Print

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

[NUKE9.13]

I don't know about designing a transport. For one, it would have no immediate impact. For two, I think we could get a reasonable transport with a revision (just hollow out an Iliad). Spending a design on a transport should wait until we have some new tech to integrate into it- better engines springs to mind.

I'd rather either design a small vehicle, and revise better missiles; or design a medium-sized vehicle, and revise a basic transport capable of moving it.

[Draignean]

I don't know about designing a transport. For one, it would have no immediate impact. For two, I think we could get a reasonable transport with a revision (just hollow out an Iliad). Spending a design on a transport should wait until we have some new tech to integrate into it- better engines springs to mind.

I'd rather either design a small vehicle, and revise better missiles; or design a medium-sized vehicle, and revise a basic transport capable of moving it.

Here's what wins it for me: we don't NEED a vehicle this round. If we did, I'd push the Margrave and revised missiles, then a transport in design/revision next round.

I like the Gyrinos, don't get me wrong, but... The core rationale for its design choices are based around transient issues. We want to counter snipers. We want to reach out into the water. We want a small vehicle that can fit in a shuttle. Those three things are nice, but they aren't needs. We need to be able to field large vehicles of various and unknown types. We need to be able to move resources off the worlds we capture. We need experience building large ships.

The crane lets us use our next design action for tanks/mecha/seafaring ships/gunships etc, without regard for whether it can fit in our soldier's lunch boxes. The crane gives us research to large scale ship construction, and if their fighters get too bothersome we can basically re-pattern the design and replace cargo space with ordinance and shuttles with interceptors.

The Gyrinos is a small step in the right direction, but after we make it we'd still have to build the crane later. The Crane will let us work on larger, more effective designs.

[NUKE9.13]

Hmm. I see what you're saying.
...
Oh, fine, let's do the Crane. At least it's a fairly easy design, should be hard to mess up.

Argo Class Orbital Lifter: (1) detoxicated
Crane Transport: (3) Nirur Torir, Draignean, NUKE9.13
Rocket Artillery (1) 10ebbor10
Fission-Fragment Engines (1) Shadowclaw

[Nirur Torir]

How are we doing this strategy phase? Are we playing chicken and continuing with our troops as-is, or bailing and dropping someone on A1? We don't know what they researched, and if it was a tech to help with the frozen mountains, it would be good to know before we're close to them taking the planet. On the other hand, they have 40% of their forces sitting around this turn and we could capitalize on that elsewhere.

It's really tempting to drop a superior close/mid-range unit on out-of-supply, poorly-suited infantry in frozen mountains, but we might be able to use this opportunity to take C2 with transport support. I feel like A1 is just a feint, so I'm leaning towards just ignoring it this turn. But they do still have a carrier at-large, and taking the planet so we don't have to keep two orbits to keep the main battle-line in A2 supplied would be helpful.

.. We're losing land on B2 anyway. I want to abandon B2 and move its and C1's units to take A1.

[10ebbor10]

I propose we move a unit from A2 to A1. We can afford to lose some ground there.

[10ebbor10]

On closer thought, Nirur, your tactics are not going to work. In fact, I'd say they're objectively terrible.

First of :

But they do still have a carrier at-large

They don't. We blew it up.

And more importantly, the GM has said :

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.

We're not going to take the planet instantly, so your plan to drown it in units is not going to work. It's only going to cripple our own attack efforts.

[Nirur Torir]

On closer thought, Nirur, your tactics are not going to work. In fact, I'd say they're objectively terrible.

First of :

But they do still have a carrier at-large

They don't. We blew it up.

They have enough metal to buy an extra, and not much else to spend it on.

And more importantly, the GM has said :

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.

We're not going to take the planet instantly, so your plan to drown it in units is not going to work. It's only going to cripple our own attack efforts.

The GM has also said that

Amaok does something questionable, though. Before we started to gain land again at A2, Amaok landed soldiers on A1. Of course, now they're stranded and cut off from their supply lines, but they're still uncontested on the planet itself. Central Command isn't exactly appreciative of this development. Stamping it out should be easy, as without a direct line to Amaok, their forces are prime and vulnerable targets. We could easily wipe them out as long as they don't suddenly retake all of A2 next year.
Amaok gains ground on A1. [A: 1/3, M: 0/3]

I'm assuming that we can push them back to 0 (and kill them) while there's still neutral land, if we outclass them enough. The pistols should be usable in mountains.

[NUKE9.13]

Uh, I don't think they do have any metal. They'd need a new transport for that.

Anyway, I think we should finish capturing A2 before moving on to A1.

EDIT: Actually, having read what Chiefwaffles just posted in the core thread, I think we should attack A1. If we let them continue to gain ground there, we will lose the opportunity for a quick victory.

[10ebbor10]

We can't leave them alone on A1.

As long as they're there, we need to use an escort to get to A2.

[Nirur Torir]

Uh, I don't think they do have any metal. They'd need a new transport for that.

We don't know what they did for most of their revise actions, and I assume they're smart enough to not leave resources sitting there instead of taking a revise action they'd need to take anyway to move heaver objects.

[Madman198237]

Guess we'd better catch up then, hadn't we?

Get us a transport. Also, I doubt they have two carriers----they'd also need to produce two additional fighters.

[NUKE9.13]

Uh, I don't think they do have any metal. They'd need a new transport for that.

We don't know what they did for most of their revise actions, and I assume they're smart enough to not leave resources sitting there instead of taking a revise action they'd need to take anyway to move heaver objects.

Actually, yeah, they probably revised their ITC to be able to transport anything, since I doubt their fighters are <1CU, and they had an ITC carrying one at A2.

Guess we'd better catch up then, hadn't we?

Get us a transport. Also, I doubt they have two carriers----they'd also need to produce two additional fighters.

You going to vote for the transport then, or what?

[Madman198237]

Argo Class Orbital Lifter: (1) detoxicated
Crane Transport: (4) Nirur Torir, Draignean, NUKE9.13, Madman198237
Rocket Artillery (1) 10ebbor10
Fission-Fragment Engines (1) Shadowclaw

[NUKE9.13]

Incidentally, for our revision, I reckon we should do ebbor's idea and design some rocket artillery. Since we're just talking about a larger bolter, basically, maybe with the indirect fire mode on the missiles (which might be possible since the missiles will be larger, and have more room for the required circuitry)
Like,

Ouroboros Artillery: This is essentially just a scaled up Jormungandr Bolter; about three times as large, it is transported by a simple wheeled carriage, and set up by deploying stands and planting it in the ground. The missiles, with three times the diameter, naturally have a substantially increased range, easily striking enemy positions from extreme range, potentially even beyond visual range- though that would require spotters to be effective.
The weapon is not expected to be especially accurate, but hopefully the larger payload and extreme range will allow it to still cause reasonable amounts of damage, especially to large targets like enemy encampments.
If we happen to end up with extra time, we can try to improve the missiles accuracy, since we can afford to use more advanced sensors in the larger and less-plentiful ammunition of the Ouroboros than we could in the rapid-firing Jormugandr.

[Madman198237]

So, I'd say for the revision we put the antimissile turrets that will come with the Crane on our warships. That would allow them to survive damage from the fighters MUCH better.