Cold War Comments Thread

[nuclearslurpee]

Once again the Mintek are up to their usual tricks. The Bedu will have to respond to this, but they cannot act too rashly or they may end up facing a Mintek fleet rather more powerful than their own. Ideally they will be able to stall for time long enough to enlist the protection of the Bjering to avoid being overrun.

[Migi]

Given the Mintek specifically spent the time to destroy the Bedu sensors immediately, shouldn't that indicate
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?

[Garfunkel]

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 Now that's emergent storytelling!

[Andrew]

Given the Mintek specifically spent the time to destroy the Bedu sensors immediately, shouldn't that indicate
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?

I 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.

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

[Kurt (OP)]

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 Now that's emergent storytelling!

I had to do a deep dive on some of the older stories to pull out some names and events recently, and I thought the same thing!  The focus has really changed over time.  Might change again, too.  I go where the story takes me. 

Kurt

[Kurt (OP)]

Given the Mintek specifically spent the time to destroy the Bedu sensors immediately, shouldn't that indicate
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?

I 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.

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

The Mintek have done enough invasions at this point that they have an SOP which includes destroying sensor buoys if they can find them in a reasonable amount of time.  Its a good idea just on general principles to deny information to the enemy. 

The long-range scanner can determine the size and class of a ship at ten light seconds, or 40 tac hexes, range, which is just outside of combat range, or just within SBM range if they are available.  It can determine engine number and type at fifteen light seconds/60 tac hexes, but at that range BC's appear identical to carriers.  Which brings up another point.  All of the races are feeling their way through how much fighters have changed the combat landscape (space-scape?).  The Bedu have had fighters for some time, so they are aware that there is a combat difference if they are facing fifteen BC's as opposed to fifteen CV's, but they are still trying to figure out all of the tactical and strategic implications. 

Kurt

[Paul M]

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.

[Kurt (OP)]

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.

Yeah, the DSB-Xr aren't as fully explained or thought out as they might be.  I've basically taken it to mean 1/2 the range given on the Presence table, and on the Quantity tables I usually count it as half range for the quantity of ships and gunboats, or 1/2 a system hex, but equal to an Xr for everything else, like non-moving ships, small craft, CD's, and so on.  I know this doesn't exactly make sense, but cutting the quantity detection range down to 20 tac hexes doesn't really make sense for something that's supposed to be better than inherent sensors.  For the other columns, engine # and type, and size and class, I count DSB-Xr as having the same capabilities as regular Xr.     

As for discerning a class that you have seen before, I've been giving this some thought lately.  I'm pretty sure that all of the detection rules as they currently stand are drive field based, but I would think that discerning different classes, or even individual ships, would be more of an EM thing, based on electronic signature differences.  This also touches on something that I've been doing for some time, which is allowing an exploring race to gather some information on a native race that they have discovered by merely sitting in the outer system and sampling EM radiation being emitted by the civilization in the inner system.  After all, such a civilization would be emitting all sorts of stuff all the time, allowing the watchers to get at least an idea of their general tech level, racial appearance, and such.  It would be enough, for example, to allow a discovering race to determine if they've met these aliens before.   You probably shouldn't be able to tell the specific tech level, but perhaps a range, and you should definitely be able to determine if you've met them before. 

Kurt

[Kurt (OP)]

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. 

That goes for swarm carrier races as well.  They tend to concentrate on CVE's or even CTV's, and have a very difficult time with warp point assaults, or really any battle where they are forced to fight at a range they didn't choose.  In the Phoenix Campaign I had an aggressor race that only used CTV's.  They were cheap and easy to build, and they had an advantage for a time, based on their speed and their ability to rapidly replace losses.  However, the only way that they could attack through warp points was through simul-transits, because it was the only way they could get enough fighters into the system quick enough to overwhelm their enemies.  Even modest warp point point defenses forced them to ST, and every ST caused significant losses that eventually became hard to replace.   

[Garfunkel]

Excellent writing again Kurt. What a stunning victory for the Mintek!

[Kurt (OP)]

Excellent writing again Kurt. What a stunning victory for the Mintek!

Thanks!  The Mintek have been forced to become innovators, using what they have to the fullest extent because their economy is so stretched trying to support the fleet that they have, and the magazines necessary to support their fighters and missile ships with anti-matter weaponry.  Those 150 SBM pods were all that they had, and those were built a while back, in their last burst of spending, to be used against the D'Bringi to break their warp point defenses at the Phyriseq warp point, allowing their fleets to break into D'Bringi space and run rampant.  They ran out of money before they could reach the force levels they felt they needed, and so have turned to subduing the others that they've met.  The Mintek economy has been operating at near break-even levels for a while, and they have no industrial reserves that they can sell to bolster their spending or replace losses.  One big loss and they'd be in big trouble.  It seems they've avoided that, and conquering the Bedu will do a lot to bolster their economy, if they can pull it off. 

Kurt

[Paul M]

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

[nuclearslurpee]

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.

[Kurt (OP)]

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

Interesting designs.  And yeah, it would have been better to go defensive and begin engine modulations.  That strategy occurred to me after the battle, but I decided that the Bedu were caught by surprise, and so they didn't think of it in time.  And, as you note, in the end it wouldn't have mattered, they were out matched.  They could have caused the Mintek some additional losses, but that's about it. 

And as for the fM-a, I originally included those in various loadouts for various races when anti-matter became available, but then I saw in the rules that 1st gen antimatter wasn't allowed on fM, so I took them out of everyone's loadouts.  Well, almost everyone's loadouts.  I'll have to check again!

Kurt

[Kurt (OP)]

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.

You are right, there is a big difference between the Bedu, who were isolated, and the Bjering, who are a part of the larger "galactic society", such as it is.  The Bjering maintain relations with the two superpowers, such as they are.  They don't trust either, but if the Mintek launch an assault, and the Bjering find it difficult to stop them, the D'Bringi Alliance will almost certainly offer assistance, and the Bjering will almost certainly agree. 

Also, the Bjering Alliance's income is almost four times that of the Bedu, so they are a different order of threat to the Mintek. 

I originally played around with the idea of the Bjering intervening on behalf of the Bedu, but that just didn't make enough sense.  The Bedu didn't have a defense treaty with the Bjering, for one thing, and for another, the Bjering hope to avoid war with anyone, if possible.  Hoping to avoid war, for the Bjering, is different than remaining willfully blind, though.  So, by accepting Bedu refugees, the Bjering get important intelligence on Mintek SOP's, hopefully without provoking them too much.  Its a fine line, admittedly, but if the Bedu and D'Bringi are right, the Mintek aren't rational and nothing the Bjering do is going to placate them, and if the Mintek are reasonable, then accepting refugees shouldn't upset them too much. 

Kurt