STGOD 2020 OOC Thread

[Eternal_Freedom]

My OrBat is here, though the ship names have changed somewhat:

viewtopic.php?f=45&t=170145

I should also add that I'm heading to bed, I have to be in the office tomorrow (stupid full-time job).

[VX-145]

Yeah, I was mostly looking for something like Rogue's directory or my (endless) spreadsheets*. Not overly important if such a thing doesn't exist right now, but it's useful for comparisons.

I've got one more post coming out tonight, but I'm fairly busy this week so I'll be slower. Luckily, I'm still unemployed and on leave from university, so... past that, not much else to do XD

*Fun fact: I am bad at spreadsheets. Somehow, they still work.

[Rogue 9]

I also have a complete ship registry, though that's definitely not essential. That document mainly exists as a reference for myself so I know which names go with which hull numbers and where they're likely to be at a given time.

[Esquire]

Khemplar & the Great Khemplar State
Order of Battle, Jayne's Guide, ed. #ERROR 754 NaN

I have tagged you all because I see that you've either been active in the game previously or have logged onto the board in the last couple of days, and would like to see if you're still interested. The game isn't dead yet; we just had a lull.

Hi - I've somehow ended up planning a wedding and buying a house at the same time; no spare brain power for STGODs here. Please feel free to use the Khemplar as an NPC or whatever if it's useful.

[Rogue 9]

Khemplar & the Great Khemplar State
Order of Battle, Jayne's Guide, ed. #ERROR 754 NaN

I have tagged you all because I see that you've either been active in the game previously or have logged onto the board in the last couple of days, and would like to see if you're still interested. The game isn't dead yet; we just had a lull.

Hi - I've somehow ended up planning a wedding and buying a house at the same time; no spare brain power for STGODs here. Please feel free to use the Khemplar as an NPC or whatever if it's useful.

Hey, congratulations. That most definitely comes first.

[VX-145]

So, with three, maybe four players hunting down the Yrch/Amazo-X NPCs, there's no chance even the two combined can stand up to a fair fight. There's been a bit of discussion in the discord as to the problem, with various solutions being mooted: the Yrch can steal ships from the Khemplari (since Esquire has volunteered them for use), or they can be boosted mechanically through extra ships and the like. They'd still lose in either case, but it'd be less of a curbstomp than it is now. Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmmm...Perhaps we should give them more ships, and have them split up into multiple groups, conveniently one per PC nation so we can each write up our assault/battle scenes without having to coordinate with the others on one giant collaborative post.

[Elheru Aran]

Conversely: some people are just... out of the way (the Holy Empire and the Theophanics, to name two). I don't have much issue with coordinating posts, but if it makes it easier, someone can set the stage and then everybody just kind of describes their own thing. That's basically what we did in turn 1. It worked well enough.

Most days-- hell, weeks-- (the meeting besides you and VX being exceptional) we don't have but one or two posts at a go, and there aren't that many players, so it's not like we're firing off posts right and left and needing a lot of work to keep up with.

In broad strokes (we discussed this earlier on the Discord chat, but to keep everybody on the same page): this game was conceived with rules which more or less assumed a constant state of conflict between most of the player nations. That... has pretty much not happened. Alliances have formed (mostly casual, one official). A big part of this is that, I suppose, out-of-universe most of us just don't have the time and/or attitude to devote to shooting wars /shrug/ and honestly? for my own part, I enjoy the RP much more than the mechanics and the one-upmanship.

All that to say I'm on board with increasing stats/giving the Yrch more ships. Potentially also Amazo-X, as well-- while they've been mostly behind the scenes for some time, I imagine we may want to deal with them more directly, and when we do it might be nice for them to pose more of a threat.

[Rogue 9]

NRS Pitch is a Shadow class stealth frigate, one of the four I sent out on long range scouting at the beginning of the game. Her Stealth rating is 11 and she's going to sit there silent unless something seems to detect her.

[VX-145]

RE: The Yrch, it depends on the scenario; a full assault on their/Amazo-X's home system, for example, is easy to have multiple fronts in, and each of those could be a single player's responsibility. I don't have much of an opinion there either way.

As to buffing them it depends a little on how much force is going to be brought to bear; that being said, it's probably best to establish what exactly could be added. I do like the idea of monitors - essentially non-FTL heavy warships - along with a general expansion of one or both their fleets, and a few Khemplari cruisers/battlecarriers could be added into the mix. The Khemplari mechanical OOB is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing, for reference.

RE: The Pitch, I've been relying on cumulative fleet C3 power, which after a bit of discussion doesn't seem to be an actual mechanic XD Thus, since I have nothing over 5C3 in the area, mechanically I don't have much justification for seeing it. Of course, if you want to RP it otherwise, that's open.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I've not actually figured out exactly how my various ships break down in terms of C3 stats, but given that the Endeavour/Orion fleet brought with us half our scout elements I woudl imagine we'd get at least a hint of something - maybe not the ship itself but a reading on something exiting slipspace for instance.

Rather like the Endurance/Korolev v Al'kesh fight in my fanfic - they'll know something dropped back into realspace, just not what.

Rogue, I'll PM you a draft of us detecting "something" and we can work from there.

[Rogue 9]

I've not actually figured out exactly how my various ships break down in terms of C3 stats, but given that the Endeavour/Orion fleet brought with us half our scout elements I woudl imagine we'd get at least a hint of something - maybe not the ship itself but a reading on something exiting slipspace for instance.

Rather like the Endurance/Korolev v Al'kesh fight in my fanfic - they'll know something dropped back into realspace, just not what.

Rogue, I'll PM you a draft of us detecting "something" and we can work from there.

This happened twice in STGOD 2k8, both times involving me (once as the stealth ship and once as the opposition force).

Nashtari scout stumbling into the Humanist Union

Chamaran stealth pod attempting to observe Nashtari fleet exercises

Both times involved a stealth ship with a stealth rating of 11 and a ship on the opposition side with 10C3 (so one under what was needed to cleanly detect) and the second involved two such vessels. As sort of an ad hoc thing, we decided to allow for sensor ghosts. That said, I'm not going to be a stickler for the mechanics; I expect the points I spent on this ship to do something, but slamming the door on detection is no fun. Keep in mind the Pitch is on the outer edge of the system outside the furthest planet, roughly 30 AUs from your fleet at the planet in the habitable zone, and if it comes down to it is faster than you (though lighting up the main drive to run will let you clearly detect its presence). If you want to use one of the above incidents as a guide, feel free.

(Also by the rules entering/leaving FTL isn't a detectable event but moving sublight or firing weapons is; obviously Elheru's FTL mechanic threw that for a loop immediately. )

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmmm...ok I'll have to ponder this in the meantime, I'll get back to you.

[Rogue 9]

Hmmm...ok I'll have to ponder this in the meantime, I'll get back to you.

I don't want to shut you down; I was just showing how it's been dealt with in the past. I wrote that bit in the Stealth rules about erring on the side of interaction, and I'll stick to it; I didn't do this just for you to have nothing to do.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Heh heh heh...seems my faction is gaining notoriety

We do have a bad track record with First Contacts though - 3 out of 4 ended in genocide. But they started it! And they were assholes, so they had it coming.

[Rogue 9]

Heh heh heh...seems my faction is gaining notoriety

We do have a bad track record with First Contacts though - 3 out of 4 ended in genocide. But they started it! And they were assholes, so they had it coming.

All we've got for that is your (secondhand) word. Nashtar isn't going to seek a war, but "Hi, we killed the last three guys we met" isn't exactly a great starting point.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Meh, details. I mean we killed those other three species pretty quickly when they wouldn't surrender, so maybe they were also failed Lazari experiments.

[Rogue 9]

We should hammer out what exactly the Yrch stole, ship-wise. I established a Haven class battlecarrier, on the theory that it would likely be older vessels in for a refit, but deliberately didn't define the size of the squadron.

[VX-145]

So, going to lay out stats as I go along for this off-the-cuff proposal.

1x Haven-class, 45+5J+5C3

In addition,

1x Errant-class, 3+10S+2C3 (for a 21 total stealth rating, this would likely be handed over to Amazo-X for nefarious schemes)
2x Principle-class, 20+2H+3J+5C3 (total 1.71 H rating)
4x Sentinel-I-class, 15+1H+3J+1C3 (total 1.53 H rating)
1x Sentinel-II-class, 15+1H+7J+2C3 (total 1.42 H rating)

This gives a total base weight of 160, and has quite a few ships with faster hyperdrives. Note that the Yrch currently have a total fleet weight of 400, and Amazo-X 250; this would give a total possible weight of 810. This doesn't even match the Endeavour line fleet total (at 1120 base weight) but does come closer than before. An alternative is swapping out the Principles with more destroyers, or eliminating them entirely. If this still feels a little underpowered, additional Yrch ships can be "spawned in" or more ships can be added to the above.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Yo yo peeps.
So for everyone not active daily in Discord.
Sorry for going Awol for, like, the last few months.
Putting my feet back in the water and working on some posts to get back into the swing of things.

[Elheru Aran]

Time for a little OOC behind-the-scenes!

So, please note that these details are not necessarily relevant to anybody's personal faction, unless they want it to be. These have been mostly cooked up between VX-145 and myself with contributing thoughts from Crossroads.

On the one hand, we have... all the player factions. On the other, we have... Amazo-X, with the Yrch as ally/slave soldiers. Good enough, right?

Is it ever? So naturally we had to give it some story!

Let me explain... no, there is too much. Let me sum up. [/Montoya]

Bezos, the wizened master of Amazo-X (alongside the perennially annoying parasite Elon) is deeply, powerfully committed to one purpose: immortality. Power, to Bezos, is a given, but eternal life is not. Consequently, he has explored paths both conventional and... unconventional. The Yrch tied into this at one point; the alien device beneath the surface of their world that sustained them through the ecological holocaust of their past is connected to other dimensions, and Bezos may or may not have investigated this. We don't know if anything came of it... yet. Likewise, odds are very good that Bezos has messed at some point with the eldila, extradimensional beings that are somehow associated with the Theophanic Empire.

Enter one Flagg, R. Yes, this is the same Randall Flagg of Stephen King's books, on another turn of the wheel. For those unfamiliar with him, he's a bastard who serves (more or less the literal) Satan, while plotting to overthrow him and achieve control of... existence itself, pretty much. How exactly he would achieve this is an exercise left to the reader, and is vaguely unimportant... except for the detail that he is using Bezos towards this end somehow, dangling immortality before him as a considerable carrot. He may or may not also be manipulating elements of the Theophanic Empire towards his ends-- or so he thinks-- as well, but those details will come in due course.

All this to note that Amazo-X's plan as Turn 2 winds up, is almost certainly significant in some fashion towards Bezos' goals. Perhaps he is hoping to execute enormous numbers of helpless citizens as a sacrifice to Eldritch Powers to gain immortality; perhaps this serves Flagg's goals in some way; who the hell knows. It's a Bad Thing, is good enough. It may be safely assumed that things may will get weird.

It behooves us to keep in mind that right now, apart from a very few people who largely do not appear within the game, nobody knows any of this in-context (but we may be working on that in future posts). And therefore, it need not impinge upon your faction directly-- participate as you like or not. For the most part, as we have noted, all this is just backstory; it's not terribly relevant to the events of the game, other than as flavor. But we welcome anybody interested and would be happy to discuss/work out things. Otherwise, carry on!

Future... Things to Think About:

Why doesn't the Theophanic Empire have any aliens?

What are the Skothians not telling us?

Where are the Children of Endeavour coming from, and why?

Finally:

Does Rei really like pie?

[Rogue 9]

*Loads Bullshit Defeat Munition with malicious intent*

[Elheru Aran]

Quick ghetto edit:

The tactical situation presented at Helios III is a large Yrch mothership approaching the planet at very high speeds. Presumably it is charged with attacking either the Nashtaris directly... or maybe they're interested in the Skothian present on-world. Or they're running late for a pizza delivery. Either way, things are about to get interesting quite quickly.

Secondly: Portions of post contributed by Rogue 9 and Crossroads Inc. Apologies for not crediting in post.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Hey all!
So, mostly because of the lack of edit function, needed to point something out from my last post.
It pretty much makes zero difference to the plot, but it’s just been bugging me…

Basically Darnethlil would NOT have said “they lost a Rei” as, while thanks to Adric he has a vague understanding of Anime, he hasn’t exactly read up much about the endeavors. Simply having ANY human appear on the planet like that would be cause enough to reach out to one of the other human powers…

That’s pretty much it. Just needed to say it officially lol.

[Elheru Aran]

I keep meaning to post this and I keep forgetting, so I'll get it out of the way right now while I'm thinking of it...

I didn't build anything Turn 1, so I banked production from that, which left me with 1358 IP. As a result, in turn 2 (which is the current turn, of course), I will be building (really, summoning from some corner or other of the Empire, but whatever)... 5 Thorikto dreadnoughts (500 IP), 5 Magnatrabes Battleships (350), and 10 Neokastro Cruisers (500 IP), for a total of 9 (lost one in the Thor-Yeet-To Incident) Thoriktos, 15 Magnatrabes and 30 Neokastro. The new ships will be activated in turn 3 as per usual.

Please feel free to check my math. This is the current version (I think) of my 00B spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing