: Entirely electromagnetic, right down to the emitters anchorings, which are held in place by powerful natural magnetics to help reduce damage done by kinetic weaponry(Think shock absorbers). Superior protection against kinetics and missiles, inferior handling against beams and radiation.

Weapons: All craft, even the old STS's, are equipped with Universal Missile Pods(IMPs), designed to streamline the production of munitions in the Lost. These are capable of launching MT-level nuclear missiles and bombs, higher-maneuverability AM bombs will slightly enhanced yields(In short, think the AM weapons as about equal in punch, but better at Time To Target and ability to dodge fire), EMP warheads designed to weaken/cripple enemy ships, and even probes and message pods. If it's a missile, bomb, or probe, an IMP can deploy it.

Beam weapons are almost exclusively reserved for point defense. HEL's dot every capital ship, to prevent enemy munitions from getting close.

Engines: Primarily high-energy ion drives, though most ships prefer to coast after brief firing of chemical drives to assist their stealth.

FTL: Primarily B5 Hyperspace, but Piggybacker technology allows for mimicing almost any drive system and engaging while in transit. Tactics heavily emphasize this for any attack on generation ships, as the locations of these vessels is a secret worth slaying hundreds for.

Stealth: Phase Cloaks are the most commonly used method of sneaking around undetected, but more conventional cloaks, low-emission drives, and absorbant hull material are also very common. As has been noted, Lost tactics are primarily based around devastating opening strikes.

For some reason, BSG ships don't need to leave normal space for FTL travel, wee!

Pan-Slavic Republic

FTL: Cherenkov Warp Drive (energy efficient and leaves no signature)
Powerplants: Medium-efficiency fusion. (Larger ships have M/AM reactors for bursts of energy production; during battle, they run off of batteries)
Engines: Ion for low-speed maneuvers, impulse for speed
Inertial Damping: Average
Artificial Gravity: Lower-than average efficiency. Most ships generate .5 G as a matter of course.
Armor: Multiple belt, with void spaces, thick belts, and outer layers of energy-reflective and ER armor.
Shields: Effective against energy and kinetic weapons. In most large ships, the superstructure is designed in part with the intent of fully securing the emitter array.

Weapons:
Long Range--
VLS missile cells: With a variety of payloads, many ships are designed to deliver a knockout blow at long range. Typically, ships use massed fires with multiple-overkill for each vital target to overwhelm point defenses and cripple the enemy fleet.
Medium Range--
X-ray lasers, bomb-pumped and turret mounted; average effectiveness
Short Range--
Turret mounted jacketed plasma cannons. With a limited capitance, long charge time, and low velocity, plasma cannons depend on their superior firepower to inflict rapid a knockout blow when the engagement closes to point blank.
Laser Emitters for point-defense. Designed for defense against fighters and missiles.

Design philosophy:
The current Republican Navy is a new development, with much of the Russian Empire's pre-revolutionary strength melted away in this sphere. PSR warships are designed to inflict damage very rapidly and decisively, in order to gain initial advantage, and then weather the ensuing battle of attrition. As such, Slavic combatants are renowned for their damage control.

If I wanted to join, could I just use DS9 tech applied reasonably intelligently?

I plan on using pumped up structural integrity fields as shield substitutes. In battle they would be harder to knock down because it isn't directly absorbing the damage. On the other hand they have a bigger bleedthrough problem because hits will go straight to the armor without having to puncture a bubble shield. Major liabilities include radiation leakage and increased vulnerability where the armor is thin. I'm curious as to what degree I should make the SIF magnify strength in order to be competitive.

My main ships will be fast and heavy, to close with the enemy and start punching holes with huge X-lasers. In true Roman style, there will also be tractor beams and boarding shuttles to carry marines onto the enemy ships.