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[Jilladilla]

No vote changes; just noticed an error in the votebox links (specifically the 'Plant Based Tech' link) that we seem to have perpetuated. Correcting it now.... Or at least, I'm fairly sure this is what Helmacon meant for it to point to; please, correct me if I erred here, Helmacon.

Strategy
Save Our Boys (5) | Kashyyk, Twinwolf, Jilladilla, TFF, Powder Miner

Black Market Research
Amoeba Dolor Garrula () |
The Looking Glass (Powder Miner ver): (4) Twinwolf, Powder Miner, Andrea,10ebbor10
Dancing with the Stars (3): Happerry, Powder Miner, helmacon
Dimensional Bleedover Rituals (0):
The Codex Mathamagica (2): Happerry, SamSpeeds
Dimensional Bleedover Rituals v2 (4): Jilladilla, TFF, Happerry, Kashyyk
Plant Based Tech  (2): Helmacon, SamSpeeds

[helmacon]

You are correct. I appreciate the correction.


I just think that
"trading the exact things we don't need for cool stuff^tm"
is both a little too on the nose and also the most uninspired tech switch possible, and it's gonna disappoint the gm.

[helmacon]

Sorry for the double post, but question about the tactics.

Instead of attempting to hit enemy ships with the psionic spines with the bore shield, bore shield operators are to attempt to intentionally use poorly stabilized bores to damage them and just vaguely bore them away from our ships. 

The spines seem perfect for redirection with a bore. Why are we avoiding doing that?

[Powder Miner]

They will redirect themselves, unfortunately.

[helmacon]

From the reports it seems they only make minor adjustments to incoming fire. I don't think they can 180 in vacuums after firing. This might even be reflexive and work in our favor, with them dodging their own point defense. We could at least try it, and adjust if they do.

[Jilladilla]

We are redirecting them; we just aren't bothering with trying for a 'perfect redirection' right back at their ships because like Powder said; they'll probably just try to turn themselves around for a second run at our ships.

Hence why we're going for bathing them in unstable bore radiation damage while we make them do a roughly ~180 degree turn. Weakening their attack while hurting them at the same time! (And giving our PD more time to shoot at them)

[Powder Miner]

They're at least quick and precise enough to hit fighters, which informed my reasoning there.

[helmacon]

I'm pretty sure they were launched to achieve that velocity. I don't think they could do that on their own. Their corrections/evasion was a subtle effect.

[Powder Miner]

What happened with the spines that killed fighters is that they'd missed the Wrath for some reason or another and they just turned to hit at least something. They weren't directly targeted at the fighters -- either the Wrath or Deliverances.

[Jilladilla]

I had more of a 'With the last of my strength; I'm taking something with me!' vibe from that to be honest; I was assuming that said spines were either near-exhausted or near-destroyed.

[Tyrant Leviathan]

No vote changes; just noticed an error in the votebox links (specifically the 'Plant Based Tech' link) that we seem to have perpetuated. Correcting it now.... Or at least, I'm fairly sure this is what Helmacon meant for it to point to; please, correct me if I erred here, Helmacon.

Strategy
Save Our Boys (5) | Kashyyk, Twinwolf, Jilladilla, TFF, Powder Miner

Black Market Research
Amoeba Dolor Garrula () |
The Looking Glass (Powder Miner ver): (4) Twinwolf, Powder Miner, Andrea,10ebbor10
Dancing with the Stars (3): Happerry, Powder Miner, helmacon
Dimensional Bleedover Rituals (0):
The Codex Mathamagica (2): Happerry, SamSpeeds
Dimensional Bleedover Rituals v2 (5): Jilladilla, TFF, Happerry, Kashyyk , Tyrant Leviathan.
Plant Based Tech  (2): Helmacon, SamSpeeds

[Powder Miner]

Sure, but this does at least mean they’re capable of the kind of redirection that would make trying to hit the big Vals with the AAAAAs a futile measure. It’s safer just to try and fuck them up and move them away with faster bores, especially since the spines were enough of a threat to get the Hivers to consider it eventually lethal.

[helmacon]

Would you be willing to modify in that we try redirecting a single spine as an experiment, just to see if it is possible?

Even if it's not, it's worth it to record that information and quantify it's exact reactions. And if it turns out it is possible, that's kinda huge and we would just miss it otherwise.

A single redirect is not much of a risk.

[Jilladilla]

We are vaguely redirecting them though Helmacon. Just not bothering to go through the extra effort of trying to aim it right back at their cruiser, as our current running theory is that trying to do so is pointless as the spines will try and turn right back around for a second pass; and even if it fails at doing so it would still almost certainly ruin the perfect redirect and drift into the void. As such we're just making them go in a direction that's 'away from our ships' instead of 'right back at their ships'. Really, the fact that a lazy, half-done bore bathes anything that goes through it in harmful radiation damage is a bonus.

That being said, those vague redirects would still be informative and grab the information you want; if the spines are strangely compliant and don't try to turn right back around after being forced to do a 180? Then we can try and make the Big Val shoot itself. Until we get that information though; let us not take a gamble that may lead to a few more shots leaking around our shield, the Expedition has no armor to try and mitigate the damage after all. It may be worth adding a conditional to this effect.

[Powder Miner]

The problem is this: each Big Val has a dozen railguns, and each of these railguns shoot the AAAAAAA in salvos of two or three -- so we have 48-72 spines coming in at three cruisers, meaning that each cruiser is having to contend with from 16-24 spines. This doesn't seem impossible at all the mostly deal with, but spending time on accurate bores to redirect the spines means less bores, which potentially means more spines that get past and hit our cruisers. I think the Expedition in some respects is well suited to surviving the spines, but the chance exists of losing an Expedition -- and we really don't want to be losing Expeditions right now when we're building so much infrastructure. Even damage is risky -- I will want to repair/refit 4 expeditions next turn, but we could end up with a situation like in oscar where our cc is damaged.