Author’s Note, Month 221, Cold War Campaign
So, here we are, 221 turns into the Cold War Campaign.  The Alliance, the largest “player” race in the campaign, is finishing up a border conflict with the Lothari, and recently successfully concluded its war with the Aurarii as well.   With those conflicts closed out or on their last legs, I wanted to talk about some issues these wars illustrate. 

Basically, by the current rules, NPR-Player empire conflicts in the mid to late game in Starfire are suicidal for the NPR’s, and inevitable.  This is because of the nature of the game.  In the early game, NPR’s can provide credible threats, but by mid-game they have receded to minor and localized threats at best, mostly because a standard player race has gotten so large by this point in the game.  By way of example, the Aurarii economy was approximately 20% that of the Alliance, and the Lothari were just under 15%.  Together, they would have been a more formidable threat, but they were not acting together.  Even had they acted together, though, their defeat was inevitable. 

The current rules, as written, almost guarantee that some NPR’s will declare war on player races, regardless of the fact that such wars would be suicidal.  This is a reaction to earlier versions of the rules that made NPR’s pushovers.  In games based on those earlier rules, NPR’s were primarily targets for player race amalgamation, and the best player strategy was to discover as many NPR’s as possible, as quickly as possible, so that they could be amalgamated, thus growing their economy and fleet.  Indeed, under those rules, building exploration ships was by far the best investment of resources, and if you weren’t role playing that was what you wanted to do, to the exclusion of all else.  Naturally, later versions of the rules changed this, making NPR’s much more disagreeable.  This, however, led to the current situation where NPR’s engage in suicidal wars against immensely larger neighbors.  As this is primarily a role-playing campaign, I ignore or modify these results, in most cases.  However, with the Aurarii and the Lothari, what they did made sense.  To them. 

The Aurarii war was largely a result of their internal politics.  Their lack of open warp points to expand through was the event that ignited the war, aided by the Alliance’s distraction due to their own internal events, but the real cause was the instability within the imperial government and the attempt by the court to seize power and turn the emperor into a figurehead.  The navy was caught off guard and unprepared, and the people largely did not support the war or even really care.  Thus the war was prosecuted half-heartedly and when they suffered reverses their war effort fell apart.  The Lothari were different.  I’m not sure anyone could tell, because I’m very clever and inventive, but the Lothari were based on a certain country from World War 2.  Hah!  No one caught that, right?  Anyway, the Lothari government type was an Insane Dictator, and with that type of government their relationships with other races have to be re-rolled every twelve turns.  And guess what happened when they re-rolled for their relationship with the Alliance?  The nice thing about that type of government is that what they do doesn’t have to make sense. 

The thing is, as is typical of these kind of wars, neither aggressor had any chance of winning.  I have found that these kind of wars usually go the same way.  The NPR launches a surprise attack, making some initial gains, but then, when the player race brings up heavy reinforcements, they are forced back and ultimately beaten.  The NPR can delay things by using clever tactics or warp point defenses, but in the end they are going to get beaten.  In this case, the Aurarii never really wanted to win, exactly.  The Aurarii plan was to defeat the Doraz fleet, and then negotiate with the Doraz and the Alliance to gain access to open warp points.  That’s why they never really advanced into the Doraz home system once their fleet was beaten, and why they gave up once they were pushed back to their home system. 

The Lothari, on the other hands, were fighting for keeps.  Their great leader had told them that the war was for the survival of their race, and they believed him.  The great leader, of course, never thought that they could beat the Alliance in a single all-out war, but instead had a clever plan.  The Lothari intended to launch a surprise attack and take as much Alliance territory as possible before they brought up reinforcements.  Once their advances were stopped, the great leader, being a genius negotiator and manipulator, believed that he could negotiate a peace treaty with the Alliance, perhaps by giving up a portion of the territory that they had taken.  Then, they would wait a year or two and digest their conquests and build up their fleet, at which time they would attack again and do the whole thing all over, taking bite after bite of the Alliance, until they controlled it all.  I call this strategy the Traveller-Terran strategy.  Unfortunately, being a psychopath, the great leader did not realize just how the Alliance would react to their standard method of dealing with undesirables.  Namely, slow murder in concentration camps.  Thus, he never really had a chance of negotiating a peace treaty once the Alliance became outraged over the treatment of their military prisoners and civilians in conquered areas. 

In this case, I decided to let the wars go forward, in spite of their ultimate futility.  I have dealt with this issue differently in the past.  In the Phoenix Campaign, the largest “player” race was the Allied Sentient Races or ASR.  The ASR explored widely and had contacted lots of NPR’s, many of which were allied with them, however, some of them really, really, didn’t like the ASR.  None of them came close to being able to match the immense might of the ASR, though, so if they expressed their feelings, the resulting conflicts would be over quickly.  So, in this case, I decided that the ASR, which was all about growing mutual respect and communication between their member races, would provide conduits of communication between these races, none of which had direct contact with each other.  This would allow them to plan a war right under the ASR’s nose.  They did this; however, it almost immediately fell apart, mostly because once they declared war they lost their communications.  It was like the Germans and Japanese during World War 2.  The distance between them made communications difficult and coordination impossible.  The ASR was able to isolate and annihilate each in turn.  The Cold War conflicts went differently because, as I noted above, they weren’t planned. 

Hopefully, I made them at least somewhat enjoyable, in spite of the inevitable outcome. 

Wonder whether it'll be a coup or a racial suicide for the Lothari.

So far their military has been willing to commit suicide rather than disobey orders. 

Month 221, Day 23, Alliance controlled Herzberg System
The Alliance 2nd Fleet arrived at the warp point to the Lothari home system without incident.  Shortly after arriving, Skull-Splitter dispatched a small group of pinnaces through the warp point to scout the far side.  They managed to return without being detected, and reported that there was a small force of fighters and gunboats stationed approximately two light seconds from the warp point.  Skull-Splitter decided to change his original plans and launch an immediate attack on the warp point. 

The warp point linking the Herzberg system to the Lothari system had limited capacity, meaning that it could accommodate nothing larger than a destroyer transiting every five seconds.  This meant that the Alliance battleships, intended for warp point assaults, would be limited to two transiting every thirty seconds, or three battlecruisers per thirty seconds.  Instead, Skull-Splitter decided to send his escort carriers through first, as the only defending force seen by the pinnaces was small craft.  As they were the size of a destroyer, that meant that the escort carriers could go through at the rate of one every five seconds.  Once on the far side, as soon as they had stabilized their systems, they would launch their fighters and return.  The fighters would be armed for anti-small craft work, and any enemy ships detected farther out would be left to the ships of the fleet. 

The first CVE’s lined up in front of the warp point and began transiting through.  There would be three waves of CVE’s, followed by two waves of battlecruisers and then destroyers.   The leading CVE was an older Kamikaze class escort carrier, which, unlike modern CVE’s, mounted a long-range sensor but carried fewer fighters. 

The CVE’s appeared on the far side of the warp point and immediately began turning back towards the warp point.  There were indeed Lothari fighters and gunboats stationed two light seconds from the warp point, thirty-six in total.  The Alliance crews struggled to stabilize their systems as their ships nimbly turned in front of the warp point to prepare to leave. 

As the second wave began entering, the first wave launched its fighters and began exiting the system.  The lead Kamikaze class carrier’s long-range scanners confirmed that a group of eighteen drive fields was located ten-point-five light seconds from the warp point, out of range of all weapons.  Behind them, the Lothari fighters and gunboats raced towards the warp point and the newly launched Alliance fighters moved out to intercept them.  Twenty-four Lothari fighters, all F2’s armed with two guns and a laser pack, along with an internal laser, intercepted the Alliance fighters at point blank range, while twelve prototype gunboats hung back and launched AFM’s at the Alliance fighter swarm.  The Lothari fighters were outnumbered by the eighty-seven Alliance fighters disgorged by the first wave of escort carriers, which had then exited the system as a new wave of escort carriers entered.  Worse, the Lothari pilots were all green and inexperienced, while the Alliance crews were veterans of multiple battles and rated as elite.  The skirmish was over quickly, with the Alliance losing fifteen fighters, six to AFM fire from the gunboats and nine to the Lothari fighter force.  The Lothari fighter force was completely wiped out. 

As the dogfight cleared the second wave of escort carriers disgorged their fighters and exited the system, and a third group of escort carriers entered.  The Lothari gunboats accelerated towards the newly arrived escort carriers and fired on the leading warp-addled carriers, inflicting heavy damage before the vengeful Alliance fighters pounced on them, wiping them out.  The warp point was now clear. 

The escort carriers from the third wave launched their fighters, less the ones destroyed in their bays by the gunboats, and then left the system, as Alliance battlecruisers began entering the system.  The Lothari squadron turned away from the warp point and began opening the range, and in response the entire Alliance fighter group, now two hundred and twenty-eight strong, went into pursuit. 

A second trio of battlecruisers began entering the system and the first group of BC’s, now recovered, also went into pursuit of the withdrawing Lothari squadron.  The pursuit continues as carriers begin entering the system to join the growing fleet on the warp point.  Finally, three and a half minutes after the Alliance force began entering the system, the Lothari fleet launched an additional seventy-eight fighters and thirty-nine gunboats. 

With their small craft now in space the Lothari force turned back towards the warp point and accelerated to intercept the Alliance fighter force.  Although the Lothari small craft were faster than their ships, they all stayed together in one group as they began their attack run.  With the Lothari force turning back, the three pursuing Alliance battlecruisers are finally close enough for their long-range sensors to confirm that the Lothari force is composed of seventeen escort carriers and a single battle cruiser. 

The Alliance fighter force, over three light seconds ahead of the trio of Alliance battlecruisers following them, races towards the approaching Lothari force, but before they can close to point blank range the Lothari ships come to a crash halt and began detuning their engines, making themselves difficult targets.  The Lothari ships, fighters, and gunboats all opened fire on the Alliance fighters at point seven-five light seconds.  The Lothari escort carriers each mounted a single capital point defense system, which was perfectly suited for engaging fighters at ranges of a light second or even farther, but their crews were all green as they had just boarded their ships at the start of this month when the ships were reactivated from the mothball reserves.  The Lothari fighters each had two external laser packs and an internal laser, all of which had the range to engage the Alliance fighters, but they too were green and inexperienced.  The lone battlecruiser’s crew was something else, a veteran of the early battles of the war, and they used their capital point defense systems and their heavy lasers with expertise.  Even so, they only managed to destroy thirty-one Alliance fighters, while the elite Alliance fighters returned fire with their own laser packs, destroying all of the Lothari gunboats and twenty-four of the Lothari fighters. 

The Lothari ships braced to receive the Alliance fighters, with some of the CVE’s turning to ensure that no matter where the Alliance fighters attacked, there would be at least some defensive fire that would meet them.  The Lothari ships continued detuning their drive fields as the Alliance fighters raced in to point blank range and the Alliance battlecruiser group closed to just under four light seconds.  The Lothari fighters moved to meet the Alliance fighters, and about a third of the Alliance fighter force split off to engage the Lothari fighters, while the remainder attacked the big Lothari battlecruiser.  The battlecruiser ignored the fighters and began targeting the lead Alliance BC, while the Alliance BC’s returned the favor.  The Lothari BC only managed to slightly damage one of the Alliance battlecruiser’s shields, while the return fire from the Alliance battlecruiser group and the one hundred and seventeen Alliance fighters that had targeted the lone Lothari battlecruiser completely overwhelmed the tough ship’s defenses, leaving only a burning hulk.  The eighty Alliance fighters that had been diverted to engage the Lothari fighters destroyed them all, at a loss of twenty-four of their own number from the Lothari fighters and the point defense systems of the Lothari ships. 

The Lothari were now in dire straits.  Their lone warship had been destroyed, along with all of their small craft.  Over one hundred seventy Alliance fighters were at point blank range of their remaining seventeen escort carriers, and an intact Alliance battlecruiser group was within weapons range of the unarmed escort carriers.  They literally had no hope of achieving much of anything at this point.  Skull-Splitter was tempted to let his fighters wipe them out, but the Lothari unwillingness to surrender was beginning to concern him, given the ultimate goal of his campaign was to force the Lothari state to surrender.  Out of curiosity as much as anything else, Skull Splitter transmitted a surrender demand to the escort carriers and then settled in to await their response. 

He didn’t have to wait long for their response.  As a group, the seventeen Lothari escort carriers stopped detuning their engines and accelerated towards the Alliance battlecruiser group, presumably with the intent to ram them.  They didn’t make it far.  The Alliance fighters swooped on the carriers as they tried to close with the big Alliance ships and began strafing them with laser fire from behind, while the Alliance battlecruisers came to a halt and began targeting them with their heavy beam weapons.  The elite Alliance fighters simply didn’t miss, and were firing to disable, not destroy.  In thirty seconds, all of the escort carriers had been slowed to half speed by the busy fighters, and three had been crippled by heavy beam fire from the battlecruisers.  In another thirty seconds it was nearly over.  All of the escort carriers had been reduced to a crawl, their bays and point defenses destroyed. 

Skull Splitter gave them one more chance to surrender.  In their current state they could have no possible effect on the war.  Their small craft were destroyed, their point defenses were wreckage, and their engines were so damaged they would never be able to ram any of the Alliance ships. 

The only response from the crippled Lothari ships was to come to a halt and go into a hedgehog.  Alliance sensors couldn’t tell what they were doing, but the only thing that made sense was that they were attempting to repair as much damage to their systems as possible.  That left Skull-Splitter with little choice.  He couldn’t leave them here, so close to the warp point.  If they did manage to regain some of their mobility then they could threaten ships transiting the warp point, particularly support ships.  He could dispatch marines to seize the defenseless ships, but that would likely just force the suicidally determined Lothari to destroy their ships along with the Alliance marines.  After thinking about it for a bit, Skull Splitter shrugged.  No one here would lose any sleep over a few more Lothari.  He sent the orders and the fighters made one more pass, after which there weren’t any Lothari ships left.  Perhaps even more disturbing was the fact that there wasn’t even one life pod left in space from the Lothari fleet.  The fleet’s crewers had all gone up with their ships.   

Skull Splitter assembled his fleet on the warp point.  He had the following forces:

Strike Force: 9xBBA, 10xBC(Beam), 6xBC(msl), 10xCA, 8xDD
Carrier Group: 3xCV, 1xCVS, 24xCVE, 461xF1, 57xF0
Scout Group: 28xCTV, 78xF0, 96xF1

It wasn’t a huge force, but with over six hundred fighters it was still powerful.  The temptation to wait on the warp point for reinforcements was strong, but he had the Lothari on the ropes, he could feel it.  The force they had guarding their warp point had the feel of a squadron thrown together at the last minute from whatever they had available, which might mean that they had little left to defend their home planet.  So, after consulting with his officers, who were uniformly in favor of an immediate attack, he ordered his fleet to proceed in-system to the Lothari home planet.  It was just seventy-two light minutes away, so the fleet would arrive in three days. 

Month 221, Day 26, Contested Lothari home system
The Alliance fleet was now fifteen light seconds from the Lothari home planet.  Skull-Splitter had sent two groups of his corvette carriers forward to gather information on the defenses around the Lothari home planet, and fortunately they did not come under fire when they entered SBM range.  The scout’s long-range sensors confirmed that there were nine very large battle stations orbiting the planet, along with two space stations.  Given the activity around the two stations it was obvious that they were orbital shipyards, and after some time observing them, it was clear that each had ten bays, many of which were busy reactivating mothballed ships.  In addition to the ships being worked on in the bays, there were another nine inactive hulls in close proximity to the shipyards. 

Skull Splitter ordered his staff to begin transmitting demands for surrender to the Lothari world and to the bases and stations in orbit over it, but the transmissions were uniformly ignored.  After giving them some time, Skull Splitter ordered his two groups of missile-armed battlecruisers to move into range and begin the attack. 

The six battlecruisers moved forward and entered SBM range of the bases, but there was no response.  The battlecruisers moved forwards, edging into capital missile range, again without drawing a response.  The battlecruisers launched their first salvo at one of the bases at seven light-seconds range.  One of the groups of BCs were firing seventeen anti-matter tipped capital missiles per salvo, and the other fired fifteen, but neither managed to get any missiles through the huge base’s incredibly dense point defense network.  After the first salvo failed, the battlecruisers closed to six point two five light seconds and fired again.  This time they managed to punch two anti-matter warheads through the base’s defenses to impact its shields, but this time they provoked a response.  Each base fired no less than nine spinal force beams, scoring twenty hits on the lead battlecruiser, taking out its shields and reducing its armor to 50%. 

That was enough for the battlecruiser group leader to order a retreat, and the battlecruisers came about and began moving away from the planet and its defenses.  Fortunately, in an excess of caution, the group commander had ordered his BC’s to begin their turn as they had launched their last salvo of missiles, so they didn’t have to approach the planet much closer than they already were.  The bases fired again at the same BC before they could escape, getting nine hits and almost chewing their way through the targeted BC’s armor.  The BC’s were now beyond spinal force beam range, and they came to a halt at eight light seconds range, and launched another salvo of missiles.  This time they weren’t targeted on the bases, but rather the orbital shipyards.  It took five salvoes, but the shipyards and the mothballed ships they were working on were destroyed.  With that the battlecruisers came about and returned to the main fleet. 

Once again Skull Splitter issued a demand for surrender, and once again he was ignored.  It was time for a fighter strike.  The Alliance fleet launched its fighters, all six hundred and ninety-two.  They were all armed with a full load of anti-ship sprint missiles with anti-matter warheads.  This was to be an alpha strike, meant to clear the sky of the enemy’s forces.  It was a risk, as the Lothari might have kept some fighters or gunboats in reserve, but if so then the fighter strike would return and some of them would rearm.   

The fighters raced away from their carriers towards the enemy bases. In terms of weapons the bases had only used spinal force beams so far, but had also demonstrated heavy point defense capabilities, so the fighters were ordered to rush to point blank range and engage the bases.  The bases were in three groups of three bases each, spaced around the planet. 

Because the bases couldn’t move, they were at a disadvantage, and the Alliance fighter force raced right through their most effective point defense engagement range without being engaged.  The fighters plunged to point blank range and began launching their close attack missiles into the mammoth bases.  The bases responded with everything they had.  The explosions were blinding, even filtered by the planet’s atmosphere, and thousands of Lothari on the surface lost their eyesight as they rushed outside to witness the destruction taking place over their planet.  Each base was immense, mounting nearly six times the shielding and twice the armor as the latest Alliance battlecruiser design.  Worse, each base mounted eight advanced capital point defense units, nine spinal force beams, and fifteen HET lasers!  Watching the destruction focused on his fighters, Skull-Splitter was sure that had he sent in his fleet they would have been doomed, even his heavy battleships.  The bases were outmatched by the Alliance fighters, though.  The base’s massive beam weapons, which would have ripped apart the heaviest Alliance ships in seconds, could only kill one fighter each, and only if they could hit it.  The base’s crews defended themselves as best they could, but nothing could stop the Alliance fighters, each and every one of which was crewed by a D’Bringi who was determined to restore honor to their race by utterly destroying this most despicable of enemies.

Seventy-four fighters were lost as the fighter group swept through the orbital fortresses, but it only took one attack run to wipe all nine bases out.  There was nothing but wreckage left as the fighters returned to their bays.   The Lothar home world was now denuded of defenses, open to attack.  Skull Splitter brought his fleet to just one light second from the planet and began transmitting demands for surrender.  Even as the surrender demands were sent towards the planet, Skull Splitter ordered the invasion fleet, which had been waiting in the Herzberg system, to enter the Lothari home system and proceed to their home planet.  He dispatched his scout force to cover the advance of the transports, just in case there were hold-out forces still present. 

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.

You are correct, but a couple of notes.  Using pod ships like that requires pre-planning and the enemy sticking to your plan.  The pods have to be deployed from drive-field down ships, then activated, at which time they follow their program.  If the Lothari had done something unexpected, it would have resulted in wasting some or all of the pods.  Also, if the Lothari had been able to send in enough fighters to overwhelm the Alliance's fighter force, they could have kept their own fleet out of range of the pods and used their fighters to pick them off, or damage or destroy the Alliance fleet. 

Basically, the Alliance had the perfect setup for the use of the pod ships.  The Lothari weren't expecting them and had never used them themselves, so they weren't watching for them in spite of the fact that they knew what they existed.  The Lothari were coming for the Alliance fleet, allowing the Alliance to sit on the defensive, which gave the pod ships time to deploy their pods and program them.  The Lothari then acted predictably, which the Alliance took advantage of. 

In a more fluid situation, where the enemy is aware of the existence and use of pod-layers, it becomes much more difficult to use them effectively.  If this was a meeting battle in deep space, then the enemy would have seen the pod-laying destroyers drop their drive fields and would have been able to react.  The only plausible reason for this activity in deep space would have been to either arm/rearm gunboats or deploy cargo from a cargo hold.  This would allow the enemy to retreat from the pod-layers, or to vector in fighters to attack the drive-field down ships. 

I generally try to avoid having everything go right for one side, but in this case the Lothari are arrogant and convinced of their superiority, and desperate as well.  They fell right into the trap.

Kurt

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,