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[NUKE9.13]

Uh. Did our missiles have trouble with that before? I mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't even mention improved target acquisition... why did the revision prioritise that over the substantially more important improved manoeuvrability? I get that we don't get everything we asked for on rolling a 3, but it's a bit weird to get something we didn't ask for instead of something we did.

:/

Well, either way, our strategy remains the same. Plan "Fight for A2" looks fine, I guess.

[Chiefwaffles]

Missile Pods Mk3: Combining our skill at integrated electronics with combat data from the Iliad has led to this new generation of spaceship armaments. An improved guidance system, coupled with more advanced thrust-vectoring, all but eliminates the requirement for the ship to 'point' the missile at its target. Instead, the missile can intelligently calculate the required course to its target, and perform the necessary manoeuvres autonomously. Additionally, an (optional and crude) point-defence-avoidance system is provided, which can make the missile veer from side to side randomly as it approaches the target, making it far harder to shoot down.

There were two elements to the revision - improved thrust/maneuvering and improved guidance. One wasn't explicitly put in priority over another, but the end goal was obvious - more accurate missiles. You got improved guidance because it could capitalize on your printed electronics, making it the better overall "choice". What you got is basically "guidance system +", whereas if the revision focused on agility you wouldn't have been able to take advantage of printed electronics. Both work towards the same goal.

[Nirur Torir]

I guess it'll help with hitting swarms of fighters, and will be a huge help if gun fighters are coming at us from the front. I think I would have preferred not being flanked, but it might work.

Spoiler: Plan: Fight for A2 (click to show/hide)

Name our new Iliad the Aeneid.

ITC MSS Mist moves B2 Unit 3 to A2. They will bring their bolters, and should still have their spacesuits stashed on the planet to bring. If not, take some from Moerth before leaving.
ITC MSS Fog moves C2 Unit 5 to C1, to finally start capturing the planet.
ITC MSS Haze carries extra missiles and moves with the Iliad and MWS, for bombardment purposes. We need every edge we can get if we're to take that. If needed, because the MSS Mist can't, bring Unit 3's spacesuits.

MSS Iliad and the IMW escort the MSS Mist (and travel with MSS Haze) from B2 to A2. After clearing hostiles from A2's orbit, they help the troops with very low orbit bombardment as best they can.
MSS Aeneid to C2.

Fight for A2 (2): Nuke9.13, Nirur Torir

[Madman198237]

Name our new Iliad the Aeneid.

ITC MSS Mist moves B2 Unit 3 to A2. Mist will bring space suits from Moerth before picking up Unit 3, and, obviously, brings their bolters along.
ITC MSS Fog moves C2 Unit 5 to C1, to finally start capturing the planet.
ITC MSS Haze carries extra missiles and moves with the Iliad and IMW. They will interdict hostile traffic, and then proceed to mountaintop-height orbits to bombard the enemies. We need every edge we can get if we're to take that.

MSS Iliad and the IMW escort the MSS Mist. Once to A2, they help the troops with bombardment as best they can.
MSS Aeneid to C2.

No love for my suggestions for improvements to the plan, Nirur?

[Nirur Torir]

I used most of your suggestions. I just didn't like having the fleet's orders split so much between the Haze and the Iliad/IMW's entry, and felt that telling Unit 3 to bring the bolters was unneeded. I'll add that on.

[Madman198237]

OK. I just glanced at it and it seemed unchanged.

[Detoxicated]

Yay for 3d printing.

How about designing combat suits with GPS and guidance assistance next turn?

[NUKE9.13]

Missile Pods Mk3: Combining our skill at integrated electronics with combat data from the Iliad has led to this new generation of spaceship armaments. An improved guidance system, coupled with more advanced thrust-vectoring, all but eliminates the requirement for the ship to 'point' the missile at its target. Instead, the missile can intelligently calculate the required course to its target, and perform the necessary manoeuvres autonomously. Additionally, an (optional and crude) point-defence-avoidance system is provided, which can make the missile veer from side to side randomly as it approaches the target, making it far harder to shoot down.

There were two elements to the revision - improved thrust/maneuvering and improved guidance. One wasn't explicitly put in priority over another, but the end goal was obvious - more accurate missiles. You got improved guidance because it could capitalize on your printed electronics, making it the better overall "choice". What you got is basically "guidance system +", whereas if the revision focused on agility you wouldn't have been able to take advantage of printed electronics. Both work towards the same goal.

Ah, okay. It's not quite what I had in mind, but I see what you mean. Well, so long as it provides some bonus, I guess it's fine.

[Nirur Torir]

How about designing combat suits with GPS and guidance assistance next turn?

Our ships are still so vulnerable to fighters, and I'm tempted to support designing a nuclear drive for our Iliads. I don't really want to spend a full turn on tanks and then moving tanks around with our fleets like this.

Designing combat suits and then revising our missiles again might work.
We might be able to design atmosphere-sealed (Easier than trying to fit a space suit inside) bikes with anti-rifle armor and a fixed-mount bolter. Even if its armor doesn't work well, it's still better than jogging up in a spacesuit. I expect decent odds on getting an expense of at least two, and I think we can get them to 1 CU if we specify it as a design restriction.

[NUKE9.13]

It doesn't matter how we do it, we need armour capable of shrugging off long-range rifle shots, and preferably also surviving at medium-range. Ideally, the armour would come in the form of a vehicle that further reduces their rifle advantage by letting us easily close to medium range. Even more ideally, the vehicle would be amphibious, to help on C2, and generally all-terrain-capable, to help on any other planet we fight on.
I'm not sure a one-man vehicle like a bike is exactly what we want, but it would stand a better chance of being 1 CU. I don't think being atmosphere sealed is a good idea (would make getting in and out too complicated). How does this look:

Gyrinos (Tadpole): The Gyrinos is a relatively simple vehicle. The rounded exterior is lightly armoured, capable of shrugging off small arms fire at long-medium range. It has a single wheel in front, and tracks in back, to provide mobility on all terrain. Time permitting, attachable floats and propellers will be designed to allow the Gyrinos to be modified to travel over water as well.
Internally, the Gyrinos seats a single soldier in a X112 space suit, who enters via a large door on the side. A second soldier can hang on to the back of the vehicle, in a somewhat less comfortable manner. For firepower, two Jormungandr Bolters are integrated into the vehicle on forwards-facing mounts. The Gyrinos is battery-powered, and has deployable solar panels to recharge. It can travel at top speed for about an hour, or 'cruise' at a lower speed with solar panels deployed indefinitely.
Target distribution is one per ten-twenty soldiers, with squads of Gyrinosi travelling ahead of the infantry to clear out snipers and capture strategic locations, with the infantry serving to clean up behind them, or hold defensive positions.
A crucial design requirement is that the vehicle does not take up too much space in a transport (1 CU or less).

[Nirur Torir]

Question: Do our troops live in the space suits, or do they build/deploy/inflate some sort of atmosphere-sealed thing?

[Chiefwaffles]

With things and amenities like that not covered in your designs, it's generally safe to assume that your military has some basic or crude form of it that's considered just barely good enough to work.

At the moment, the "fortifications" and camps of both sides on uninhabitable planets consist of simple sandbag-like fortifications with varying sizes of sealed-pressure tents. They're quite delicate and can be breached by someone looking at them funny, but generally are just good enough to allow people to survive there, given constant shipments of food, water, air, etc.

[Nirur Torir]

Oof. Never-mind kinetic bombardment, we could do terrible, terrible things to their camps if we spent a design on a bomber craft with advanced target finding and guided flechette cluster bombs. That almost forces a design action on countering them, since a revision would be risky, and then we still have them to help against groups of infantry in daylight.

I don't know that I want to do that in the near future, since they'd be limited and we don't have great space superiority yet. It would be pretty devastating though. We do need to revise some proper fortifications as a matter of relative urgency, before they find the same idea and murder our camps in the night with bombardment.

For the Gyrinos, vacuum-sealing is kinda an option then, but I suppose does cut back on flexibility if they need to be in a tent to get on or off. I propose that we suggest, if needed to meet the target size, dropping to a single bolter, followed by being vacuum sealed and not allowing a space suit.

[Madman198237]

I'd go with a double-bolter arrangement on a single-person light scout vehicle with possible backseat and minimal armor and no enclosure at all. In other words, Halo's Mongoose (Specifically the Gungoose variant), but with the possibility of amphibious operations (Possible? Ideas?)

[NUKE9.13]

I'd go with a double-bolter arrangement on a single-person light scout vehicle with possible backseat and minimal armor and no enclosure at all. In other words, Halo's Mongoose (Specifically the Gungoose variant), but with the possibility of amphibious operations (Possible? Ideas?)

Protecting our troops from long-range sniper fire is important. It doesn't have to be completely enclosed, but it should have at least decent frontal armour, and some armour to the sides. It doesn't need top armour, and we could sacrifice rear armour if we needed to.