SDNW5 Preliminary Discussion Thread

[White Haven]

I find I have the urge to write the Old Spice Guy as a villain. This probably says something warped about my sense of humour. The Dos Equis Guy, however, would make an excellent foil for him.

[Rabid]

is all I have to say on your latest Prologue post, Haven.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Wow...evil Old Spice guy. Quick, get the Dos Equis guy stat!

[Esquire]

The Most Interesting Man in the Galaxy relaxed against the soft leather of his favorite armchair, releasing a puff of smoke from his cigar as he did so. The day had been as action-packed as all of his days were; breakfast at the Palace Hotel with an actress he'd met the night before at a bullfight, just before appearing as a matador, followed by skydiving onto his yacht and sailing out to one of the islands he owned on this planet for a seaside picnic. It was only at dinner, roasted mind-duck from the League of Thought, that the news reached him:

The Old Spice Guy was back.

The Most Interesting Man in the Galaxy's pet leopard padded across the room and draped itself over the coffee table, which was made from ancient maple wood from Earth itself. The jewels on its collar sparkled in the firelight. Just like that poor woman's lungs had, after the Old Spice Guy turned them to diamonds. The Most Interesting Man in the Galaxy narrowed his eyes. He spoke, somehow managing to use French in Russian.

"I don't always drink beer, but I'll need a drink after I make the Old Spice Guy pay for what he has done."

[Simon_Jester]

Could you please repost in prologue where this arguably belongs?

Also, poor psi-duck.

[cadbrowser]

You all are quite entertaining. I think I like it here.

[Rabid]

poor psi-duck.

[Skywalker_T-65]

This is going to be a battle for the ages isn't it? The Most Interesting Man in the Galaxy vs the Old Spice Guy...the universe just may implode after this.

Also, I take your Isaiah Mustafa Old Spice Guy, and raise you...Terry Crews Old Spice Guy! DOBULE SUN POWAH!!! (Sorry, couldn't help it ...though it is rather OOC for my personality) That also gives me comedy value for Arcadia...oh the plot bunnies have started to come out now...

[Simon_Jester]

poor psi-duck.

[duck eyes explode]

I really don't like that image, personally. Too many fond childhood memories of the beast.

[Esquire]

Could you please repost in prologue where this arguably belongs?

Also, poor psi-duck.

Will do. Also, it was a mind-duck, not a psi-duck; mind-ducks are figments of the imagination prized for their (imagined) deliciousness as well as there nonexistent fat content, while psi-ducks use their mental powers to confuse predators and convince food to swim directly into their beaks.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm, this may become critically relevant:

Do League fauna include geese?

[Skywalker_T-65]

Yeah, I think I'm going to do a Terry Crews Old Spice Guy post now. Darn muse getting overactive again!

[White Haven]

Yes! There can be...mistaken identity.

[White Haven]

Yes! SWAT bursts in on Terry Crews Old Space Guy, thinking that he's the Old Spice Guy after following a chemical trace of the smell to his home. He is forced to go rogue with the law on his tail!

[Skywalker_T-65]

And I thought that MY muse was getting overactive with this idea. Then again, it is like a little model of conflict...brute force (Crews) vs subtle manipulation (Mustafa)...oh who am I kidding, its two guys getting into a galactic battle over who can sell the most Old Spice!

EDIT: I also find it funny how we have turned this into an Old Spice Guy (both of them) and Dos Equis guy face off. Funny how these things turn out.

[Rabid]

I request criticism over the intended firepower of my ships.

(drones refer to the gunboats that are used by my escort-cruisers and escort-carriers)


First, a description of the armament you can find on the Doxa's ships :

Mass-drivers :

• Equip the drones as a "close-quarter" & CIWS weapon.
• High-rate of fire. Throw bullet-sized projectiles at very-high velocity.
• Very short range.

Missiles & Light-Lasguns :

• Primary weapons of the drones.

Gravguns

• Generally seen in 2-barrel turrets. Throw ~2-3 metric-tons projectiles @ ~0.7% of C
• Projectiles can be guided for increased accuracy at longer ranges.
• Typical engagement range with this gun is around 0,5 light-seconds or less ; but effective range can be easily increased to 3-to-5 light-seconds or more with the help of self-guided ammunitions, to improve accuracy.
• It is used as the primary weapon in ship-to-ship combat when the situation do not justify the use of the torpedo launchers

Lasguns

• Each lasgun pack enough energy to one-shot most fighters on the market.
• Weak against shielded targets.
• Has a very close-range compared to the gravguns & torpedo-launchers.
• Primarily used as an anti-fighter & CIWS weapon
• The Doxa's military ships generally have them distributed around a ship's hull in order to have overlapping firing arcs – however this mean that in most case one attack angle is covered by only one or two lasers, three in the best cases.

Torpedo-launcher

• A ship's main armament. Require gargantuan amount of energy to be fired. Very low rate-of-fire.
• Throw a 60 metric-tons projectile @ 5 to 15% of C (depend on the ship's power output) [nota : WolframAlpha tell me this mean a kinetic energy between 1.6 and 14 TNT-gigatons... ].
• Self-guided ammunitions for ship-to-ship combat ; inert ammunition for orbital bombardment.

Heavy Laser

• Doctrinally, an Heavy Laser fill a niche between the range of the torpedo-launchers, the rate-of-fire of the gravguns and the speed of a photon-based weapon. It is comparatively weaker than a gravgun, it has difficulty penetrating enemy shields, but it has a far greater range and each of its shots reach their target more than one hundred time faster than a gravgun's shot.
• Heavy Lasers are spinal-mounted weapons, equipped with a mechanism allowing to direct fire inside a 30° cone.

Example :

80-point Escort-Cruiser [60-point own armament ; 20 point => 10 x 2-point gunboat]

Own armament =

• 6 x Gravguns (3 x 2-barrel turrets)
• 8 x Lasguns
• 1 x Torpedo-launcher (max muzzle velocity : 7% of C)
• 2 x Heavy Lasers (one on the front, one on the rear

On the defensive side, the Doxa's ships rely on deflector shields, superior maneuverability and their pilots' talent to avoid being shot.


Basically, I have very hard hitting weapons but which can be relatively easily dodged when fighting at long range (as the plot demand), or relatively weak precise long-range weaponry that you can relatively easily weather if you have good shields (as the plot demand as well).
At least that's how I see it thus far.


Opinions ?

[OmegaChief]

I don't think you really need to worry unless you have something in fiction hitting -waaaaay- beyond it's points value ona regular unagreed basis.

The entire point of the Points, as it were, is to let us have our imagination run wild with stuff like weapons, rather then wave our dicks at how many spherical massess of iron our ships can vapourise at once.

So I think you might be over thinking things a bit much Rabid.

[Skywalker_T-65]

From a gameplay standpoint it doesn't matter since (example, not actually used) if I used a 200 point ship with a dinky little railgun (like your smaller ones) it wouldn't matter...its still a 200 point ship. From a story perspective though...nice mix of weapons. Gives your ships a multi-role thing going on. I particularly like the Heavy Laser, since I am a sucker for beam weapons (my Gundam fanboy side coming out).

EDIT: Ninja'ed...in any case, what OmegaChief said works just as well as what I said.

[Rabid]

I know, I know. It's just.... well, I was thinking, "if I want to narrate the Doxa's ships into action, I have to know how they operate", and it got me thinking, and it got me thinking, thinking THINKING THINKING and it then basically spiraled from there on.

To be honest, it's more the gigatons of firepower that got me a bit afraid, and urged me to ask for criticism.


My ships are also supposed to have enormous accelerations (>1000-10000G) and to be more maneuverable than other ships of the same size. In counterpart they are very vulnerable if they are to get hit themselves, have relatively low endurance and rely on a steady supply of anti-matter from their logistic train ; and when fighting they create so much waste-heat that they are forced to dump it into hyperspace least they would explode, producing impressive hyperwave bursts and rendering impossible any attempt to use stealth once combat is engaged.

[OmegaChief]

There's no problem at all with thinking about how they operate, as long as you go from the assumption, "Well my x point ship has to have the same firepower and durability as any other x point ship, however that evens out".

Beyond that, and working out the fighting style, defence style and what kinds of weapons and how many of them they have, in an entirly non-spherical mass of iron numbers fashion (IE you have a railgun, the exact velocity and mass of the projectile really don't matter), you're fine!

[Skywalker_T-65]

Or if you have a giant laser it doesn't matter how much power it has, unless you want to go all technobabble. Just work out with whoever you are fighting how it will work, and go from there.

EDIT: PS, I haven't even thought about what my ships are armed with...that will be in the first space battle post when I get too it...

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think you really need to worry unless you have something in fiction hitting -waaaaay- beyond it's points value ona regular unagreed basis.

The entire point of the Points, as it were, is to let us have our imagination run wild with stuff like weapons, rather then wave our dicks at how many spherical massess of iron our ships can vapourise at once.

So I think you might be over thinking things a bit much Rabid.

[modhat on]

Comrade Commissar Omeganski is absolutely correct.

[readies spherical-mass-of-iron-onna-bludgeoning-stick]

I know, I know. It's just.... well, I was thinking, "if I want to narrate the Doxa's ships into action, I have to know how they operate", and it got me thinking, and it got me thinking, thinking THINKING THINKING and it then basically spiraled from there on.

To be honest, it's more the gigatons of firepower that got me a bit afraid, and urged me to ask for criticism.

My ships are also supposed to have enormous accelerations (>1000-10000G) and to be more maneuverable than other ships of the same size. In counterpart they are very vulnerable if they are to get hit themselves, have relatively low endurance and rely on a steady supply of anti-matter from their logistic train ; and when fighting they create so much waste-heat that they are forced to dump it into hyperspace least they would explode, producing impressive hyperwave bursts and rendering impossible any attempt to use stealth once combat is engaged.

Dude. Knock it off with the numbers.

If you want to present your ships fighting a certain way, with weapons of a certain power and operating under certain constraints, do so. If I want to present my ships fighting a certain way, I will do so. If our ways are mutually exclusive, it does not matter, with the possible exception of interstellar speeds.

If our ships fight each other, we get together and work out what to do. Maybe one of us ignores his 'nominal' shipboard weapon power outputs because the alternative would be stupid pointless chest-beating about spherical masses of iron. Maybe one of us handwaves a sudden technobabble increase in the shielding properties of technobabble. Whatever is done, is done for the good of the "points are points are points" rule.

There's no problem at all with thinking about how they operate, as long as you go from the assumption, "Well my x point ship has to have the same firepower and durability as any other x point ship, however that evens out".

Well, I could accept that this 200 point ship has more durability or more firepower than that 200 point ship. But in a fight, over the long run, it would average out.

Like, Umerian capital ships have great firepower for their point value, but it can only shoot in one direction at a time. And they have great armor for their point value, but only against shots fired from the general direction they're shooting in. Against attacks from another direction, they're not especially tough and have relatively limited firepower for their point value.

I would expect Umerian capital ships to fairly consistently win a fight against a single opponent of equal point value, in a cage match, because they're well designed to fight single opponents that fire at them from a predictable direction. I would expect Umerian capital ships to fairly consistently lose against a flock of smaller ships that can fan out and hit it from every which way. But in fleet battles, where one-on-one and one-on-many fights both happens, and there are lots of ships on each side and everything averages out... well. Points are points are points then.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Am I the only one here who thinks that the whole "spherical masses of iron" thing is tiresome and annoying?

[Rabid]

I see. Sorry if it came out as chest-beating, it was more of a consistency check. Anyway, as pointed by Simon, I'll knock the numbers and just keep in mind my the orders of magnitude and the general feel I want to inspire. [1]

Well, at least it's out of my system now.


Now to work on more productive things...


[1] : "The ship, closing on its target, was now decelerating at a rate that would have reduced any Organics to past had the ship not benefited from grav-fields. Deep inside the entrails of the war machine, frighteningly high amounts of matter were converted to energy, the unbelievable quantity of waste heat generated being converted to hyperwaves, saturating the local hyperspace fields with what was the undeniable signal that, indeed, the Cavalry was here."
-- basically, people know that the first sign one my ships is going to attack is a sudden burst of wide-spectrum, high-powered hyperwaves - the hyperwave-equivalent of nukes going off and saturating the airwaves with EMPs.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I should have the TC Old Spice Guy (acronyms FTW!!) post worked up either tonight or tomorrow. And we shall see how good my sense of humor is...