Gothic Campaign Comments Thread

[db48x]

Using the Dark Eldar's own ship against them is a clever tactic and makes for a great narrative moment, well played.

Now that mines are fixed, he should deploy some between Damocles and his sensor field. When he goes in to attack a slave ship, the rest of the Eldar fleet will leave Damocles to help, and will run right across the minefield.

[Bremen]

Using the Dark Eldar's own ship against them is a clever tactic and makes for a great narrative moment, well played.

Now that mines are fixed, he should deploy some between Damocles and his sensor field. When he goes in to attack a slave ship, the rest of the Eldar fleet will leave Damocles to help, and will run right across the minefield.

That doesn't seem like it would gain him much. The raiders don't use missiles, so he can fire as many as he wants at them pretty freely. The problem is only the new special anti-raider missiles can actually hit them, and even those not well. Diverting industry that could be producing the new missiles into more expensive mines seems like a straight up loss.

[db48x]

Using the Dark Eldar's own ship against them is a clever tactic and makes for a great narrative moment, well played.

Now that mines are fixed, he should deploy some between Damocles and his sensor field. When he goes in to attack a slave ship, the rest of the Eldar fleet will leave Damocles to help, and will run right across the minefield.

That doesn't seem like it would gain him much. The raiders don't use missiles, so he can fire as many as he wants at them pretty freely. The problem is only the new special anti-raider missiles can actually hit them, and even those not well. Diverting industry that could be producing the new missiles into more expensive mines seems like a straight up loss.

Except that his Starhawk bombers take 80 minutes to reload. If they lay a salvo of mines, and then reload with their normal light missiles, the next battle could see two or more effective salvos out of them.

[AlStar]

Except that his Starhawk bombers take 80 minutes to reload. If they lay a salvo of mines, and then reload with their normal light missiles, the next battle could see two or more effective salvos out of them.

The main bottleneck is missile production - Steve specifically mentions that the current fleet has virtually all of the new (actually able to hit with any kind of %) missiles. He doesn't have the production needed to also produce mines - which isn't surprising when even your "improved" missiles miss about 80% of the time.

[Garfunkel]

So, the raiders get raided in turn! Great update.

[db48x]

The main bottleneck is missile production - Steve specifically mentions that the current fleet has virtually all of the new (actually able to hit with any kind of %) missiles. He doesn't have the production needed to also produce mines - which isn't surprising when even your "improved" missiles miss about 80% of the time.

Yes, I take it for granted that he is producing new missiles non–stop. It follows then that he would need to produce one fewer missile for every mine he uses.

The only important unknown is whether he can squeeze the sensor and reactor into the mine without losing so much range or warhead strength as to make it useless.

[Froggiest1982]

Using the Dark Eldar's own ship against them is a clever tactic and makes for a great narrative moment, well played.

Now that mines are fixed, he should deploy some between Damocles and his sensor field. When he goes in to attack a slave ship, the rest of the Eldar fleet will leave Damocles to help, and will run right across the minefield.

Actually, it may be the time to finally add back the self destruct button? Just for the sanity of those who may want to clean up the mess after a search and destroy mission.




 

[Demetrious]

I like Steve's AARs. I have, occasionally, gone back to read his prior C# AARs, especially the previous Imperium-themed ones. They're fairly brief as AARs go, but are more lavish in detail when it's needed (battles etc.) It lets me enjoy the tactical challenges Steve faces while also getting to see how someone else handles the "grand strategy" challenges.

I have to make some time to advance my current game to a good stopping point because I really want to fight these new NPRs as well when the next version drops. 

[nuclearslurpee]

So it looks like the raiders not only upgrade their ships over time, but actually do so at a fairly quick pace. That means they should remain pretty challenging through much of the game unless you can really cripple them in the early going. Otherwise it is a technological race for a while yet.

[Froggiest1982]

Minor error: The Defiant class was described and design as a light carrier but in the Aurora design has been classified as a light cruiser.

Was re reading today and just noticed.

[Zincat]

A very entertaining read. A hard fought battle, but it seems the imperium is the winner this time.

It also seems, just as I thought before, that massed beam starfighters would be very effective. Costly yes, but then again using a ton of missiles is costly too, and they're not fast to be produced.

A couple of question.
I noticed you killed every single enemy ship. Did you consider that trying to capture any of them was impractical/too costly?
From your description, at least one of the raptors during the furies engagement seemed to be without working weapons, but maybe I got that wrong.

Also, are you going to shift productions towards morer beam fighters/warships?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

A very entertaining read. A hard fought battle, but it seems the imperium is the winner this time.

It also seems, just as I thought before, that massed beam starfighters would be very effective. Costly yes, but then again using a ton of missiles is costly too, and they're not fast to be produced.

A couple of question.
I noticed you killed every single enemy ship. Did you consider that trying to capture any of them was impractical/too costly?
From your description, at least one of the raptors during the furies engagement seemed to be without working weapons, but maybe I got that wrong.

Also, are you going to shift productions towards morer beam fighters/warships?

Yes, one of the Raptors wasn't firing. It had probably lost fire control.

I do agree that massed beam-armed fighters seems like a good option. One Fury II costs the same as 38 MK III torpedoes, so the full waves of 768 torpedoes were equivalent to the cost of twenty Furies. The Furies also require a lower percentage of Gallicite than the torpedoes. I also believe that double the number of Furies would be more effective than double the number of torpedoes, so I do plan to increase the proportion of interceptors to bombers, assuming I can resolve the Gallicite crisis.

Capture is tricky with the Eldar. They are fast, so boarding at full speed isn't a good idea, plus even when disabled they tend to have active energy weapons that would destroy the Thunderhawks. I may make more of an effort in future, but for now I just wanted them gone

[nuclearslurpee]

I like the rate of updates in this AAR. They come out quicker than the last couple of AARs which means Steve is having fun with the new spoilers - which means only good things for the rest of us when 1.14 releases!

I'm really loving the tactical richness in these Dark Eldar fights. I'll admit that I'm still worried that the new spoilers will be a bit too much on a 500m pop start, but it definitely seems like there will be a lot of creative ways to even the odds with a technologically inferior fleet.

A very close-run battle in Proxima. Certainly a great victory though I imagine the fighter corps will have difficulty recruiting new Fury pilots given the rather concerning mortality rate. Still, in the grim darkness of Imperium Naval calculus, as Zincat says probably a cheaper solution than expending even more expensive missiles, although gallicite will be a concern either way.

Meanwhile in Ullanor, an Emissary class Diplomatic Station had been towed into orbit of the alien-occupied moon in an attempt to establish communications. The alien ground force continued to ignore all hails, so the Death Korps of Krieg was on en route to the planet to encourage a response.

I see the cliffhanger bug is leaking from Stormtrooper's AARs... 

Capture is tricky with the Eldar. They are fast, so boarding at full speed isn't a good idea, plus even when disabled they tend to have active energy weapons that would destroy the Thunderhawks. I may make more of an effort in future, but for now I just wanted them gone

The solution is to follow classic Imperial doctrine and maximize the advantage of numbers. 

[Neophyte]

Having a new interceptor variant armed with microwaves (the Panasonic-class ) mixed in with the Furies would increase the lifespan of the interceptors once they finally get in range of the Eldar ships. 

But perhaps the Imperium sees microwave weapons as perverted abominations in the sight of the Omnissiah!

[El Pip]

Having a new interceptor variant armed with microwaves (the Panasonic-class ) mixed in with the Furies would increase the lifespan of the interceptors once they finally get in range of the Eldar ships.

But perhaps the Imperium sees microwave weapons as perverted abominations in the sight of the Omnissiah!

If the Eldar ships couldn't shoot back then it would be easier to capture them as well, so perhaps the lure of all that advanced Xeno tech would make the Mechanicum overlook the heresy and embrace microwaves.