Heads up to new players before I get into this: This RP was started and died in the past, and will be continuing with those past events in its history, as well as several returning players. This shouldn't affect new player accessibility, but I thought it best to warn you anyways.
Story
The crew of the
Eclipse, a ship of the planet Drasis, struck out on their own when their planet was destroyed by the galactic menace known as the Resanti. With their fighter compliment destroyed and little hope of actually succeeding, they sought vengeance against the Resanti. Defying the odds, they managed to bring on several skilled fighter pilots and make a name for themselves fighting pirates. Eventually their activities came to the attention of the Llima Empire, who began requesting their aid for errands that were too risky to send their own ships on.
One of these missions proved a turning point, as the
Eclipse found herself facing an unexpected foe. The Resanti had captured one of the largest ships in the galaxy, and its sights were set on the Eclipse. But hidden on a nearby moon was a strange AI which aided the Eclipse in taking down this insurmountable foe, but not without heavy losses. Yet through all this, it was this AI which would truly change the fate of the Eclipse forever. Calling itself the daughter of Resanti, this AI could prove to be the key to defeating the Resanti once and for all, if only the Eclipse could find a way to contain it and interrogate it. To this end, the Eclipse set out to capture a Resanti for the AI to inhabit, allowing them to contain it physically within the brig.
With the AI contained, the Eclipse once again set out to restore it compliment of pilots, and this is where our story of freeform space battles and political mystery continues.
The Eclipse
The Drasian navy are unique among the galaxy, having a greater focus on training skilled pilots instead of fielding large numbers of disposable pilots and attempting to overwhelm with numbers. The assault carrier
Eclipse possesses a below average carrying capacity of 28 fighters, which still gives it one of Drasis's largest hangars. Because of this unusual design, the
Eclipse itself is able to be armed more heavily than its contemporaries, giving it an advantage in ship to ship combat.
Although these design oddities make the
Eclipse less suited to large scale battles, they have proven ideal in countering the strategies of the pirates that plague the galaxy.
In shape, the
Eclipse is a largely flat, vaguely triangular ship with its nose cut off to house the door to the hangar bay. It has a large array of powerful thrusters at the back, with maneuvering thrusters positioned all across its deep blue hull, which is also covered in various greebles. This gives it excellent acceleration but somewhat lacking maneuverability.
Strikers and Interceptors
Giant humanoid suits form the backbone of space-age warfare. Due to a deterioration of ship-to-ship combat as defensive measures have become more effective at deterring attacks, the use of strikers has become a ship's standard method of attacking foes. Strikers are able to close in and take out key targets on an enemy ship from its surface or even from inside. They take they form of giant robots to allow for increased flexibility in their operation and adapt quickly to any situation. Behemoth creations that can be 10 meters tall at their largest, strikers are built to tear into an enemy ship's weak points or even punch straight through their hull.
Because of the danger presented by strikers, there has been a resurgence in fighter craft, which were previously phased out. Called interceptors, these fighters are typically extremely fast and agile craft designed to live up to their name and take out enemy strikers before they can successfully close the distance. They can also serve as a counter to enemy interceptors, using their superior dogfighting capabilities to escort allied strikers across the battlefield and take out enemy interceptors.
Interceptors tend to be more varied in design than strikers, but are usually 12 meters long at most due to standardized hangars. A ship will typically dedicate about 2/5ths of its carrying capacity to interceptors.
Galactic Powers
The Grand Assembly
A collection of planets forming a large republic, the Grand Assembly is a relatively young power full of hopes for expansion. However, being neighbor to the Resanti and the difficulties of maintaining the safety of new systems against pirates hinders the Assembly's ambitions. Most of its resources are hung up defending its current territory, preventing it from accepting new members.
Before its destruction, Drasis was a member of the Assembly, and a highly valued one at that. The value of a planet's vote in the Assembly is determined by the value of its exports, and Drasis was central to many of its scientific ventures, in particular being core to the development of new military technologies and ship designs.
Despite this value, when Drasis was faced with destruction, the Assembly abandoned it. The Eclipse, rather than return to the Assembly, deserted due to the poor treatment of Drasis by the government it had served for so long.
The Llima Empire
A small empire governed by Empress Celine IV and an extensive court system. The Empire's culture highly values honor and discipline, and the greatest honor of them all is to serve in the strictest navy of them all. As such, almost every citizen serves a few years in the navy, making the Imperial navy almost twice the size of the Assembly navy despite its smaller planet count.
Although not strictly isolationist, the Empire is hesitant to compromise its defenses by sending ships out to defend neutral systems or allowing them to become a part of the Empire. However, they have recently taken to hiring privateers to help them expand their influence beyond their boarders. The Eclipse is often brought on by the Empire in this manner.
The Resanti
A race of cyborgs governed by a central intelligence. Little is known about what they are or where they came from, but many believe that they have existed for nearly as long as humanity has traveled the stars. Outwardly they are human, but internally they have been replaced by machine. Worse, their minds have been replaced as well, becoming a part of a collective intelligence. They seek only one thing: To conquer and absorb.
Luckily for the galaxy, many pirates are daring and stupid enough to raid Resanti planets, making it just as difficult for the Resanti to expand as it is for the Assembly. Until a couple years ago, the Resanti were essentially dormant, only acting enough to maintain what territory they had already acquired. It was only a few months before Drasis was attacked that they began showing signs of mobilizing.
Pirates
The majority of systems in the galaxy are neutral, holding no ties to any of the three major powers (especially not the Resanti). However, this also means they have no protection against the massive amount of piracy that plagues the galaxy, which in turn feeds that piracy.
Though none as big as the three powers, there are many groups of organized pirates who effectively own chunks of the galaxy by extorting (or in a couple cases, actually ruling and governing) groups of systems. However, power shifts rapidly among pirates, making their territory highly unstable at best.
Phases
This RP will be split into two distinct phases: Combat and Free.
During Free phases, you'll be given the opportunity to roam the
Eclipse and interact with NPCs and other characters. This is when most of the plot will unfold and your character will be given a chance to develop.
Combat phases will be focused instead of fast paced battles where the goal is to get the
Eclipse's strikers onto enemy ships to tear them up while defending against incoming strikers. This will be done in a skydive like attack where strikers fly from one ship to another. This combat will be totally freeform, with a focus on creativity over challenge, but will still present a decent risk. Before each combat phase you'll be given a mission briefing OOC with the initial state of the battlefield. During the fight, you'll largely be faced off against swarms of nameless mooks, which you will be free to destroy as many as 3 of per post if you so choose (but please prioritize writing over numbers). Each time you post, there will be an NPC response evaluating your actions and providing input on what you should do next. Occasionally you may find that alongside the nameless swarms there are named opponents that are more difficult and will effectively operate as enemy PCs. It will take coordination, forethought, and teamwork to take down these powerful foes.
Once a striker has made it on board an enemy ship, you will be free to RP your mech tearing it to shreds in all of its destructive glory.
Slots
Strikers and Interceptors will have their capabilities categorized by slots, with five to each. Each slot can hold one device, fitting into one of three types. Note that without taking slots into consideration, both types of craft have a low baseline of thrusters for maneuvering but no baseline weapons or armor.
Weapon: A device meant to deal damage to enemy craft. Can be handheld or fixed mount, with the latter generally being more powerful. Most basic types can be scaled up by using an extra slot.
Mobility: A device intended to increase mobility and help travel across the battlefield faster.
Armor: A device intended to increase your defenses against incoming attacks, not necessarily literal armor.
Strikers have one slot dedicated to each type, as well as two variable slots that can hold any type of device. Interceptors have two mobility and one weapon slot by default, also carrying two variable slots. Below are some examples of potential devices to fill your slots with. These are hardly the only things you're allowed to use, just some basic examples, and do note that it's possible to spend two slots on a more powerful device.
Weapons
Breaching Lance: A long, cone shaped lance that uses a striker's immense strength to stab pressure points in a ship's hull, caving them in and splitting them open.
Various Slashing Weapons: Bladed weapons intended to cut through enemy weapon emplacements and that are more effective against opposing strikers, but are not particularly useful for directly breaking into an enemy ship.
Plasma Blowtorch: Creates a short plume of plasma that can be used to melt through ship hulls.
Railgun: Only accurate at short ranges, but deals a lot of damage. Less effective against armor than energy weapons, but completely ignores energy shields.
Plasma: Accurate at longer ranges than railguns, but deals less damage and is mitigated by shields.
Missile: A guided explosive, slower than other weapons but retains accuracy due to guidance systems.
Torpedo: An unguided explosive, deals massive damage but is extremely inaccurate except at very close ranges.
Laser: Due to extremely high power consumption, lasers require at least two slots to run. They are accurate at extremely long ranges, but do even less damage than plasma and are nullified completely by shields.
Defense
Armor plating: Reduces all damage, but can be melted easily by plasma weapons.
Jammer: A missile jammer to make it more difficult for missiles to lock onto you
Energy Shield: A metal frame that projects a shield inside it, protecting against plasma and lasers. Can be upgraded to a spherical shield that protects against energy attacks from all directions using two slots.
Improved Inertial Dampeners: Necessary for high speed ships that want to pull of extremely sharp maneuvers.
Mobility
General Thrusters: An upgrade over the very baseline thrusters all strikers and interceptors come with, some form of upgraded thrusters is a requirement to cross space with any sort of reasonable speed.
Directional Thruster(s): A more powerful thruster or array of thrusters intented to propel in a specific direction (usually forwards).
Maneuvering Thrusters: Thrusters focused on performing bursts of movement that reoriented the craft so that forward facing thrusters can push it a different direction, rather than directly effecting its momentum themselves.
Improved Gyroscopes: Serve a similar function to maneuvering thrusters, but provide more consistent movement rather than bursts. All ships have gyros, but using a slot of them will significantly increase their power and allow for much faster turning.
Hyperdrive Generator: As with lasers, the power requirements for this make it take up two slots at minimum. A hyperdrive generator projects a bubble of subspace around the vessel, allowing for FTL travel without a carrier ship.
Notes
IC ThreadThis RP is specifically designed to make killing and replacing characters easy, so be aware of the risk before getting too attached. That said, I don't plan to kill them willy-nilly, so don't get too jumpy either. And if your character
does die, feel free to make another.
On a similar note, the same setup means that I can easily write in new players, so don't feel shy about joining up even after the RP gets started.
Discord for Lexi RPs. Ping @Lexi and ask for the Eclipse role. Pretty much all OOC discussion will happen here, so you're highly encouraged to join.
Sheets
Pilot
Name: [The character's name]
Age: [How old they be]
Personality: [What kind of person they are, a few sentences is fine]
Appearance: [What they look like]
Background: [Why/how they ended up joining with the Eclipse, happy and expecting to work with people on this]
Striker
Striker Name: [The name of your Striker]
Appearance: [And what it looks like]
Weapon Slot: [A slot for your primary weapon]
Armor Slot: [A slot for your primary defensive tool]
Mobility Slot: [A slot for your primary mobility device]
Variable Slot 1: [A slot that can hold any type of device]
Variable Slot 2: [A slot that can hold any type of device]
Interceptor
Interceptor Name: [The name of your Interceptor]
Appearance: [And what it looks like]
Weapon Slot: [A slot for your primary weapon]
Mobility Slot 1: [A slot for one of your primary mobility devices]
Mobility Slot 2: [A slot for one of your primary mobility devices]
Variable Slot 1: [A slot that can hold any type of device]
Variable Slot 2: [A slot that can hold any type of device]
NPCs
Captain Elijah MatthewsLieutenant Stephanie RheesLieutenant Commander Elyn OrindalLieutenant Skylar CoralSergeant Torin HorneKellaAccepted Characters
“Long Range Engagement Specialist” Sergeant Major Catria “Vixen” Edelweiss - Rain
Cree Daniels, Criminal Scum - Stratos
Lieutenant Naomi Takahashi, Bane of Rodents - Val
Ensign Rose Cohen, Electric Personality - Twin
Alezar Shrine, Moody Mechanic - Swamp
Lieutenant Willard E. Halstein, Walking Cannon - Sentient Bowtie
Sergeant Angelica Ree, Cannon Fodder - Goggy