Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[Brogatar]

[X] Write-In: Deepageddon

 

[Nikandros]

[X] redirect the comet to Griffin IV but have the forces required to destroy it in postion to do so if the attempt to redirect it fails

 

[Lightwhispers]

Since people are being boring:
[x] Do GPR survey of comet, to determine how to build scaffolding on comet. Attach aerodyne dropships to scaffolding, to gently push it on a course to Griffin IV if possible, but definitely missing Nowy Gdansk. Have sufficient forces on-hand to destroy* the comet if redirection fails. (Also, make sure to carve the front facing of the comet in the shape of a grifftiger's face... Dammit, Jane, get out of my computer!)

*Break it into sufficiently small chunks that they are guaranteed to burn up in atmosphere.

 

[Wageslave]

Let us bring water to Arrakis!

[X] redirect the comet to Griffin IV but have the forces required to destroy it in postion to do so if the attempt to redirect it fails

 

[lordmcdeath]

[X] redirect the comet to Griffin IV but have the forces required to destroy it in postion to do so if the attempt to redirect it fails

 

[kelgar04]

Inserted tally

Adhoc vote count started by on Oct 2, 2020 at 7:38 PM, finished with 16 posts and 0 votes.

No votes were able to be tallied!

 

[Crafter of War]

[X] Do GPR survey of comet, to determine how to build scaffolding on comet. Attach aerodyne dropships to scaffolding, to gently push it on a course to Griffin IV if possible, but definitely missing Nowy Gdansk. Have sufficient forces on-hand to destroy* the comet if redirection fails. (Also, make sure to carve the front facing of the comet in the shape of a grifftiger's face... Dammit, Jane, get out of my computer!)

 

[Atarlost]

Here's the key point: all of Atarlost's yammering about us having a monopoly on fast DropShips is *meaningless* in the context of Medium (much less Fast) engagements, because sustained burn transit drive velocities are *super high*. In a Medium-speed intercept, the incoming force may very well be moving *faster* than the defending force even though they are lower-acceleration ships. This is because they've got a multi-day burn behind them.

High and medium speed closing engagements happen at the discretion of the defender because the attacker has no choice about his acceleration profile. The attacker *must* decelerate to rest relative to the planet because a high speed engagement does not allow landing troops. High speed engagements happen when incoming dropships cross outgoing dropships headed for the same jump point due to coincidence or when the defender is suicidally desperate. A zero-zero (zero relative velocity, zero distance) intercept is not only possible, if the defender sets out as soon as the attacker is detected and both forces accelerate at the same rate it will occur with 1/4 of the transit time still on the clock. That's more than two days for a planet in an Earth-like orbit around a Sol-like star. A high speed closing engagement guarantees that if the initial engagement is indecisive the attackers can make planetfall with no further interference from the intercepting force and the dramatically increased damage for kinetic weapons and lack of ability to effectively screen anything increase losses for the victor.

You don't even need to go deep into the math. The attackers accelerate for half the transit time and decelerate for the other half. These legs require equal time for obvious reasons. The defenders accelerate, decelerate to rest, accelerate to match velocities with the attackers, and decelerate with them on the last bit of their deceleration leg. These legs are also equal time if they accelerate at the same rate. And if they set out when the emergence signal is detected the time is also close to equal. Several minutes to an hour shorter due to light lag and maybe another hour or two to get moving if kept at readiness, but not enough to change that the intercept is a very long time out on the scale of even space combat if the attacker uses a standard point. If they use a pirate point there is no possibility of a high speed closing intercept because they aren't far enough away to build that sort of speed.

If we were using "fast but unarmed + unarmored" carriers like Atarlost wants, they'd have to abandon their ASFs and burn "sideways" in order to avoid coming into the enemy's weapon range in a closing intercept arrangement, which would *also* mean no hope of recovering any ASFs that are damaged or have ejected pilots -- *only* close-in carriers would be in a position to effect rescues after the single gun pass.

I have never said unarmored. Armor is nice and doesn't require gunners. And you don't have to burn "sideways" to avoid attackers in a zero-zero intercept and if you are in a high speed closing engagement you don't have any hope of recovering any damaged ASF or ejected pilots because your carriers will be too damaged if they survive and if you're desperate enough to commit to a high speed engagement you're way past the point where your ASF are deliberately kamikazeing the enemy. In a zero-zero intercept you can't conduct recovery until after the battle and faster carriers are more able to catch up to damaged ASF drifting at high speed.

In fact, the Strategic Operations rule actually *require carriers to roll* to determine what percentage of their fighters they manage to launch in time in a high-speed closing engagement scenario, with a *maximum* roll of 90% of fighters deployed. This rule specifically applies to "Fast" engagements where closing velocity is 5000+ hexes a turn, which are "representative of jump point to planet transit velocities" where the ships are engaged in long duration 1G-1.5G burns for several days at a time.

If you really believed in this you'd be advocating for abandoning carrier construction entirely in favor of dedicated gunships. Carrier capacity is wasted if you can't reliably launch. The StratOps closing engagement rules are not for normal space combat. They're for something rare and usually accidental. The normal space combat rules in Total Warfare and the extensions to accommodate warships and reintroduce the accounting abstracted away for TW are for normal space combat. And, this being a quest and not a tabletop game one should perhaps take account of what the rulebook says about the realism of the rules you're citing.

Realistically, the damage might be increased by a great
deal more than quadrupling (especially if anyone starts citing
kinetic energy equations), but since it would be awkward for
a battleship to be destroyed by a machine gun, a simple linear
increase was selected for playability.

Players who want more realism from Units crossing each
other at substantial percentages of light-speed (as might happen
mid-transit in systems with large stars) are encouraged
to resolve combat by dropping record sheets into cross-cut
shredders simultaneously. The record sheet that is shredded
the slowest wins the engagement though, obviously, it is destroyed
in the process.

I tend to assume the written rules of a game first setting like Battletech are meant to be a reasonably close approximation of the internal reality of the setting, but when the rule book itself says the rules are deliberately and dramatically underselling the lethality I'd very strongly suggest not making any plans around them.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

High and medium speed closing engagements happen at the discretion of the defender because the attacker has no choice about his acceleration profile.

A force that is *only* capable of zero-zero intercepts gets one shot at intercepting an incoming enemy attack; that's the scenario we've had in the past with our ASF-only force. As I pointed out, a force of fast, armored escort carriers / aviation gunships gets multiple intercept passes against an incoming enemy attack. That is an absolutely enormous advantage, and the primary justification for building the armored attack carriers instead of continuing with an all-ASF defense.

The attacker *must* decelerate to rest relative to the planet because a high speed engagement does not allow landing troops.

The attacker can only adopt an approximately zero-zero approach to the planet if they want to land troops, yes. The Dracs have already used other tactics in the past, and are even more likely to do so in the future once they begin to realize just how high-tech we are.

More to the point, the fact that the attacker is locked into a zero-zero approach to the planet does not actually mean that the interceptors are required to make a zero-zero attack.

A zero-zero (zero relative velocity, zero distance) intercept is not only possible, if the defender sets out as soon as the attacker is detected and both forces accelerate at the same rate it will occur with 1/4 of the transit time still on the clock.

Yes, zero-zero intercepts are possible. That is a strawman argument. Fast attack carriers are categorically superior in all scenarios including the zero-zero intercepts, but the huge strategic advantage is that high speed intercept force gets multiple intercept opportunities, versus a low speed intercept force where it's a single "do or die" opportunity.

A high speed closing engagement guarantees that if the initial engagement is indecisive the attackers can make planetfall with no further interference from the intercepting force and the dramatically increased damage for kinetic weapons and lack of ability to effectively screen anything increase losses for the victor.

No, that is only true of a medium/high speed closing engagement by a slow carrier force like the one you want. A fast carrier force has sufficient acceleration to reverse its course and make multiple attack passes on an incoming enemy force.

You don't even need to go deep into the math.

"You don't need math" = "The math disproves my argument, but I'm going to ignore it."

Again, you're ignoring the fact that fast, armored carriers that can "fight through" alongside their fighters can make multiple intercepts.

You make a medium-speed pass on the enemy during their acceleration phase, reverse course and make another medium-speed pass on them from behind during their deceleration phase, and then zoom past them and reverse course *again* for a zero-zero intercept before they reach the planet. If the attack force is exceptionally slow and/or the intercepting force is exceptionally fast, it's even possible to do five passes with an extra in-and-out.

And you don't have to burn "sideways" to avoid attackers in a zero-zero intercept and if you are in a high speed closing engagement you don't have any hope of recovering any damaged ASF or ejected pilots because your carriers will be too damaged if they survive and if you're desperate enough to commit to a high speed engagement you're way past the point where your ASF are deliberately kamikazeing the enemy.

You are again generalizing weaknesses that are in fact unique to your preferred brand of carrier. Aviation gunship type carriers stay with the fighters through the pass, and are therefore in position for immediate fighter retrieval after the pass, since they will be minimally damaged (if at all) and their base vector does not diverge significantly.

If you really believed in this you'd be advocating for abandoning carrier construction entirely in favor of dedicated gunships. Carrier capacity is wasted if you can't reliably launch. The StratOps closing engagement rules are not for normal space combat. They're for something rare and usually accidental.

I posted the exact situations in which these rules apply, and they make complete sense. The point is that it is impossible to conduct long range fighter standoff the way you want, because ASFs are too short-legged to do it. ASFs are "prep launch on detection" during transit and actually launch *directly* before hostile contact, specifically because they only have a handful of fuel.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

The vast majority of ASFs have 5 tons of fuel. That's enough for 113 turns at safe thrust, 57 turns at overthrust . . . which means a normally equipped ASF can fly for only eighteen minutes at its economical power setting, or nine minutes at combat power. This makes their endurance barely better than the Me 163 Komet point-defense interceptor -- they're good for one brief dogfight and that's it, ever.

 

[kelgar04]

Thanks to sunhawk for looking this over and providing the impetus for this.

A View From the Ice 9 - Armoured Warfare

Michal walked onto the snow heading across the campus humming softly he'd paid a visit to the commandant of the campus to talk about the new Rapid Reaction Force that had been stood up recently and how they would work with the Armia Krajowa so far the force was small with only a few hovercrafts. Still, it was a promising start; he'd already heard a few of the Hussars looking to test their Lanca out against them.

He shook his head, chuckling as Jan Wojtek's people were a very hot-headed bunch, but it would be good to get some exercises going. It would help build up both forces for when the Dracs come back. Though those pirates who recently jumped in the system though defeated worried him there could be others out there. Nowy Gdansk was the most exposed of the member worlds which worried him. They needed to work on improving their defences on the world; he also had stepped up drills and was putting in a request for some ASFs although he knew they had other priorities.

He looked back at Rowecki who was coming out behind him as he lit his cigarette and took a drag, "So Sierżant ready to go and meet the prince?" he asked with a smile.

"Tak sir," Rowecki said with a grin. They both liked the younger man as he could hold his drink, "Any idea what this is about?"

"He was working with Jan and several of the old tankers that fought the Dracs in the invasion on some new designs," Michal said, "He thinks their experience against the Dracs would help in the design process and they’re using the campus here as it is out of the way enough for testing."

"Given Jan was one of the few tank commanders who managed to down one of the Drac tanks," Rowecki said, lighting up his own cigarette. They started walking to a small annex with an attached hanger, "though it cost him his old Grom tank when that Mech came up, and it was more an ambush from the way he tells it."

"Tak," Michal said, "still he is one of the few who managed it. The rest are gunners, loaders and drivers as well as the odd commanders and mechanics who managed to get out. Most are working on the Verdun UDV or in the motor pools."

"Tak," Rowecki said, "Sir, I imagine a lot of them will be happy to get new tanks."

"True, let's go and see what the Prince has for us," Michal said.

-----

As they entered the earth of the annex they were greeted by Jan at the desk who was in a lined working uniform that was the working uniform of the Hussars.

"Michal, Rowecki," Jan said, shaking their hands, "thank you for coming."

"Always glad to get new hardware," Michal said to Jan with a smile, "where is the Prince?"

"Jeremy?" Jan said, "he is doing his final walk around of his babies before you get a look at them and wants to make sure they are at their best before he puts the proposal forward."

"I can't blame him there," said Rowecki, "The man is one of the best young officers in the AFGR as well as the queen's son that puts a great deal of pressure on him."

"Tak," Jan said, "Anyway let's get to the tanks."

They walked down the corridor passed several workshop spaces and a break room and into the main hangar there sat three armoured forms of tanks they were invited there to see. Just as they came in, they saw Jeremy walk around from the back of the largest tank, his overalls stained with grease.

The younger man smiled at them, "Generał, Sierżant good to see you both again."

"Good to see you too major," said Michal, "thanks for inviting us to the demonstration."

"No problem, let's get a look at what we have shall we?" Jeremy said.

The first tank they came to was a great beast with a great gun sticking out of the hull. It looked squat and dangerous and its hull was painted in winter camouflage.

"This is Project Grom Dwa or Grom Two," Jeremy said, "it is intended as an Urban Defence Vehicle it's armed with a Gauss Rifle and packs a punch compared to what the records refer to as the Hetzer."

"How effective?" asked Michal

Jeremy looked to Jan, and he said, "I threw together a crew, and we took it through its paces on the academy tank range and it held up well, and when we test-fired it's gun against Battlemech Armour it punched through."

Jeremy then jumped in, "From what the simulations and exercise we have put it through a lance of them could hold an Urban Area against a much larger force. As to handling according to Jans people, its controls are well laid out as are its internals making it easy to move inside the compartment."

"Tak," said Jan, "Zofia loved the damn thing when she talked to Jeremy and the designers. She based a lot of the internal layouts and controls on the old Grom, and according to her it handles like a dream. Hell, her and Pavel also worked on the autoloader together."

"Those two," said Jeremy, "were a major driving force it's development and have proved to be a boon when it came to troubleshooting problems we ran into. I'd like to take them back to Griffin's Roost and put them through an engineering degree program if possible and have them assigned to research and development in the AFGR."

"I can't see any problems with that Major," Michal said, "providing they agree, that is."

"Thank you," Jeremy said, "I'll speak to them anyway. On to the next one."

They moved onto the next one it was on the same chassis as Project Grom - the exception was the LRM cluster mounted on its back, "We are internally calling this one Project Pilum," Jeremy said moving up putting his hand on the side, "it has a pair of LRM launchers on its hull. We were worried initially that it would cause issues on the chassis however Pavel and Filip were a major factor in this. We only tested it the last few days and it's promising."

Jan then said, "Ideally the Pilums would work alongside the Grom Dwa with the tank crews of the Grom or the next time by calling in fire from the Pilums."

Michal looked at it and said, "Would be useful, what is the final tank?"

"That would be the project Spyglass scout tank," said Jeremy as they walked over to the last smaller tank it was lightly armed, "This is mainly a recon that all the teams collaborated on it's intended to be a recon element both scouting out enemy forces, passing actionable intelligence and calling in artillery support."

The Spyglass tank was small. Michal could see the observation equipment and several small blisters on its hull as well as several small arms.

"Armour is somewhat lighter than most of what has been previously built, but the engine is fairly overpowered allowing it to really move," Jan said, "it can get almost anywhere in most areas and repositions were needed rapidly."

"Looks promising," said Michal, "how's it handled?"

"We took it to various places on Nowy Gdansk as well as various places on Griffin's Roost," said Jeremy, "it handled really well in all environments we tested it in."

"Very nice," Michal said, looking back along with the test models, "Still how they will perform in combat will be key but it does look promising. If you will let me, I pen my own recommendation that these designs should be put in service."

Both Jan and Jeremy smiled at that as did the nearby staff, "We would like that Sir," said Jeremy.

"Anyway, let us head to one of the workshops," said Jan, "we have recordings of each of the tests we can go through we also have one more an APC for Power Armour a 60 ton heavy APC optimized for power armour equipped with an Enhanced ER PPC, LRM rack, and AMS system that should have the initial prototype be off the line sometime in the next week if you would like to observe them."

"I would like to observe the test and way we have some test recordings to observes so lead the way," said Michal and then exited the hanger heading to the workshop.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 36 - There’s Justice In The Barrel Of A Loaded Gun

QM Note - Compositing the vote results

USS Enterprise has delivered the results of her survey work, and while it is still being analyzed fully several things stand out strongly.

One, there may be a massive amount of water on the planet, but it is all bound up in a half dozen extraordinarily deep seas. The water itself is incredibly caustic and alkaline, utterly unfit for drinking and almost impossible to process economically due to the sheer havoc it would wreak on any piping and desalinization gear. There is no life whatsoever in the seas of Griffin IV, not even microbial.

Two, the few life forms that are clinging to survival on the planet cluster around the tiny number of springs and seeps that are fed from seepage from the seas, filtered by the planet's crust itself. All of them are very fragile and any attempt to colonize the planet would very likely see their extinction. None of them have any economic value and it is estimated that within a century or two even these last survivors will be extinct anyways even if you completely left the planet alone. In terms of preservation the best that could be hoped for would be artificial habitats to mimic the conditions of those seeps and hope for the best. Even the large segmented lizards are nearly extinct, the few specimens found all show enormous genetic damage consistent with tiny, incredibly inbred, populations.

Three, the planet has incredibly rich mineral deposits, with multiple different motherlodes of nearly every conceivable industrial metal and ore of such immense value that the planet could easily become an industrial monster. There are signs of a large number of impact craters, supporting the hypothesis that the incredibly deep oceans are the result of dense impactors creating deep holes in the crust.

And finally, the atmospheric composition is marginal for supporting human life as it stands, but if the carbon and water cycles can somehow be restarted that would be solved very quickly.

Therefore it seems quite fortuitous that there is a source of water in the form of this ice comet. USS Enterprise and USS Endeavor work together to adjust the comet's orbit through the simple expedient of landing upon it carefully, securing themselves to the comet itself, then using carefully timed and planned burns of their main thrusters to adjust the comet's trajectory. They’ll have to return in 3 years or so to finish the process, with the intention being to leave the comet in orbit of Griffin IV while it is determined what to do with it in the long term.

Close analysis of the comet shows that it probably originated in the Griffin VII moon system countless millennia ago and is very nearly pure water ice, with a ‘crust’ of carbon and silica dust that it had picked up over the millions of years of its journeys around the solar system.

Sarah has completed a sky survey of Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt objects, there are no other large impactors on any collision orbits for at least the next century.

There is a population boom on Nowy Gdansk, leading to a land-sale business in baby goods and services.

In other news from Nowy Gdansk, Jeremy has been on a training deployment on the planet with his unit, working with the Aerie Annex and the local garrison forces. And evidently he’s also been putting his engineering degree to good use in conjunction with a few of the local military types.

Several new vehicles have been developed by a start-up that your son is financially backing out of his personal funds. The construction of the factories and the hiring of locals with engineering backgrounds has seen a sharp improvement in the local job market, but more importantly to the Empire, perhaps, is that the designs are quite interesting.

Two of them eschew turrets and fusion engines completely, being relatively simple, tough, and hard-hitting weapons that do not use any strategic materials whatsoever. They actually share a completely common hull and chassis, one armed with a gauss rifle, a 3cm and 5cm laser, and had already demonstrated that it has excellent stability when traversing and aiming the main weapon. The other has a pair of 15 racks of LRMs tied to an Artemis targeting system combined with an adapted Nollak targeting module and an anti-missile system built around a 20mm gatling.

Another is a new APC optimized for power armor troops, with the ability to provide full support for a squad of these specialized infantry on each vehicle for extended combat and non-combat operations. It is heavily armored and possesses superior firepower thanks to its Enhanced ER PPC. It even carries improved medical facilities on each track to increase the survivability of the troops it carries.

Finally there is a new dedicated scout tank. Although significantly slower than the hovercraft and VTOL platforms normally used, this one is equipped with a full suite of advanced electronics combined with an extended range 8cm laser.

Name	Cost	HP	A/D	Special
Lynx Scout Tank	500	24	7	Tracked, Scout, ECM, TAG
STuG G Hetzer	603.12	92	14	Tracked, Armored 1
Arbalest II	869.20	88	12	Tracked, Anti-Air, Armored 1, Missile 4, AMS 1
Bear IFV	1314.56	92	14	Tracked, APC (PA) 1, Armored 1, AMS 1, MASH

The Arbalest II had replaced the current Arbalest in service as a sort of ‘proof of concept’, with funding provided by the Nowy Gdansk planetary government and, again, your son’s pockets.

Three tactical formations have been proposed, both of which make use of the new designs. An Armored Fist Company consists of a single platoon of STuG G Hetzer tanks, a platoon of Bear IFVs with attached Power Armor (Light) - Basic platoon, and a platoon of Arbalest IIs. An Standard Armored Battalion consists of two full companies of Jaguar MBTs, a platoon of Lynx Scout Tanks, a platoon of Arbalest IIs, and a platoon of the new Excalibre SPGs. Finally a Standard Mechanized Battalion consists of two full companies of Bear IFVs with attached PA infantry, and a platoon each of Lynx, Arbalest II and Excalibre vehicles.

You do get a good chuckle out of Jeremy complaining about the military bureaucrats ‘changing the perfectly good names we came up with for our designs!’. Granted, you kind of liked the names your son had come up with, but they didn’t ‘fit’ the established naming schemes, evidently, and you aren’t all that inclined to go to the mat over it.

In racing news, both the twins and your grandson are having fun in their respective racing series.

The twins are in championship contention again, although not in the lead. The racing has been particularly furious this year in part to prove to the League that the older ruleset is perfectly capable of producing exciting races. The League, meanwhile, still wants to make things more ‘pure’ by limiting or eliminating aerodynamic aids as much as possible.

In the youth karting series John is racing in, he’s having a grand old time. He’s not winning all that much, although he is finishing every race he enters, but he’s having so much fun that it feels like he’s winning anyways considering the huge smile he has after every race, practice session, or qualifying session.

He’s had his first big crash as well, and that truly frightened you. He came in too hot into a turn, clipped another kid when he wasn’t able to keep it tight enough, and wound up cartwheeling and flipping over. You were terrified until you noticed that none of the other mom’s and grandma’s seemed all that worried, likewise the race officials didn’t seem to consider it a big deal. Two of them with a medic checked on your grandson, got a thumbs up, they rolled the kart back onto its wheels, and he merrily got back to racing.

You ask Alita and she tells you that she’d been shown a safety video and demonstration before she’d allowed her son to race, in which a borrowed Lion had driven over a pair of the little karts with no actual damage to either of them. The roll cages were as strong as the ones fitted to a Chasseur hovertank, the chassis was rated to support far more weight than would ever be placed on it, and no kart was permitted to race until it had passed an extremely detailed safety certification process.

You check later on and find that the Pee Wee Hovercraft Racing League has nearly identical safety standards nowadays, evidently all of the youth racing associations had gotten together and cross-fertilized best practices for maximum safety for the kids.

If you were a grifftiger, this would definitely earn a Lick Of Approval.

Speaking of grifftigers, you asked Sekhmet about why no tigers had ever expressed any interest in sports.

Turns out they had, just not sports you really were aware of.

Apparently there’s this sport called ‘Tiger Soccer’ played between teams of tigers, with the only rule you are able to figure out is that they’re only allowed to touch the ball with their noses and front paws, no biting, no back paws, no tail. Other than that, it apparently has no rules, with the objective to get a large, extremely tough ball through a goal post that only appears at random intervals, being otherwise retracted underneath the field. As far as you can tell, the point goes to whichever tiger touches it last before it goes into said goal.

It seems rather popular with the tigers at least. You can’t figure it out, to be honest, since much of it seems to involve tigers tapping the ball around in a circle while they wait for the goal to appear then a mad dash to get the ball into the goal when it finally appears.

Sekhmet is able to explain a few more of the ‘rules’, evidently there’s a rule that no tiger may ‘hold’ the ball for more than a second, and any pass must be at least two tiger lengths away. Evidently this is considered ‘extremely good hunting training’.

This apparently is an evolution of what goes on in the wild where young tigers will bat around a particular species of large, heavily shelled, turtle that, weirdly, doesn’t seem to mind all that much being used as a living ball. It’s posited by animal behaviorists that the concussion of the impacts and the movement of the water through the shell dislodges small parasites on the turtle's skin, but the tiger’s certainly don’t attempt to eat the turtles.

The tiger’s claim that the turtles ‘love it’ and will come up to them to get batted, so there’s that since it’s kind of difficult to ask the turtles their opinion on the matter.

Sarah is heavily pregnant now, but is still writing. Tony is being run ragged fetching all sorts of exotic foodstuffs for his wife, which you honestly approve of. And you get plenty of time with the grandkids, so you approve of that even more.

Thanh is enjoying her assignment on the exploration missions, especially since she gets to spend most of her off-duty time with her wife. The comet redirect mission was challenging, according to her, mostly for the extremely finicky and precise piloting that was required. She’d actually piloted the shuttle that was used for the initial preparation phase of the mission, stabilizing the tumbling of the comet so that the big dropships could land and attach themselves.

And now for the main event, in this corner, an Empress who would rather be with her grandkids. And in the other corner… the budget.

Round one… FIGHT.

General Jackson is the first contestant… errrr briefer. “Your Majesty, we in ground forces have several requests. First of all, to get 2nd Armored started on Nowy Gdansk. The initial force organization for 1st Regiment should be on your pad now. We are ultimately planning on 2 Standard Armored Battalions and a single Standard Mechanized Battalion as the initial composition of each of the armored regiments of the Division. We are requesting the purchase of one complete regiment set to the exclusion of all but Cadet and Orb Weaver mech procurement. We have just sufficient Ferro-Fibrous production for all of the required Jaguar tanks, and enough general AFV production to build out the entire unit. In the future we intend to fully reorganize 1st Armored along the same lines, but starting this off with 2nd Armored will allow us to properly field test the organizational structure first.”

Next up to present you with dreaded paperwork is General Reyes. “The ASF forces are in a good place, the recent pirate raid was handled smoothly enough. We would recommend continuing to expand the stations in the Inner Asteroid Belt so we can base even heavier forces of Goshawk 2Gs for those situations where we might not get enough warning to shift other forces in. In addition, we would like an air wing of 3 Eagles for HMS Argus. Considering her mission profile, we would recommend procuring Rocs for HMS Warrior, although we can only build 2 squadrons this year and would need to procure the third next year unless you expand the factory”

Admiral Benjamin doesn’t bother standing up. “Your Majesty, the Defiants performed splendidly, we are looking forward to HMS Argus, HMS Hendry and HMS Warrior beginning their shakedown cruises next year. Other than that.” he grinned, showing blindingly white teeth, “We good.”

General Potter shakes his head slightly. “Your Majesty, I strongly recommend procuring the first regiment for 2nd Armored this year. Just because we keep on being able to stop threats in orbit doesn’t guarantee that trend will continue, no matter what the flyboys and girls say. The Aerospace Forces are a bit behind Ground Forces in preparing amalgamated wings, so far there is a great deal of institutional inertia behind homologous unit organizations. But we’re working on it.”

Bridget is bouncy as ever, although she evidently finally learned to bring you a big mug of Janet’s coffee before briefing you. She can be taught! “Your Majesty we’ve got a bunch of things but the main thing is build build build factories and orbital facilities and stations and foundries and all the rest the rest will take care of itself we’d like to start surveying Griffin I and VI as well if that’s no trouble because who knows what goodies we’ll find.” She pauses for a second “Or do more surveys of the moon, I don’t know why but I’ve got a feeling there’s something up there, there always is in all the stories at least and a thousand writers can’t all be wrong right?”

Isoroku is out on Nowy Gdansk for meetings with several people concerning cultural affairs there. He left a memo recommending either holding another Polish Cultural Festival to promote Nowy Gdansk or building more monumental architecture, this year there’s a proposal that he’d forwarded to you to build a large horticultural park on Castor.

Jake is looking a bit tired from having to deal with Parliament lately. “Your Majesty, we’ve got a few ideas still being worked on, but honestly I can’t recommend moving forward with any serious projects in my department this year. Parliamentary relations are good, our public image is solid, we’re in a good place so maintaining what we have shouldn’t require any excess spending.”

Mary is looking a bit grim. “Your Majesty, the only new area of research that we can handle is into nuclear anti-shipping missiles, effectively recreating the old Alamo system. We can foresee several non-nuclear based applications for the basic missile body, but we’d first have to validate the system.”

She then puts up the dreaded charts with recommendations.

• Military Research
  • Heavy Battlemechs
    • Heavy mechs in the 60 to 75 ton range should be the basic building block of our mech forces. The sooner we get started the sooner we’ll have a solid overmatching counter to potential enemy formations
  • ER Medium and Small Lasers
    • Extended Range 3cm and 5cm lasers look like they would be highly efficient and capable weapon systems.
  • Targeting Computer
    • An extremely interesting system that could yield superb results in terms of boosting precision and accuracy.
• Non-Military Research
  • Improved Education
    • Boosting the capabilities of our educational system is always important for boosting our research capabilities
  • Improved Automation
    • Expensive but the economic boost and reduction in maintenance costs is worthwhile even if it puts us temporarily into a deficit situation.
  • Terraforming Equipment
    • The survey of Griffin IV shows that we will require more capabilities in terms of high impact terraforming if we wish to successfully colonize the planet.

Both Harry and Janet are absent from the meetings, Harry due to further meetings with Home Army specialists and personally overseeing the redesign of the Black Site station, and Janet is personally overseeing the final stages of the in depth investigation of any Bratva adjacent groups that hadn’t yet been rounded up.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

I would like to save the species on the planet that are in trouble. Like the lizards. We have the technology to do it as well as the ice asteroid in orbit.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Let's consider this in terms of actions, reactions, and knowledge:

1. Invasion force arrives at jump point, begins accellerating towards planet with the intent of making a zero-zero transit to land forces.

2. Sarah detects jump signature, allowing intercepting task force to launch within hours. Intercepting carrier force has *constant near real time tracking* of invasion force via Sarah, whereas the invasion force *cannot see* intercepting carrier force until it is within direct sensor range.

2a. Having near real time, system-wide sensor data from Sarah is an *enormous* advantage. When combined with fast carriers and gunships, it allows the defender (us) to completely dictate the engagement, including being able to stage a high-speed engagement that would *normally* only happen by sheer luck.​

​

2b. Per both the sourcebooks and our own "actual experience" in Quest, jump signatures are highly visible to even relatively primitive sensors, whereas drive plumes are detectable but only at closer ranges. Per the sourcebooks, maximum radar range is 10,000 KM for fighters and 100,000 KM for Large Craft radar, but within this range Detection Checks still have to actually be rolled if the advanced sensors rules are being used; drive plumes may only be detected by the more capable sensor suites on Large Craft, but can be detected at longer ranges. In practical terms, DropShips and WarShips can detect each other at maneuvering ranges of "hours" in a low or medium speed closing engagement; it's only in high closing speed engagements where one party cannot detect in time to be fully prepared.​

3. Intercepting task force boosts for a high-speed frontal engagement pass on the invasion force. Depending on the correlation of forces, they can choose to boost at maximum sustainable thrust and make a high-speed engagement pass *before* the invaders reach their turnover, or they can make a medium-speed engagement pass *after* the invaders reach turnover.

3a. Given that the enemy *does not know we have DropShips at all*, I would say that our best strategy for the first encounter when the war becomes hot again is to run a high speed pass with our combat DropShips to take maximum advantage of surprise.​

4. The invaders will see them several hours out, but have too much velocity to abort their inbound run. In fact, simply *stopping their deceleration* in order to launch fighters to defend themselves will force them to make a sustained overboost when they resume thrusting after the fight, with unplasant effects on their cargo and passengers.

4a. For the same reason, the invaders will be forced to callously abandon all of their damaged and disabled craft and resume a deceleration burn *as soon as they can*, or they'll lose their zero-zero course and overshoot the planet. Being Dracs, they wouldn't even hesitate.​

​

4b. Conversely, our fast task force can *deploy its small craft* -- which unlike ASFs have days of endurance -- for recovery duty.​

5. The intercepting task force has now passed the invaders and is flying out. They can use their superior acceleration to double back and hit the invaders again, or they can do something even worse: burn outsystem to intercept the JumpShips, either capturing them before they can recharge or forcing them to jump.

5a. The invaders have very few options to respond to the latter, which is a worst-case nightmare in their eyes. If they detach any fast assault DropShips in their force to chase the task force, they're leaving their now unescorted transport DropShips to be butchered by the final intercept force of planet-based ASFs, and also face defeat in detail. If they stick together, their *only* way of saving the JumpShips is to hold the planet hostage, which is dependent on them *winning decisively* not only against the final intercept, but also against ground forces.​

 

[Jarow]

[X] Plan: Debt Prevention
-[X] Military [$306972]
--[X] Begin Advanced Design Work on Jump Point Defense Stations* [75]
--[X] Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $82694.76]
---[X] Defiant
--[X] Purchase New Units [$74277.24]
---[X] 3 Flights of Eagles [auto]
---[X] 2 Flight of Gyrfalcons [70]
---[X] 2 Flights of Goshawks [70]
---[X] 1 Flight of Falcons [70]
---[X] 2 Flights of Rocs [70]
---[X] 2 Lances of Cadet Mech [70]
---[X] 1 Lance Orb Weaver [70]
---[X] 1 Standard Armored Regiment [70]

-[X]Interior [$207600]
--[X] Ruins Stabilization and Clearing* [90]
--[X] Expand Factory 14 (Shortbow)* [auto]
--[X] Build Space Station Griffin II L4 [80]
--[X] Build Space Station Griffin II L5 [80]
(We need these and L1 to get an orbital colony here.)
--[X] Expand Orbital Factory 17 (Ferro-Aluminum) [80]
(We're still a bit short of where we need to be here)
--[X] Planetary Resource Survey - Nowy Gdansk [45]
(Hopefully we can find something, but does save some money)
--[X] DOME - Nowy Gdansk Arcology* [->3]
--[X] DOME - Water Purification Griffin's Roost* [->3]
--[X] DOME - Mega-pipeline Griffin's Roost* [->3]

-[X] Diplomatic [$40000]
--[X] Pre-colonization Survey of Griffin IV* [auto]
--[X] Infrastructure Development on Nowy Gdansk* [auto]
--[X] Have Exploration Fleet Survey Griffin's Roost Moon [75]
(There's probably something there, might as well get a look)
--[X] CULTURE - Monuments Ho! [75]
(Tax rate!)

-[X] Political [$100000]
--[X] Increase Funding to the Department of Periphery Studies* [65]

-[X] Research [$425200]
--[X] Genetic Editing* [45]
--[X] K-F Drive Theory Tier 1* [->3]
--[X] Orbital Survey [105]
(Cost savings, potential for something fun)
--[X] Improved Education lvl 5 [80]
(Better research when we have money to do stuff)
--[X] Targeting Computer [75]
(Cheap and potentially useful)

-[X] Intelligence [$250000]
--[X] Counterintelligence Surveillance [?]
--[X] Construct secure 'Black Site'* [75]

-[X] Justice [$100000]
--[X] Intensive Investigation of Bratva* [->1]
--[X] Audit of Laws and Regulations* [->3]

-[X] Miscellaneous [$1450000]
--[X] Nowy Gdansk Immigration Subsidies - 50000
--[X] Aerospace Safety Equipment - 500000
--[X] Bulk Cargo Subsidies - 400000
--[X] Mining Cavern Assistance - 500000

Little under $15k leftover. If people want a plan with debt to use all our research slots, feel free to make one, or modify this one to add in stuff.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

[X] Plan: Debt Prevention

 

[Joyousmadman]

[X] Plan: Debt Prevention
-[X] Military [$306972]
--[X] Begin Advanced Design Work on Jump Point Defense Stations* [75]
--[X] Lay Down Major Unit [Construction - $82694.76]
---[X] Defiant
--[X] Purchase New Units [$74277.24]
---[X] 3 Flights of Eagles [auto]
---[X] 2 Flight of Gyrfalcons [70]
---[X] 2 Flights of Goshawks [70]
---[X] 1 Flight of Falcons [70]
---[X] 2 Flights of Rocs [70]
---[X] 2 Lances of Cadet Mech [70]
---[X] 1 Lance Orb Weaver [70]
---[X] 1 Standard Armored Regiment [70]

-[X]Interior [$207600]
--[X] Ruins Stabilization and Clearing* [90]
--[X] Expand Factory 14 (Shortbow)* [auto]
--[X] Build Space Station Griffin II L4 [80]
--[X] Build Space Station Griffin II L5 [80]
(We need these and L1 to get an orbital colony here.)
--[X] Expand Orbital Factory 17 (Ferro-Aluminum) [80]
(We're still a bit short of where we need to be here)
--[X] Planetary Resource Survey - Nowy Gdansk [45]
(Hopefully we can find something, but does save some money)
--[X] DOME - Nowy Gdansk Arcology* [->3]
--[X] DOME - Water Purification Griffin's Roost* [->3]
--[X] DOME - Mega-pipeline Griffin's Roost* [->3]

-[X] Diplomatic [$40000]
--[X] Pre-colonization Survey of Griffin IV* [auto]
--[X] Infrastructure Development on Nowy Gdansk* [auto]
--[X] Have Exploration Fleet Survey Griffin's Roost Moon [75]
(There's probably something there, might as well get a look)
--[X] CULTURE - Monuments Ho! [75]
(Tax rate!)

-[X] Political [$100000]
--[X] Increase Funding to the Department of Periphery Studies* [65]

-[X] Research [$425200]
--[X] Genetic Editing* [45]
--[X] K-F Drive Theory Tier 1* [->3]
--[X] Orbital Survey [105]
(Cost savings, potential for something fun)
--[X] Improved Education lvl 5 [80]
(Better research when we have money to do stuff)
--[X] Targeting Computer [75]
(Cheap and potentially useful)

-[X] Intelligence [$250000]
--[X] Counterintelligence Surveillance [?]
--[X] Construct secure 'Black Site'* [75]

-[X] Justice [$100000]
--[X] Intensive Investigation of Bratva* [->1]
--[X] Audit of Laws and Regulations* [->3]

-[X] Miscellaneous [$1450000]
--[X] Nowy Gdansk Immigration Subsidies - 50000
--[X] Aerospace Safety Equipment - 500000
--[X] Bulk Cargo Subsidies - 400000
--[X] Mining Cavern Assistance - 500000

 

[kelgar04]

[X] Plan: Debt Prevention

 

[Vilegrave]

[X] Plan: Debt Prevention

 

[Culsu]

[X] Plan: Debt Prevention