I have one quick request, meant to be taken as non-confrontationally and politely as possible.
(I merely specify because sometimes it's difficult to get tone down in text.)
Could you perhaps change the name of this thread? It's named exactly the same as Steve's 1889 campaign comments thread, which means you're likely to get some people clicking the wrong thing, if they're using the 'recently updated' forum readout like I am.
That said, you did successfully snare another reader, so maybe you don't want to!
Whoa, a new Starfire campaign! Wasn't expecting this. Will definitely follow.
I don't really understand what's going on, having never actually played Starfire. But it's a fun read nonetheless! I'm hoping that when it comes to fighting or rising tensions you might pull the curtain back a little on the mechanics, just to give us ignorati a peek.
Could you lay out why the Coalition has both less income and more upkeep with a smaller fleet?
That's fair, but I was getting the sense from the narrative that the USSR constantly has a larger and more capable space fleet in terms of both hulls in use and hull sizes, and the coalition is scrambling to catch up.
When I total their OoB, the only major difference is the Coalition has twice the number of PDCs - I'm guessing they have outsized maintenance costs compared to ships?
No point defense on the Nelsons? Is that a compromise to get the prototype built as quickly as possible? Is there a refit already planned to upgrade the ships' tech?
That's fair, but I was getting the sense from the narrative that the USSR constantly has a larger and more capable space fleet in terms of both hulls in use and hull sizes, and the coalition is scrambling to catch up.
When I total their OoB, the only major difference is the Coalition has twice the number of PDCs - I'm guessing they have outsized maintenance costs compared to ships?
It's 15% for ships, 5% for orbital bases & PDCs. . . oh, and PDCs get "free" armour 'cause it's basically rocks.
The difference might actually be accounted for in ground forces, since I didn't see any listed but they also cost maintenance.
Yeah the reduction of the shipyard build speed by a factor of 2 in our game really changed the pace and made fleets smaller and a lot more of a playable scale. Also it made battles more meaningful since you could not just pump out ships willy nilly.
Some other changes: mine fields take 1 HS to build, each DSB is 0.1 HS, we don't use the missile fund but build the missiles at 0.01 HS per MSP...as we are now at AM and AAM this has resulted in magazine costs that stagger you...the RM had to sit for 3-4 turns as they dug themselves out of the hole their new missiles set them in....carriers construction costs are dwarfed by their magazine costs, we set growth to the per turn growth but only every 10 turns(or something like that), no colonization of asteroids, fL has 3 shots against a ship but is unlimited in dogfighting, we also use Steve's logistic rules which dramatically alter the ability to send fleets places, also to deploy minefields/armed DSB you need a tender ship in system
As much as it added to the micro management stuff I always thought the problem with starfire empires is that too much necessary infrastructure had 0 maintenance cost. I understand Marvin's reasoning but making such things cost money (CFN terminals etc) meant that you put a cost on expansion so that you didn't get the snowball effect you otherwise experienced in standard 3rdR/IS economics. I mean basically every economic investment in Starfire is good, some are better than others but that is the only consideration.
Well to illustrate the effect of our changes:
Turn 228
Shanirian Income: 125, 337 MCr ~750 inhabited worlds (in 81 systems)
Build Speed: 15 HS/Turn
Fleet: 48 BB, 62 BC, 81 CA, 161 CL, 202 DD plus 118 MWP, 156 LWP, 552 DefS with 95 ships in mothballs
I admit the Shanirian's don't invest heavily in IU on benign worlds (due to being "green") but they have loads of moon colonies.
Capital ships take, even now, 7+ turns to build, but for the DD, CL, and CA this is about as fast as it gets at 2, 3 and 4 turns each.
The München crew really did an analysis of what we needed to change to keep the empire sizes manageable. Starslayer and I are both happy with the outcome. A lot of battles are not pushed as hard as they could be just because loosing capital ships hurts so it is better to break off and preserve them. That the phyco-seals have survived this long is in part due to that. I'm not sure how much longer they can keep it together though.
And yeah both yours and Steves games were a reason we looked at how to keep the economy and fleet under control.
Small correction, its turn 288.
Even the Thebans, who almalgenated three races, have not that much of a huge economy: 287278 MCs from 137 habited systems. !179 settled worlds (moons excluded). Homeworlds excluded, the biggest colony is now 647 pop. The Theban map dwarves the rigellian map when Steve ended his campaign, but the income is far smaller and ships/fleets are far more scattered. What the thebans though have is a heavy investment in bases as fixed defenses and several nodal fleets wich get deployed to points of interrest. Unfortunately I am running out of significant fleets compared to the brushfires. Especially as the bugs overran one of my defensive fleets.. hello gunboats wich I never saw before vs. my close in laser armed fleet... nom nom nom.
Overall this had kept battle sizes down to a manegable level (but for 800 GB vs 400 fighter battles...) but it beats the concentional munich campaign where at turn 80 we saw 120 SD being tossed through a WP. Unmanegable.
Just for interrest, our current settings:
Research is halved. Build rates: 5 + TL HS/turn. Growth: High 7.5%, Medium 3.5%, Low 2.3% everys 10 turns. No asteroid colonisation (a rather big factor in keeping economy small).
We initially started with normal research rates, but found that prototypes and refits weren't even finishedby the time the next TL rolled around, so we slowed it down correxpondingly. Wich allows a TL to persist for some time and be used.
Also, I fudged the WP generation, making the apearance of high number of WP nexi rather rare.
Last time I played, I cut research to 'one project at a time' to vastly slow down the TL-to-TL interval. Eventually we allowed a second, crash-research-only project during war.
What's motivating the Russian's instance on renewing the war? Are they convinced that they have an insurmountable military edge against the aliens and the Alliance so that they can go it alone?
It's been interesting to see how each of the powers is developing in different directions - the Alliance securing several prime colony sites gives them their first real chance of catching up with the USSR since the game began. If they can begin building ship building industry there, they can safely build their fleet without worrying the Soviets and escalating the situation in the Sol system.
I love this, cant wait to see the fate of this Co-Dominion.
I just wanted to say I'm enjoying reading.
I do have a question, did the Russians not keep all the known jump points under sensor coverage after breaking the alliance? That seems rather short sighted if they were intending on starting a war with a power which could potentially be behind any of them.
I don't quite see how else the Collation managed to jump to a new system and survey it without the Russians knowing. Even then they might have been able to infer what they were doing by tracking ship numbers.
<snip>
Interesting times are happening in your game to be sure...the D'brin are certainly loosing ships at a high rate. I did notice the fleet HQ asteroid fort has no massive storage capacity in it...and I would consider collapsing systems a bit more when designing such a thing. I'll add more to Starslayers data dump over the week.
I would have added 6 more HS and made it (Hx5B)x6 just to stop the collapse!
I know next to nothing about Starfire, so I can't comment on the ship designs, but I will say that I am really enjoying this story! It sounds like the Soviets might lose their advantage soon as long as the Coalition can keep ahead in colonization like they have been.
Also, the update about the Coalition colonizing next door to the poor Tarek reminds me of another game (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=1004.0) you once played :).
I would have added 6 more HS and made it (Hx5B)x6 just to stop the collapse!
I thought about that, but it is so deeply buried that the Soviets weren't too worried about collapse damage. If damage gets that deep, they are screwed anyway. plus, the Sovs are all about saving a few mega-credits where they can.
Kurt
I would have added 6 more HS and made it (Hx5B)x6 just to stop the collapse!
I thought about that, but it is so deeply buried that the Soviets weren't too worried about collapse damage. If damage gets that deep, they are screwed anyway. plus, the Sovs are all about saving a few mega-credits where they can.
Kurt
Makes sense though in that case I'd have put them at the very end: so it ends up "Hx30LhQ" but another thing that the München campaigns showed was that there was a lot of variance in how people built ships even for the same mission. I have to admit that the theory of Asteroid Forts never quite makes it to reality for me...I'm damned if I know why but I've never built one though a race facing off against the J'Rill horde had 2 of them and they were a good part of the reason they survived as long as they did.
I should do that MCr saving thing more often but it is hard to not use the best toys when you got them sorta thing.
Did you manipulate the luck of the draw for the recent survey gold mine the Soviet-ski's have come up with? The closed warp point will be very interesting for the humans. Though the D'bring will need to have more of a fleet then 9 CAs to even make a showing against the soviet-ski's ...it might be time to break out the gunboats!
Been enjoying this Kurt, thank you :)
Before the whole 3DG vs Marvin schism largely killed my interest along with further development of SA, I was using some ideas from 4th in my 3rd edition Haggi campaign, along with some other optional rules. For example, the Linked Beams option from Communique, extra missile range for bases/AF/PDC (+3/+5/+7), changes to WP capacities, so you could get more ships through based off HS rather than just one per impulse, primaries 3HS but can only penetrate TL*5 shields and armour, and so on
Stephen
*sighs* well Starslayer and I are, hell I only know him because of the starfire mailing list.
It was a defining event alright. I wasn't directly involved. It was painful to watch from the sidelines. I tried to get the locals in München interested in 4th edition but no dice without a starfire assistant replacement. It is sorta the gold standard for this kinda game in my mind. I'm good at EXCEL and I tried with that but very quickly ran into trouble at turn 20 or so of a 4thE solo game.
I have to admit I find the "Ai exist therefore the L is useless" an interesting argument given the F faces the same level of Ai plus the shields a ship may be carrying, it just does more damage. I'm curious to see what the sovietski's do when the Wa rears its ugly head. That is a seriously overpowered system once AM shows up. The shanirian's kept the L is service for warp point defense purposes...since stripping XOs was a bonus. I sorta think that the "SM" is part of the problem the W would not be so much overpowered if you had to decide how many "sprint" and how many "regular" missiles will I carry...that you can use one missile for both tasks removes a bit of strategic choice and contributes to making it overpowering. But in many ways I think this may be something that can be laid on David Webers shoulders, weapon systems he liked got special treatment (HETs are the only capital beam weapon that both get smaller but also do more damage and are longer ranged with each generation)...if not David Weber then someone decided certain weapons are the "meta" and all other ones got the other end of the stick.
Would anyone happen to still possess the files for the Phoenix campaign? I tried but all the links I found were dead.
I also note that I find this discussion of ancient history rather interesting.
On Weber and "bending the game system" have you ever played the Stars at War Scenarios? I never found a single description of how the battle turned out that matched the way it played out in the game, though I didn't play all of them so some might...in my view by fluke of luck. The 3 starting ISW3 ones are just hilariously different in the Stars at War book compared to how they turn out in the game system. Or as caused considerable shock in a game "When Enemies Join Hands..." when I had to point out it is putting F2 or F3 up against F0... I just had the Rigillians be drive field down well away from the WP and launched a long range fighter strike...I made the mistake of arming it for anti-fighter work since I was thinking to take out their fighters and then deal with the ships... That turned out to be not required when you actually see how much more movement an advanced fighter has, so I just went on to kill the carriers...needless to say we stopped that game. ISW4 just plain doesn't work that way... Command Datagroups of BC would have no chance against 3rdR SDs...for that battle result the bugs need to mount Z and D, not Z/Zi and Dx. Even worse is the designs of the CLs...they could not keep up to the SDs without risking engine burnout...they need to have speed 6 just to match strategic speeds. I enjoy the books (and consider Stars at War more in that light) but it is clear they ignore the game system. David Webers rule writing it also wonderful but it lacks the clarity of Avalon Hill leading to serious questions on how things are supposed to work, presser beams being one of the worst offenders. Still Imperial Starfire is by far one of the most readable sets of game rules I've ever seen. Heck it is FUN to read.
4thE had several good things but it was bland. There was no real difference between the beam weapons, and I found it "roll many dice and do nothing" in terms of combat. The attempt to balance things killed the whole "I have the new wünderwaffen!" feeling. This is true of HoI IV as well...in a wargame you have to accept that imbalance exists...it just alternates...as either the defense or the offense always should be ahead. Plus my feeling on the economics was that it didn't solve the problem it just pushed it back, it would take longer than a game Marvin liked for the economic snowball to rear its head but it was still there. The Rich get Richer, Faster and Faster is the result of an over simplified economic model you can't solve it by tweeking the model parameters you need a new model.
Starslayer is a fan of the Dx/Dec system. Be advised that SA doesn't properly use the warheads in the magazine though. What I am not a fan of is the next generation of it, that basically gives you all the good stuff and removes the risk of using it.
The problem with EXCEL is that it isn't a database, and for this you need a database. If you understood the database stuff well enough it might be possible to write linked EXCEL spreadsheets using EXCELs database functions to track all the data you need to track but that requires skills I don't have. And having I think it was 4 spreadsheets PER RACE was just not going to work properly. It is book keeping hell. Starslayer is adamant: "Does it have the equivalent of SA? If not we won't try it!" I've tried to get him to try a couple of other systems and get that response each time :)
Found it on Starfire Design https://www.starfiredesign.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=51&start=250Would anyone happen to still possess the files for the Phoenix campaign? I tried but all the links I found were dead.
I also note that I find this discussion of ancient history rather interesting.
I could probably dig it up if I took a bit of time. It might still be up on the Starfire website message board, if you want to go look.
The old Starfire Mailing List was kind of a golden age for interest in starfire, IMHO, before the community split and all of the resulting bad feelings. No one talked about the schism for a long time, mostly, I think, for fear of reigniting the old wars that raged around the schism.
Kurt
Yeah, SA brought back life to Starfire, in my view at least. I also still think if other people had not got involved Marvin and Steve could have sorted the issues out. But there was too much partisan influence...or at least that is certainly the way it looked to an outsider (me). But SA is pretty much "gold standard" for campaign game support. And amazingly Steve was willing to put stuff in it that he didn't use which made it wonderful for the rest of us. One thing that SA allowed was long detailed campaigns, and those are the things that generate interest and attract new players or even drag older ones back. 4thE isn't bad, I like it, I like a lot of the changes and ideas in it, especially the tech system but it is so damned balanced it has no heartbeat to it. Generic missile weapon type 1 and generic beam weapon type 3 and small craft do-dad type A aren't the same as SBM, E-beams, and Gunboats compared to CM, HETs and fighters. I never get the feeling looking at the changes they made that you suddenly go "ooooh I just got (tech system) wow that is going to require me to have a think about how my ships are used/built!"
The Schism was a while back...you were knee high to a duck sorta thing must be 6+ years now.
Yeah, SA brought back life to Starfire, in my view at least. I also still think if other people had not got involved Marvin and Steve could have sorted the issues out. But there was too much partisan influence...or at least that is certainly the way it looked to an outsider (me). But SA is pretty much "gold standard" for campaign game support. And amazingly Steve was willing to put stuff in it that he didn't use which made it wonderful for the rest of us. One thing that SA allowed was long detailed campaigns, and those are the things that generate interest and attract new players or even drag older ones back. 4thE isn't bad, I like it, I like a lot of the changes and ideas in it, especially the tech system but it is so damned balanced it has no heartbeat to it. Generic missile weapon type 1 and generic beam weapon type 3 and small craft do-dad type A aren't the same as SBM, E-beams, and Gunboats compared to CM, HETs and fighters. I never get the feeling looking at the changes they made that you suddenly go "ooooh I just got (tech system) wow that is going to require me to have a think about how my ships are used/built!"
The Schism was a while back...you were knee high to a duck sorta thing must be 6+ years now.
We all know who you mean, especially those of us who were in 3DG. But end of discussion for me there.
Pretty much sums up my opinion on SA and 4th too.
I still have lots of archived messages from the mailing list, good times
More like 10 years ago from the dates on my files. Feeling old yet? I am :D
Stephen
Yeah, SA brought back life to Starfire, in my view at least. I also still think if other people had not got involved Marvin and Steve could have sorted the issues out. But there was too much partisan influence...or at least that is certainly the way it looked to an outsider (me). But SA is pretty much "gold standard" for campaign game support. And amazingly Steve was willing to put stuff in it that he didn't use which made it wonderful for the rest of us. One thing that SA allowed was long detailed campaigns, and those are the things that generate interest and attract new players or even drag older ones back. 4thE isn't bad, I like it, I like a lot of the changes and ideas in it, especially the tech system but it is so damned balanced it has no heartbeat to it. Generic missile weapon type 1 and generic beam weapon type 3 and small craft do-dad type A aren't the same as SBM, E-beams, and Gunboats compared to CM, HETs and fighters. I never get the feeling looking at the changes they made that you suddenly go "ooooh I just got (tech system) wow that is going to require me to have a think about how my ships are used/built!"
The Schism was a while back...you were knee high to a duck sorta thing must be 6+ years now.
We all know who you mean, especially those of us who were in 3DG. But end of discussion for me there.
Pretty much sums up my opinion on SA and 4th too.
I still have lots of archived messages from the mailing list, good times
More like 10 years ago from the dates on my files. Feeling old yet? I am :D
Stephen
Longer even than that, I think. Oh, man, I just looked at some of my old emails. The final split was early 2005, so fifteen years ago. Ouch.
So for you, Warer, you were a toddler at the time. Ugh, now I do feel old.
Kurt
“Clan Lord, the prey have stopped dead in space, and are attempting communications. Their fleet consists of 6 strength 15 vessels, with 6 strength 3 escorting vessels.” The sensor officer hesitated as he studied his instruments, then straightened and said with the utmost disdain, “Sir, they have.... Shields!”EDIT Added back in the proper line so that the whole post wasn't a quote.
Thruckun bared his fangs in a grimace. “Truly, they are prey to cower behind...defenses. Communications, Fleet orders. All ships are to accelerate to maximum speed and attack. Battleships will remain at long range and engage with missiles, all other ships will close and attack. For the honor of Torkal. FOR THE UNIVERSE!”
Yeah, SA brought back life to Starfire, in my view at least. I also still think if other people had not got involved Marvin and Steve could have sorted the issues out. But there was too much partisan influence...or at least that is certainly the way it looked to an outsider (me). But SA is pretty much "gold standard" for campaign game support. And amazingly Steve was willing to put stuff in it that he didn't use which made it wonderful for the rest of us. One thing that SA allowed was long detailed campaigns, and those are the things that generate interest and attract new players or even drag older ones back. 4thE isn't bad, I like it, I like a lot of the changes and ideas in it, especially the tech system but it is so damned balanced it has no heartbeat to it. Generic missile weapon type 1 and generic beam weapon type 3 and small craft do-dad type A aren't the same as SBM, E-beams, and Gunboats compared to CM, HETs and fighters. I never get the feeling looking at the changes they made that you suddenly go "ooooh I just got (tech system) wow that is going to require me to have a think about how my ships are used/built!"
The Schism was a while back...you were knee high to a duck sorta thing must be 6+ years now.
We all know who you mean, especially those of us who were in 3DG. But end of discussion for me there.
Pretty much sums up my opinion on SA and 4th too.
I still have lots of archived messages from the mailing list, good times
More like 10 years ago from the dates on my files. Feeling old yet? I am :D
Stephen
Longer even than that, I think. Oh, man, I just looked at some of my old emails. The final split was early 2005, so fifteen years ago. Ouch.
So for you, Warer, you were a toddler at the time. Ugh, now I do feel old.
Kurt
I can`t even remember where my family was living at that time so i feel young, thanks for that ;D. Also reading the Terran Campaign and have reached the Battle of Khalia, all i have to say is that you make the best aliens. https://www.starfiredesign.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=586Quote“Clan Lord, the prey have stopped dead in space, and are attempting communications. Their fleet consists of 6 strength 15 vessels, with 6 strength 3 escorting vessels.” The sensor officer hesitated as he studied his instruments, then straightened and said with the utmost disdain, “Sir, they have.... Shields!”EDIT Added back in the proper line so that the whole post wasn't a quote.
Thruckun bared his fangs in a grimace. “Truly, they are prey to cower behind...defenses. Communications, Fleet orders. All ships are to accelerate to maximum speed and attack. Battleships will remain at long range and engage with missiles, all other ships will close and attack. For the honor of Torkal. FOR THE UNIVERSE!”
Yeah...hell I've been where I am for more than six years now...I'm feeling ancient...
Well the no-shields thing the Drakes are big on, but even they got their limbs twisted to the point their assault ships carry passive defenses...just not as many as most assault ships do. But they still sent their deep space ships through and that was...ouch! Their assault cruisers charging the enemy SDs was also ouch!!! But the only thing that saved that battle was me tossing 300 pods through the warp point but the damage to essentially every ship in the combined force meant no follow up battle...plus those were the pods intended for the next warp point. But having 6 SDs decloak on me was "un-expected" to say the least. Given the RM has also got cloak...I have to remember to install it on their next generation of bases as well...what I can't figure out is where the damned partial write up for it vanished too...maybe I need to look on my slaptop...
I see the Russkies have worked out that they can't ignore the RC...I wondered when that would happen and what they would do...as they have a commanding military presence in the Sol system.
think the coalition's endgame is to become markedly less terra-reliant than the russians. i would have extra-solar shipyards as a high, high priority. the first time a credible coalition warship is spotted, that wasn't manufactured on earth, the forecast ability of the russians goes way down.
also, if they're aware of how the economics stand, they should be star wars-ing like mad things. bases, i'd say. the russians just have to blink first in a major arms race, and when they do being able to mothball high-maintenance units and keep a majority of your arms active is a durable advantage.
if i knew in advance when the extra-solar holdings are going to become even remotely self-sufficient, i would lay down an asteroid fortress to complete on that date, and there would be some kind of snafu that prevented me from moving it OUT of orbit promptly. oopsie, my bad.
Interesting update. While I've been wishing that the Coalition would stand up for itself and stop letting the Soviets walk all over it, I'm not sure putting a racist (specist?) leader in charge is the way to fix that.
Of course what they don't know is that the Soviets can hire a few BC fleets from their new military allies and let 'rogue aliens' jump into the Coalition-controlled jump points and flatten colonies.
Also, with the inspections, what is to stop the two human sides from misstating the sizes of their colonies and transshipping trade goods by sending them first to a colony, and then onward to the partner alien species?
feel both sides have helped each other significantly here :)
the russians produced a crisis that was acute instead of chronic, and resolved in a way that specifically doesnt interfere with coalition colonization. they handed the coalition the fine idea to support the d'brngi and alerted the coalition to the possibility of gyrfalcon's excellent suggestion being followed. the coalition, in an universe where diplomacy is the optimal method of acquiring major population hubs, have adopted a MCGA foreign "policy". feel the score is 2-1 russians, all own goals.
full marks on verisimilitude, Kurt.
I'd say the RCN is going to run into a problem with the crabs... For one thing showing the CAs means they can now build them... Trying to keep Wunderland and not dealing with the Aliens...that isn't really sensible or long term sustainable given how fast they got to HT1. Also they may be building PDCs as well as armed SS...and frankly though it is extremely costy they can also pre-fab a SY and then assemble it in orbit...with ground industry the process is fast just very costy. Ah well short sighted politicians will be an issue...it is going to be interesting what happens there.
I don't even see what the coalition were hoping for. so the tarek write on a piece of paper "oh yeah, we TOTALLY won't overrun your colony and blockade the warp points after you give us a couple years of uninterrupted expansion"? i mean that's the best case. the biggest problem the tarek pose right now is how to keep a million gallons of butter sauce from spoiling in transit, but things compound *fast* in starfire.
what's ETA on tech level 6 for the coalition?
How does it work in Starfire? I get the idea from the comments here that if a race sees a hull from a (much) higher tech level in any capacity, they can then attempt to reproduce the hull, even if they aren't at a tech level that would allow for it?
So if someone shows up with a battleship in a HT-1 system and orbits that species homeworld, they could (foolishly) attempt to build their own battleship(s), long before they're at a tech level where they would unlock the hull naturally?
"30 isn't the biggest number there is?!? Wait, hold on!" (intense thinking) "K I got it. 45 is _actually_ the biggest number"
-everyone
also: going from the invention of _agriculture_ to the invention of the reactionless starship drive, unassisted, in a single generation? that's an "everyone" thing too.
They can prototype anything in between faster though as they don't have the 1/2 speed restriction on it. They just have to pay the 5xhull cost for the prototyping. So it is still a big advantage. A low tech race building a BB well yeah it is a bad BB but it is still a BB. So once the crabs finish a CA (assuming they start one) then they will still have to prototype a DD or a CL but they won't have to prototype their way up the chain ES-CT-FG-DD-CL-CA. And even a HT1 CA is a threat to the in system squadron of CTs and ESs.
A HT1 CA is doable. It just doesn't have the speed advantage to close with a HT3 CA and its SM, W, Z and D advantage.
Why do the Tarek hate the Coalition so badly? Is it just little-man syndrome 'they ignored our demands!!!!!1!' combined with raging, frothing xenophobia and genocidal urges?
nice installation, kurt.
it seems "it doesn't matter how they got there" is the wrongest statement in the story so far :)
battle was really close in raw tonnage. what were the relative positions of the rehorsish and soviet fleets when the ambush started? did the bad guys have any other tech advantage than E? seems like it must have been a pretty fun battle to play out. reasonably competitive and intense, but manageable in size.
edit: reading skills. relative positions in the story. nm
Wow, that was an unexpected turn. Looking forward to how the Soviets deal with suddenly being the weaker party after being used to being able to throw their weight around with impunity.
Before that though, they’re going to notice when the Russians go to serial production of all the light ships they lost that were the escorts for their battlecruisers. This will probably trigger some amount of panic when it looks like Russia is wildly escalating the size of its navy.
so you've got a powerful neighbor, with whom you share a time-tested military treaty aimed specifically at your current enemy, and activating it is the last thing in the world you want to do, pretty good feeling i bet. and just how worried do you think the soviets are that there is diplomacy going on between the dbringi and coalition?
soviets have another military alliance to activate, right? like a mercenary deal? have you ever said, kurt, how much force they can draw upon through that treaty?
Well the sovietski's are rather looped...looking at the map and assuming the R's manage to stop most of the Red Banner's CDs (which they have a reasonable chance of doing) this leaves the CD from the colony and the lone scout ship to get the message to the politburo...unfortunately after that things go very bleak.
Based on the map if the Sovietski's can keep the location of the closed WPs to Novosibrisk and Tomsk from the R's then they loose just most of their empire if the R's get Astorgation data from the colony and learn of the location of the WP to Kirov the the sovietskies loose most of their gains and are limited to counterattacking from Smolensk. The R's get to Tomsk eventually anyway via Ivanovo and Novograd...
The surge in construction plus the lack of shipments in supplies for the fleet are going to tip off the RCs that something is up. Also the sovietski's lack an assault ship outside of their CLs...any offensive could be problematic. The good news is that if the closed warp point in Kirov is not revealed to the R's allows them to attack/raid and basically fight deep space battles where the BCs Rc can be used to full effect... Another problem may well be crew grade plus they lost one of their two average admirals....so the rest will be green. The fact the R's were basically locked away by the soviet control of Novosibirsk well...a diplomatic issue they never tried to deal with...where as apparently the D'bringi had a better offer.
The sovietski's exploration fleet will also be forced to surrender...given it is unarmed EXs...the sovietski's may learn from this that is a VERY bad idea.
It is a bad time to be human...
ooh ohh....a worse day to be human seems to have arrived...good one Kurt! ouch!...ouch!!....ouch!!!
well...well...well...if the D'bringi stay on that side of the warp point then the RC will not have a diplomatic issue...and the sovietski's will have supply issues...oh boy...if they have mines even getting out of the system may be tricky.
I hope the sovietski's have someone watching the Kirov warp point while they go on their scout...as it may take a few turns for the Rheanish to get the astrogation data (if any) from the colony.
Still...oh boy...the Sovietski's are getting hit hard. Outside of nuclear winter...the RC could take them out easy now...of course the Rheanish likely can't tell apart or don't care what "type" of human they see. But the angry crabs are considerably less of a threat to the RC then the Rheanish right now...though with enough distraction they may be able to secure their home system free form alien interference.
One thing is the Sovietski's allies ships are oddly set up...looks to be 2BC+1 DD, 1 DD+2 CT data groups or 2 BC+ 1 CT, 3 DD and 3 CT data groups. Largest of each speed group I'm guessing...but still the CTs aren't likely to be terribly combat relevant.
oh wow a horrid week to be a sovietski...
one thing...CDs are engaged by minefields see 27.08.05.8. As are pinnaces. Just to say sanitising a system of DSB-Xr is possible but very slow it takes days to survey for the damn things since you pick them up only at 10 hexs. As the RM I was looking into this...and it is just plain slow.
A few other minefield comments...the detection is at the end of the whole movement phase so the command DD even if it has Xr would not have seen the mines unless it stopped the hex before them...to detect mines you can't move faster than 1 hex per turn....well to detect them by not running into them.
Keep in mind 04.19.07 the last point "No targeting bonuses are available against mines." So you can't double or more up on a mine attack this means a D is as good as Dxz against mines with the exception that you would need fewer Dxz to defend the ship. Steve missed this in SFA so you can't use automatic minefield resolution...I think most people missed it as it is in an obscure place and "targeting bonus" is never used outside of there and in 04.19.02. It means basically that minesweepers only need to have enough D (or Dx) to cover the expected number of inbound mines (a BB would need 7 D or 5 Dx). So the designs in Crusade and likely in ISW4 are likely poor minesweepers by the 3rdR rules.
The RC are in a bit of a pickle though...they have to (or at least they need to think on it) tell the D'bringi: "Entry by your ships into Sol is an act of war." The Co-Dominium alliance may be reforged by real-politik as allowing the D'bringi to invade/bombard Russia risks their population. This doesn't help the sovietski's that much but still allowing an enemy warfleet into Sol by the RC would be...risky to say the least. Not to mention once they had such a fleet in Sol...would the RC be able to trust them...it is one thing to sorta ignore an enemy you have no access to but when their fleet is a few lunar orbits out??
I am not sure exactly but the Sovietski's not forcing the minefield may have been a very bad choice on their part...if their whole fleet entered at one go while EMing and with EDMs...that would have substantially reduced the damage...still it depends on how badly damaged their ships are...but using their CLs and DDs to open a path for the BC&CA would have made sense. That though is a hard call.
Hmmm...given the crews of those explorers have the option to mutiny and defect to the RC...and given even KGB agents aren't keen on suicide getting those ships to function as rammers may be easier said than done. They didn't strike me as fanatics...and the execution of their CO likely didn't really help. I mean they could just use them to explore or rent them to the RC for cash.
Corvette sized sweepers seem to be what they are planning on since they said build them on the ground. Frigates might actually be better as they can carry a beam weapon and Xr to enable them to function as sweepers.
Oh...the soviet's in WW2 always referred to the "Motherland" it was the ####'s that spoke of the "Fatherland." Not sure if you mean for it to be reversed for dramatic effect.
Still I suspect that their may be further changes in the Sovietski government in the near future...the real question still outstanding is what the RC makes of all this.
added in Edit: I just thought of a better use for those ships. They could be used for making a light speed communications relay to give the Sovietski's a better operational communications network. They would be 6 or more times faster than drones and would enable the Sovietski fleets to react faster than their enemies which would allow them to exploit "interior lines" better. Though clearly the heroic new commander has made his choice...my view though is that they are horrid rams as they are easily killed...but they certainly will make the warp point an interesting place for a few turns.
Alternatively refitting them as AiHsQs(I)L (using the old Ls they removed) would be cheap and fast and likely more damaging...but given what you would say I'd treat them as poor crew grade for purposes of activation.
One thing to also keep in mind is that no more construction jobs can be underway then shipyards...this is to prevent you from building ships till they have 1 HS left stopping, then starting another one and so on...then when you need a fleet finishing the last 1 HS on however many ships without ever needing to pay for the maintenance on them. Not sure what I'd do myself in your place as you're not doing what the rule is intended to stop.
they're the borg, adapted for the much lower-magic starfire universe by a guy who can't science and can't fiction. giant warbots with giant metal straws for sucking peoples' brains out. they got no dialog, which in weberverse is a feature not a bug.
How can the old Soviet survey ships can keep distance from the Rehorish destroyers?
So the Soviets are basically thoroughly boned here right?
Sooo... are you doing all of this on purpose to the Soviets, or is it just a string of incredibly bad rolls of the dice or something? Because at this point, the number of things that have gone wrong for them in a row has hit the improbable level, and there's no sign its letting up any time soon.
I don't see how they have any choice but to take the sovietski's out of the picture...so long as they were strong and it looked like the war would end in their favour then the situation was tenable. They can't allow aliens into Sol, they can't allow them to invade Earth...so this means that the aliens will either have to reach a peace agreement with the Sovietski's that both sides can live with or else the RC will be drawn into the war. If they strike at the sovietski's they can cripple or capture their shipyards, and then their fleet can destroy the soviet bases (I calculated 86 pts of damage/turn for 6 BCs each armed with 5 Rc even against doubled up point defence). After which they can invade...taking out the sovietski's gives them freedom to use diplomacy.
If they think the "new" alliance could work then that would be an option...but a young stalin makes that unlikely...plus the current CEO is anti-sovietski. It isn't without cost but...I admit I don't see to many alternatives that aren't worse down the road for the RC.
Maybe Kurt has a cunning plan though... I'd say the time to strike is now...of course if the soviet governors basically send a message asking to join that would also change things...but again taking out the sovietski's on earth is still on the table.
Kurt one thing...you can't ram a ship that just transited...according to the rules the ship has to start the turn on the sensors of the ramming ship so to speak. Not can a ship leap through the warp point and ram another. I recall reading about how the EXs planned to ram transit addled ships...only with house rules!
Could the Coalition claim that they conquered Soviets in Sol to prevent D'bringi from entering the Sol? It could be plausible as the Soviets lost lots of ships and colonies. Of course Soviets would have to be honest with Coalition to make this work and that is most likely not something they would like to do.
The Shanirian's have a large number of MSx's as their installations were in part intended to function as repair facilities. But yeah it sure helps with refits or pre-fab construction.Ask and you shall receive!
Oh boy...given what happened I'd drop the crew grade of those sovietski ships one level...that has to have impacted them and not in a good way.
I'm rather surprised the governors didn't make at least an attempt at contacting the RC given the alternatives are being overrun by aliens or "helped" by another set of aliens. Though they may think they can stand on their own...strictly speaking they are just following orders... I'm vastly curious what the RC may be thinking...the whole situation has to be giving both the military and the politicians collective fits.
Removed in the Edit: I spotted what the 19 ships were...joy for the russians the T'Pau still have not been seen...
Thanks Kurt!
Hmmm...I had discounted the whole New CO-Dominion alliance as not very likely...I still see it as very unlikely to last long...but we shall see what happens. Clearly the aliens, not to speak of the crabs aren't going anywhere but the alliance is so inherently unstable and we have a young Stalin...and purges...well it sure won't be dull!
How will the Soviets respond to the new Tomsk Union when they find out about it? I suspect the guy currently in charge won't like it. How soon will the new shipyards be able to produce ships?
There is the possibility that the friendly aliens are planning to D'bringi the D'bringi ...or not...with Moskova gone though the other sovietski colonies are now cut off from the RC right? Is the sovietski fleet (such as it remains) in Sol or still on the other side near the WP?
Where are the RC forces?
Well with the 12 DDs the sovietski's suddenly have a fleet again. Have you considered 11 HS ES and full sized FG? Assuming the Sovietski's can build 11 HS/turn these two would be able to be pumped out. The FGs could mount 2P and a T this would make them very dangerous at close range to the warp point where they could tractor a ship and the next turn remove a critical system. The ES could carry F and snipe from long range (easily have -4 or -5 to hit). I did the first thing in my first game under like 2nd edition rules where I had 25 HS DD, 50 HS CA and 75 HS BCs that were "war" designs. I also used odd sized hulls in the munich game where I was playing a J engine race and had to like get them into jump carriers.
I think it is going to hinge a lot on what happens this turn...if the sovietski's get 3 turns to recover the warp point to sol will be seriously sewed up. If the D'bringi assault goes in before the RC alliance is formalised things will be more than a bit exciting.
The crabs are frankly at the point where they are starting to pose a serious threat to that colony. If nothing else the situation should drive home to the RC how untenable a shared system is when the peoples are not the best of friends.
Yeah but I have to say the Shanirian's have been stuck with some ugly results of that sort...3 races (the seals, the aussies, and the martians) for the most part they were more or less lucky the Shanirian's are more inclined to just leave them be rather than attack. The RM and the Simean's made a 100 roll and averted a "hostile takeover." But I agree the NPRs should behave sensibly...though in this case that must be like sand under the shell to them...
The damage the EXs did is surprising since the first point of damage either way kills an engine...so the EXs would be without drivefields when they ram...but *throws up hands in disgust* the rules are horrid with ramming, one thing that I think J'Rill EAVs does better. They still accomplished about what I thought they would...even less, but then that was due to the warning...without that warning the attack might have been a bit more costly. They should not have attempted to ram the CTs...though I doubt that would have really made much difference as the DDs were clearly the intended first wave.
Any reason you didn't send 7 DDs through or are they only speed 6?
Ahhh...starslayer and I use pulsed movement but not for warp point transits where we use the standard rules where you can get as many ships through as the speed. I have to admit I never thought of using the pulsed movement for warp point transits in that way. I have to admit it is nice to be able to get like 6 ships and then send the SBMHAWKs through with their 7th MP. I sorta do use the pulsed movement chart for determining when the ships show up but not limit them to only 6 transit impulses. Given the fact we are fighting 2 bug races who can simultaneous transit I'm a bit leery of limiting ourselves too much.
Month 111, Day 22, Earth
The Coalition’s Minister for Foreign Relations met with the USSR’s Minister for Foreign Affairs on this day.
<snip>
Month 112, Day 24, Earth
Marshal Kosygin looked up in annoyance as his chief aide, Polhovnik Turgenev, burst into his office. “What?!?”
Month 111, Day 22, Earth
The Coalition’s Minister for Foreign Relations met with the USSR’s Minister for Foreign Affairs on this day.
<snip>
Month 112, Day 24, Earth
Marshal Kosygin looked up in annoyance as his chief aide, Polhovnik Turgenev, burst into his office. “What?!?”
I suspect the month on the second segment is a typo.
do the D'Bringi have any evidence that Sol is a cul-de-sac? Even without that knowledge, they would have to have a pretty big blind spot to not evaluate a big old minefield on that particular WP as being of at least equal value to an iffy treaty with the Coalition.
stuff is ROUGH for the humans, holy cow.
What a waste by the Soviets, they had a defensive advantage and threw it away for nothing. I guess that is the price you pay when you put an idealist in charge of your military.
Well Kurt, could not happen to a nicer person in my view... and when I said that gave them a fleet I didn't think in terms of offensives! Though maybe it buys them time though usually when I am in bad way I got for damaging as many as enemy ships as possible to win time due to repairs...or force them to fight with damaged ships.
The system you are using is the same as what is used in Galactic Starfire without the adjustment of the ships size based on technology...the example in Galactic Starfire doesn't match the game though (not adjusting the ships size and using an not possible warp point capacity). I have to admit I don't understand why the WP size chart in Imperial Starfire is the way it is...any playtest would have revealed it is a major pain in the rear, without adding anything much to the game.
The D'bringi should have been able to survey Sol but regardless mining that WP makes sense...even if they leave the mines deactivated.
Given the poor performance of the explorer ships in a ramming role, is there going to be some re-thinking about their usage?
Could they be re-fitted as point defence platforms to protect the larger ships or given faster engines to increase their hit chance?
Also the soviet destroyers got hammered, is that because they were so badly out-matched or is it just how things go with beam engagements?
On the whole "a little disadvantage" thing...one thing that all naval officers learned somewhere near the turn of the century was that a little disadvantage turned into a big loss, it is one of the reasons I think there was so few naval engagements in WW2 for example and just thinking on it why carriers were so big a change, because you can't avoid a fight when carriers are present. Anyway, as the saying goes...as an exercise to the reader to illustrate this: take two sides; A had 3 ships, B has 4 ships, each ship takes 4 damage to kill, each ship does 1 hit damage. Line them up so each ship of A is engaged by 1 of B except ship 3 which has 2 attackers. See what happens, feel free to change how the ships fight but it doesn't change the fact that A is destroyed for far less cost to B then 3:4 odd would intuitively indicate.
Probably the hardest thing I had to learn in starfire battles is that they are naval and not land engagements and the above applies. Getting caught by a substantially larger force in one Bug-Seal battle was particularly painful as I had thought from the pre-battle banter I had a good chance of victory and then what showed up...I'm pretty sure Starslayer detected my discontent! A lot of our recent battles have been to be blunt "inconclusive" simply because neither side felt they had an advantage big enough to tip the scales in their favour sufficiently to avoid major losses even in a victory.
On the whole "a little disadvantage" thing...one thing that all naval officers learned somewhere near the turn of the century was that a little disadvantage turned into a big loss, it is one of the reasons I think there was so few naval engagements in WW2 for example and just thinking on it why carriers were so big a change, because you can't avoid a fight when carriers are present. Anyway, as the saying goes...as an exercise to the reader to illustrate this: take two sides; A had 3 ships, B has 4 ships, each ship takes 4 damage to kill, each ship does 1 hit damage. Line them up so each ship of A is engaged by 1 of B except ship 3 which has 2 attackers. See what happens, feel free to change how the ships fight but it doesn't change the fact that A is destroyed for far less cost to B then 3:4 odd would intuitively indicate.
Probably the hardest thing I had to learn in starfire battles is that they are naval and not land engagements and the above applies. Getting caught by a substantially larger force in one Bug-Seal battle was particularly painful as I had thought from the pre-battle banter I had a good chance of victory and then what showed up...I'm pretty sure Starslayer detected my discontent! A lot of our recent battles have been to be blunt "inconclusive" simply because neither side felt they had an advantage big enough to tip the scales in their favour sufficiently to avoid major losses even in a victory.
On the whole "a little disadvantage" thing...one thing that all naval officers learned somewhere near the turn of the century was that a little disadvantage turned into a big loss, it is one of the reasons I think there was so few naval engagements in WW2 for example and just thinking on it why carriers were so big a change, because you can't avoid a fight when carriers are present. Anyway, as the saying goes...as an exercise to the reader to illustrate this: take two sides; A had 3 ships, B has 4 ships, each ship takes 4 damage to kill, each ship does 1 hit damage. Line them up so each ship of A is engaged by 1 of B except ship 3 which has 2 attackers. See what happens, feel free to change how the ships fight but it doesn't change the fact that A is destroyed for far less cost to B then 3:4 odd would intuitively indicate.
Probably the hardest thing I had to learn in starfire battles is that they are naval and not land engagements and the above applies. Getting caught by a substantially larger force in one Bug-Seal battle was particularly painful as I had thought from the pre-battle banter I had a good chance of victory and then what showed up...I'm pretty sure Starslayer detected my discontent! A lot of our recent battles have been to be blunt "inconclusive" simply because neither side felt they had an advantage big enough to tip the scales in their favour sufficiently to avoid major losses even in a victory.
From my experience in EVE Online as part of many fleets of every scale, from 3 man small gang roams up to 1k man keepstar sieges, I know how important a good fleet commander can be. If you can force a mistake or outmanoeuvre an enemy, you can make an inferior fleet composition work. So long as you know how your fleet works, how their fleet works, everybody plays well and you can force a mistake or outmanoeuvre the enemy fleet, you can pull off a victory, even a decisive victory. Of course, half the battle is won beforehand. In Starfire/Aurora, you make sure you build more/better ships with the best tech. In EVE, you want to recruit good pilots in large numbers, while making sure everybody has a good fleet comp trained and is well drilled in broadcasting for reps, following align commands and shooting the primary.
On the whole "a little disadvantage" thing...one thing that all naval officers learned somewhere near the turn of the century was that a little disadvantage turned into a big loss, it is one of the reasons I think there was so few naval engagements in WW2 for example and just thinking on it why carriers were so big a change, because you can't avoid a fight when carriers are present. Anyway, as the saying goes...as an exercise to the reader to illustrate this: take two sides; A had 3 ships, B has 4 ships, each ship takes 4 damage to kill, each ship does 1 hit damage. Line them up so each ship of A is engaged by 1 of B except ship 3 which has 2 attackers. See what happens, feel free to change how the ships fight but it doesn't change the fact that A is destroyed for far less cost to B then 3:4 odd would intuitively indicate.
Probably the hardest thing I had to learn in starfire battles is that they are naval and not land engagements and the above applies. Getting caught by a substantially larger force in one Bug-Seal battle was particularly painful as I had thought from the pre-battle banter I had a good chance of victory and then what showed up...I'm pretty sure Starslayer detected my discontent! A lot of our recent battles have been to be blunt "inconclusive" simply because neither side felt they had an advantage big enough to tip the scales in their favour sufficiently to avoid major losses even in a victory.
From my experience in EVE Online as part of many fleets of every scale, from 3 man small gang roams up to 1k man keepstar sieges, I know how important a good fleet commander can be. If you can force a mistake or outmanoeuvre an enemy, you can make an inferior fleet composition work. So long as you know how your fleet works, how their fleet works, everybody plays well and you can force a mistake or outmanoeuvre the enemy fleet, you can pull off a victory, even a decisive victory. Of course, half the battle is won beforehand. In Starfire/Aurora, you make sure you build more/better ships with the best tech. In EVE, you want to recruit good pilots in large numbers, while making sure everybody has a good fleet comp trained and is well drilled in broadcasting for reps, following align commands and shooting the primary.
In terms of the good fleet commander, you are pointing out the limitations of a solo campaign like the Cold War, or really any of my campaigns. I realized early on that while I may be trying to create a character that is a brilliant, genius-level commander, I am most definitely not that, so I cannot conceive of the brilliant strategies that a brilliant commander might use. So I have to satisfy myself, and hopefully anyone who reads what I produce, by saying that they are brilliant, or at least good at their jobs, and having them see things that others might not see.
Paul and Starslayer have an advantage, in that there are two people involved in their campaign, which allows for true surprise, and possibly innovative strategies, whereas the solo campaign is more limited in that respect.
Kurt
boy, if this next bit goes just a little bit wrong it becomes the D'Bringi campaign from here on out.
played with a lot of folks who thought the one-month notice of war is a cultural imperative, but boy do i not think the humans can afford that.
did the coalition win concessions of any kind from the russians?
Sometimes there are also surprises to be had. Last battle I wrote up had one side in claok vs a technological inferior side. While not completely without damage, it was a slaughter nevertheless. Current battle in progress turned out to decided by design philosophy. CM from XO racks from elite crews vs. BCs with only 7* Di as point defence... = ouch? I was a bit flabberghasted as two BCs basically got taken out of the fight in one salvo each. Pretty much decisive moment there, and unanticipated. (Both sides where pretty even in numbers... well, once I finished writting it up, got a bit destracted by a good web book).
Well I'd say the new alliance will have several fairly important strategic decisions to make to define their operational foci. I'm curious to see how that goes.
As far as SA random designs go, I learned that there is nothing truly stupid that can come out if it but the key is figuring out how to use what it gives you the most effectively. Admittedly commercial engines with one speed lower than max and plasma gun would likely qualify as hard to figure out but generally no matter how wackadoodle it was some advantage could be seen by the combination as hair-pulling-ly bizarre as it can be. Even the Laser and Energy Beam combo of the squidzies I have seen can give the attacker fits...since you have to carry on each ship two completely different sets of defences.
Anyway I figure the next few months will be interesting...
from the tone of assessment there, Kurt, you make it sound like clearing out Moskva is a given. I guess I'm not clear on what the capitalist swine can bring to bear; is it actually a shoo-in? i mean, from the omniscient perspective?
What is a BS0?
If colonies can build ships, how much human industrial capacity is now outside Sol?
Also the soviets have 2 big fortresses (or did they scrap one?), are they going to stay in Sol or are they going to be moved the the warp points in Moskva in order to expand the defensive perimeter?
To everyone interested in the Cold War campaign, I apologize for not posting anything over the last week and a half. My family had a big upheaval week before last, and it has taken me some time to get back to the point where I felt like continuing with the campaign. I'm back now, and will hopefully be posting on a regular basis going forward.
Kurt
would it be worth the human fleet going to maximum speed to chase the Debringi fleet, if they hold that speed for long enough the DeBringi will have to match it and both sides will start to suffer engine failures. Human ships which drop out will need repairs which are available nearby at Earth while slowed DeBringi ships will fall under the guns of the Human fleet and be destroyed.
And Than you for consistently posting such interesting stories and I hope your problems resolve themselves as well as possible
hope your stuff is under control, kurt.
idk about "conservative", the humans get to pick their poison. feel the humans would rather get astrogation data than a pitched battle right now, esp with training to be done and so little of coalition economic power properly in the harness as yet. i even wonder, based on the small size of the d'bringi fleet, if the humans aren't better off in an assault than an open space battle, regardless of the fleet doctrines. otoh, the prospect of a passel of roaches showing up is a shrivelsome one.
playing burnout games against a smaller, higher grade fleet is godawful. ive won a war from getting d'bringi's side of that trade. look, the humans are going to have 3 or 4 ships put out sick for a minimum of 2 months for each ship they kill. if there's enough of that action to matter, the margin for error in an assault plummets. it was a small pile of IDEW won the day for me, and the humans gotta figure the D'Bringi have more mines already in transit.
tricky for the coalition to fight this war sensibly without restoring the russians to a position of being more dangerous than the d'bringi currently are. at the minimum, they need to put substantially more fortifications on the sol WP than the russians have, post haste. keep feeding Russian cruisers into hostile WPs, and then present them with an arms race as soon as the current war ends. refuse to open negotiations for recovering those russian colonies ("we can't risk another conflict right now!").
or, you know, sell the russians some rope. on credit.
Now things start to get interretsing. I noticed that the inability to quickly replace ships compared to startegic mobility makes battles much more conservative in terms of ships sacrificed for gains, and it much more likely ships get retreated from battles upon taking damage. Unless the techical divide makes it unlikely for one side to eb able to do so. (Or why in the Theban campaign the Undiens constantly had to build new ships).
Did the terms of the alliance involve sharing system maps and survey data?
And good to see more maps, especially with multiple names on them.
Thank you for posting up to date maps, this makes following the action much easier :)
The map made things a lot clearer for me. before looking at it I thought the DeBringi fleet was retreating towards the Rehorish fleet , not as in the actual position where the Human fleet is between them.
I wonder if once the Humans have chased the DeBringi through a WP would they be better off doubling back and trying to catch the Rehorish fleet and force it to battle in Volvograd or Moskva with the Coalition force from Epsilon Eridani sneaking in behind it and laying some DSB-L on its retreat path to pin it in place for the Human fleet to force an engagment
Without knowing how mines work, I assume the D’Bringi have mined every jump point heading back towards their home systems so the Human fleets could be suffering some significant damage after each jump.
Also the D’Bringi have a bit of an emphasis on beam weapons, will that help them defending against a jump point assault?
Would the combined effects of the mines and beams be able to even out the tonnage difference?
That makes the assumption that the D'Bringi brought freighters and freighters full of mines - they were an offensive fleet, that now has to retreat, so I doubt they're carrying so many mines with them to allow them to mine the hell out of warp points.
That said, if they do have enough to mine one heavily, it might be in their interests to form an ambush as Migi suggests and give it a whirl.
the D'T' combined fleet doesn't look to have the mass needed to gain much advantage from the choke point. unless i'm misremembering 3rd ed activation rules, it looks like the humans could push hull spaces through faster than the aliens could activate units. given grade and the fleet doctrines involved, it's probably better for the aliens than a high space battle, but i don't think they can really gain a favorable exchange let alone hope to hold.
in the only really successful campaign i ever ran (4th ed) i combined mild force-reduction measures with a heavily revised WP system. empires of any size that came into contact, tended to develop quite a few points of contact quite quickly. preventing people from stacking their entire navies in one tactical hex was good in a lot of ways.
Warp point assaults against strong defenses are defenitely a science of their own. At least untill the universal sweeper broom of SBMHAWKs comes along. One reasons why I am not building many of those so far in the Theban campaign, they make it relatively cheap to deal with fixed defenses.
Specialised assault ships wich can endure the defenders fire and pile up in numbers untill their usually weaker armaments (compared to their massive defenses) are strong enogh to whittle down the defenders under fire seem a way to go. We kinda stopped the previous campaign when the machine race lead the assault with 72 SDs, all having over 120 pts of passive defenses at TL 10. Battles became too big simply.
Though the bugs have their own versions of dealing with them, with cheaper throw-away ships and gunboats. Or not... at least one armored WP probe brick was taken out by ADMs recently. Ouch.
So the human fleet got a bit of a bloody nose from that encounter, I'm guessing they don't want to try and force the point after this.
The question for the D'Bringi is whether to hold position and try to get more engagements like this or to keep running for repairs and safety.
At least the humans can get all their damaged ships sent back for repairs.
i've been thinking about the whole nicely-complicated political situation on both sides. I really think the coalition ought to start sandbagging hard at this point. if the border freezes at moskva-leningrad, i think that serves the coalition perfectly. you have the d'bringi threat to keep the russians friendly, you've restored enough of the russian economy to make them much more effective, you've left them short of their high-water mark (meaning, firmly the junior partner). let the war stagnate til other points of contact are found, meanwhile be your bad american selves and leave the d'bringi and russians in the dust with your economic expansion.
Point of interrest, are you using the supply network rules in Starfire Assistant, Kurt?
Those have so far been the biggets trouble for long, sweeping offensives, as being short by even 1 MCr damages evers ship in tze fleet, as SA rolls on every system of every ship whether it gets destroyed by a lack of maintennace. Even if for the whole fleet only a fraction should have been out of supply. 4 jumps out from a habitable world you own usually is the point where you better have a lot of MCr in your holds of your fleet to linger for a longer time.
And I've not yet spotted a supply freighter or three in your fleets.
Do the humans have any forewarning of the Rehorish advance, are there any scouts or forward units out in that direction?
Also what made the Rehorish think that they would find a link to human space, in Aurora that would be incredibly unlikely? Are warp point destinations chosen differently in Starfire or was this done in service of the narrative?
So the D'Bringi are totally screwed. The war against humanity was on a knife edge for them and the new problem with the Mintek mean they cannot afford to fight the war with the humans. If they are lucky their fleet facing the humans will still be dancing around when they realise they need to recall it. I believe they can hide behing close WP from the humans giving them a chance to break contact, which leaves the Rehorish in deep trouble fighting the humans without their allies
The Mintek have SDs while everyone else is futzing around with small numbers of BCs? How much of a tech and capacity advantage does that represent? Also, the D'Bringi thought they had an economic advantage over the Mintek...how is can the Mintek afford SDs on such a comparatively small budget?
I don't actually know anything about Starfire rules (just what I picked up from the thread and reading the Weber books), so maybe I'm misunderstanding how big of a deal SDs are.
I'm guessing the drives detected by the Rehorish were the freighters used to drop off the DSB-L's? (What does DSB-L stand for precisely?)
Does Starfire have rules for time delay on messages or are you just RPing it?
Due to the time delay for messages I assume there is no way for the D'Bringi to jump through at the same time the Rehorish arrive at the warp point? And conversely if the D'Bringi want to signal to the Rehorish that they need to pull the D'Bringi fleet back home, they don't really have a way of doing so?
The humans have a good idea of where the Rehorish fleet is, can they get their faster units to engage the forward destroyers with missiles and get an early advantage?
How does Starfire assign speeds per class, do the battlecruisers in the human fleet slow them down?
In Aurora due to the cumulative research cost of engines (ie more engine types need research) there is a fairly strong incentive to use a single engine for your whole fleet, so everything tends to go at the same speeds unless you are specifically designing them for independent roles.
And the bad times continue to roll for the humans. They're only hope is to jump to the other side of a warp point and try to stage an ambush.
What are the chances that the Rehorish and D'Bringi call it good and block off the jump point from their end with super heavy minefields and dedicated weapons platforms?
There will be nothing left of human fleet when they reach Sol, this does not look good for humans. Maybe Minteks can prevent D'Bringi from assaulting the Sol by their own offensive into D'Bringi territory. But in the long run that will mean that humans will have to deal with them as well.
D'Bringi have speed advantage, but problem is that they are on defensive, eventually they will have to stand and fight as they most likely cannot abandon every colony to Minteks. I wonder how many dreadnoughts Minteks actually have.
I only know Starfire from books and if I remember correctly there are also battleships in Starfire, are they same size as battlecruisers or are the dreadnoughts two sizes above battlecruisers?
D'Bringi have speed advantage, but problem is that they are on defensive, eventually they will have to stand and fight as they most likely cannot abandon every colony to Minteks. I wonder how many dreadnoughts Minteks actually have.
I only know Starfire from books and if I remember correctly there are also battleships in Starfire, are they same size as battlecruisers or are the dreadnoughts two sizes above battlecruisers?
Battlecruisers have 80 hull spaces, speed 6 tactically and 3 strategically
Battleships have 100 hull spaces, speed five tactically, and 2 strategically
Superdreadnoughts have 130 hull spaces, speed five tactically, and 2 strategically
This gives the Mintek an advantage in battle, but a disadvantage in maneuver.
am i the only one who has switched to pulling for the D'Bringi? dudes earned the W, no two ways about it, and i hope they get it.
So basically, as with the HH series, once you can build SDs, there is absolutely no reason to keep building Battleships, as they're less effective in the only role they fit into?
One thing I've noticed so far in Starfire is that there's no real rock-paper-scissors to the battles - whoever has the mass advantage, wins 100% of the time. You can't swarm a battleship with escorts and expect a win - it just draws out how long it takes the battleship to shoot them all to pieces.
Is there any point in the tech level where this paradigm changes and allows for other tactics?
IIRC, the Eaters in the Kurt's Phoenix Campaign http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=18.0 used Corvette swarm tactics vs. technologically superior victims pretty successfully, until the technological disadvantage became too large. At that point, they would have to put more expensive stuff on the CTs, which runs kind of counter to the whole concept of cheap, throw-away swarm tactics.
As for changing the paradigm. Once fighters enter the field, everything changes.
Unfortunately, not in a very good way.
Enough to say that, if your enemy has fighters and you don't, you're pretty much screwed - so instead of bigger is always better, you get, fighters beat everything, at least until a few tech-levels up, when anti-fighter weapons become more efficient- yeah, they are a wee bit OP, IMO.
Note: I'm not a very experienced SF player and don't have a lot of experience with fighters. The above is mostly concluded from reading Steve's, Kurt's and other's AARs.
SDs are superior to BBs untill you try to squeeze them through a 100 HS warp point.
The evolution of the terms starts with
Ship of the Line of Battle (1st-4th rate) often known as Liners or Battleships these were wooden sailing ships
The first Iron and Steam ships (Warrior and Gloire) were single deck ships so were listed as frigates inititally until this became obviously silly as they could beat any battleship, they were then imaginitavly known as ironclads, as turrets started to be fitted they were Barbette or Turret ships . (Sometimes with the qualifier Coastal defense, bbigger and more seaworthy than the american monitors)
The term battleship is first used for the 1889 Royal sovereign battleships, which were also the first ships to settle on the predreadnought armamant scheme of 2 heavy turrets and a bunch of 6 inch guns . America calls some smaller ships battleships in 1889 and the first french battleship is also 1889.
Dreadnought comes along in 1905 and the larger faster battleships which follow it are called Dreadnoughts, incidentally Battlecruisers come along with dreadnough and like the earlier armoured cruisers are comparable in size or larger than Battlships but faster and longer ranged at the expense of armour and weapons
The first ship to be considered a Super Dreadnought was the Queen Elizebeth faster and more heavily armed than any earlier dreadnought and with better protection launched in 1913 and nearly double the displacement of dreadnought, the end of this line of development is the Battlecruiser/Fast battleship hood a third again larger than Queen Elizebeth, After this treaty limits mean new battleships are rarely built for 20 years and are the size of Queen Elizebeth , Hood being an exception to the treaties.
These treaties also finally limited the size of cruisers keeping them smaller than dreadnoughts .
Finally the last surge of battleships are the WW1 Style Bismarck and the more modern Iowa's, Vittorio Venito's and Yamato's all of which except the Iowa;s were built in violation of treaty limits making them larger than the British and Early WW2 American battleships which were laid down as treaty ships. Without the treaty limits you would probably have had continued ship growth in size and armament and those ships like the American and Japanese Giants would probably have earned another naming convention,
Then of course carriers, modern subs and Nuclear weapons made battleships obsolete
behold the Faustian bargain in full! behold also, "it sucks to have a small fleet in starfire" :)
the d'bringi are being too agreeable about the mintek withdrawal, in my view. we're in "20 to one, surround" territory, here, and the alliance has enough DDs and CTs to do that. pursue with the cruisers, get past the mintek with the DDs, and force the mintek to choose between a closing battle with the DDs and letting the cruisers get into range.
i get preserving your fleet, but DDs are flirting with obsolescence, so you ought to be aggressive when a real use for the things is found.
So the Mintek turned out to be paper tigers it looks like. From a narrative standpoint, we’ll have to see if they gave the humans a fighting chance once the Alliance turns back around and goes to wipe out Sol.
Maybe the Humans can sue for peace while they have the chance? I suspect not though, their enemy has no reason to accept since they have defeated the only threat that might have tipped the balance.
I thought federal Theocracies had average as crew grade? They must have send their newly build ships out to do battle. Ouch.
Smart thing would have been to have a collier along with even a small minefield, bunching the foes up on the warp point, and allowing you to avoid point blank untill your ships are active. Then move close and deliver. Those 3 roudns before minesweepers can really go into action (Transit, activate scanner, find mines before going into minesweeper mode) are priceless.
The more things like gunboats and sbmhawks come into play, the further the point blank defense of warppoints gets... uneconomical. Point blank really works best when you have enough firepower about to be certain to obliterate each wave as it comes in, even in the first round of activation, as you then have the advantage as the transiting enemy is still transit addled. Else its machine guns at ten paces.
So between those two battles, who came out on top? The Mintek did lose some big ships, but the D'Bringi lost two leaders and a bunch of cruisers. I don't know how that stacks up economically.
The D'Bringi are now facing a siege situation, which is less than good considering how the Humans are moving forwards, even with the issues on Earth. If the D'Bringi don't know about the situation on Earth, peace might be possible if the Humans sue for it.
Do the Mintek have more than one JP in their home system or are they truely bottled up? If they have more than one JP, they can continue economic expansion quite easily, forcing an arms race (A cold war even) between the two sides until they get themselves a second border to attack through.
i would have sworn the only person alive who would try to "stabilize the situation" with a nuclear strike, is my ex-wife.
Damn, I was right.
Basically, if the humans don't smash the Rehorish fleet without taking significant casualties themselves, humanity is done, correct? With the loss of the homeworld and its shipyards, and the slower population growth and production speeds, they have no realistic chances of dealing with the D'Bringi Alliance anymore unless they can preserve all of the combined fleet.
Well, humanity is most likely screwed. Tomsk Union will likely stay independent under protection of Bjering, so no help from there.
There are most likely some surviving shipyards in Sol still, but I have no idea how Starfire deals with productivity on planet that has high amount of radiation and dust in atmosphere. Is it possible to tow the shipyards from Sol to Sigma Draconis?
There are also Tarek, they could be more significant issue for Coalition in current situation, I wonder if it would be prudent to deal with them now before they grow even more?
Starfire does not track radiation and dust. What matters is how many population units survived, and of course the shipywads my impression is that a signifigant amount of the population will have survived as most of the bombardment seems to have been aimed at PDC's with a few other salvo's at population.
However even assuming I am right that will have reduced the production of earth a lot and so hurt the human economies. The shipyards are probably less critical in this situation as a lot seem to have survived and the ability of the humans to maintian their fleet has been reduced so they can't afford to build a lot of new ships
Given the alien threat it does not make a lot of sense for the colonies to all try and go their seperate ways#
Given the alien threat it does not make a lot of sense for the colonies to all try and go their seperate ways#
It also doesn't make a lot of sense to nuke your homeworld to cinders when you are fighting literal aliens.
Wait....
I suppose one of the big questions is how much Earth itself ends up in a single unified political block or stays splintered into different political camps.
I think the incentive to unify is pretty big but that might be too rational for people who have just lived through literal nuclear holocaust.
If Earth itself is unified then I think they have a chance of leading or participating in a federal system with the other colonies, showing a good example of working together and generally stopping humanity splintering into small single system factions that will just get stomped on.
Where does Earth rank economically compared to the other human colonies?
wow. at turn 119 in baseline starfire, i'd expect the homeworld getting glassed to be met with "phew, at least my fifth biggest trading partner didn't cut ties".
i mean, you're close to controlling econ bloat. no matter what you do, at some point every habitable rock in the galaxy will have a maxed out population and the game will be untenable, slowing it down so that real life and not game paperwork is what kills the campaign is the real aim, imo.
my 4e experience is that controlling trade is critical. it hasnt shown up in your game because every contact is a war :), but in multiplayer 4e if by turn 50 your trade income doesn't exceed your primary production you're way behind the curve. it's the same kind of ROI acceleration as is caused by the 3rd ed TL income multiplier, but significantly faster.
that takes me back. it's not a matter of "best investment", the problem with trade is that it scales with population, making it a colonization ROI multiplier. marvin was tuned in (correctly) to the idea that TL econ bonus meant spiraling ROI and accelerating (percentage) growth, but somehow he couldn't fathom that the trade rules have the same effect.
like the population growth thing, you don't need to genius up a perfect solution. it's just egregiously huge, and if you just hack it back seriously by whatever means you will push back the "economic critical mass" date by 50 turns.
or, you know, play a solitaire game in a galaxy where everybody attacks on first sight.
welp, all im suggesting is if you're taking the time to rein in economics, don't forget trade. wasnt intending any general compare and contrast between editions, just using 4e as an example of how trade is sufficient by itself to blow up your universe, just because that's what happened to every 4e campaign that lasted 50 turns.
is it incompatible with the narrative arc for the coalition to partner and amalgamate the soviets? i feel like that has become necessary in the circumstances.
1 colony (which is too unimportant to show up on your maps ;D ) for a couple of turns breathing space to regroup and reorganise, rather than permenantly loosing a huge amount of the fleet seems like a pretty good deal.
How do you discover NPR's in Starfire? Is it like Aurora where you can run into them while exploring, or did you need to create each one while you were setting up the game?
Aurora is a lot like Aurora...
;D Maybe he's been drinking because of the holiday?
Aurora is a lot like Aurora in this case.
I see that the First Consul Faraz didn't learn anything from the Soviet experiences against the D'Bringi.
How much damage does it take to destroy a shipyard, was the initial proposal to go after the shipyards realistic?
What defences does Wunderland have against a retaliatory strike from the Tarek?
So the Wunderlanders have no PDCs at all to provide cover for their damaged units and (eventual) shipyard?
It sounds like diverting enough firepower to destroy the shipyards would have been a big ask of the fleet and meant inflicting even fewer casualties on the Taurek.
The Tarek have 74% of their mobile units left and nearly 2 to 1 numbers advantage so I'm guessing the strategic play for them would be to chase down the rest of the Wunderlander fleet and thereby get control of interplanetary space.
I can't remember if this was ever mentioned, but what happened to the D'Bringi citizens in Brezhnev that joined the Soviets?
This outcome in Sligo might be the best in long term for Humanity. It forces Ruston's hand to deal with Tarek and discredits Wunderland leadership so it will be easier to get them back in the fold.
I can't remember if this was ever mentioned, but what happened to the D'Bringi citizens in Brezhnev that joined the Soviets?
I probably didn't make it clear enough that the Russians were evacuating the entire warp chain, because of the presence of multiple closed warp points to D'Bringi space, and the fact that the warp chain was limited to three systems with no open warp points and no habitable planets, making it more of a liability than anything else. Their evacuation included the D'Bringi who had defected and were supporting the Home Fleet while it was isolated in the Brezhnev system. They were relocated to the Moskva system, with eventual plans to be relocated again to an ST planet suitable for their race. They will be mentioned in future updates.
Kurt
With the change to Humanity becoming a swarm of civs, will they catch up with the D’Bringi Alliance in trade income?
I noticed in last update, that Mintek have fighters. They played no part in battle against D’Bringi. So that could be very unpleasant surprise for D’Bringi when they attempt another push against Mintek, as it seems unlikely, that they would ask Keepers to send their escort carriers, because the clans are dismissive of their usefulness.
Ooof. And Humanity is so behind the curve that they'll get curb stomped once they encounter the Mintak.
Ooof. And Humanity is so behind the curve that they'll get curb stomped once they encounter the Mintak.
Logically speaking, the Mintak have no chance of taking the Alliance - they're simply too small, and once the Alliance learns that fighters are a game changer, they'll go all in on carriers as well. Once both of those powers have carriers out the wazoo, Humanity is stuck playing catchup with no realistic way of doing so.
Ooof. And Humanity is so behind the curve that they'll get curb stomped once they encounter the Mintak.
Yeah, humans have been boned ever since they blew up their own homeworld. For. You know. The second time.
The new development within D'Bringi Alliance is another blow for Humans. It seems that the best choice now is to just surrender to D'Bringi and hope for favorable treatment. I wonder how they found out about the destruction of Earth.
I'm very surprised that the Colonial Union established their system of government with such blatantly anti-functional requirements! Usually it takes time, and changing circumstances, to reveal that what seemed a reasonable setup can actually be a distinct problem; but why wasn't it obvious that mandating a supermajority (so probably two thirds, that's more common than three quarters) for the mere existence of a government is almost certainly going to prove insupportable in short order?
From an outsiders perspective with little to no context, nuking your own home planet sure does sound incredibly dumb.
The D'Bringi leaders didn't really react to the information in that way, I wonder if that is because they knew about the situation and were expecting it or if they were more shocked by the revelations about the Keepers keeping secrets.
In any case I wonder if the D'Bringi will willingly change tactics from large warships to small fighters, while they generally come across as pragmatic, it seems to run rather heavily against their current mindset.
I also wonder if they will try and keep the fighters secret from their allies in order to become dominant within the alliance or if they will share the tech to get all the alliance on the same doctrine.
Can fighters be sent through jump points unaccompanied or do they need to be launched from their carriers after transit?
Also does the limit on jump point transits apply in both directions?
I'm thinking in context of a jump point assault.
Can fighters be sent through jump points unaccompanied or do they need to be launched from their carriers after transit?
Also does the limit on jump point transits apply in both directions?
I'm thinking in context of a jump point assault.
Maybe I can clarify those two contradicting replies :)
In Aurora, fighters are just small ships and can, in fact, jump through a warp-point
In Starfire, however, fighters _can't_ transit through a warp-point.
Hope that helps.
Exactly what weapons fighters carry depends on tech level.
Inititally they carry rockets which are short range but do a fair amount of damage to a ship, firing them often means being shot at by a ships point defense, but if you can arrange to have ships firing missiles at the same time then the ship has a choice defend against missiles or shoot at fighters. Fighter Rockets cannot be intercepted. Fighters can also carry guns which are useless against ships but deadly to other small craft, this makes them the best defense against fighters.
Later fighters get missiles which do less damage but can fire from a range which makes it hard to shoot at the fighter but the small salvo size means that most ships can shoot down the missiles and take little damage , and laser packs which can effectivly shoot at ships repeatedly.
They really cannot move on a strategic scale as their life support is good for hours however they can launch from far beyond shipboard weapon range. They also can't see very far so they until figher sensor packs are develeped need a ship with long range sensors to guide them in.
Corvette carriers are not particularly effective carriers typically 6 fighters on a 16 hs hull while a 30hs CVE carries 12-18. But the CT(V) is faster than any other carrier and so can move in launch its fighters and guarantee not to get caught by enemy ships in an open space battle, they are also strategically fast, But if someone manages to attack them they are defenseless and die, this usually involves an ambush at a WP or high tech fast fighters. Kurts Pheonix campaign featured them being uses very effectively by one race until the opposition came up with counters
uh, there was no question in there :)
it wouldn't be hard to just reduce the quantity of Qv that could be raised, especially on medium bodies. also, one of the weird things about gsf ground combat is that your primary cost is shipping. if you quadrupled the cost of Qv while doubling their strength, you would for starters reduce the burden of feeding an army in peacetime, and also your surviving troops would represent a potential asset insofar as reuse/recycle becomes a lot less expensive than building one from scratch.
i assert that you wouldn't generally keep a large fleet deployed just to build up their grade- i mean if you didn't have an important security role for them at the time. army is a lot less vital to avoiding Sudden Death Surprise than navy, so honestly just-in-time army construction is always going to be pursued as far as possible by any rational player, unless you are make troop grade way more important, idk, a factor of 1.5 or 2 for each grade level? that scale of effect would be enough to make me explore whether it makes sense to build and maintain a large peacetime ground force- i'm kind of tight with my money but also extremely conquest oriented.
given that the whole galaxy is grinding along without any happy little wars because everybody feels too poor, i think you want to be careful not to escalate the costs of ground action very much.
I started writing a lengthy explanation of how armies work in Stellaris (at least as far as I remember and on the last iteration I played) because it actually has some of the same issues, fleet engagements are key and ground wars are kind of unglamorous but necessary.
However that turned out to be very long and I suspect it has far too many mechanics to fit into Starfire, unless you're expecting to write a whole game engine to handle it. I seem to have written plenty without including it. :P
Noting in advance that I don't know the rules for Starfire or your ability to implement big changes my proposals:
1) Raising large armies inherently takes a long time, and an army which is attempting to assault a planet needs to be large. You need drill sergeants to get recruits through basic training, you need uniforms for the recruits, you need equipment for the recruits to train with and you need equipment for each finished unit. (Side note I skimmed this article about the US mobilization in WW1 which states "the materiel side of mobilization was the most costly, complex, and time consuming." https://history.army.mil/documents/mobpam.htm (https://history.army.mil/documents/mobpam.htm))
From your post I gather that Starfire only has 1 size of army unit, and it is only used for assault. On this basis there should be limited ability to train armies which can invade other planets.
Aurora has Ground Force Training Facilities which represents the training and equipment production facilities needed to train armies. They are big, expensive and take a lot of population (the same as a research facility). They can only build 1 army at a time so they also limit the rate at which you can build up your forces.
I don't know what your options are for adding new structures to Starfire or RPing the cost of building and maintaining them.
1a) Planets should need a specific building in order to train assault armies.
1b) That building should be relatively expensive and have an upkeep.
1c) The number of simultaneous armies trained should be limited by the number of buildings (without knowing how many armies are in a typical Starfire invasion this might be 1:1 or 10:1)
1d) (optional) Training additional armies over the normal training capacity should cost exponentially more, eg 2x cost for 1 more than capacity, 4x cost for the 2nd etc. This reflects the cost of overworking the facilities but still provides flexibility in emergencies.
2) What ability do you have to add extra unit types to Starfire?
3) Training takes time and a quickly trained army will be much less effective than an army with lots of training. An army can be deployed early with less training than desired but this impairs its ability to perform. Additionally training in 'the real world' outside of boot camp is probably more valuable than the ability to run faster through an obstacle course.
Racial stats should represent the maximum performance for an army (it sounds like special forces are too small to be represented, they would be the logical exception to a limit).
3a) The training level of the army should be reflected in the time it takes to raise the army. An army should have 1 grade per month (or other sensible timeline) it spends being raised, up to the maximum of the racial crew grade. This allows armies to be raised quickly but makes them much less effective than armies raised in advance.
3b) It may be better to have non linear returns on investment depending on how large scale of possible grades are and how much benefit you gain from each grade. For example maybe the first grade should take 2 months of training and every grade after should take 3 months.
3c) Alternative: Armies are deployed as soon as they have 1 grade. Once deployed they gain extra grades up to the racial crew grade maximum by conducting field exercises. This should takes a certain amount of time per grade and cost money to perform.
3d) Regarding your point about disbanding armies once they've conquered the target.
Once you have possession of the target planet you need some way of keeping it under control, which is presumably provided by the conquering armies initially and then they get swapped for lower quality garrison troops.
Could you make assault armies explicitly single use and have them priced on that basis?
Any assault army which is expended in this way can generate something like an Aurora Cadre and give a discount or bonus when training another army, either taking less time to train or gaining grades faster during training.
On the other hand maybe taking some or all of these steps will make the armies sufficiently valuable that they will be worth keeping.
A question: what about using Aurora to simulate the ground combat? Design some base ground units, with their weapon and armor levels based on the tech level so a 10cm laser is HT-1, 12 is HT-2 and so on.
You could use the build times from Aurora to see how long would be needed to build the units, though you’dneed to decide on the cost to megacredits and backfill creation to the start of the game.
Not looking good for the Mintek. Heavily outnumbered by D'Bringi F0, and they only get an even fighter duel if they bring just half with them. Given the disparity in battleline weights, they are in deep do-do now the Alliance has a potential back door. Might find themselves bottled up in home system until SBMHAWKS come along, or the Alliance wants to feed enough ships into a WP assault
The Mintek fighter battle was brutal.
I didn't quite understand if the Mintek recommendations involve adding fighters to the warp point defenses or if they are going to be based at the homeworld.
With respect to ground combat, I hadn't considered the problem of orbital bombardment weapons causing planetary surrender. In Steve's writing the standard procedure is to ignore missile bombardment and start with beam bombardment to clear out beam STOs on the planet, then bring in ground units to take control of the surface.
I don't think I've seen any write ups of Aurora where planets surrender rather than face missile bombardment, but that might be partly due to the NPR AI.
I did think up a system for adding point defence fortification to planets (which you could track with excel or pen and paper) but I realised afterwards that once the defences are overcome the planet still has the same choice, keep up resistance despite the consequences or surrender. This again renders the ground forces somewhat moot.
The way to change the surrender calculation would require missiles (and probably all other weapons) to be less powerful vs populations, so that a fleet can't inflict a completely devastating amounts of damage once it has control of local space. This might be somewhat difficult to explain in universe given the events which have already happened, although I don't see why you couldn't implement it in a future campaign.
I've put the point defence fortification system below in case you are interested in implementing it.Off-Topic: show
Yes, if the drive field goes down the object "stops moving", as problematic as that is.My concern is not with something as esoteric as a reference frame but simple conservation of energy.
(snip)
By making such a ruling you create all sorts of logical issues, of course. What is "stopping"? In what frame of reference? Relative to what?
I am not sure humans would be willing to nuke planets, the navy personnel had to deal with consequences of nuked planet and I am not sure they would do it to someone else, especially while Ruston is in command.
Yes, if the drive field goes down the object "stops moving", as problematic as that is.My concern is not with something as esoteric as a reference frame but simple conservation of energy.
(snip)
By making such a ruling you create all sorts of logical issues, of course. What is "stopping"? In what frame of reference? Relative to what?
To stop a moving object you need to apply force opposite to the direction of travel, to stop it more or less instantly you need a very large force.
A drive which can generate those sort of forces doesn't sound like a drive which is no longer functional eg due to battle damage.
It all sounds like it needs a big "non-Newtonian" disclaimer applied.
On another note, are there any races which are interested in planet sniping, or is that considered too dishonourable? The humans spring to mind given how they came pretty close to having their home planet conquered and the political situation trending xenophobic.
What kind of gadget could giant crabs carry around that could do that to them? Do they carry it all the time, or is it just something they have for special occasions?
The Tarek seem to have gotten the rough end of the stick, I don't remember them doing anything aggressive except in response to human provocation but at least with an intact homeworld they are in a position to recover their independence if the CU gets beaten down.
Given the planet was captured intact, does it instantly provide all economic output to the CU or is there some sort of integration period?
What did you decide to do about ground units in the end?
It would seem that D'Bringi unwillingness to share fighter technology with Rehorish just costed Alliance second route to Mintek territory and significantly decreased number of ships that can be deployed for offensive through Phyriseq. And fixed defenses are most likely out of question for defense of Kure as the precise location of the jump point is unknown?
Thanks for the updates.
Why is the Colonial Union building an SD? IIRC the Mintek ones were slower than cruisers and many of the human experiences in war seem to point in the direction of faster fleets to keep or gain strategic initiative.
I don't think they don't have fighters yet, is that correct? (as a side note I predict the lack of fighters and experience using them will cause the humans great pain later on)
After seeing all the pinnaces and cutters that many navys have, are they similar to fighters, and how do they stack up in combat?
From what I remember from Starfire books, anti-matter warheads are quite a gamechanger as far as missile combat goes. This could give an edge to Mintek.
The humans are either going to encounter someone who has fighters, or they are going to develop them themselves. Either way, unless they get their asses handed to them, they are going to go with the view that fighters are only good as a support weapon to the large BB's and SD's, because they'll have so much time and effort invested in the big ships that they'll find it difficult to go a different way until their faces are rubbed in the fact that they have to adopt fighters.
The humans are either going to encounter someone who has fighters, or they are going to develop them themselves. Either way, unless they get their asses handed to them, they are going to go with the view that fighters are only good as a support weapon to the large BB's and SD's, because they'll have so much time and effort invested in the big ships that they'll find it difficult to go a different way until their faces are rubbed in the fact that they have to adopt fighters.
Fortunately (or not) for the Colonial Union, that's going to happen sooner than they expect. With the D'Bringi distracted and considering how far relations have deteriorated, I wouldn't be surprised if they make an attempt to annex the Tomsk Union by force. The Bjering will no doubt object to that, and they've gone all-in on fighter technology.
Honestly, it's kinda disappointing how far humanity has fallen. Had the USSR and the Coalition unified peacefully without ruining Earth, a united human state would probably have an economy as large as the entire D'Bringi Alliance combined.
As I understand it, the Bjering will stomp the humans flat given the fighter advantage in starfire. The only thing that would prevent a clean sweep would be closed warp points (which they probably know about given the Tomsk Union) and any artificial constraints on invasions.
Maybe the best hope for humanity the CU getting whipped and the Tomsk Union taking over the mantle as the major human power, leading a less xenophobic human regime, content with being a mid tier power.
Really cool AAR by the way, thanks for writing it up so far :)
i mean, you work with what you have. the situation as reflected in the game isn't as bad for humanity as the Earth conditions you're trying to simulate, but it's still enormously worse than having a very large pop on undespoiled terra. with the house rule growth rate reduction thats a substantial purely narrative-driven headwind for the monkey boys.
i don't recall the long term effects of amalgamation in 3e, but if its at all like subsequent editions, if you shatter a polity (humanity) into many pieces and let them trade-and-amalgamate back together they gain considerable strength at little expense through the process. depending on edition differences, there is some potential for inadvertent gaming going on, there.
i had always thought the real possibility for a major reversal on the d'bringi side would have been due to developing rivalry between the d'bringi and the roaches. THAT doesn't seem to be a problem anymore. roaches have been an instrument of removing weakness from the d'bringi doctrines as well as now adding crew quality bonuses and a huge chunk of raw economy. in a true PVP campaign this is kind of the moment when one player is Officially Winning (TM).
I'm quite surprised to see the Rheorish merge with the D'Bringi, I figured their superiority complex would prevent them from taking that path and the Clans seemed like they might be sufficiently self aggrandizing to refuse in spite of the hard logic in favour.
Anyway it seems like a stable long term government is being formed by the most advanced and richest powers.
However keeping separate fleets suggests that the integration isn't as close as it sounds?
Also you mentioned that Rheorish fleets were better trained, is that something that the new government will inherit or is it based on the crew species?
The Zir are taking a huge risk by not scanning all the systems they find, there could be anything lurking in those systems.
Also withholding information about the Alliance enemies sounds like an excellent way to get accused of treason and nuked from orbit 'pour encourager les autres'.
I got sidelined by reality and just finished getting caught up...
Three things sorta stand out:
1. With reduced growth rates it is nearly a requirement to force grow colonies to medium (400 PU) status. This likely flies in the face of conventional SF wisdom but both Starslayer and I came to this same conclusion in our game. The Shanirian's have been relying a bit too much on growth as they were forced to expand their fleet. But basically I got 2 races that were seriously in the red income wise and both of them are now in a good economic state due to this concentrated effort to both colonize and push up benign world populations. Also hostile worlds are worth settling due to the surplus population they produce on growth turns that can be used for in-system colonization...the Drakes have completely filled several systems and in particular if you allow asteroid colonies they are a great seed source. The D'bringi ignoring these worlds...has cost them a lot of money.
2. Did you roll for the commander who attacked the crabs? I mean that was a very bad case of snatching total defeat out of the jaws of victory....unless those PDCs had a lot more armour than I can believe the DDs could wipe them out...then wipe out the orbital stations...and then and only then does the fleet need to close in...basically when the DDs are out of missiles. If the ESs charged the whole fleet can withdraw ahead of them using their XOs to slow the ESs down to the point where they can't close the distance. Charging forwards...and even letting the BM equipped ground based launchers have any chance to hit??? Madness...and the DDs can cycle in and out...they had shields their targets not. The crabs could not be crushed without losses but there is no reason for the losses they took.
3. Did you forget the detection range of F0s? I'm baffled by how they managed to find the ships they supposedly attacked... I used to always send along an ast with each F0 strike where the ast was the eyes and even that is only range 20. Once the Mimbarii ships transited out the fighters were effectively blind...if they were in 6 hexs of the CTs they could follow those but the fleet could just turn away from them. They could have played cat and mouse with the nearsighted F0s till their lifesupport was up.
A more general comment about fighters is that they are rich man's weapons. F0s are well attrition weapons since the only thing they can do is close to FR range...and under most circumstances that will result in a lot of dead fighters...even though it is going to take out ships unless the fighters are insufficient and should not be deployed. This means the races that consider them secondary support systems likely have to consider very carefully how and against what they deploy their fighters. There are a lot of hidden costs with fighters...magazines costing more than the carrier, the upgrade to new fighters, the reduced effectiveness of the damn things till fM2LT2 shows up. UTM nerfed them seriously with Zi, Ai, S0, !2 and Dz. It is clear that how they are deployed has to change from what was typical in the past but I must admit I'm not sure the best way to do so. Basically an X fighter squadrons with weapon # are required to destroy ship type xx table needs to be generated for each race. Based on that they can then determine how many fighters they want to attach to each force. But affording enough of them to be decisive I think will be the constant issue.
>Some of the races are 'force-growing' their colonies to the 400 PU level by shipping additional colonists from their home planet. I'm not convinced that this is a good economic idea, as every 5.2 PTU you ship turns into only 2 money producing population units, but I think most races will turn to this rather than ship colonies out to the 9-12 range band.
if youve got no use for a colonization hub it's probably not worth it, no. but tech levels are getting up there, and i feel like even with no other habs, being able to do in-system and adjacent-system colonization of airless rocks is going to become a meaningful perq sometime soon. supposing your edition still has the 10% bonus to econ per TL, anyway.
also: defending a system 12 away from home? UGH.
i poked through the early couple pages of this thread, but didn't see:
what actual growth rate are you using for pops in this game? while i'm bugging you for numbers, what is the PU/PTU conversion rate at 401 pop, in 3rd ed? thx
The thing is with the economics in starfire, and especially with the reduced rate of growth there are only two relevant questions:
1. Can I afford to ship the 26 PTU a distance x?
2. Is there anything else closer to home that will make me money instead?
If the answer is YES and NO then you ship the colonists. Starfire and as far as I can see most other games have no "cost for empire" so there is no reason to not do so. The whole "rate of return" question is mostly academic. Every investment in the economy returns you more money for the economy. So there is no reason to not make any economic investment you can afford to make. And I have seen what it does for 3 races now....the SC reduced its investment in the economy due to needing to expand the fleet and their income growth stagnated, the RM was in the red and is now so far in the black that they can afford their fleet and all other expenses without looking at trade income...and they ship 105 PTU per turn from their home system 12+ jumps. The Squids are also now in the black so they can look into expanding their active fleet and they also ship population up to 12 jumps...their empire has so much survey luck and several nexus that they could ship stuff out with few jumps.
It is best to do this with the better planets and let growth deal with the other planets but even then sending out occasional colonists to speed up the arrival at 400 PU is good. Once the planet can start doing in system colonization of the moons it is a huge benefit...plus those 10 PU also allow 5 IU so the net benefit builds up fast. I also look into taking people off very poor small's near to the growth turn and moving them to the very rich moons using the in-system CFN.
Spreading out requires investment in fixed defences....and recall that the TFN in stars at war had a lot more invested in fixed defences then mobile ones....and it also means patrol forces are required. Plus you end up with a fleets rather than "a fleet" and so battle sizes are much more sensible. You don't have a single fleet that has to move 12 jumps to defend that world....you have system defences, you have a patrol force and some 4 jumps away is the xth Fleet or TG y of xth fleet or whatever.
Doesn't the 'undetectable new jump point problem' make fixed defences less than ideal (at least at jump points)?
If you explore enough systems in theory you can bypass any fixed defence because you'll eventually find a new jump point into that system, as the Mintek just found out. If they had ships instead of asteroid bases then they could relocate some of them to approximate location of the new jump point, ready to respond against an incursion.
Even many core systems with larger populations had no real defenses, because the tendency is to concentrate power as much as possible, both for striking power and because as a gamer it's easier to control. This is inherently unrealistic, and does not work that way in real life, for the most part, although it is situational.
The final point is the squishy, intangible, role-playing aspect. In real life, most local politicians would probably prefer fixed defenses over ships, because then they can't be relocated someplace the national government thinks is more important.There are several historical examples of this. In WW2, Americans were hysterical about the threat of Japanese or German bombers, launched from imaginary submarines, attacking their coastal cities. So a large number of valuable 90mm AA guns were kept in the continental US for absolutely zero gain until well into the later stages of war. Somewhat similarly, the Germans built an extensive anti-air network in western Germany in 1937-1939 that was almost completely wasted effort too. In both cases the weapons and equipment could be later moved to make better use of them but manpower and infrastructure price had been paid and lost. Then there is the famous example of the Allied bombing campaign (that was not really affecting German industrial production until late 1944) drawing majority of Luftwaffe fighter forces into Germany itself instead of being used over the Soviet Union. Those fighters shot down impressive numbers of bombers but were grind to dust themselves at the same time. Meanwhile, their absence meant that the Red Air Force, so badly mauled in 1941, could rebuild and regain air superiority. So even totalitarian states are vulnerable to making strategic mistakes in the name of populism.
I disagree about power concentration being unrealistic.You're right but Mahan was wrong. In WW1, the big battle between primary fleets was won by Germans but they lost the war. Because actually the only naval element that truly affected the land war was the continental blockade that was slowly strangling Germany. Germany could've done better if instead of battleships they had invested in blockade runners, submarines and fast cruisers that could wreck Allied shipping. Their tiny African and Asian squadrons did pretty well until the British hunted them down and of course late in WW1 the German submarines, despite their technical infancy, nearly destroyed British shipping lines. And in both WW1 and WW2 the British suffered because of lack of light forces to escort commercial ships and to patrol vulnerable areas and so on. Not to mention that the Japanese focus on the Decisive Battle cost them the Pacific War - their submarines were hunting battleships instead of cargo ships and their navy lacked the corvettes and destroyers necessary to prevent American submarines from doing the same.
Mahan doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan#Sea_power) applies to space navies at least as much as to wet navies.
Summarizing Mahan (and I welcome the naval military history buffs out there to correct any serious misstatements):
You win the battle by bringing more power to bear at a single point than your opponent.
You win the war by winning the battle between primary fleets.
Therefore if your objective is to be capable of winning a war, you should maximize the amount of power you can bring to bear at a single point.
There are several historical examples of this. In WW2, Americans were hysterical about the threat of Japanese or German bombers, launched from imaginary submarines, attacking their coastal cities. So a large number of valuable 90mm AA guns were kept in the continental US for absolutely zero gain until well into the later stages of war.
Even many core systems with larger populations had no real defenses, because the tendency is to concentrate power as much as possible, both for striking power and because as a gamer it's easier to control. This is inherently unrealistic, and does not work that way in real life, for the most part, although it is situational.
I disagree about power concentration being unrealistic.
Mahan doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan#Sea_power) applies to space navies at least as much as to wet navies.
Summarizing Mahan (and I welcome the naval military history buffs out there to correct any serious misstatements):
You win the battle by bringing more power to bear at a single point than your opponent.
You win the war by winning the battle between primary fleets.
Therefore if your objective is to be capable of winning a war, you should maximize the amount of power you can bring to bear at a single point.
My own corollaries:
All armed naval forces other than the primary fleet are only useful for recon, counter-recon, raiding, and counter-raiding. (Allowing for multiple primary fleets if travel time between fronts is too great.)
Static forces are only useful to the extent that they are cost effective deterrents to raiding, and to the extent that raiding is a material threat. (Assuming recon is performed outside of range/detection of static forces; if not, then static forces have anti-recon value as well.)
Therefore I expect power concentration to be the natural state of affairs, and the political pressure for static forces at any one location to be in line with the perceived material threat posed by enemy raiding forces at that location, not the perceived threat of the entire enemy force.
To comment on "maximize the amount of power you can concentrate" this is relative to the time you need to "have a battle between primary fleets." It is why in the real world there are things like "1st Fleet", "Home Fleet", "Indian Ocean Fleet" etc. You want to have a superior force in both numbers and time. "He who gets there first-est with the most-est" is one of the few land battle truisms that applies to naval warfare. In starfire you have to deal with the time to respond, which is why you tend to have a layer cake response, and the question is more about what your layer cake looks like than anything.
The tug of war is between "concentration" and "response time." Also a massive fleet concentration can only be in one place at one time. If the enemy is in 3 places you have lost two of them...or if you have 3 enemies. Also you have to consider that in Starfire a small force (6 DDs for example can destroy 18 PU/IU every 30s) can depopulate a colony world easily. Against domed moon colonies even a small group of CTs with beam weapons can destroy them on a short time scale.
The Shanirian Confederation Navy is organised (excluding detached TGs, and specialist formations as follows)
1st Fleet
TF10: 9 BB, 6 BC, 6 CA, 19 CL, 17 DD
TG11.1 (1 CA, 4 CL, 4 DD, 2 CT), TG11.2 & TG11.3 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
TG12.1 (1 CA, 4 CL, 4 DD, 2 CT), TG12.2 & TG12.3 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
2nd Fleet
TF20: 9 BB, 6 BC, 9 CA, 12 CL, 18 DD, 2 CT
TG21.1 (1 CA, 4 CL, 4 DD, 2 CT), TG21.2 & TG21.3 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
TG22.1 (1 CA, 4 CL, 4 DD, 2 CT), TG22.2 & TG22.3 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
TG23.1 (1 CA, 4 CL, 4 DD, 2 CT), TG23.2 & TG23.3 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
TG24.2 & TG24.3 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
3rd Fleet
TF30: 6 BB, 6 BC, 6 CA, 10 CL, 11 DD, 2 CT
TG31.1 (1 CA, 4 CL, 4 DD, 2 CT), TG31.2 & TG31.3 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
TG32.1 (1 CA, 4 CL, 4 DD, 2 CT), TG32.2 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
4th Fleet
TF40: 3 BB, 6 BC, 4 CA, 17 CL, 10 DD
TG41.1 (1 CA, 4 CL, 4 DD, 2 CT), TG41.2 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
5th Fleet
TG51.2 & TG52.3 (1 CL, 2 DD, 2 CT)
Each Fleet is assigned to a sector and the TF x0 is the primary strike force with the other TF x1+ being the patrol force for that sector. Additionally they use BS1 (DD sized bases) in great numbers with 560 in service. A typical WP will have between 6 and 9 of them present as a watch force. The response time for some sort of combat force is in many cases less than 1 month between encounter and the first ships arriving. The patrol ships can then pile onto a WP defence force to make a more substantial road block. The primary task force can respond in usually 2 months or less inside its area of responsibility. There are support forces for each sector with mine layers, mine carriers, extra aPn etc.
But 1st Fleet just got dispatched to deal with the break in at Romulus. 2nd Fleet is stuck watching Valentina's warp point. 3rd Fleet is stuck in Jerusalem as a survey force entered that system via a closed WP. 4th Fleet is currently refitting and 5th Fleet is barely being conceived as no one can figure out how to pay for it.
There is no way I can deal with the distributed threats by having a single fleet. And I can't patrol effectively without a substantial investment in light ships. And I need fixed defences at choke point systems to give me the time I need to shift forces around. I also don't think bases can protect a world at least not once fighters show up and the 1LS circle of death becomes an issue.
Added to this we use Steve's logistics rules so there is an absolute maximum of ships you can support and the further you are from your logistics hubs the smaller that amount is. That is part of the problem in Valentina...the amount of ships there is about the most I can support. So concentration has its limits...the Squidzies have that issue where one system they would love to concentrate a big fleet into has to be picketed because they haven't got the logistics to support a fleet there. And the Japanese-Russian war showed what happened to ships that needed to refit before fighting due to being at the end of their logistics teather. Heck this was true in WW2 even...as logistics makes up a huge part of your work load in War in the Pacific.
My 0.02€ anyway.
The final point is the squishy, intangible, role-playing aspect. In real life, most local politicians would probably prefer fixed defenses over ships, because then they can't be relocated someplace the national government thinks is more important.There are several historical examples of this. In WW2, Americans were hysterical about the threat of Japanese or German bombers, launched from imaginary submarines, attacking their coastal cities. So a large number of valuable 90mm AA guns were kept in the continental US for absolutely zero gain until well into the later stages of war. Somewhat similarly, the Germans built an extensive anti-air network in western Germany in 1937-1939 that was almost completely wasted effort too. In both cases the weapons and equipment could be later moved to make better use of them but manpower and infrastructure price had been paid and lost. Then there is the famous example of the Allied bombing campaign (that was not really affecting German industrial production until late 1944) drawing majority of Luftwaffe fighter forces into Germany itself instead of being used over the Soviet Union. Those fighters shot down impressive numbers of bombers but were grind to dust themselves at the same time. Meanwhile, their absence meant that the Red Air Force, so badly mauled in 1941, could rebuild and regain air superiority. So even totalitarian states are vulnerable to making strategic mistakes in the name of populism.I disagree about power concentration being unrealistic.You're right but Mahan was wrong. In WW1, the big battle between primary fleets was won by Germans but they lost the war. Because actually the only naval element that truly affected the land war was the continental blockade that was slowly strangling Germany. Germany could've done better if instead of battleships they had invested in blockade runners, submarines and fast cruisers that could wreck Allied shipping. Their tiny African and Asian squadrons did pretty well until the British hunted them down and of course late in WW1 the German submarines, despite their technical infancy, nearly destroyed British shipping lines. And in both WW1 and WW2 the British suffered because of lack of light forces to escort commercial ships and to patrol vulnerable areas and so on. Not to mention that the Japanese focus on the Decisive Battle cost them the Pacific War - their submarines were hunting battleships instead of cargo ships and their navy lacked the corvettes and destroyers necessary to prevent American submarines from doing the same.
Mahan doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan#Sea_power) applies to space navies at least as much as to wet navies.
Summarizing Mahan (and I welcome the naval military history buffs out there to correct any serious misstatements):
You win the battle by bringing more power to bear at a single point than your opponent.
You win the war by winning the battle between primary fleets.
Therefore if your objective is to be capable of winning a war, you should maximize the amount of power you can bring to bear at a single point.
The reason why Mahan was wrong was human nature. The investment into those big Battle Fleets was so immense that neither admirals nor political leaders were willing to gamble and risk them all. So the Decisive Battle almost never happened and even when it did happen, the fights were broken off pretty quickly. At Jutland, the Germans broke off into port after half a day of sailing despite having sunk more British ships than they had lost. At Midway, the Japanese called off their surface fleet after they lost three carriers despite still having superiority in numbers and guns. In both cases the battle could have ended up being Mahan's desired Decisive Battle but didn't because the admirals in command decided to withdraw.
It's only the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905 where a naval Decisive Battle affected the entire war and that was only because the psychological shock of losing the Baltic Fleet caused Czar Nicholas II to seek peace despite the Russin army still mobilizing to send troops to the Far East. If the war had gone on, it's likely that Russia would have driven the Japanese army to the sea.
Mahan was writing from the perspective of an American and America is a Maritime power until such time as Mexico or Canada builds a huge army. He was also basing his writings of the performance of Great Britain which is a Maritime power and used that power to defeat pretty much everyone at various points by using their command of the sea to project power where needed.
Germany lost WW1 because they had built a navy which while vastly expensive and consuming a lot of resources was worse than useless. It brought the Greatest Maritime power into an alliance with all their hostile neighbours , and was then unnable to meaningfully intefere with the blockade this caused strangling Germanies economy and allowing the financial power of Great Britain to bring men and material from all over the world to block their ambitons on land. If the Germans had not built a navy WW1 would have ended in 1914-15 with a German victory over France and Russia.
However in Starfire there is only the Navy and fixed fortifications so fleet power is all important. The maths of Starfire means that all other things being equal the larger fleet wins by a signifigant margin. So the weaker power needs to attrit the more powerful fleet by some means, diversions to split their fleet, attrition from cheap wp defenses or drawing a part of the enemy fleet into an engagment as attempted at Jutland.
The Greater power needs to keep as much combat power concentrated as possible and avoid being drawn into too many wp assaults and being attrited before the Decisive battle.
Esentially it works like the Pacific war in WW2 and Japanese planning for attrition before the final decisive battle. The same rule applies never fight anyone who has an economy 10 times greater than you unless you can destroy their economy before they bury you in ships.
This is the Big problem for the Mintek, they cannot match the D'bringi numbers so need to win multiple small engagements, WP defenses or find a way to hit the D'bringi economy. Kurt had a great example of how a weak power can defeat a stronger power with luck and skill in his previous campaign, the defeat of the Republic by the Empire despite the Empire being much weaker than the Republic but with a whole card.
feel you are considerably underappreciating the effects of choke points on wars in starfire.
As a rules question, I thought that only 1 ship can sit in each hex, is that not the case or did the Tormsk Union not place mines directly surounding the warp point?
When the BC came through the warp point, the targeting switched from the CL to the BC. When the SD came through the warp point, the targeting switched again to the SD.
Why was this done? Isn't getting a mission kill on an existing target more valuable than scratching the paint on a new ship? Especially with the SD's being much larger than the BC which were firing on them.
In addition to this, the CL were minesweepers, so reducing the number of functioning minesweepers would have potentially let the minefield survive and inflict damage on the rest of the rest of the fleet as it passed through, or maybe caused the minesweepers to spend more than 1 turn sweeping, which lets the Tormsk fleet keep getting 'free' missile hits.
Also I wasn't quite sure, are DSB-L one shot only and are they targeted by the command ship? It seems like another case where lack of focus fire left the CU with many functioning ships, whereas with more focus more of the ships would be mission kills, or is that the reason for using smaller hulls for minesweepers?
Firstly thanks for the updates, I enjoyed reading them.
As a rules question, I thought that only 1 ship can sit in each hex, is that not the case or did the Tormsk Union not place mines directly surounding the warp point?
When the BC came through the warp point, the targeting switched from the CL to the BC. When the SD came through the warp point, the targeting switched again to the SD.
Why was this done? Isn't getting a mission kill on an existing target more valuable than scratching the paint on a new ship? Especially with the SD's being much larger than the BC which were firing on them.
In addition to this, the CL were minesweepers, so reducing the number of functioning minesweepers would have potentially let the minefield survive and inflict damage on the rest of the rest of the fleet as it passed through, or maybe caused the minesweepers to spend more than 1 turn sweeping, which lets the Tormsk fleet keep getting 'free' missile hits.
Also I wasn't quite sure, are DSB-L one shot only and are they targeted by the command ship? It seems like another case where lack of focus fire left the CU with many functioning ships, whereas with more focus more of the ships would be mission kills, or is that the reason for using smaller hulls for minesweepers?
To make a personal point to Kurt's comments that I, to be clear, agree with on switching targeting: when it is clear the defenders can't win the defence I switch from destroying to inflicting hard damage (inside shields) as my opinion is that recovery, repair and so on of these damaged ships inflicts more "friction" on the victor than a smaller number of outright lost ships will. Worst case the victor may have to scuttle them...or else they will have to go back to be repaired then come forward again with a lowered crew quality due to battle damage and so on.
Then there is the soft factors of not killing ships crews and so on. In this sort of battle it matters how you fight a lot more than when you dealing with a bug horde.
One further point with regards to mines and closed warp points. What I do is have the mines in the closed warp point hex itself under command control not left on...so they are brought up only if needed. This stops an IFF error and also to a degree makes them more effective. But I can also understand NOT placing mines there. One would expect to see politicians from the side of the defenders now asking "Why didn't you emplace them you idiots?!?!" "Military Bumbling At Its Best!!!" and so on...
Kurt, looking over the last posts I see a trend towards not having assault capable fleets. Virtually everyone has a fleet that is optimized for deep space battles. This may make sense as most have been that but no one seems to have a fleet with an assault component. In the game Starslayer and I have going, at around this tech level that was a mix of CA, BC, and BB. Personally i find the BC a poor assault ship as it costs much more than a CA and is far less sturdy compared to BBs and so tend to use CA&BB. With your changed WP rules I have no idea how to go about determining what size ship makes most sense. But outside of the CU no one seems to be considering how they will get through a defended WP. How to defend one seems to be everyone's question.
I have a request, as everyone seems enamoured with fighters and we skipped over this TL without significant combat, or at least combat that wasn't F0 vrs pGB, could you make some comments later on how you see the balance going with the 3rdR changes, I'd like to know if my view is personal or something other people are seeing. One point that I noticed from playing through the SAW scenarios for the start of ISW3 was that fighters are great against lighter ships, awesome against bases but against sufficient numbers of capital ships they suddenly deflate. Against the combination anti-fighter escorts and capital ships they take serious losses, and this with the SAW designs (no Ai, S0, Zi, etc). I'm very curious what your experience is, particularly with F0/F1.
Do you plan to limit the number of shot fL can take? The München group decided that it, in particular, needed reigning in. We settled on 3 anti-shipping shots and unlimited dogfighting.
i'm afraid at least in the München gang's (and mine as part of it) opinion they were far far far too effective. 6 F1's with FL does 18 damage per turn and can fire until the fighters themselves are destroyed. Also there is the 1 LS circle of death which obliterates bases....basically the fighters circle doing max EM at 4 hexes and with a 3 to hit and a -1 to be hit by return fire can rip a base to pieces over time. So yeah...personally yes it is too much. It is basically due to the minimum damage being 1 pt but it is just way too much. fL2 and fP are also overpowered. The problem is that the fM series is underpowered, until fM2-LT2 then you have something which likely can do damage to ships. Why you can't put an anti-matter warhead on fM1 or fM2 and why the advanced anti-matter warhead does less damage is beyond me.
To be honest, I am not sure how the balance changes at TL 10, TL11, Al and Dx do change the circle of death to a circle of impotence. They also defang fM-LT2. Current battles are somewhat inconclusive as they usually end one way or other before the carries wake up and send fights in close. But right now the bugs are holding their own with AFM abtteries and playing hedgehog. Though (still writing up) the last battle, trying to man the walls and keep the gunboats about for fleet defense did prevent them from going active. On the other hand, tehy served admirably as an expensive ablative armour for the fleet, as Paul was somewhat focused on engaging them. ;)
The restriction of prevalent 100 HS WPs has lead most races to adopt special BB designs as assault ships.
A special mention goes to the bugs, whom toss 6 probe BBs through a WP to get information and telemetry.
DAIKU III class BB AM2 12 XOg Racks 100 Hull TL 11
[2]S1x36Acx24AlAcx30HQ(III)(III)Q(III)(BbS)Q(HET2)HDx(III)Q(HET2)M5?jDx!3LhQ(HET2)Dx?kXr?3Wc(It2)ZiDxX(III)Mg[6]
100 RCP 110 FCP Trg:6 Bmp +6 Tem -3 Cloak Cost = 3530/ 529.5
HTK 133 S1x36 Alx1 Acx54 Dxx4 (HET2)x3 Wcx1 Mgx1
And their Minesweepers are a bit of a legacy design, though they served admirably.
BB WOLVERINE II class BB AM2 20 XO Racks 100 Hull TL 10
[2]S1x45Acx48H(III-It)(BbS)(III-It)(III-It)?3(III-It)QDxx4LxDxDxLxQLhDxLx!2DxM5Xrs(Dec2)LxZiDxMg(III-It)[5]
100 RCP Trg:6 Bmp +6 Tem -2 Cost = 3276/ 491.4
HTK 138 S1x45 Acx48 Dxx9 Lxx4 Mgx1
10x CM LT2, 20x CAM (Mg), 20x BAM-Rc, 2x EDM (Mg)
Of course, should things get serious and the WP allow it, there's this:
ML HATAMOTO-HI II class ML AM2 1 XO, 20 XOg Racks 165 Hull TL 11
[3]S1x60Acx20AlAcx20AlAcx20(BbS)(IIIII)HLhQx5Fc2Fc2(IIIII)?3Fc2Fc2DxzDxzTi(IIIII)HQQFc2Fc2!3(It2)DxzTi?jMi2?kDxzDxzFc2Fc2QLhZ2Dxz(IIIII)MgMg[5]
165 RCP 35 MCP 200 FCP Trg:11 Atk +2 Bmp +6 Tem -3 Cloak Cost = 6128/ 919.2
HTK 180 S1x60 Alx2 Acx60 Dxzx6 Fc2x8 Tix2 Mgx2
With these latest developments in the Torqual government, the question arises. What can the Alliance do about this situation? Do they have the legal power to do anything? Should they do anything, or leave them to sort themselves out? Interfering in local politics can cause blowback, not just in the Torqual area, but other areas of the Alliance that see the Alliance giving itself the ability to be more heavy handed in interfering with local politics. If they leave them be, then political instability could leak out from the Torqual state and affect other states, including the Alliance itself. How the Alliance deals with this crisis could be very important to the future of the galaxy.
Very exciting updates. I'm sure there was some roleplay involved, but even so the importance of a well-trained crew was starkly displayed in the space battle, with the incompetent revolutionaries barely able to hit the broad side of a space barn never mind a military target. Good to see some form of justice done in the end.
Are you RPing the ground war, or is there an exciting new system working behind the scenes that models logistics, cities, and the like?
im sorry about going off-topic, but characterizing russia as having "hamstrung" its army is a little odd to me. was there another armed force on earth that could have done what the russians did, at the moment they had to do it? one need not admire the methods of the russian leadership, but simple survival under unprecedented duress proves they weren't a pack of oafish Weberian straw men.
Commenting in the correct thread:im sorry about going off-topic, but characterizing russia as having "hamstrung" its army is a little odd to me. was there another armed force on earth that could have done what the russians did, at the moment they had to do it? one need not admire the methods of the russian leadership, but simple survival under unprecedented duress proves they weren't a pack of oafish Weberian straw men.
I believe Kurt is referring to the state of the Red Army immediately prior to the start of Operation Barbarossa (or the Great Patriotic War, from the other side). This was not the successful and mature Red Army which won at Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin, but in 1941 the Red Army suffered a severe leadership deficit due to Stalin's purges which rather loosely mirrors the Torqual revolutionaries' situation in Kurt's recent updates. While it is somewhat open to debate what the actual impact of this was, and what might have been different had Stalin not carried out these purges, it is hard to argue that killing or firing the majority of your generals and a sizable fraction of the lower-ranking officers in a nation's army could not be described as "hamstringing" said army.
Certainly in the period of 1942-45, and even at times in 1941 such as at Moscow, the Red Army accomplished great things and was a premiere fighting force, but they surely did not start in a particularly enviable position.
Given the Mintek specifically spent the time to destroy the Bedu sensors immediately, shouldn't that indicateI believe at closer ranges Xr can tell the class of a ship particularly if you have seeen it before, but that is nearly at combat range. At longer ranges it just counts engines which does make it harder to differentiate carriers from similar ships.
they did it to hide immediate fleet movements, thereby making the presence of additional ships more likely?
Given that any hull can be a carrier, how do you determine the loadout of a hostile ship, before they start shooting at you?
It is ironic that what started out as Human Cold War, in other words two human factions starring as the protagonists with aliens in a minor side role, has evolved to humans being almost an extra while the focus is on the numerous alien factions in the galaxy ;D Now that's emergent storytelling!
Given the Mintek specifically spent the time to destroy the Bedu sensors immediately, shouldn't that indicateI believe at closer ranges Xr can tell the class of a ship particularly if you have seeen it before, but that is nearly at combat range. At longer ranges it just counts engines which does make it harder to differentiate carriers from similar ships.
they did it to hide immediate fleet movements, thereby making the presence of additional ships more likely?
Given that any hull can be a carrier, how do you determine the loadout of a hostile ship, before they start shooting at you?
Destroying the sensor bouys could be to mask their weakness, by making the enemies think they have more ships in reserve than they do a bluff while they actually bring up their main fleet. The Bedu don't know the main Mintek fleet was massed on their border as they said this could just be the border fleet in which case they should try and push it back to give them more space to defend when the main Mintek fleet shows up
One thing I've seen from the jam every fighter you can into a carrier sorts is that they forget that you don't always define the battleground. The fighter barge carrier works for meeting engagements and defensive situations. The trouble is if you say "The carrier is my main weapon" then you need carriers that can transit contested warp points and not go pop. The RM in our game are fighter focused but their CVs are CV(A) and carry 24 fighters but are designed to punch into a system...their current assault carriers (based ona CVB hull) are again 24 fighters but are purpose built to go in as an assault ship. Their CVLs carry 24 fighters but are only there to resupply the CV(A) with fresh fighters and their CVEs (actually CVSs) are 18 fighter space control platforms. They use a group of 3 CVEs (with 54 fighters) and 3 CTs as patrol fleets. My personal opinion is the rigilians in ISW3 should have ditched 6 fighters from their CVs to make them more robust and turned their otherwise useless CVLs into 30 fighter space control platforms. Rather than weakening their sole assault ship.
This is a tough call though as every fighter squadron is one more to the strike and fighters are either overkill or do nothing weapons. But sooner or later a contested WP will need to be challenged and a low passive carrier going into a contested warp point isn't even just a target it is easily killed. And the cost of its magazine...not to mention the valuable pilots is nontrivial. I carry fR just so I can use them in WP assaults so my carrier don't blow up when a P hits a loaded hanger bay. But if the Bedu lack actual assault ships and none of the ships so far are that...will get obliterated by the Mintek.
What I've never been able to figure out is what is the detection capabilities of a DSB-Xr. Yes half that of an Xr...but I'm fairly sure this refers to the Presence column only. As a standard IDEW/DSB-L has a 20 hex detection range which would match a DSB-Xr and restricting quantity to 0.5 system hex is plain annoying since it makes things difficult on the system scale and much the same is true for the engine type and number at 30 hexes. This also applies to the fighter sensor.
The question of class as in "wolverine class CA" versus "speedo class CA" is given page 26 and seems very restrictive. Basically scanning shields down at 10 hexs. Otherwise you know only it is a 60 HS CA hull...carriers and BC can be easily told apart at 40 hexes as one is a 80 HS BC and the other is a 85 HS CV. Overall this seems way too restrictive. If you have fought a class of ship before identifying it again should be easy at effectively 60 hexes with Xr...and even a varient of the class should be possible. But on the other hand the TF could not identify the various bug ships until they fired...and frankly I can't see why not since there is no way an avalanch looked anything like an acid or an archer and the various CLs should have been obviously different.
One thing I've seen from the jam every fighter you can into a carrier sorts is that they forget that you don't always define the battleground. The fighter barge carrier works for meeting engagements and defensive situations. The trouble is if you say "The carrier is my main weapon" then you need carriers that can transit contested warp points and not go pop. The RM in our game are fighter focused but their CVs are CV(A) and carry 24 fighters but are designed to punch into a system...their current assault carriers (based ona CVB hull) are again 24 fighters but are purpose built to go in as an assault ship. Their CVLs carry 24 fighters but are only there to resupply the CV(A) with fresh fighters and their CVEs (actually CVSs) are 18 fighter space control platforms. They use a group of 3 CVEs (with 54 fighters) and 3 CTs as patrol fleets. My personal opinion is the rigilians in ISW3 should have ditched 6 fighters from their CVs to make them more robust and turned their otherwise useless CVLs into 30 fighter space control platforms. Rather than weakening their sole assault ship.
Excellent writing again Kurt. What a stunning victory for the Mintek!
The Mintek seem to be well on their way to sweeping up the Bedu. The Bedu maps they must already have from their converts on the planets they have been preaching to so there was actually no point in the Bedu trying to be secretive.
Good thing for the Mintek the Bedu never thought to probe the new contact with a squadron or three of F1s! That was a sneaky trick. The RM have pod rolling SDs to do that as well...or to lock the pods up with a tractor and fire them 6 at a time. The SDs have to have their DF down admittedly to set up for the next salvo but can also hang back and 3 of them can launch 18 pods per turn at the enemy fleet.. The Bedu may have been better off with a circle the wagons formation where their ships move in a circle...but yeah you are looped pretty much in the situation they were in. I'm a bit surprised the carriers survived the missile pods. 25 pods per carrier should have reduced them to floating chunks of metal...but the exact to hit chance the missiles end up with is likely the biggest determinant. With a 6 to hit (-2 EM) only 45 hit, half are EDMed so 23 and 14 or so are shot down by PD leaving 9*4 = 36 damage...one reason the LT2 is so attractive! (75*0.5 = 32, 16*.6 = 10 so 22 * 2 = 44 damage and skipping shields) Also if the carriers had had dedicated escorts they would have also fared much better even more so as they would not have been targeted themselves.
The new EM rules also mean that if the carriers had gone full defensive they would likely have had -4 or -5 to hit and they may have gotten out of the pod attack with only shield and armour damage.
As far as the DSB-Xr goes I think leaving it at 1 System hex for quantity simplifies play on the system scale.
Added in the edit:
Looking at the ships in better detail and running the numbers if the CVs had gone full defensive they would have had a -5 and on average 1-2 missile hits. So they would have escaped unscathed. But it likely would not have changed the battle results as the Mintek had more fighters so they could have destroyed the defending fighters and then come back and picked the ships apart in multiple strikes.
I also spotted fM-a in a list ... following the rules fighter missiles can't mount anti-matter warheads only advanced anti-matter and starting with the fM2 the LT2 warhead. This will save the Mintek some MCr.
Just for similarity to the Mintek here is the RM CV(A) design (sorry it is TL10 the TL9 ones got deleted when reducing the database):
CV(A) SAETTA U2 class CV AM2 17 XOa Racks 85 Hull TL 10
[1]S1x12Acx24H(BbM)Q(BbM)(III)(II)Vx6BcVx6PgQPgDx(III)Vx6BcVx6DxQWaXrQM4MgBcMgC(II)LhQZi?3Dc(III)(II)[6]
85 RCP 65 MCP 24 FCP Trg:5 Bmp +6 Cost = 2575/ 386.2
HTK 100 S1x12 Acx24 Dxx2 Dcx1 Pgx2 Wax1 Vx24 Mgx2
20x SM2-b, 40x SM2 LT2, 12x CAM2, 9x EDM2, 20x AFM2, 72x fG, 72x fR, 144x fR-b, 72x fL, 432x fM2 LT2, 72x fLs, 12x fXr, 3x ADM (Mg)
and their real assault carriers at their current tech level as well:
CVB TAIFUN U1 class CVB AM2 20 XOa Racks 100 Hull TL 11
[1]S1x30Acx6AlAcx6AlAcx15H(BbM)H(BbM)Q(III)(III)Vx6BcVx6BcQPg2(III)Vx6BcVx6M4QWaXr?kC(III)DxzLhQ?j?3Dxz(III)MgZ2Mg(III)[6]
100 RCP 24 FCP Trg:5 Bmp +6 Cloak Cost = 3450/ 517.5
HTK 126 S1x30 Alx2 Acx27 Dxzx2 Pg2x1 Wax1 Vx24 Mgx2
20x SM2-b, 40x SM2 LT2, 18x CAM2, 12x EDM2, 20x AFM2, 72x fG, 72x fR, 144x fR-b, 72x fL, 504x fM2 LT2, 72x fLs, 12x fXr
Congrats on 200 updates, Kurt, quite an accomplishment for an AAR!
Even with the military defeat, the Bedu situation remains intriguing. Surely the Mintek would not be happy to accept surrender and arrive in the home system only to find the Bedu running away into Bjering space. Further, they will soon share a border with the Bjering who are certainly not likely to welcome Mintek meddling and are surely large enough that the Mintek logistics will be unable to support an invasion in the near future. With any luck the Mintek may overextend themselves and set up to be knocked down a few pegs.
What is up with the Mintek, anyway?
Their missionaries have always struck me as...suspiciously effective. Though I suppose they have mostly targeted fairly unpleasant military dictatorships thus far.
The Mintek are going to be very grumpy when they arrive on the Bedu home world to find so much stolen out from under them.
Have the Bjering and Virena's faction of the Bedu contemplated forming an alliance structure vaguely similar to what the D'Bringi had with their client races prior to the great merger? It seems that the Bedu ships would be more effective as a wing of the Bjering fleet should the Mintek inevitably decide to continue expanding their reach, and the Bedu are hardly in a position to concern themselves with notional independence for the time being.
what political state are the bedu going into?
i dont remember the 3rd ed federal theocracy in detail, but ISTR that their assimilation of conquered races hinged on growth population. does the reduced growth rate in this game slow down how fast the bedu are going to be digested? 'cause that could be really sad for the mintek, with the D'Broaches breathing down their necks and Warp Point Drano entering the meta.
the bedu homeworld is going into the, whatever the name is, the "you just got your defending army blown up" political state, then? later editions have kind of a "puppet government" alternative and i didn't know if such a thing had found its way into the current state of 3rd ed.
Interesting, our game has the Bauer and they ended up fleeing the RM into the arms of the Thebans in a similar sort of action, and both race names start with B-even. The RM has been busy indoctrinating the remaining Bauer and has gotten a good chunk converted to their religion that way. It is currently nearly a quarter of their home system population that now see things the RM way.
I'm not really a fan of treating IU as disposable income, but those are the rules. I treat them more like IU was in IS where it was permanent. But then I also keep a balance from turn to turn, I try for at least 1 month and best cases 2 months income as a warchest. So with that the Bedu fleeing would have had at least some MCr available. To a certain extent they may have done the Mintek a favor as now they can build IU which gives a fairly large adjustment against the conquered population malus.
I'd have assumed the Bedu political state is "conquered" and the fact it was done by peace treaty rather than demonstration strikes or an invasion is window dressing.
Wow, these new aliens are very aggressive without knowing the full capabilities of the foe they face.
An interesting series of events. From the ending explanation it sounds like there is a distinct possibility that the Doraz end up in a war assisting the Norn, since the Aurarii are not interested in alien contact so there will be little choice of a faction to "work with" if the Doraz wish to expand the Alliance.
Interesting tactic by the Aurarii in using military speed to pursue a faster force, even if they could not catch the Doraz force the possibility to induce breakdowns and eliminate the stragglers is a useful tactic. Maybe Starfire veterans are unsurprised but I found this clever. I have wished many times that Aurora had a similar mechanic, instead of commercial/military engines having strategic/full-speed movement would I think add an interesting mechanic and this encounter shows one reason why.
sounds ta ME like the death snots caught some luck. stead of having to blow up two fleets, they only have to deal with the remaining fraction of one. and one of their new pets probably has good loot.
Good one Kurt, though the mental image of the slugs on their hover chariots with their eyestalks poking over the rim of the chariot side makes me laugh. This is a very real case of first contact going side ways. I'm not sure we have had such in our campaign though I think there was a few very odd ones.
While many of the Navy’s officers have staunchly maintained their belief that the battlecruisers are the queen of battle, and that the new superdreadnoughts are too ungainly and slow to be effective on the strategic stage, it is hard to deny comparisons that show that the superdreadnoughts mount twice as many launchers, and have nearly twice as much passive defenses as the battlecruisers, for less than twice the cost. Regardless of the endless debates between the battlecruiser captains and the superdreadnought captains, the politicians love the huge SD’s and it is clear that the BC’s days as the queen of the fleet are numbered.
The Grisha class was their answer, and numerous units were built before the Last War. Thirty-seven units of this class still exist, all in mothballs where they are likely to stay, being considered too small and limited for current fleet duties.
I appreciate the writeup on the ship designs, especially the written descriptions which I can understand ::)QuoteWhile many of the Navy’s officers have staunchly maintained their belief that the battlecruisers are the queen of battle, and that the new superdreadnoughts are too ungainly and slow to be effective on the strategic stage, it is hard to deny comparisons that show that the superdreadnoughts mount twice as many launchers, and have nearly twice as much passive defenses as the battlecruisers, for less than twice the cost. Regardless of the endless debates between the battlecruiser captains and the superdreadnought captains, the politicians love the huge SD’s and it is clear that the BC’s days as the queen of the fleet are numbered.
Based on the debacle where the Rehorish and D’Bringi out manoeuvred the humans inside their own territory I'd say that the officers are correct, unless the enemy uses even faster ships.QuoteThe Grisha class was their answer, and numerous units were built before the Last War. Thirty-seven units of this class still exist, all in mothballs where they are likely to stay, being considered too small and limited for current fleet duties.
Can these be fitted with the long range sensors? I'd have thought that small hulls with high speed would be great for giving fleets wide ranging scouting ability, or used to keep watch on jump points or spread around inhabited systems.
Ooh, the D'Bringi's mysterious benefactors seem to have found a new catspaw.
Battlecruisers are just too small after TL6 or TL7 and as the necessary electronics increases this is even more true. The Shanirians are fielding BBA's to get a speed 6 ship with sufficient space to mount the electronics a ship needs. For certain tasks BC are ok: escorts for carriers or battleline escorts or command ships for cruiser datagroups. Starslayer made some with commercial engines that worked well as patrol ships because they mounted more weapons than smaller ships. But by the time you can field a SD a BC is just too small. At that point they become "show of force" ships, which indicate a certain degree of seriousness. But BCs have 0 chance of stopping a SD led WP assault or halting them in mid space unless they seriously outnumber them. The stuff Webber wrote in In Death Ground about BCs was not realistic with 3rdR's rule set. And once you have to face defended WPs nothing smaller than a BB is a viable assault ship (even a CV is dangerously weak) and if you go for speed 6 assault ships CAs are better as they are easier to replace and cost a lot less but they are still on the light side. But as (especially) Gunboat killers BC are truly terrifyingly effective, with Wa they can launch broadsides of 36+ sprint missiles per datagroup...and that hurts. In our game they are still valuable as they are the smallest hull that can mount capital weapons. But 15xRc in 3 BCs compared to 30xRc in 3 SDs... Honestly a BBA or better a SDA is a "battle" cruiser: a 45 HS CL is a light, a 60 HS CA is a regular and 80 HS BC is a heavy cruiser.
One change you might want to consider Kurt is giving Mi(x) the capabilities of Xr, it is one of our house rules. It is rather crazy that the higher tech level version incorporates it and is also half the size of Mi(x). This saves at least some space for command ships once command datalink shows up. I frankly think that a lot of the electronics are seriously over sized. These should be add ons that you buy into your hull or not, they should cost money not space...most of them are nothing more than a computer. This would keep the smaller hulls viable as tech level goes up...as it is now at TL10+ even DDs are barely viable just from electronics space requirements...ignoring the increase of weapon damage.
The Khozuni ships efficiently hunted down and killed the sensor and comms buoys at the warp point and then set out for the inner system.Don't the sensor and comms buoys have some way of detecting the attacking ships?
Khozuni Imperial GuardI kind of understand why you would want a hybrid design if you have a limited number of hulls, but the Khozun were given a bunch of shipyards, so they can just build dedicated explorer ships, rather than making their warships more expensive. On the other hand the Khozuni Raider seems to be more cost effective than the Chriq Woden (it is 33% larger but only costs 23% more) so they are doing something right.
Using technology transferred from their benefactors, the Khozuni fielded this class. The science instruments were thrown into the design at the last minute to make the class a hybrid warship-explorer design, but as used, the science instruments were little more than expensive armor for the ship.
Have the D'Bringi forgotten about their long ago benefactors or is it a matter of ongoing concern and investigation for them?
I assume they didn't tell anyone else in the Alliance about them?
The latest action has gone low tech, it feels a bit like the old days of the Soviets vs the Coalition.QuoteThe Khozuni ships efficiently hunted down and killed the sensor and comms buoys at the warp point and then set out for the inner system.Don't the sensor and comms buoys have some way of detecting the attacking ships?
QuoteKhozuni Imperial GuardI kind of understand why you would want a hybrid design if you have a limited number of hulls, but the Khozun were given a bunch of shipyards, so they can just build dedicated explorer ships, rather than making their warships more expensive. On the other hand the Khozuni Raider seems to be more cost effective than the Chriq Woden (it is 33% larger but only costs 23% more) so they are doing something right.
Using technology transferred from their benefactors, the Khozuni fielded this class. The science instruments were thrown into the design at the last minute to make the class a hybrid warship-explorer design, but as used, the science instruments were little more than expensive armor for the ship.
Have the D'Bringi forgotten about their long ago benefactors or is it a matter of ongoing concern and investigation for them?
I assume they didn't tell anyone else in the Alliance about them?
The latest action has gone low tech, it feels a bit like the old days of the Soviets vs the Coalition.QuoteThe Khozuni ships efficiently hunted down and killed the sensor and comms buoys at the warp point and then set out for the inner system.Don't the sensor and comms buoys have some way of detecting the attacking ships?
They do. The sensor buoy will detect the ships, and report it to the comms buoy, which will report the contact up the chain to the Sector HQ. It seems that the Sector HQ is not aware of any reports of contacts. Hmmmm...
::) Maybe they are planning ahead and don't want to rely on the mysterious benefactors? I guess the Khozun Emperor might be sneaky as well as arrogant?QuoteQuoteKhozuni Imperial GuardI kind of understand why you would want a hybrid design if you have a limited number of hulls, but the Khozun were given a bunch of shipyards, so they can just build dedicated explorer ships, rather than making their warships more expensive. On the other hand the Khozuni Raider seems to be more cost effective than the Chriq Woden (it is 33% larger but only costs 23% more) so they are doing something right.
Using technology transferred from their benefactors, the Khozuni fielded this class. The science instruments were thrown into the design at the last minute to make the class a hybrid warship-explorer design, but as used, the science instruments were little more than expensive armor for the ship.
I couldn't remember why I threw the X into the design to begin with, so I had to come up with something to say when I wrote up the design. I think I wanted the Khozun to have the ability to explore if they wanted to do so, but it wasn't going to be their primary focus.
Kurt
Blowing up the lifeboats seems a bit harsh.And nuking the imperial capitol isn't? Seems like these mystery bois are firm believers in Soviet retirement packages.
Well it seems the Khozuni are going to be a threat to the galactic community for even less time than I expected.
Blowing up the lifeboats seems a bit harsh.
Does Starfire have rules for overcrowding from collecting survivors?
Also is there a concept of sensor resolution to detect fighters or are ships expected to have the better sensors by the time fighters are developed?
Well it seems the Khozuni are going to be a threat to the galactic community for even less time than I expected.
Blowing up the lifeboats seems a bit harsh.
Does Starfire have rules for overcrowding from collecting survivors?
Also is there a concept of sensor resolution to detect fighters or are ships expected to have the better sensors by the time fighters are developed?
Being in deep space the pods were very unlikely to be found, but in any case, dead crewpersons tell no tales. The unknowns obviously believe in being better safe than sorry.
As for overcrowding, yes, there are combat negatives if you have too many survivors on your ship and not enough quarters to hold them.
Inherent ship sensors, which were all that the Khozuni had, can detect small craft and fighters at 20 hexes, or five light seconds. Of course, those same sensors can only detect large units, like ships, at a range of 30 tac hexes, or 7.5 light seconds. Low tech, pre long-range scanner races are really blundering around in the dark most of the time.
3rd Ed Starfire has a problem with sensors. Up to HT3, ships can see only barely farther than their weapons can fire, out to 30 tac hexes, like the Khozuni. Once a race reaches HT3, though, they can develop the Xr, or long-range scanners. The Xr has been derisively called the all-seeing eye, as it suddenly, in one massive technological leap, expands a ships ability to see another ship from 7.5 light seconds to a full 72 light MINUTES! And then, after that, there are no further tech advances in detection capability. Third Ed., Revised, added Xrs, but this is a combat system, smaller than the standard Xr, intended to allow a ship to target other ships out to the limits of weapons capability at that tech level. Cloaking comes along at a higher tech level, making the situation complicated again, but there are no further advances in sensor tech, which is weird and not very realistic. Before starting this campaign, I played around with modding the Xr, so that Xr0 could only see out to, say, 30 light seconds, with each later variant adding some range. I'd have to figure out how to add tech systems to SA, though, and the more you play around with SA's databases, the more finicky it gets.
Kurt
I'm not really clear how valuable the ships are to the Bjering, are they giving away a valuable resource or are the ships relatively valueless?
I thought the Bedu refugees kept some of the freighters to use for themselves, did the Bjering give those ships as well, or did they only give the ones they had ownership of? Do the Mintek know about or care about the discrepancy?
It seems to me that the Bjering had a strong claim to the ships by signed contract, the Mintek argument 'they originally belonged to a government that we conquered' is weaker. In that case handing them all over (not even part) under threat of war is essentially giving in to blackmail, and the Bjering should be worried about encouraging that behaviour, and the Tomsk should be worried about how solid any Bjering guarantees are.
I think it works out for all parties involved which is a rare good thing in diplomacy. The Bedu CFN ships were not of much use to the Bjering but the Bedu exiles could not support them either, so it makes sense to use them as a trade token to stay on the Mintek good side and, frankly, to do a humanitarian (Beduitarian?) favor for the Bedu in Mintek territory. Meanwhile despite the apparent concession no Bjering guarantee has been abrogated, as the Bedu exiles remain free with that fraction of their ships which were kept for themselves. I am sure that if the exiles keep any small part of the CFN after this trade, the Mintek will know about it as they have done some exhaustive tallying, but as long as they get most of the CFN back and can stabilize the Bedu economy and their own I think they will be satisfied. Ultimately neither party wants a war, the Mintek are overstretched and the Bjering prefer not to be involved in the affairs of other major powers.
It seemed like the Bjering had leverage. They knew (or could reasonably infer) the Mintek were in a bad economic position without the ships. To regain the ships by fighting would take time and cost money, for supplies and to repair and replace warships, even if they won.
Every Shiba encountered by the Mintek so far has a technological implant of some sort in the side of their head. The Shiba, when asked, explained that this is an assistive implant enabling the individual to download documents to long term memory, communicate over short distances, and integrate with the local area networks that the Shiba set up everywhere they go. The Mintek find this technology extremely interesting, and their cultural mission plans on exploring the possibility of trade relating to this technology as one of the first things they do.
The Shiba state is called the Ascendancy, and from what little has been communicated to date the Mintek have found some comforting similarities to their own nation.
Interesting, this continued trend towards amalgamated super-states. Is that typical for later in a Starfire campaign or unique to this setting?The humans managed to make half a dozen new factions so to save processing power everyone else has to merge ;D
Interesting, this continued trend towards amalgamated super-states. Is that typical for later in a Starfire campaign or unique to this setting?
In the intelligence report, what ship class is ML, I assume it isn't Motor Launch or Mine Layer?
Is the Bedu fleet strength the ships that engaged the Mintek in that battle or is it the Bedu reserve ships that were turned over to the Mintek? I thought the remaining Bedu warships were donated to the Bjering but I think I'm getting mixed up with the civilian ships.
Interesting, this continued trend towards amalgamated super-states. Is that typical for later in a Starfire campaign or unique to this setting?The humans managed to make half a dozen new factions so to save processing power everyone else has to merge ;D
it's pretty convenient to only have one polity to manage, from the player side, tho the economic benefits run small-to-negative. also all editions of starfire strongly encourage the SM to screw over players, so even if an NPR has a long-settled subservient "partnership" relationship, you (the player) always have to sweat the "nah, they've decided they don't like you anymore" until you eat them.
The First and Second Carrier Strike Groups are splitThe Imperial Japanese Navy might have some advice about this.
QuoteThe First and Second Carrier Strike Groups are splitThe Imperial Japanese Navy might have some advice about this.
I took another look at the fighter numbers in the previous post, assuming the Mintek had reinforced to full strength and Bjering brought all their personal carriers, they would have the same advantage in ratio of fighters as the Mintek had when they wiped out the Bedu. And the Mintek only lost fighters in that engagement.
On that basis, the Bjering seem to have lost an opportunity to inflict a heavy defeat on the Mintek. (Not that they have benefit of the omniscient view that we do).
As the Villers system seems likely to be a hotspot, could we have a map of the surrounding territory?
Also IIRC the Alliance knows of another entrance to the Mintek Home system, have they built similar defences around that warp point?
The D'Bringi's mysterious benefactors make their move!
Great update!
It seems clear that the whole government network is compromised by a highly sophisticated and reactive adversary.
If they shut down or limit use of the ICN, how quick are courier drones compared with courier ships like corvettes? Do courier drones have a cost?
Apparently I was wrong to request a map of the area surrounding Villers, I should have asked for an updated Rehorish map. :P
All of that means that the Alliance’s massive commitment of ships languishes in the Villiers system, waiting, while the Zir apparently ditherI think the correct phrase to use is "smeg, or get off the pot".
...
the Zir cannot come to grips with either the Alliance’s constant pushing to take action, or indeed, on what action to take
the Alliance Navy has decided to push forward with a massive program of refits to modernize the fleetSomeone on the D'Bringi side is going to notice this at some point.
...
The Rehorish high command has gone on alert, and no new refits will be started
The Kingdom has mothballed a significant percentage of the fleet now that it is clear that the Alliance is no threat, and is focusing on expanding its territory and economy.For their sake, I hope this information was kept off the Alliance ICN.
Some fleets were sending messages via courier drones early in the campaign, I assume they were loaded from planets? Do they take transport space like fighters and pinnaces? Is remembering to carry them a massive pain and a good reason to use the ICN (at least in normal times)? ;DAll ships carry courier drones for free, about 1 per 5 hs. However as Kurt said they are dependent on nav beacons at each JP , and those beacons are probably compromised so courier drones cannot be expected to reach their desination. They are also much slower than the ICN which is light speed. You could replace the beacons with ships but thats expensive.
Presumably small ships stationed at every warp point could act as a relay, either by sending messages directly or catching and forwarding drones?
From the shipyards section, if MSY is a mobile shipyard, what is MS?
Some fleets were sending messages via courier drones early in the campaign, I assume they were loaded from planets? Do they take transport space like fighters and pinnaces? Is remembering to carry them a massive pain and a good reason to use the ICN (at least in normal times)? ;D
Presumably small ships stationed at every warp point could act as a relay, either by sending messages directly or catching and forwarding drones?
From the shipyards section, if MSY is a mobile shipyard, what is MS?
QuoteAll of that means that the Alliance’s massive commitment of ships languishes in the Villiers system, waiting, while the Zir apparently ditherI think the correct phrase to use is "smeg, or get off the pot".
...
the Zir cannot come to grips with either the Alliance’s constant pushing to take action, or indeed, on what action to takeQuotethe Alliance Navy has decided to push forward with a massive program of refits to modernize the fleetSomeone on the D'Bringi side is going to notice this at some point.
...
The Rehorish high command has gone on alert, and no new refits will be started
QuoteThe Kingdom has mothballed a significant percentage of the fleet now that it is clear that the Alliance is no threat, and is focusing on expanding its territory and economy.For their sake, I hope this information was kept off the Alliance ICN.
The Mintek have almost as many shipyards as the CU and Bjering have put together, despite having less income than either. I thought they preferred large hulls because they used Dreadnoughts early on. That said, they seem to have a bit of an advantage because they've upgraded their whole fighter force, whereas the other major powers are still in progress or not started.
The Alliance seems by far the strongest side in terms of income and military, but they seem to be at risk of over-extension and paralysis, because of the number of races they are maintaining as associate members.
Assuming it isn't a spoiler, could you put the current tech level of the Aurarii, Chirq, Doraz, Lothar, Torqual and Zir, and also the Major Races?
please
please
please
please
let it be the death snots behind the sabotage of the alliance
I wasn't expecting an update on the Humans.
Maybe that means humans have been doing all the sneaky manipulation!
Or maybe they'll be the next target...
Looking at the new map, the human territory is very linear, so if they lose control of a system they lose access to all the colonies behind it.
Also what do the blue and red bars mean?
One wonders why the 3rd party wants a war and what they will gain from it
Quite dramatic. I await the Alliance response to this turn of events, it seems clear that most of the D'Bringi have gone over to the side of the Keepers and the old Empire, while Skull-Splitter and the 4th Fleet may be mighty they cannot by themselves win a civil war without a strong economic base. However, does the rest of the Alliance have sufficient cause to interfere with an "internal D'Bringi affair"? Particularly if war with the Union may be on the horizon once again.
Still, the identity of the D'Bringi mysterious benefactors remains unknown for the moment. I maintain that this could not have been accomplished without such outside help, and indeed such benefactors have some reasons to act against the Alliance although we only know the barest hint about those reasons - something about Commercial Engines I recall...
The big winners of this are likely to be the Mintek, if they can somehow find sufficient economic balance to stabilize their empire the remaining Alliance fleets may be in for a severe testing if the Mintek catch wind of these new developments. The Bjering also once again will come out ahead simply by remaining uninvolved militarily, although if the Mintek prove to become sufficiently distracted the Bjering may discover a long-lost militaristic streak in their racial DNA.
However, does the rest of the Alliance have sufficient cause to interfere with an "internal D'Bringi affair"?That's basically my question: to what extent do the 'core' Alliance governments have an obligation not to interfere with the internal affairs of the others?
However, does the rest of the Alliance have sufficient cause to interfere with an "internal D'Bringi affair"?That's basically my question: to what extent do the 'core' Alliance governments have an obligation not to interfere with the internal affairs of the others?
The Alliance didn't directly intervene when the Torqual government decided to murder and exile a large portion of its citizens, although IIRC they did provide indirect support to the rebels.
However the Torqual were only associate members, not full members, and IIRC this was before any integration started, so I assume that different prohibitions and obligations apply.
The new D'Bringi Emperor just performed an extrajudicial execution of an important Alliance individual, on the equivalent of live TV. On the one hand, if he was worried about the foreign policy implications he probably wouldn't have broadcast it to the other governments.
On the other hand, because they are allied and somewhat integrated, it seems likely that they have some obligation to protect an allied incumbent government against violent internal threats. I think it would be very easy to apply that classification to this new proto-government, and therefore be under an obligation to intervene rather than a non-interference obligation.
If a strong non-interference obligation does exist, I can think of 2 ways around that.
First, the execution and murder of various high-ranking D'Bringi and the interference with the Alliance ICN (and related systems like the Rheorish naval intelligence databases) constitutes an attack against the Alliance. This would justify removing the D'Bringi from the Alliance, and consequently remove any obligations to support the new government or refrain from interfering in internal affairs.
Secondly the Rheorish and T'Pau could determine that the D'Bringi Empire is not a legitimate successor to the old D'Bringi government, and therefore the Alliance would have an obligation to support the remains of the old government against the Imperial upstarts.
Of course, none of this matters if the Rheorish and T'Pau decide to take a see-no-evil approach.
Well, Skull-Splitter is alive so he could claim to be representative of legitimate D'Bringi government and request assistance from the remaining Alliance members.
I think that Durant is an old timer from before rise of New Dawn, so she may be willing to listen to reason and prevent full scale war between Alliance and Colonial Union. I wonder if mysterious benefactors have their hands in Colonial Union as well and will attempt to eliminate Ruston or Semenov to cause more chaos.
I think the Keepers are shooting themselves in the foot. Their continued manipulation of the ICN network is blunt and hamfisted. If they kept themselves to only minor changes then it’d have been much harder to catch them at it.
I also see them attacking the T’Pau homeworld system to force passage and kicking off with the Alliance that way.
This could easily turn into a disaster if the Union government decides to attack. Hopefully they keep out of it and let the Alliance fix itself and get rid of the empire. If both factions fight, there will be a great loss of ships to the gain of the Mintek, which is something the galaxy does not need.
The loot taken from the Chirq home world might also explain, at least in part, how well funded the Imperial D’Bringi rebellion had been.
QuoteThe loot taken from the Chirq home world might also explain, at least in part, how well funded the Imperial D’Bringi rebellion had been.
Wew, that puts a very different perspective on the Imperials for the alliance huh? I wonder what the Union government would say if they heard about this? I imagine this story would help everybody accept that the Imperials are entirely at fault and the Alliance are innocent. After all, they attacked an associate of the Alliance just to fund a rebellion! Very rude. Very uncivilised!
Caught up on this and wow - quite a lot of action in just one month, and with really only a couple of relatively smaller-scale fleet engagements, much of the action was political in nature.
Kurt, I do wonder, how much of this was ordained from the beginning, and how much came down to one of your famous hidden dice rolls? Could the confrontation between the Alliance and Union have boiled over into all-out war with just one bad roll?
So, the Lothari… speedbump or utter roadkill?
So, the Lothari… speedbump or utter roadkill?
Probably speedbump that takes out a couple of patrol squadrons and maybe commits a small bit of genocide in a neighboring system just for fun.
Seems to be one of the things about Starfire AARs, when a generated race is naturally aggressive the mechanics pretty much force them to eventually declare a suicidal war against a major power even if it's not the most rational thing to do - although Kurt always justifies these silly choices well enough in his narratives! Though it does seem like it has been less common in NCW for some reason...
I'm assuming this race operates well beyond the printed rules of Starfire, of course? There's no veteran players nodding sagely in the background, thinking "Ah, yes, these are the Zyxnyphlorxynknytixans from Appendix P of the Galactic Secrets Errata to the High-Tech Addendum to the Imperial Starfire rules", right? :PAll the equipment on the large ships and the large ships themselves are High tech starfire equipment , including cloaking devices. The question of why they are not using direct invasion is much more complicated, at the moment it could be they would lose against the combined power of the alliances but at the start of the campaign they would have walked over the D'Bringi and Humans . Probably story related reasons based on their real origins
As Andrew says they are using high tech stuff (TL12+) but one consideration with high tech in starfire...quantity has a quality of its own. So a TL15 CL might be very powerful but it costs the world and if you have a limited income then you can afford 3 TL15 CLs but for the same price the others get 15 TL7 CLs. The speed either comes from home rules, super advanced engine tuners, or tactical engines...depending on if that was a monitor or else something larger and depending if I interpreted the description right.
Starfire has several break points technology wise. And the tech level of the various races is at the cusp of one of them...being HT7-9 and fighting a race with HT10-12 is very brutal. You may not have AM missiles and they have AAM...so your nuclear armed standard missiles do 1 damage their missiles do 3, and it gets worse for capital missiles. They ignore your ECM theirs is still effective. Their point defence is harder to overwhelm. Their shields may reset, their passive armour belt is both thicker or else can do a serious number on your laser weapons. In fighter to fighter combat F0 against F2+ is a joke. The F2 can outfly the F0 to the point the F0 can't engage unless they are sitting on the target itself.
What they want...given the vorlon vibe I assume this is some war in heaven scenario sorta kinda thing.
The Aurarii commander, Lord Major Vintari, ordered the Doraz force to surrender or be destroyed. Warleader Grogan, the CO of the Doraz force, sent back a rudely worded reply that implied that the Centauri commander had had relations with his own mother.
Warleader Grogan, the CO of the Doraz force, sent back a rudely worded reply that implied that the Centauri commander had had relations with his own mother.Absolute GigaChad move.
B5 hooked me when during the pilot episode I saw the starfuries fire thrusters to spin, fire thrusters to stop spinning and then fly backwards firing on their targets. Then the pheromonal story arcs where little things in one episode would show up later. I must admit that while I liked Sheridan, I thought Sinclair was the better character. Episodes like Sigma 957, were just a cut above the usual SF show fare. Huge fan...have all the shows on DVD! I like the Expanse as well, but have not had a chance to binge on it.
Starslayer and I added in advanced beam weapons as, at least I felt, that beam weapons for smaller ships (CAs and smaller in our game can't mount capital weapons) needed something. I think a change like this is necessary else every ship smaller than a SD under most circumstances is armed with Wa only.
Fighters are a rich mans weapon system. The trouble is that you either have enough to obliterate the enemy in a single firing pass or else not enough to do anything of significance, rarely are you in a middle ground. So either you go carrier heavy and have problems with things like warp point assaults or else you have to accept that your fighters are situationally valuable. What makes the second option painful is that when you don't have enough fighters that means that you are significantly weaker as the carriers are nothing but targets, the fighters will die with poor exchanges and your fleet lacks the weapons it otherwise would have if it didn't have any carriers with them. Starslayer would add in the cost of gunboats is also not trivial and they die in job lots and the replacement costs (MCr and shipyards) is significant.
The negotiations begin promptly, with the governor demanding reinstatement of the D’Bringi home world into the Alliance, with himself as leader and his choice of candidate placed into the D’Bringi position on the Council.The balls on that guy! Still, I guess you might as well ask for everything right? The worst they'll do is laugh at you. I wonder if the populations of the alliance have some equivalent to memes that they might share. You can imagine this convo getting leaked and turned into either a joke about how stupid you can get or how much of a boss you have to be to ask for that after they brought a fleet and blockaded you lol.
QuoteThe negotiations begin promptly, with the governor demanding reinstatement of the D’Bringi home world into the Alliance, with himself as leader and his choice of candidate placed into the D’Bringi position on the Council.The balls on that guy! Still, I guess you might as well ask for everything right? The worst they'll do is laugh at you. I wonder if the populations of the alliance have some equivalent to memes that they might share. You can imagine this convo getting leaked and turned into either a joke about how stupid you can get or how much of a boss you have to be to ask for that after they brought a fleet and blockaded you lol.
QuoteThe negotiations begin promptly, with the governor demanding reinstatement of the D’Bringi home world into the Alliance, with himself as leader and his choice of candidate placed into the D’Bringi position on the Council.The balls on that guy! Still, I guess you might as well ask for everything right? The worst they'll do is laugh at you. I wonder if the populations of the alliance have some equivalent to memes that they might share. You can imagine this convo getting leaked and turned into either a joke about how stupid you can get or how much of a boss you have to be to ask for that after they brought a fleet and blockaded you lol.
When you're teetering on the brink of disaster, go big or go home. If you win it was always your destiny, if not, well, you tried. I think a lot of politicians embrace this line of thought.
Well, lessons learned from the fights in pauls and my campaign, for the bugs, was that if you have the tech advantage, push. The first battles vs Undines adn allies saw the bugs infilct attriciously onesided battles, even in warp point assaults, obliterating whole fleets. And they would have been able to push faster, except....
time and cost to replace 6ßß+ gunboats... the smaller, frontier shps yards didn#t have enough capacity to fill them back up quickly, and the home world ship yards didn't have enough money available to do so, and round trips.. so it was, destraoy a fleet, go back, repair and restock, come back to face a new fleet. So its the knife vs the grindstone... instead of the sledgehammer vs the eggshell. And the allies by ow have caught up to TL 10 gearwise... but the bugs reached TL 11 and finished refitting. Future will be interersting again, especially attacking bug systeems will be a pita for anyone die to massive cloaked fleets.
How a TL10 Undine fleet fared vs a cloaked bug fleet.. 10 BCs anihilatda complete undinefleet, as when the opened fire they were in almost sprint range with AAM Wa... + launched gunboats, vs foes wich had to make readyness rolls.
There's still fight in the creeply-crawlies..
it feels immoral to build shipyard capacity that you won't even use on a recurring basis. but between tech level 2 and 6 (ish), yards go from being very expensive to very cheap, relative to the fleets they produce. building 6 yards that you will literally never use to guarantee you will have one yard right where you want it in a crisis, generally worth it for bigger/ more advanced polities.
1) They are very expensive, replacing those casualties will not be cheap.
2) Fighters can be very effective against them. Particularly when they know what they are fighting and don't have lots of enemy fighters around
3) They are vulnerable to ship launched weapons, again a prepared fleet can inflict nasty losses on them. Their point defense is as effective as ships but 1 hit kills them so concentration of Advanced missile launcher fire or spreading out the fire to get maximum benefit from each leaker. At closer range sprint mode advanced missiles get a very high kill rate per hull space and if they are goinf for the lethal fighter rocket attack then they have to get very close.
I suspect those two fleets were slightly in favour of the Lothari by cost and that was a pyrhhic victory gutting the Lothari fleet and they will find it harder to replace than the alliance , if they win every battle that way they lose the war badly
I suspect those two fleets were slightly in favour of the Lothari by cost and that was a pyrhhic victory gutting the Lothari fleet and they will find it harder to replace than the alliance , if they win every battle that way they lose the war badly
The alliance ships in our campaign are optimized to destroy gunboats and it is the Wa that is the reaper. 24 HS of weapons 8 Wa or 6 F shows the huge effectiveness of the Wa (N beams should get a bonus to hit actually) and the 2 salvos of 16 sprint mode missiles is what does the gunboats in. But it has taken several battles and hideous losses by the insane seals (in the view of the Shanirian's) to produce the gunboat killer.
If you haven't done the same change we made to the prototype gunboat they can't carry missiles. The pGB has only 2x4 rows rather than 2x4 columns. When the shanirian's developed the pGB I said that I wanted that as the Shanirian's are a lot more loss sensitive than bugs... I also can't fathom why the pGB is like this when every advanced GB just adds columns so you would think the pGB just removes 2.
Starslayer has also optimized his loadouts...he can likely give some pointers. I have only started to deploy the pGB and a firm doctrine has not been developed.
The other thing is that is clear is that EM by fighters/gunboats is pointless as virtually any ship engaging them can negate it with their ECCM. Though only on a squadron basis per ECCM system. Fc is also a good gunboat killer and E/N beams leave them to be captured (useful to get the technology). Firing either standard or capital missiles is only good for annoyance factors.
I suspect those two fleets were slightly in favour of the Lothari by cost and that was a pyrhhic victory gutting the Lothari fleet and they will find it harder to replace than the alliance , if they win every battle that way they lose the war badly
From what I've read in SF fiction, this is usually how things go. The attacker always take heavy losses against a prepared WP defense and unless they have a massive economic advantage, or an ace in the hole like the first in-universe SBM-HAWKS or a closed WP into the enemy capital system (Phoenix Campaign says hello!), the attacker will either have to settle for and consolidate limited gains or will run out of steam and get pushed back to zero or worse after some time.
Does the Colonial Union have any avenues for expansion? Are they still exploring new space or are they just colonising the territory they already know?
Seems your races are in the medium range of colonisation possibilities.
The lower range are races with not fully grown Homeworlds or low income, who have simply not the capacity to ship as much as they should.
The middle range are races with a 3600 PU homeworld wich get 100 PTU free each turn adn can afford to ship that.
The upper range are races with multiple fully grown worlds and the income to ship all the PTU each turn, like the Thebans in Paul and my campaign.
or the bugs, who due to only paying 1/4 od the Q and H .. just don't care.
Those high end races can afford to force colonisation. The bugs routinely just dump 800 PTU on a world, catapulting it to medium and ti the 50% bonus income stage.. well, each round. They ran out of worlds to do that on now, though.
The thebans can afford to send colonisation into the 9-12 jumps range, as their income is high enough to support such a huge ICN that typing up a few thousand H and Q for several turns doesn't matter. Also, it often was cheaper to boost a closer world to 800 and gain anew colonisation source than to settle directly. At least the thebans did that for VR worlds and systems with a lot of asteroid belts (income multiplier).
What we removed was colonising asteroids, as that is a very efficient way to boost income. A system with 4 Belts is as good as several habitable worlds in a system. Thus we removed a huge money bloat.
If we hadn't, I wouldn't look at 280k income, but at a million. Bugs would not be able to copete with that when they only settele habitable worlds.
If I did this again, I'd probably remove the asteroid colonization as well. It is very time consuming for me, and like you said, an economy bloat. Still, with the changes I did make the Cold War campaign has lasted quite a few more turns than the Phoenix Campaign did, so I count that as a success.
If I did this again, I'd probably remove the asteroid colonization as well. It is very time consuming for me, and like you said, an economy bloat. Still, with the changes I did make the Cold War campaign has lasted quite a few more turns than the Phoenix Campaign did, so I count that as a success.
I wonder if maybe instead of removing them entirely it would make some sense to simplify them mechanically. I'm thinking of the population limits in Aurora which are usually quite small for asteroids, to the point where one might say that a single colonization mission to create 150 PUs on an asteroid, or whatever the limit is, is the extent of the matter, there is no natural growth beyond that. I'm not at all familiar with Starfire mechanics, but I think that ought to reduce the bookkeeping to multiplying the total number of asteroid colonies by whatever multiplier gives the income per asteroid.
Of course since I know nothing of the Starfire mechanics aside from what I glean from this thread and other AARs, I could be way off base here?
Neither one of the minor powers were more than a roadbump, which we could expect. Of the two, I found the Lothari reasoning more 'logical' (in the sense of 'the crazy dictator's secret police will torture and kill my family, their family, their extended family, everyone who knew anyone on those lists, and anyone who sees them while they're busy with the above if I surrender or retreat') than the Aurarii. Was it just a case that in both cases the minor empire didn't really believe they were next to a big multi-species empire that couldn't just bury them in hulls if needed?
single system NPRs succumb quickly to the deadliest diseconomy of all: they have low story significance relative to the amount of SM effort they demand.
single system NPRs succumb quickly to the deadliest diseconomy of all: they have low story significance relative to the amount of SM effort they demand.
Hah!
single system NPRs succumb quickly to the deadliest diseconomy of all: they have low story significance relative to the amount of SM effort they demand.
Hah!
Well, some handy training for the Alliance fleets, hopefully some crew grade increases ready for dealing with Mintek loonies :D
Are the casualties in Liawak the worst civilian loss of life since Earth nuked itself?
I'm getting afraid (not really, they kinda deserve it.), that after getting to Lothari home system, crews won't listen to commanders and will just throw as much missles as possible into Lothari capital.
So, what do the Auraii have left to defend the system?
And what do the 'light' monitors mean for the Alliance? Those are a couple sizes larger than anything they field. Can they repair, refit and field them themselves?
Short question:
Is there any guide as to how read Starfire ships designs?
NARAITHSOL class ML AM2 33 XO Racks 165 Hull TL 8
[3]S0x16Aix16HQ(IIIII-It)H(IIIII-It)(IIIII-It)QWaWa(BbS)FcWaWaFcMgWaWaFcWaWa MgWaFcWaWaFcDzQMgDzWaDzDzWaDzDzFcZiDzWaDzDz!2WaDzMgXr?2LhQFcM7(IIIII-It)[4]
165 RCP 35 MCP Trg:8 Bmp +4 Tem -2 Cost = 4816/722.4
HTK 105 S0x16 Aix16 Dzx10 Fcx7 Wax15 Mgx4
400x SM, 400x SM-a
Ah, Emperor Vir... B5 vibes intensify ;D
So... That's an interesting result of a battle.
I was thinking, does the Alliance has any noticable ship reserves?
And if they were loosing severily, would they ask someone (maybe Colonial union...) for help?
It looks like I wasn't understanding Alliance politics fully.
I genuinely thought, that Torqual, Doraz and Zir already became Alliance internal members.
That changes a lot.
I haven't done an update in a while, so I probably haven't made this clear. The Torqual, Doraz, and Zir are all HT-8 right now, and all three recently achieved that tech level. The Alliance recently reached HT-10. To be amalgamated into the Alliance, the associates have to be at an equivalent tech level, so it will be some time before they can be integrated. The Alliance is helping all three with their research efforts, but even so it will take time.
I haven't done an update in a while, so I probably haven't made this clear. The Torqual, Doraz, and Zir are all HT-8 right now, and all three recently achieved that tech level. The Alliance recently reached HT-10. To be amalgamated into the Alliance, the associates have to be at an equivalent tech level, so it will be some time before they can be integrated. The Alliance is helping all three with their research efforts, but even so it will take time.
I always used the house rule that was suggested somewhere of when you uplift a low tech race (pre-ind, ind1 or ind2) you bring them to your tech level otherwise they were pointless fluff, and GFFP kicks in (for the uninitiated that's Genocide For Fun and Profit - basically wipe hem out and steal their stuff and planet). The rational being why teach them transistors when you can teach molycircs.
Can't remember the official rules for a helping a HT race, but I'd probably do something similar, either a direct bump up or otherwise massively accelerated R&D, otherwise the time it takes can be longer than a normal game.
So either the Lothari are crazy/incompetent or they think they have a gamechanger given time. Or both.
I can't think of a tech advance which could be a game changer, and I think the Lothari were in a dead end so new ally /Closed warp point seems unlikely , so looks bad for them
The Crazy/incompetent option it is. If I was the diplomat for the mad great dictator I would keep talking as long as possible rather than admit failure
Or they are led by a crazy dictator, who thinks he can continue to manipulate the entire universe. <G>
I would agree with that but narratively that likely isn't the case. Recall that the D'bringi Empire got help from some sus aliens so maybe he's waiting for help from them? Or some other glorious wunderwaffe. Possibly they're just slathering their home WP in minefields, that'd be my guess.The Crazy/incompetent option it is. If I was the diplomat for the mad great dictator I would keep talking as long as possible rather than admit failure
Or they are led by a crazy dictator, who thinks he can continue to manipulate the entire universe. <G>
They had a lot of Gunboats and fighters to repalce which is expensive and explains some delay's but mining the wp and other defenses are not enough to give them any real chance for victory so either the Great Leader expects diplomacy to work because he says so! and the ambassador is stalling for his own interests , or as you suggest intervention by an outside power is a possibility we have seen no sign of that and the Lothari are in a cul-de-sac so a new arrival or strategic breakthrough is unlikely.I would agree with that but narratively that likely isn't the case. Recall that the D'bringi Empire got help from some sus aliens so maybe he's waiting for help from them? Or some other glorious wunderwaffe. Possibly they're just slathering their home WP in minefields, that'd be my guess.The Crazy/incompetent option it is. If I was the diplomat for the mad great dictator I would keep talking as long as possible rather than admit failure
Or they are led by a crazy dictator, who thinks he can continue to manipulate the entire universe. <G>
They had a lot of Gunboats and fighters to repalce which is expensive and explains some delay's but mining the wp and other defenses are not enough to give them any real chance for victory so either the Great Leader expects diplomacy to work because he says so! and the ambassador is stalling for his own interests , or as you suggest intervention by an outside power is a possibility we have seen no sign of that and the Lothari are in a cul-de-sac so a new arrival or strategic breakthrough is unlikely.I would agree with that but narratively that likely isn't the case. Recall that the D'bringi Empire got help from some sus aliens so maybe he's waiting for help from them? Or some other glorious wunderwaffe. Possibly they're just slathering their home WP in minefields, that'd be my guess.The Crazy/incompetent option it is. If I was the diplomat for the mad great dictator I would keep talking as long as possible rather than admit failure
Or they are led by a crazy dictator, who thinks he can continue to manipulate the entire universe. <G>
The most likely is the Glorious Leader has a GREAT PLAN and they are setting that up which is probably doomed
Truly the Great Leader will lead us to victory with his Brilliant and offensive plans, we should not doubt his glorious victory. Or his secret police
IIRC Kurt, you were going to experiment with a system to deal with these huge small craft battles - how'd it go?
So, is there a tactical counter to SBM pod spam? Because basically 15 destroyers wiped out an entire fleet on their own - if they had a full complement of pods, it would have been a total wipe.
1) Kill the destroyers
2) Kill the pods with a small craft strike
The pods also cost a LOT, the fleet did not have full loads for the destroyers. It is likely that the pod strike cost as much as half a dozen battlecruisers. They are also now unavailable to destroy WP defenses. Also in this case the fighters of the Alliance fleet would probably have been enough to win the battle.
From what I recall deployment and activation is somewhat slow so if the enemy don't attack a fixed point you are defending then using them is hard. They also have targeting limitation unless under direct control of the ship launching them, which limits the number you can deploy,
Wonder whether it'll be a coup or a racial suicide for the Lothari.
I'm glad to see the % spent on maintenance is lower than 50% at the moment, the CU needs to focus on the economy and refitting to prepare for the future, at least in my opinion.
Ah, Humanity keeps on shooting itself in the foot over and over.
So if Sligo goes ahead and succeeds, how much of the Fleet goes with them, and how much of the Union's budget does it lose? Also most importantly, do they threaten the Union's access to El Dorado?
So basically, it fully guarantees a destructive civil war that invites the other major players to step in and take over the adjacent human systems to them.
Ah humanity, never change...
I don't know why, but this update reminded me of the time when another race backed by some unknown power, invaded one of the Alliance associate races (I think it was Doraz, but I'm not sure). By the way, do you plan for us to hear about this power (I assume that this is the same power as the imperial D'Bringi backer) anytime soon?
Maybe the time has come for a brand new campaign?
Maybe the time has come for a brand new campaign?
I thought I'd post some cleanup for this campaign, wrapping some things up, then start on an Aurora campaign. It has been a long time since I did anything more than dabble with Aurora, though, so it'll take me some time to re-learn how it works.
A lot has happened in this campaign and there have been a few good places to end things, I think just post D'Bringi schism is a pretty good place to end things. We'll just have to imagine the how the CU and Alliance fight the Mintek and whoever their masters are and hopefully live mostly happily ever after. I'm sure they could work something out. Although I guess the Alliance can stomp the Mintek by themselves with that kind of economy lol.Maybe the time has come for a brand new campaign?
I thought I'd post some cleanup for this campaign, wrapping some things up, then start on an Aurora campaign. It has been a long time since I did anything more than dabble with Aurora, though, so it'll take me some time to re-learn how it works.
Thanks for your fiction. It was a most enjoyable read.
Was anyone going to meet the D’Bringi Benefactors in game?