The Chantry of Light Month 75

Starbridge Station, Lathandras Orbit, Thedas System

From the observation gantry just above the stations CIC Templar Captain Allistar Ti'Lir could see the work ongoing at the yards that made up the bulk of the stations volume.  The Enchanter was progressing, if slowly, its frame complete and artificers, workers and robotic drones starting to assemble its spinal weapons array.  Ships floated in other docks, their armour skin open to space as others worked on their system.  This month would see the Shield's refits completed excepting for the 7th squadron's 3 Fearless Destroyers.  They were currently on station in Sarnia while all other battle riders were here refitting or else shaking down. 

He could not see the latest Pathfinder vessel, the Spectre was beyond the moon doing its space trials.  It would be the eyes of the Pathfinder flotillas.  The plan was to replace the 18 Seekers currently in each Flotilla was 10 refit Seekers and 4 Spectres.  This would double the survey speed of each flotilla in addition to giving each one four ships with enhanced sensor reach.  This would increase the maintenance of each flotilla to 480.2 MCr.  That was a 14% increase and a fifth flotilla would be added, with 22 Seekers mothballed.  Three new patrol squadrons had to be built with at least part of their complements coming from the Defence Force itself as it was clear a significant re-organisation was needed.  The Fearlesses would be used with Swiftsures as leaders, and the Peacekeepers and most of the Grace Knives relegated to patrol duties.  It would require some changes to the current squadron structures and the construction of more Dawnbringers.

What to do about Sarnia though?  Even now the Fold points were not fully explored and trying to build or assemble when the latest mobile repair docks were available would still take a long time.  But clearly something needed to be done to increase the number of eyes in that system.


SEEKER R1 class ES        12 Hull    TL 3
[2] SAXiHLQsJc1 [4]
12 RCP  13 MCP       Trg:1        Cost =  186/ 27.9
HTK 7   Sx1  Ax1  Lx1

The improved survey instruments replace the ageing standard systems of the original ships.  To accomadate the increased array size of the new survey instruments part of the ships shield generators were sacrificed. 

SPECTRE class CT        16 Hull    TL 3
[2] SSAXiHXrLQsJc1jc1 [4]
16 RCP  9 MCP       Trg:1        Cost =  261/ 39.2
HTK 10   Sx2  Ax1  Lx1 

Incorporating improved survey instruments and the recently developed phased array and sensor enhancement computer systems the Spectre is twice as efficent at survey.  This ship is intended to perform probes as its sensor range is substantially increased. 

HALLA (TUG) class FT4     30 Hull    TL 3
[3] SAJc1x8TTJc1Jc1HQsJc1 [4]
30 RCP  45 MCP       Trg:1        Cost =  242/ 18.2
HTK 17   Sx1  Ax1  Tx2

The Halla will allow the Shield to move its Sentry bases around, enabling them to be constructed at single fixed point rather than needing to be built on station.  Why bases can't be transported in jump racks is beyond me!

House Rule Change for J-small craft
Starslayer and I talked about this and we settled on the following speeds for J-small craft:
Cutter:  Tac Speed 10 Inter-System Speed 3  (Speed of a DD)
Shuttle:  Tac Speed 9  Inter-System Speed 3  (Speed of a CA/CL)
Assault Shuttle:  Tac Speed 12 Inter-System Speed 4 (Speed of a CT)

This would allow us to have fighters starting at Tac Speed 13-ish if we decide to go with fighters at all. Pinnace's are going to take some thought and back and forth since they would need to be Jc based.  I also admit I have a lot of trouble with kinetic interceptors not killing fighters a lot better than they do.  Given they do damage to ships, something no other pointdefence is capable of, and given their tracking capabilities smacking a fighter out of the sky seems like it should be childs play.

Have to ask, there are Troops actually aboard said ship?

Asking from experience...

2 - How do you see the details of ground units embarked in TT module? I would like to add a 100-tons TT module on each of my medium+ warships, but it seems you don't know much about the troop once it is boarded.

You can see some information in the "Transported Items" tab on the naval organization window. You can also see the entire formation detail on the Ground Forces window, OOB tab, if you check the box to show units on ships (which is off by default).

As an aside, while 100 tons is probably fine for ship's defense squads, I would probably suggest using 200 tons if you want to conduct boarding actions, as I've found in practice that 100 tons is a bit too small for most typical ship sizes you might want to capture.

1 - is it possible to speed up the construction of a space station with components? I see no checkbox, so I guess it's not (possible)

Not if you are building the space station with Construction Factories.

Ah well, Truce. I believe no-one but Steve no the fine details about it. Anyway, moving on!

1 - is it possible to speed up the construction of a space station with components? I see no checkbox, so I guess it's not (possible)

2 - How do you see the details of ground units embarked in TT module? I would like to add a 100-tons TT module on each of my medium+ warships, but it seems you don't know much about the troop once it is boarded.

3 - Do STOs benefit implicitly from the Spinal mount research? Or never ever?