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Aaron Jacken (Karlito)

5 (29.4%)

Jarod Cain (Jarod Cain)

12 (70.6%)

Total Members Voted: 17

Voting closed: September 30, 2012, 01:14:43 pm

[Jarod Cain]

I did the math a little while back for a Thousand Suns RPG I was going to run, and even fudging things a bit I ended up with a number of around 38 million metric tons cubed of displacement for the Galactica. The Bucket is a huge vessel to say the least.
-J-

[RedKing]

Yeah, I started playing around with designs last night. I'm pretty happy with the Viper MkII (around 220 tons). It was tough squeezing all the electronics I wanted on a Raptor and still keep it a FAC, but it tops out right at 1,000 tons.

The Artemis itself is still in progress, but is looking to be around 80,000-100,000 tons by the time it's all said and done. I think I'm putting enough hangar space on it for 50 Vipers and 4 Raptors (I know 80 is supposed to be a full complement for the Galactica-class, maybe this is a "pocket" Battlestar....or maybe a portion of the hangar space was permanently rendered useless), but you guys won't start with 5 full squadrons. The Vipers themselves have a pretty low point cost, so if you ever wind up settling a New Caprica, you might be able to build the wing back up.

Speeds I'm looking at:
Artemis (3000-3500 km/s)
Raptor (8000 km/s)
Viper (~15000 km/s)
Civilian vessels (~1000-2000 km/s)

I want the Fleet to be slow, but not so slow that it takes forever to pass through a system. Oh, and grav surveys will be turned off. Once a Raptor (or the Fleet) jumps into a new system, I'll SM the survey complete. Raptors currently have a 6 billion km fuel range. Far enough to jump one, maybe two systems away from the fleet and back. Vipers have a 600 million km range -- enough for in-system patrols and combat operations but still short enough to need support vessels regularly. The Artemis itself has relatively small fuel tanks, only about a 60-day supply. This helps with maintenance cost and is offset by the handful of mammoth tankers that the fleet will have.

FTL/Jumpdrives aren't too bad an issue because I jacked up the efficiency level to allow Raptors to carry FTL and so the Battlestar wasn't needing a drive bigger than most of the fleet. Civilian models will be less efficient, and will vary from model to model.


Haven't done the Cylon designs yet, but I'm envisioning the Raiders to be essentially unarmored, slightly faster than the Vipers and mounting tiny, horribly inaccurate gauss cannons. The Viper's twin gauss cannons are a bit bigger and more accurate. So the Cylon Raiders should die in droves, but then they'll be deployed in droves as well. Close-in engagements with Artemis are going to be ROUGH. 24 main batteries (40cm railguns w/ 480,000km range) and a heap of CIWS and short-range gauss turrets. Oh, and a small handful of tri-cobalt warhead missiles which will be somewhat slow and short-range (for Aurora) but pack an 84-point warhead. Use sparingly, but could make the difference against a basestar.

Gonna work some more tonight on finishing military designs, then playtest a few engagements to make sure the play balance is okay and no designs are horribly broken, then I'll finish out the civilian designs and post all of them here.

So out of curiosity, if a civilian group did break away, what sort of chances would they have of not being enslaved or wiped out? Of building up enough military force to defend themselves? More directly, what sort of numbers are we talking about for the fleet? Because even a dozen standard 5-hold freighters loaded with automines and construction factories and as many colony ships would make for a massively insignificant colony by Aurora standards.

Oh, they'd have pretty low chances. But remember that for the civilians, Cylon occupation isn't the worst outcome, point-wise. Being stuck in space for years and years is. 

[LoSboccacc]

I really like.  Two thumbs up!

What about crews quarters?

[RedKing]

Well, Aurora crews are always kind of ridiculous. I think a Viper has room for 20 (the smallest you can possibly get), with a crew of 6. Raptors have a crew of 79, with room for 90. The Artemis is still incomplete. but had close to 5,000 crew at last check. IIRC, it had 20 fullsize crew quarters, plus 4 small troop transport bays for the Colonial Marines. Final crew count once all the pieces are in place and optimized will be 6-7 thousand, I figure.

Cylon raiders will have a similar crew to the Vipers (even though they don't technically have crew). Heavy raiders should be somewhere between a fighter and a light FAC. Basestars will probably have a couple thousand..they're more purely carriers and less combat vessels. Although they will pack a shitload of light missiles, mostly to make the DRADIS look impressive and give you a feel of badass-ness when Artemis's point-defense guns open up and poof most of them away. Of course, if a Cylon saboteur managed to cripple the fire controls on those PD guns....*evil grin*

[Xeron]

This is going to be fun !
On another note....i want to try Aurora again but my screen is not wide enough.Any solutions for that ?

[Flying Dice]

Not wide enough specifically...? What resolution are you running on?

[Xeron]

1024x768.

[Aboth Ber]

24 40cm Railguns? That means 96 slugs per shots.. Those buggers will never know what hit'em... But I wonder what their rate of fire is... Is it 1 shot per 5 seconds? To see it fire at once, that very much sir was an awesome sight...

Also will it be using a real star or random generated one?

[RedKing]

24 40cm Railguns? That means 96 slugs per shots.. Those buggers will never know what hit'em... But I wonder what their rate of fire is... Is it 1 shot per 5 seconds? To see it fire at once, that very much sir was an awesome sight...

No, no...I think I made it 1 shot per 60 seconds? In the series, the Galactica's main guns can rip a Basestar to pieces at close range. But it's not meant to take over the battle. Even with all those guns it should take several volleys (and thus several minutes) to kill one, leaving plenty of time for fighter combat and dramatic events.[/quote]

Also will it be using a real star or random generated one?

I'm thinking random. For one, very clever players could tell it they were headed in the right direction by looking at the starmap and calculating which ones are closest to Earth (which would be OOC).

The other bit is that you don't get nebulas with real stars, and a few *light* nebulas could provide an interesting challenge. FWIW, I'm going to generate most of the systems between the Twelve Colonies and Earth ahead of time so if there's any gamebreakers (like a level 30 nebula), I can delete them out. Plus this way I can make sure there's at least a few interesting systems, and SM some ruins for the Raptors to find, to give clues to point to Earth. Now, if you guys get totally off-course and start wandering "off-map" then I'll let Aurora generate the systems for me. There won't be any "aliens" (turned off NPRs), but that doesn't mean that any undientified contact is automatically a Cylon....

[Flying Dice]

If you'd been foolish enough to do Real Stars, we'd be at Earth inside of five years. Saaaay~


Is Earth going to be... occupied? Or would that be a spoiler?

[Aboth Ber]

No, no...I think I made it 1 shot per 60 seconds? In the series, the Galactica's main guns can rip a Basestar to pieces at close range. But it's not meant to take over the battle. Even with all those guns it should take several volleys (and thus several minutes) to kill one, leaving plenty of time for fighter combat and dramatic events.

It still very cool to watch all 24 guns fire at the same time...

I'm thinking random. For one, very clever players could tell it they were headed in the right direction by looking at the starmap and calculating which ones are closest to Earth (which would be OOC).

The other bit is that you don't get nebulas with real stars, and a few *light* nebulas could provide an interesting challenge. FWIW, I'm going to generate most of the systems between the Twelve Colonies and Earth ahead of time so if there's any gamebreakers (like a level 30 nebula), I can delete them out. Plus this way I can make sure there's at least a few interesting systems, and SM some ruins for the Raptors to find, to give clues to point to Earth. Now, if you guys get totally off-course and start wandering "off-map" then I'll let Aurora generate the systems for me. There won't be any "aliens" (turned off NPRs), but that doesn't mean that any undientified contact is automatically a Cylon....

Looking at bay12 users sense of direction in establishing fortress in very dangerous and spooky region, I think we will be several parsecs in the wrong direction (and maybe come back at the start point)...

If you'd been foolish enough to do Real Stars, we'd be at Earth inside of five years. Saaaay~


Is Earth going to be... occupied? Or would that be a spoiler?

I hope it will be spoiler, I can't wait to see it myself what kind of exciting things waiting for us on Earth...

[RedKing]

Looking at bay12 users sense of direction in establishing fortress in very dangerous and spooky region, I think we will be several parsecs in the wrong direction (and maybe come back at the start point)...

Boy, that would be a morale killer, wouldn't it? Years of slouching around the galaxy, living off algae and fighting off raiders, thinking you're nearing Earth....and then your Raptors report back that the next jump takes you back to the Twelve Colonies and the main Cylon fleet.

<Princess Bride reference>
I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard...how marvelous.
</ref>

If you'd been foolish enough to do Real Stars, we'd be at Earth inside of five years. Saaaay~


Is Earth going to be... occupied? Or would that be a spoiler?

Well....according to the legends, the 13th Tribe lives there. But who knows if the legends are true? 

[Flying Dice]

1024x768.

I run it just find on the same resolution with the fixes in my sig; window width was never a problem at all.

[RedKing]

Worked some more on ship designs. I've got the Cylon Raider and Heavy Raiders worked out, and I think I've got the Basestar about where I want it. Now, I just need to run a few combats to check for balance, and then I can crank out a slew of dilapidated, outdated civilian ship designs for you guys 

[Jarod Cain]

YAY! 

Now we can all die with certainty!
-J-