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Author Topic: You Are A Kai Queen / You Are A Kai Commander, Day 41  (Read 86436 times)

Ross Vernal

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #750 on: August 06, 2012, 11:41:12 pm »

The High Intensity Arrays are base and vehicle sized, and it comes standard in the micro size for everything else, with a short range (maybe enough to see through a standard wall or two). The Command vehicle has the big, heavy, long-range one.

Aircraft



Spoiler: Basic Aircraft (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Stealth Fighter (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Stealth Carrier (click to show/hide)

The aircarrier can bring a Moblie Base if stripped down to light armor and a Microfusion generator. It won't go nearly as fast carrying that much weight.
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RAM

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #751 on: August 07, 2012, 01:46:35 am »

Consider that we can produce research and production drones as quickly as we can produce military drones. Military drones represent mass that must be moved over large distances, while research and production drones may be retained close to the production centres and therefore be more efficiently supplied. Note also that the bipeds likely possess area-destruction weaponry that would be extremely effective against a massed assault.

It's not easy to produce economic drones when we are geearing up for  war and one of our queens is specialized in making soldiers... too late to change strategy. As for area destruction weaponry, I'd not overestimate it's quantity and power. Besides we are planing to use hit and run strategy
Also consider that soldiers can loot supplies
We have one queen specialised in making technology and technical drones and one specialised in making war and military drones. One queen can produce, what? 50 drones over a few days? We would need thousands to overwhelm the bipeds with numbers, and that is just one planet, the bipeds have a whole empire, it would likely take at least tens of millions to capture a single planet, and they would need to be transported. Even assuming that they could be stored as larvae, stripped of their energy requirements, and grown to maturity on the battle-field from locally acquired materials, it would still be a logistical achievement well beyond anything that we have considered thus far. One queen is not a massive investment into massed military drones, it is an investment into the quality of future military drones that is of value regardless of how many we choose to produce.
 The bipeds operate on an energy and technology basis, most energy production and storage devices can be manipulated into releasing a comparatively large amount of energy in a comparatively short space of time. We should never underestimate the capacity of any entity to produce an explosion.
 Large forces are more difficult to manoeuvre and more likely to leave valuable evidence of themselves than smaller forces and therefore ill-suited to strategies involving mobility and concealment. While a stationary force is more vulnerable to such weapons, it is still vulnerable when advancing, especially if their target is prepared. A massed attack strategy would likely be effective against unprepared targets, but if an attack failed to completely destroy the target, and the target had an opportunity to prepare for future attacks, then repeat attacks would likely become extremely costly. A fortified and prepared target, with resources to prepare explosive mines and incendiary particle weapons could likely withstand an attack until they exhausted their resources.
 The total supply of salvage is dependant upon the supply of hostile entities. The value of salvage is distributed amongst all recipients. Therefore a larger entity benefits less from salvage then a smaller entity does.
2: Develop a sensor/processor/weapon combination to automatically detonate explosive devices approaching at high speed. This would probably involve a visual/thermal scanner, a processor to identify large projectiles and adjust for weapon inaccuracy, and a high-intensity laser to cause surface explosions on the projectile.

3: Develop a similar combination to locate magnetic disturbances and direct magnetic deflection fields to direct magnetic particles away from the warded entity

Strongly against, it's basically a waste of R&D and production potential, because such system will be useful and effective in very few situations.
Basically there are three scenarios
1) Humans use no such projective = useless equipment
2) humans use small amount of such projective, we shot down all. It looks good, but that small amount wouldn't hurt us much, It's cheaper to repair the damage
3) humans use large amount of such projective - system overwhelmed and destroyed

Why are you so afraid of losses and ready to spend huge resources to avoid it?
1: The bipeds have demonstrated the possession of such resources. The absence of such resources would likely indicate the success of the counter-measures. If such resources were not deployed then the countermeasures would continue to operate as a deterrent.
2: If the costs incurred by unrestricted operation of hostile military equipment is less than the cost of operating our own military equipment then there is no advantage to possessing military equipment. If, however, the value of a soldier is greater than the cost of a weapon discharge, and the proposed systems offer little capacity to exceed the costs of our current weaponry, then it would, in fact, be more expensive to repair the damage.
3: The quantity of countermeasures would be proportional to the size of our forces. An entity capable of defeating the countermeasures by means of exceeding their numerical capacity would also be expected to exceed the damage capacity of our associated forces, but should also reduce the numbers within such an entity and in doing so may well preserve some of the capacity of our associated forces. Assuming such an occurrence, the reduction of intensity would permit a greater degree of freedom in the affected forces, resulting in options for escape or advancement that would not otherwise be possible.

 To choose investment in resources that preserve resources over investment in resources that are expected to suffer high rates of attrition does not seem to be a position that requires significant defence. Further-more, there is no reason to believe that the investment will be particularly drastic.
Quote
4: Develop a fully automated weapon array to identify and destroy all hostile entities with maximum practical swiftness. This should not be provided with effective weaponry until significant testing has been completed.
Do you mean system with dozens of guns (or more) ? Big no.

And I like your wording... Basically it's develop system that can fight without us and kill everything easily, another way to avoid any losses and another unpractical solution

Automated turrets on the other hand, may be much more useful and easier to develop
The number of weapons in the array would be dependant upon its role. A system designed to provide support to other entities may require precision over a large area, and dozens of weapons may be appropriate. The purpose of possessing such systems would be to bypass the limited capacities of our soldiers. It should be possible to create an automated system with greater accuracy and reaction speed than our soldiers possess. The only difficulty is in calibrating its identification algorithms. While such a system may not be viable with our current resources, such a thing is a prime example of a device that could completely nullify a numerical advantage, destroying our forces before they have opportunity to retaliate and with a capacity that exceeds our capacity to manoeuvre into their vision. Automated weapons systems will become a necessity.
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10ebbor10

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #752 on: August 07, 2012, 02:50:42 am »

Consider that we can produce research and production drones as quickly as we can produce military drones. Military drones represent mass that must be moved over large distances, while research and production drones may be retained close to the production centres and therefore be more efficiently supplied. Note also that the bipeds likely possess area-destruction weaponry that would be extremely effective against a massed assault.

It's not easy to produce economic drones when we are geearing up for  war and one of our queens is specialized in making soldiers... too late to change strategy. As for area destruction weaponry, I'd not overestimate it's quantity and power. Besides we are planing to use hit and run strategy
Also consider that soldiers can loot supplies
We have one queen specialised in making technology and technical drones and one specialised in making war and military drones. One queen can produce, what? 50 drones over a few days? We would need thousands to overwhelm the bipeds with numbers, and that is just one planet, the bipeds have a whole empire, it would likely take at least tens of millions to capture a single planet, and they would need to be transported. Even assuming that they could be stored as larvae, stripped of their energy requirements, and grown to maturity on the battle-field from locally acquired materials, it would still be a logistical achievement well beyond anything that we have considered thus far. One queen is not a massive investment into massed military drones, it is an investment into the quality of future military drones that is of value regardless of how many we choose to produce.
 The bipeds operate on an energy and technology basis, most energy production and storage devices can be manipulated into releasing a comparatively large amount of energy in a comparatively short space of time. We should never underestimate the capacity of any entity to produce an explosion.
 Large forces are more difficult to manoeuvre and more likely to leave valuable evidence of themselves than smaller forces and therefore ill-suited to strategies involving mobility and concealment. While a stationary force is more vulnerable to such weapons, it is still vulnerable when advancing, especially if their target is prepared. A massed attack strategy would likely be effective against unprepared targets, but if an attack failed to completely destroy the target, and the target had an opportunity to prepare for future attacks, then repeat attacks would likely become extremely costly. A fortified and prepared target, with resources to prepare explosive mines and incendiary particle weapons could likely withstand an attack until they exhausted their resources.
 The total supply of salvage is dependant upon the supply of hostile entities. The value of salvage is distributed amongst all recipients. Therefore a larger entity benefits less from salvage then a smaller entity does.
I'm not against economic drones, but I think we would all benefit from it if we draw up the plans for our attack forces. Then we need how much we need, and how much we can invest in economical drones and other projects .Also, having many drones allows us to sacrifice some to distract the enemy.
2: Develop a sensor/processor/weapon combination to automatically detonate explosive devices approaching at high speed. This would probably involve a visual/thermal scanner, a processor to identify large projectiles and adjust for weapon inaccuracy, and a high-intensity laser to cause surface explosions on the projectile.

3: Develop a similar combination to locate magnetic disturbances and direct magnetic deflection fields to direct magnetic particles away from the warded entity

Strongly against, it's basically a waste of R&D and production potential, because such system will be useful and effective in very few situations.
Basically there are three scenarios
1) Humans use no such projective = useless equipment
2) humans use small amount of such projective, we shot down all. It looks good, but that small amount wouldn't hurt us much, It's cheaper to repair the damage
3) humans use large amount of such projective - system overwhelmed and destroyed

Why are you so afraid of losses and ready to spend huge resources to avoid it?
1: The bipeds have demonstrated the possession of such resources. The absence of such resources would likely indicate the success of the counter-measures. If such resources were not deployed then the countermeasures would continue to operate as a deterrent.
2: If the costs incurred by unrestricted operation of hostile military equipment is less than the cost of operating our own military equipment then there is no advantage to possessing military equipment. If, however, the value of a soldier is greater than the cost of a weapon discharge, and the proposed systems offer little capacity to exceed the costs of our current weaponry, then it would, in fact, be more expensive to repair the damage.
3: The quantity of countermeasures would be proportional to the size of our forces. An entity capable of defeating the countermeasures by means of exceeding their numerical capacity would also be expected to exceed the damage capacity of our associated forces, but should also reduce the numbers within such an entity and in doing so may well preserve some of the capacity of our associated forces. Assuming such an occurrence, the reduction of intensity would permit a greater degree of freedom in the affected forces, resulting in options for escape or advancement that would not otherwise be possible.

 To choose investment in resources that preserve resources over investment in resources that are expected to suffer high rates of attrition does not seem to be a position that requires significant defence. Further-more, there is no reason to believe that the investment will be particularly drastic.
I like the missile interception one. However, one questions how useful they will be, as the dust cloud thrown up by the magnetic shielding will block the laser, and the magnetic shielding will take care of any magnetic projeciles. Furthermore, I don't think we should spread up our detection systems. We got the sensors in the command ships. Combine that with some back up sensors, probably installed on another ship (Maybe a flying recon drone?) and we can automatically anticipate strikes with much better accuracy.

Quote
4: Develop a fully automated weapon array to identify and destroy all hostile entities with maximum practical swiftness. This should not be provided with effective weaponry until significant testing has been completed.
Do you mean system with dozens of guns (or more) ? Big no.

And I like your wording... Basically it's develop system that can fight without us and kill everything easily, another way to avoid any losses and another unpractical solution

Automated turrets on the other hand, may be much more useful and easier to develop
The number of weapons in the array would be dependant upon its role. A system designed to provide support to other entities may require precision over a large area, and dozens of weapons may be appropriate. The purpose of possessing such systems would be to bypass the limited capacities of our soldiers. It should be possible to create an automated system with greater accuracy and reaction speed than our soldiers possess. The only difficulty is in calibrating its identification algorithms. While such a system may not be viable with our current resources, such a thing is a prime example of a device that could completely nullify a numerical advantage, destroying our forces before they have opportunity to retaliate and with a capacity that exceeds our capacity to manoeuvre into their vision. Automated weapons systems will become a necessity.
[/quote]
Well, basically, an automated weapon system is combined of the following
-Radar (we have those, mostly in the command modules)
-Friend or Foe detection. (We can either calibrate this manually or make it automatic. Then again we did design an Ai virus)
-Targetting algorithm (We can have the programming drone do this. Even if we don't use auto, we will have aim assist.)
-Aiming system for weaponry (We got those too, no way the soldiers are aiming the large cannons on the APC's manually)

So I can't see why we can't do this. You guys always make things seem more complicated than they are.

Anyway. The last one. (Pending inventions doesn't need to be sorted yet)
Spoiler: Inventions (click to show/hide)
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Ukrainian Ranger

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #753 on: August 07, 2012, 06:34:06 am »

Quote
One queen can produce, what? 50 drones over a few days? We would need thousands to overwhelm the bipeds with numbers, and that is just one planet, the bipeds have a whole empire, it would likely take at least tens of millions to capture a single planet, and they would need to be transported

50 drones is a lot, I don't doubt that they are worth way more than a thousand of trained bipeds... And we don't care that we fight against entire empire, currently we are preparing to fight against fairly fragmented Martian bipeds. And let's be honest, I highly doubt that this game will live long enough to see assault of Earth... At least I am sure that we will not leave mars in 2012...


As for overwhelming with numbers... We have higher quality troops, so we are overwhelming with quality. What I dislike is = let's make our soldiers 10% better, and ignore possibility to just make more two more soldiers for the same cost: (bots, cloning development, human loyalist requirement, (semi) automated long range weapons, mines. We have many options)

As for tolerating losses. What I say is not - CHAAAARGE and hope that we'll make more soldiers than we waste.
Let's say we exchange two predators, ten soldiers, some bots and vehicles  for one battalion of highly trained soldiers. It's a great result, we can relatively easily  replace our loses, but humans can't train new soldiers. Can't build tanks that are as good as destroyed (and even if they can, getting a crew is a problem)
Exchanges are good, and we need more soldiers to let us make  more such exchanges

I estimate our current force as an equivalent of human division, the only problem is a lack of anti tank options. Can humans mobilize more than division instantly, concentrate it and adequately supply it after our first strike? No way.

You want to develop economics? Fine! Let's improve economic techs, we are already ahead of humans in military technology
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Ross Vernal

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #754 on: August 07, 2012, 12:21:05 pm »

A Queen produces 80 to 100 eggs every 14 days. A Commander produces 20 every 14 days. The Nurse, if allowed to grow, will produce the same as a Commander.  Assuming this is done, with current supplies and production, by saving all of the Royal Jelly and being patient we can produce.. about 56 queens by Day 34. Day 48 will bring us 6,000 extra Kai.

If we dedicate 5% of all Generations for Queens, by Day 116, there will be about 12,780 Queens and 1,278,000 Kai, assuming nothing goes wrong (something WILL go wrong.) This says nothing about cloned Kai or Humans, mind you. Assuming we keep the same ratio of soldiers (about 31%), that is 402,570 Soldiers and 63,900 Predators.

Simply put, it would be VERY hard to feed that many without aboveground plants and quite a few of those Soldiers would be melee troops.
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Ukrainian Ranger

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #755 on: August 07, 2012, 02:57:27 pm »

Hm....

I propose a temporary veto for the new military tech research, we need to build nice industrial base and our current units are good enough, we just need more of them. Time to improve our base and get a second one

So, My day long plan:

1) War queen, human loyalist and some soldiers (but no predators)  load in the stealth carrier and fly to some isolated small habitation dome, then conquer it. The carrier should be escorted by stealth fighter and mechanical flying scouts. Conduct the operation at night, spend day for choosing the best target and preparation

2) Setup newly produced mines around our base in strategical positions, but no too close  (we need space to expand and removing mines can be a problem)

3) Dig series of escape tunnels, with well hidden exits

4) Build Assembly line highly specialized in producing mechanical flying soldiers and scouts, with target daily production at least 25 soldiers and 10 scouts per day

5) Finish the sat killer, never know when we'll need it

6) Start building geothermal generator, project in a way that will integrate new plots for underground plants planting, that heat should be used twice

7) Lay 2 S-4 Light Predator Egg

8) Nurse should spend royal jelly to improve itself to be ably to lay eggs, and mate with Tech drone. 

9) One of commander should get unfertilized eggs soon, let it mate with the second level digger, I am curios what kind of drones will we get, because I'd like to make tech queen mate with that digger
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War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

Morrigi

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #756 on: August 07, 2012, 06:41:44 pm »

I suggest a raid against an outpost. Our forces aren't exactly battle-hardened and this would give us more combat experience. Our ground vehicles are totally untested in war and it's not the best idea to mass-produce them without field tests.
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Ukrainian Ranger

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #757 on: August 07, 2012, 06:51:46 pm »

While I support raiding, ground vehicles are way to visible, unnecessary risk
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War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

Morrigi

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #758 on: August 07, 2012, 07:34:37 pm »

While I support raiding, ground vehicles are way to visible, unnecessary risk
Point taken. How about 4-5 soldiers, 1-2 with artillery rigs, some form of air support, and some drones as the main force, considering they're mostly expendable.

Question: Would war queen drones be more dangerous than our current drones? If so, in what ways?
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RAM

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #759 on: August 07, 2012, 09:24:01 pm »

I suggest that the royal jelly be used to make the T-9 Soldier larva fertile.
The War queen should mate with a T-9 soldier and a nurse at the earliest opportunity.(I recall the nurse being made fertile, Could we have a fertility indicator in the list?)
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Ross Vernal

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #760 on: August 07, 2012, 10:21:37 pm »

In about the exact ways you would expect it to be - sharper, longer claws, a harder bite, stronger leg muscles. It's also naturally more aggressive than a Tech-line drone. The Nurse would be a hermaphrodite, so it would be capable of both fertilizing and carrying eggs. Obviously, it can't self-fertilize.

Current fertile females? Tech Queen, War Queen, Commander, Commander, Level 4 Nurse.
Fertile males? Level 3 Tech Drone, Level 4 Nurse

As per standard procedure, the offspring of the Commander who is egging today will have its lines designated by the father - as of now, that is T and N lines.
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Morrigi

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #761 on: August 07, 2012, 11:37:34 pm »

We need more Queens. I suggest another two War queens and an Evo queen as well, just to mix things up. We should also be maximizing expansion of food production and creation of troops.
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Aklyon

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #762 on: August 07, 2012, 11:39:09 pm »

We need more Queens. I suggest another two War queens and an Evo queen as well, just to mix things up. We should also be maximizing expansion of food production and creation of troops.
Remember: Other Queens besides our first two are not guarenteed loyal.
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Morrigi

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #763 on: August 07, 2012, 11:50:06 pm »

Yes, but we need to expand. Also, how good are our soldiers at unarmed combat and what kind of damage could they do to an unarmored vehicle or average, rather run down human structure?
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10ebbor10

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Re: You Are A Kai Queen, Not Quite Day 20
« Reply #764 on: August 08, 2012, 01:35:36 am »

Yes, but we need to expand. Also, how good are our soldiers at unarmed combat and what kind of damage could they do to an unarmored vehicle or average, rather run down human structure?
Quite good. I believe one soldier could take on a dozen humans if they are not prepared. An unarmored vehicle would be destroyed rather quickly.

As for the Queens, not yet. We haven't got the space, food or resources to change something about the first 2 things. Also, a Queen breaking of may interupt all our plans.
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