Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nirur Torir]

Questions:
Can we use our fleet and transports to force a supply mission to A2?
Is it possible for our C1 unit take two zones this turn? IIRC, they did a 1 then 2 while fighting for A3 and C3.
If we abandon B2, will they take two zones?

We should figure out a plan before making a design. A2 is cut-off, which is what we needed the speeder for.

I'm inclined towards designing a transport, but a lighter suit with integrated electronics, like night vision and future gun controls, would help. The transport should be at least CU 3. That's easy, so I'd like to prototype aimbot anti-missile bolter turrets with it.

They might be planning to drop horrible new toys on A2. It's risky but we could reverse this, and abandon A2 and C1 to get a 3 to 2 on mountains, and hope we destroy them.

[NUKE9.13]

...better question, how did they manage to get their troops to A1 in the first place? A2 was contested, doesn't that mean they can't move troops past it?
Well, if they can do it, logically we can do the same. Maybe its because their transport had a military escort? We can emulate that.

Every front wants something to counter their snipers. Vehicles seem like the easiest answer to that, and the one that gives us the most strategic flexibility.

I think our plan for this turn is to stay the course... probably. If we fully capture A2, then next turn we can move its units to A1, before they manage to fully control it.

ebbor: is the Argo intended to be interplanetary, or is it designed to be carried around by an ITC in place of its usual shuttles?

Detoxicated: Try not to lose people's votes. Fixed votebox:

Gyrinos: (1) NUKE9.13
Argo Class Orbital Lifter: (2) 10ebbor10, detoxicated

[10ebbor10]

Gyrinos: (1) NUKE9.13
Argo Class Orbital Lifter: (1) detoxicated
Rocket Artillery (1) 10ebbor10

I merely proposed it, didn't vote for it.

ebbor: is the Argo intended to be interplanetary, or is it designed to be carried around by an ITC in place of its usual shuttles?

Interplanetary.

Says so in the description.

[NUKE9.13]

...so it does. Second word. How on Moerth did I miss that?

Anyway, in that case, I worry that chemical engines will not be powerful enough to keep a ship capable of transporting several CUs of cargo flying for extended periods above the surface of a planet in a non-orbital fashion. Meaning that its gunship function would be unlikely to pan out.

[Shadowclaw777]

If chemical engines are continuously being the problem, than why don't we improve upon those?. It's already stated what better engines and reactors will do, more power production and better thrusters, are long term benefits we are going to need for larger ships and cooler and more advanced technologies. We have the advantage, and instead of an attempt at pushing, this is a perfect time for a investment design turn.

Fission-Fragment Engines: A very versatile engine, that also performs the ability to act as a power source. It utilizes the technology of fission and the ability to fragment itself with the integrated nuclear reactor to be able to nearly the triple amount of propulsion and thrust a standard chemical engine can perform. It is also versatile since it has an integrated fission nuclear reactor, allowing it to provide ample amount of energy when compared to our photovoltaic cells.

[NUKE9.13]

Are you sure that fission-fragment engines can provide more thrust than chemical engines? I get that they have way better efficiency, but is their thrust-to-weight better?

Either way, now is not the time to be developing theoretical technologies, or other things that will be useful in a few turns. We need equipment on the ground. I agree with our commanders- our troops having to resort to meat-grinder tactics is a bad thing. And, again, I think vehicles are the way to go. Let me just list some advantages.

-Armour protects against snipers at long range, reducing their effect.
-Speed allows them to close the distance to the snipers faster, reducing their effect further.
In addition,
-Manoeuvrability gives our troops more options when it comes to tactics, making things like encircling the enemy far easier.
-If we pull off the amphibious part, it will drastically increase performance on the oceans of C2.

[Shadowclaw777]

You are asking too much for a initial vehicle, for it to fill the basket of requirements. It's first going to need to be amphibious, lightweight, decent armor coverage, and decent maneuverability. This is asking too much for the first non-spaceship vehicles to be implemented. Here's the problem, the thing needs to be light to fit in our current generation of transportation spaceships, and for it to be amphibious for just oceanic worlds, your going to have to sacrifice enough of that armor where it will be useless against sniper fire and just be easily penetrated. If you want the thing to have enough armor and be lightweight, it's mobility and maneuverability are going to pretty sub par, and it's not going to have any ability to perform amphibious tasks. If anything, our current ships can deploy probes and rovers, some sort of combat rover should be our initial vehicle, not some heavy-weight APC

Let's be realistic here, I'm pretty sure their going to invest in some better spaceships or their missiles, and this leads us to want to counteract their attempt at an space upgrade, instead of stalemating. An upgrade to our chemical thrusters, has long been postponed. Larger ships and the proposed transport ship are going to move at sluggish speeds, maybe at a rate where they become stationary. Even our current generation of smaller warships, are being penalized with their low propulsion. This is not even really theoretical, it just integrating our pre-existing fission technology into a source of power, were not developing fusion power which would be one that is theoretical.   

Gyrinos: (1) NUKE9.13
Argo Class Orbital Lifter: (1) detoxicated
Rocket Artillery (1) 10ebbor10
Fission-Fragment Engines (1) Shadowclaw

[NUKE9.13]

We have technology from old earth. We don't need every feature to be state-of-the-art, and those that aren't we already have the technology (albeit not the blueprints) for.
It doesn't need to be lightweight to fit in the ITC, it needs to be small.
Their rifles are not super-advanced armour-piercing rifles. Even light armour should shrug off shots at long range.
The amphibious part is indeed optional. If we can't get it, we can't get it.

We're just attaching a metal shell to a basic vehicle. That's not rocket science. And besides, even if it was, we're rocket scientists. If we can design fission fragment engines in a single action (which I believe we can), we can design the Gyrinos.

Arguments against fission-fragment (this turn):
-We need something on the ground. Their troops outmatch ours in terms of quality, and have done for several turns. We're at par when it comes to space combat.
-I don't think you can just stick a fission fragment engine to an existing craft; we'd probably need a revision at least to outfit our current ships with them.

[Draignean]

If chemical engines are continuously being the problem, than why don't we improve upon those?. It's already stated what better engines and reactors will do, more power production and better thrusters, are long term benefits we are going to need for larger ships and cooler and more advanced technologies. We have the advantage, and instead of an attempt at pushing, this is a perfect time for a investment design turn.

Fission-Fragment Engines: A very versatile engine, that also performs the ability to act as a power source. It utilizes the technology of fission and the ability to fragment itself with the integrated nuclear reactor to be able to nearly the triple amount of propulsion and thrust a standard chemical engine can perform. It is also versatile since it has an integrated fission nuclear reactor, allowing it to provide ample amount of energy when compared to our photovoltaic cells.

Probably is the Fission-Fragment Engines (I'm just calling them FFEs, hereafter) spew radioactive particles as they burn. (If that's incorrect, please, let me know) Our ground troops probably would not appreciate this. At all. A gunship would likely need to be of the Warthog/Spook variety and just do flyby runs, or of the rotary blade type that can hover. At least until we get some form of repulsion tech.

I like the Gyrinos, I really do, and I feel they are a tech we should expand on later, but I stand by my earlier concerns about a small vehicle that's still effective on offense, defense, and all-terrain capable.

So I'll throw my own design into the ring...

Margrave APC
The Margrave was born of a very particular need: How to get our current generation of shuttlecraft to carry a combat effective all-terrain vehicle into a combat zone.  Instead of using particularly advanced designs in order to create miniaturized combat vehicle, the  Margrave uses a clever way to get around the space restrictions imposed by the interior area of a drop shuttle, and are the direct result of one engineer saying "Fuck it all, why don't we just refit the goddamn shuttle?"

In the end the Margrave was (thankfully) not just a refitted shuttle. It's 8 meters long, just shy of 3.5 meters in width (in order to fit a shuttle berth), 3 meters tall, fits 10 (3 crew operators and 7 passengers), and weighs about 20 tons. She's eight wheeled, with a heavy-weight chemical engine capable of pushing her to a decent clip even over rough terrain. The Margrave is amphibious, using a system of twin water jet propellers when swimming. She is, however, rather slow at this.

Armor-wise she's fitted with thick angled plating, quite effective against anti-personnel weapons, and offering modest protection from higher powered weapons. For armaments, in addition to six slide-open firing ports usable by our soldiers, she's fitted with a top mounted dual bolter of enhanced caliber. This weapons is still dumb-fire with course correction, but the larger scale of the missiles as our engineers considering adding tracking in order for the Margrave to provide indirect fire support to forward teams as well as stronger AA.

In order to be launched at a planet like a shuttle, a disposable ablative shell is afixed to the bottom of the vehicle via explosive bolts. This shell covers the comparatively delicate wheels and water jet assembly, and makes it possible for the vehicle to survive atmospheric entry. Unlike a standard shuttle, its increased weight means it deploys all of its chemical thrust fuel as braking thrust, and deploys parachutes once at a reasonable altitude. On the ground, the explosive bolts are detonated in order to free the Margrave from the remains of its reentry sheath and the empty chemical thruster. From there, it's strictly a ground vehicle, and absolutely requires a full transport in order to get back into orbit.

tl;dr: This beastly fucker, with the ability to be launched not as cargo on an ITC shuttle, but as an one-way transorbital vehicle the size of a shuttle.

It's not light. It might be fast on land, but it's not going to be quick in the water. She's got transport capabilities, and a decent offense/defense combo.  She can get to a planet without an upgraded transport, but she can't get off one without help.

[NUKE9.13]

I think the transport issues with the ITC are due to the fact that the interior spaces are not large enough to hold >1CU items, and not due to shuttle concerns. I could be wrong, though.
I mean, I also like the Margrave. I would be down for that, with the expectation of requiring a revision to create a cargo ship to move it.

[Draignean]

I think the transport issues with the ITC are due to the fact that the interior spaces are not large enough to hold >1CU items, and not due to shuttle concerns. I could be wrong, though.
I mean, I also like the Margrave. I would be down for that, with the expectation of requiring a revision to create a cargo ship to move it.

Well, we know cargo is delivered via shuttle. Since each ITC clearly can deploy multiple shuttles, we know that we can preserve some cargo drop capability and re-purpose a shuttle or two. The size of each shuttle, even if we make it really minimal, is at least as large as a 10 man APC.

I might  have made a bad assumption somewhere, but this gives an opportunity to make them reactive for a bit longer. Which means we should absolutely start working on theoretical stuff.

My line of thought
Design: Margrave
Revision: Improved Missiles (Again)
Design: Advanced Propulsion
Revision: Larger Transports?

[Nirur Torir]

I really don't have faith in the Gyrinos to fire while on the water. It works to get some troops to shore under enemy fire, but I think it would be much safer to get a heavier vehicle for C2. The Margrave would work, but neither B2 nor C2 are much threatened this turn, so I'd prefer to prepare for dedicated tanks for next turn.

I don't like the Argo. It tries to do too much in one ship.

Crane transport

Moerth needs a heavier transport. Now that we have a shipyard, we can fill that role. Like the ITC, the Crane uses SSTO rocket shuttles for planetary transport. The Crane's shuttles use our newer industrial optimization techniques, allowing them to carry a single tank each trip.

That alone is too easy for us superior Moerth engineers. As such, the Crane will be used to prototype a Buckler PD Turret. Based on the Jormungandr Bolters, the Buckler PD Turret fires a stream of tiny missiles to shoot down enemy missiles (or vessels). It uses advanced electronics to track and provide a firing solution, and is capable of assisted manual or automated fire.

The crane carries two Buckler PD Turrets, one dorsal and one ventral, mounted on raised pylons. This leaves them admittedly vulnerable, but the widened firing arcs allow both to be aimed at a target in front of the Crane.

Despite this, the Crane is not a combat vessel, and only has armor on critical sections. Alone, it will hopefully be able to ward off a single opportunistic fighter.

It must be able to carry 6 CU - Enough to carry two infantry units, a tank unit, or the metals from both A1 and C1 with a single ship.

Gyrinos: (1) NUKE9.13
Argo Class Orbital Lifter: (1) detoxicated
Crane Transport: (1) Nirur Torir
Rocket Artillery (1) 10ebbor10
Fission-Fragment Engines (1) Shadowclaw

[10ebbor10]

Probably is the Fission-Fragment Engines (I'm just calling them FFEs, hereafter) spew radioactive particles as they burn. (If that's incorrect, please, let me know)

Fission fragment drives are powered by directly emitting nuclear radiation, so yeah, those are going to spew radioactivity. More importantly, they are very low thrust devices, so they're not going to work in atmosphere. An atmosphere capable ship like this would be a devastating weapon. Just point the thruster at the enemy continent.

[Draignean]

Crane

I take your point. The Margrave suits an emergency deployment situation rather than a point where we are fairly evenly matched.

I would like to push something more... exotic in lieu of tanks.

Gyrinos: (1) NUKE9.13
Argo Class Orbital Lifter: (1) detoxicated
Crane Transport: (2) Nirur Torir, Draignean
Rocket Artillery (1) 10ebbor10
Fission-Fragment Engines (1) Shadowclaw

I also think we need to push some kind of theory design through, whether it be dusty plasma beds, argent energy, or gene resequencing.
 

[Chiefwaffles]

Questions:
Can we use our fleet and transports to force a supply mission to A2?
Is it possible for our C1 unit take two zones this turn? IIRC, they did a 1 then 2 while fighting for A3 and C3.
If we abandon B2, will they take two zones?

If you control the orbits of both A1 and A2 in 2212's combat phase, then you'll be able to send supply missions to A2. In the interest of fairness, I'll be telling Amaok about this too at some point.

And barring any very specific special circumstances, there won't be any more taking of >1 zone at once. When it happened earlier that was to still "reward" victories in lands with some unclaimed land, but I've decided that it's inconsistent with the rest of the rules. If you abandon B2, then they'll just take one zone, and your C1 unit can only take 1 zone in 2212's combat phase.