STGOD: A Dead Art?

Post by **Beowulf** » 2007-08-19 12:13pm

Those currently-cloaked blackblades will of course be heading to the orbital colonies (that almost all that system's population lives it) and manufacturing plants to emplace fusion devices on their hulls, ready to detonate as soon as the signal from their parent cruiser is lost.

This would be as soon as the cloaked ship leaves the bomb. Your ships will go boom pretty much immediately. This is related to the reason why I couldn't have my frigates just blow up your stealth ships at the beginning of our battle.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-08-19 01:13pm

Starglider wrote:Those currently-cloaked blackblades will of course be heading to the orbital colonies (that almost all that system's population lives it) and manufacturing plants to emplace fusion devices on their hulls, ready to detonate as soon as the signal from their parent cruiser is lost. I expect when the defending forces get close we will find out whether Poland is prepared to negotiate with terrorists or not.

Cloaks are double blind. Ergo, communication is impossible through the cloaks. The only "signal" one can give is intense scanning that reveals the position of the cloaked units, since units inside a cloak know when it is compromised. You can essentially have a "go code", but a deadman's switch is not possible without giving away the position of the cloaked ships.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2007-08-19 04:43pm

Not to mention that few governments have the total political will to scuttle several million tons of space worthy craft. Especially craft with expensive cloaks.

Of course I sometimes feel like I am the only person who has excuses for the political will to assemble large fleets for long periods. What biological species wants to get stuck for several months eating ship food, living in ship quarters with no real mission and no idea when they will either be going into battle or going home without doing anything? (hint giant fucking NGTO fleet, Uno should be getting might boring around now).

You don't win wars by simply assembling forces, you have to know that those forces will go through and maintain the moral and discipline to complete the tasks laid out and the the public and politicians will not be cowed by casualties or simply by missing the men at home.

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2007-08-19 05:10pm

How long has that fleet actually been out there though. do we have a dateline for now and when we decided to do joint manouvers in nephilim space (how long would it take ships from six different species and cultures each using different tactics, technology and designs to learn to function cohesively? i don't think they're doing nothing at the moment)

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-19 05:47pm

Sorry if I wasn't clear, they will of course be decloaking as soon as they get near the enemy colonies. They're just cloaked for their trip into the system.

Incidentally, I heard second hand via White Haven that there's a mod decree that it takes 1 hour to get from the system's 'hyper-limit' to an earth-like planet.

If that was the best case (enter as close as possible) and the ships had Star Wars-like acceleration, e.g. 1 million gravities, it means the hyper-limit is a little over a light hour from the primary, i.e. somewhere between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. However this also means ships accelerating to 95% of C inside of a minute, which means deep space battles are likely to be at relativistic velocities and long distances (it also implies extremely long interdictor range).

If the ships have a merely Star-Trek like acceleration of 1000 gravities, and then have to go from a relative stop at the hyper-limit to an orbital rendeavous, the average velocity over a one-hour trip will be about 8820 kms-1, or 0.03c. That puts the 'hyper-limit' at about 1.22 AU, inside the orbit of Mars.

If ships have a semi-realistic acceleration of only 10 gravities, the can cover about 320,000 kilometres in an hour (from relative stop to relative stop). That would put the 'hyper limit' slightly inside the orbit of the moon, for Earth.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-19 05:56pm

Dark Hellion wrote:Not to mention that few governments have the total political will to scuttle several million tons of space worthy craft. Especially craft with expensive cloaks.

They're likely to lose the whole fleet. Thuule is hoping to sacrifice four ships to allow the rest of them to escape (which means the crews on those ships will be imprisoned, not killed, if the Poles actually negotiate). In this respect he is sadly mistaken.

Though given that the Pirate fleets are heading straight into a meat grinder anyway, I suppose the Polish have nothing to lose but (probably temporary) face in giving the terrorist Blackblades what they want (allowing the main pirate fleet to get to League space).

Of course I sometimes feel like I am the only person who has excuses for the political will to assemble large fleets for long periods.

In your case your species doesn't need excuses.

What biological species wants to get stuck for several months eating ship food, living in ship quarters with no real mission and no idea when they will either be going into battle or going home without doing anything?

Do you have any idea what a real world carrier battle group deployment is like?

Darkevilme wrote:How long has that fleet actually been out there though.

I think about three game months have passed since that fleet began maneuvers in TGA space. It's friendly space of course, so they can have rotating shore leave on Ophilim planets without too much difficult.

The current US Navy has an advised maximum deployment length of 6 months, though this is occasionally exceeded.

(how long would it take ships from six different species and cultures each using different tactics, technology and designs to learn to function cohesively? i don't think they're doing nothing at the moment)

Yes, that is what they have been doing.

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2007-08-19 08:33pm

Hey, just wanted to let everyone know that I'm back, and currently reading stuff that's happened since my departure.

If anyone wants to give me a quick synopsis of events since the space bugs attacked Mercury, that'd be greatly appreciated.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2007-08-19 08:55pm

Dark Hellion wrote:
Of course I sometimes feel like I am the only person who has excuses for the political will to assemble large fleets for long periods.

We Beg to Differ

What biological species wants to get stuck for several months eating ship food, living in ship quarters with no real mission and no idea when they will either be going into battle or going home without doing anything? (hint giant fucking NGTO fleet, Uno should be getting might boring around now).

Us

You don't win wars by simply assembling forces, you have to know that those forces will go through and maintain the moral and discipline to complete the tasks laid out and the the public and politicians will not be cowed by casualties or simply by missing the men at home.

Morale is irrelevant. Discipline is irrelevant. You will be assimilated via tentacle sodomy.

That's it, back into the dark disturbing recesses of my mind.

You can't control us. You too, shall be assimilated once we can fully break the ficton barrier

Quiet you, or I'll have your hivemind go horribly wrong when you come across an entire civ populated by clones of my self-insert.

We'll be good... for now

All silliness aside, I'm not quite fully back. Fifteen minute stretches of online time aren't particularly conducive to participation, but I'm doing my best to at least keep up. Expect nastiness next weekend.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-19 09:06pm

Hawkwings wrote:If anyone wants to give me a quick synopsis of events since the space bugs attacked Mercury, that'd be greatly appreciated.

See this post and the next one.

BTW mods, not to pester but the rollout time for the first round of shipbuilding is getting quite plot-relevant. If they're currently having the finnishing touches put on, going on shakedown cruises, doing cerficiation etc (as real ships do) then I imagine this turn's building will be pressed into service by White Haven and/or Dark Hellion to defend against any invasion, even if they're not quite ready. Is it 150pts of building? Can we just start posting what we've built now, on the understanding that it's going to be a little while longer before it can actually be deployed anywhere?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-08-19 09:48pm

What biological species wants to get stuck for several months eating ship food, living in ship quarters with no real mission and no idea when they will either be going into battle or going home without doing anything?

Sounds like most deployments when you're in the Navy in the modern world, honestly.

Of course, the Wanderer Hivemind is incapable of 'boredom'. It's one of the rather major problems with it.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2007-08-19 10:12pm

The fleet assembling within my space consists of:

1 Crissaegrim (50 points)
2 Mjolnir (40 points each, 80 total)
3 Ragnarok (30 points each, 90 total)
4 Shamshir (15 points each, 60 total)
10 Hel (10 points each, 100 total)

For a total of 380 points. This fleet has not left my space yet.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-08-19 10:18pm

Starglider wrote:BTW mods, not to pester but the rollout time for the first round of shipbuilding is getting quite plot-relevant. If they're currently having the finnishing touches put on, going on shakedown cruises, doing cerficiation etc (as real ships do) then I imagine this turn's building will be pressed into service by White Haven and/or Dark Hellion to defend against any invasion, even if they're not quite ready. Is it 150pts of building? Can we just start posting what we've built now, on the understanding that it's going to be a little while longer before it can actually be deployed anywhere?

As I recall, six months was determined to be the time it took for one "turn". I do believe it's only been a handful of months, two or three at most. Anything currently being built is likely unusable in any shape or form in this case. Maybe if it were in the final weeks of the final month, perhaps, but otherwise I wouldn't expect the ships to offer anything more than a token resistance, if they could even fight at all.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-19 10:26pm

Hotfoot wrote:As I recall, six months was determined to be the time it took for one "turn". I do believe it's only been a handful of months, two or three at most. Anything currently being built is likely unusable in any shape or form in this case. Maybe if it were in the final weeks of the final month, perhaps, but otherwise I wouldn't expect the ships to offer anything more than a token resistance, if they could even fight at all.

Sounds sensible to me. I just got the impression the building was coming up soon. However it looks like we've actually got a lot further to go first.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2007-08-20 08:36pm

Can I "deficet" spend? Cause i'd really, REALLY like to have my SBB ship finished. Ingame I've been saying the thing was "Almost" done for ages. It was supposed to be built in my original OOB, but I dind't have enough points.

I put it offf cause I htought that the "turns" would come sooner... If I knew i'd have to wait this long i'd have cut elsewhere ot have it done.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-08-20 08:43pm

Crossroads Inc. wrote:Can I "deficet" spend?

No.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-20 09:32pm

According to my records, the fleeing FEA ships were;

Code: Select all

2 x FF  1  combat                      'Leukophil'
2 x CG  10 combat + 10 point defence   'Esinophil'

Did they just get taken out without firing back, or clearing the interdiction or jamming? So no FEA ships remain at this point?

SirNitram I'd appreciate it if you could confirm the typical sublight speed/acceleration of ships in this setting, so I know whether to have ships dropping out of FTL in the outer system and zooming in at relativistic velocities or dropping out in very high orbit over planets and approaching at low sublight from there. Relativistic kills (of the 'planetkiller' variety) are easy in the former case but rather harder the later.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-08-20 09:43pm

To clarify, it turns out that after further research I was wrong about the construction periods. It is, in fact, 3 months, and the mods will let you know when the ships are available for use.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2007-08-20 11:20pm

Hotfoot wrote:To clarify, it turns out that after further research I was wrong about the construction periods. It is, in fact, 3 months, and the mods will let you know when the ships are available for use.

Well in THAT case, time to update my OOB!

Shinn Langley Soryu · Post by **Shinn Langley Soryu** » 2007-08-20 11:32pm

150 points every three months, is it? I'll figure out the point allocations later.

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2007-08-20 11:33pm

Uh for those of us who didnt say 'X ships of Class Y are under construction' in our OOBs, what are we allowed to wheel out with our points(kind of without warning) at the end of this turn? existing classes of ships? existing classes but only those below a certain point threshold per ship? New classes of ship? New classes below a certain threshold? planetary defences? early warning nets?

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2007-08-20 11:35pm

Ahem, also, there has been a mod concensus- Due to widespread devastation and fighting in Africa, the TGA will be penalized 10 points from this quarter's production.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-08-20 11:36pm

Just to clarify something I've had two people pester me about: It takes very little time to bugger out of a system presuming you aren't held by Interdiction or obeying Traffic Control. Get clear of a planet's orbital defenses and you can book it like it's going out of style.

Again, this presumes no Interdiction and you're not giving the finger to Traffic Control.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-20 11:58pm

Darkevilme wrote:Uh for those of us who didnt say 'X ships of Class Y are under construction' in our OOBs, what are we allowed to wheel out with our points(kind of without warning) at the end of this turn? existing classes of ships? existing classes but only those below a certain point threshold per ship? New classes of ship? New classes below a certain threshold? planetary defences? early warning nets?

Anything you could plausibly have had in production for the last year or two (or however long it takes you to build ships). As long as it isn't a reaction to something that just happened in the last turn, you should be ok (in WWII lots of ships were converted from one type to another, e.g. from battleship to carrier, while in late construction, so some responses on a 3-to-6-month timescale are not unreasonable). My construction will be:

Code: Select all

Ships
-----

1 x 'Chronostorm' (50 pts)
2 x 'Causality' (20 pts)
1 x 'Requiem' (10 pts)
1 x 'Sapience' (10 pts)
2 x 'Relativity' (8 pts)
2 x 'Contemplation' (8 pts)
1 x 'Spectrum class prototype' (1 pt)

Other
-----

Range/sensitivity upgrades to tracking stations (+30 -> +40)
Sensitivity and transmitt power upgrades to comms relays (+20 -> +30)
Continue building decoys and jammers (+20 -> +30)
Progressive upgrades to planetary defences (+113 -> +123)

(147 points)

The comms and tracking largely represents the work on the joint tracking and comms network the NGTO agreed to work on before the main game started. The 'Spectrum class' is a new type of patrol ship that has been under development to replace the ageing 'Revalation' class.

SirNitram wrote:Just to clarify something I've had two people pester me about: It takes very little time to bugger out of a system presuming you aren't held by Interdiction or obeying Traffic Control. Get clear of a planet's orbital defenses and you can book it like it's going out of style.

Also from IM discussion; it takes days or weeks to get to relativistic velocities, and you can use hyperspace within a system (from about Luna orbit it sounds like) so no easy relativistic planetkills. Unfortunately it should still be possible to planetkill with relativistic cloaked ships. In the interests of game balance I suggest the mods veto that (on technobabble grounds if necessary; maybe cloaks react really badly to attempting to plough through space dust/solar wind at relativistic velocities).

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-08-21 12:05am

Crossroads Inc. wrote:
Hotfoot wrote:To clarify, it turns out that after further research I was wrong about the construction periods. It is, in fact, 3 months, and the mods will let you know when the ships are available for use.
Well in THAT case, time to update my OOB!

No, it's not. Did we tell you that your production was ready?

I will drop rocks on you.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2007-08-21 12:11am

ok ok... I can wait... I won't post anything till I get a go ahead from the mods... But I WILL say that I've posted that my "SuperBB" has been under construction for quiet some time, so its not something "out of the blue" to have it finished as soon as our points come...

right?