Print

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

[Taricus]

We do have some research in Doctrine: Mobility, so he has some bonuses. But a good point nonetheless.

[adwarf]

My plan is to come at them from teh sea, air, and through the pipes all at once. First phase we ask to put a small garrison in the town, and then proceed to take the raider ships with that done we can use them to design more ships if needed, and then move onto phase two. In phase two we will research transport helicopters, and get ready to use them to drop our elites behind enemy lines to quickly eliminate the opposition. Then we go to Phase three where we locate the pipes to the rigs, break in, and set a squad up in there, so we can begin the invasion. Finnally we reach the foruth phase where we begin the assualt simultaneously attacking from the pipe, sea, and air in a massive pincer suprise attack on the rigs.

During this we will send one ship loaded with two Magitech elites to hunt down, and eliminate PoseiOdin incase he has any counter-measures such as those Sean has listed. In this way we can greatly reduce our risk in this battle, and easily obtain teh rigs without much of a tough fight if the plan is executed correctly.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Several things wrong with that plan that I see.
A) Constructing transport helicopters. Now, that in itself wouldn't be much of an issue (in fact, it probably isn't), what with us having magitek motors, but. We likely need some levels in Air Superiority or somesuch in order for whatever we create to have any sort of chance of surviving a combat encounter. We'll need to train pilots who are able to fly those things, too, because unlike driving, if you screw up flying you're dead. And we'll need to develop parachutes or other methods of rapid vertical delivery of troops, because if those rigs are turned into fortresses, then even if they still have their helipads, anything we try to land there is swiss cheese by the time it touches down. Developing an actual combat dropship that can withstand several minutes of sustained AP fire (a flying T-Tank, if you will) would take us inordinate amounts of time. (though to be fair, it's not like we're in any kind of hurry at this point)

B) We'll need humongous numbers of troops to pull off a coordinated simultaneous attack. I'm not sure how many raiders there are, but considering the description, I'm presuming somewhere in the low hundreds - that's what it'd take to occupy and defend several drilling platforms as well as run the not-insignificant number of ships these raiders must use to get around and stage their attacks. We'll need help from quite a few cities if we're to build a force equivalent to that. Our 15 Elites won't cut it, and the T-Tank is still landlubber-y. That's not to mention this plan still hinges on pipes being intact and empty enough to let our strike teams through. And sort of hiccup, anywhere, will lead to disaster.

Bottom line, I still think we should go the "gunboat diplomacy" route. If we get good rolls on research, maybe with an actual gunboat this time, but if not, announcing that we have all their rigs, erm.. rigged to blow, displaying the truthfulness of that statement to any dissenters, and letting them choose to either surrender or face fiery death should work well enough.

[adwarf]

Yes the plan will take a little while to put into effect atleast two months, but it will be worth it in the long haul. Out of it we will be able to obtain a heavily fortified setof oil rigs which we can repair, and get in working condition to produce oil, and we can also use it as a port in the middle of the see as well as a forward base for any defense efforts in the sea. You are also forgetting that our elites can teleport, so they won't need parachutes to get down onto the rigs, and all they need is one round of distraction, so that they can take a fortified area, and use that area to wear the enemy down. We just need them to hold-out long enough to board the rigs with our sea forces, and then we will be able to push through, and take them out.

Now onto the pipes, even if they are broke, and filled with oil, water, or dirt we can get through simply be cleaning them out if its full of oil, and dirt, or by fitting our soldiers with rebreathers if its filled with water anyway we cut it the pipes will still give us acess straight into the heart of hte enemy rigs. Even with our current forces if we develop our tech correctly, and execute the plan we should be able to take atleast one rig before the raiders know whats going on, and by the time the realize what is happening we will aalready have begn assualting the rest of the rigs they have under their control.

[LordSlowpoke]

Recruit James, put him in charge of a squad or two, and make him figure out how to assault the raiders. And then make him execute said plan.

Problem solved.

[RAM]

The platforms have never been officially referred to as oil rigs, drilling platforms, or anything else other than just 'platform' and the concept of an oil-drilling platform on an artificial planet seems a touch incongruous...

It seems likely to me that these are either observation, habitation, or military platforms and for all we know they hover... What is almost certain is that they are beyond the means of their current occupants to reproduce, making self-destruct highly unlikely. The alternative is that they are Constructed by a group that is capable of transporting raiding groups across an expanse of water but not inclined to raid a fortified settlement. It is also possible that there are civilians on the platforms, possibly not affiliated with the raiders. If the raiders are the only ones who travel to this region, perhaps because the raiding causes trade with this region to be unfavourable, or perhaps because the raiders are in possession of all the appropriate transportation, then it is possible that the raiders represent only a small aspect of the platform society...

[Pandarsenic]

Well, while you figure out how to deal with that long-term goal, setting the plans for your units (and anything new you want to do with your Labor, and what you want to aim to produce this week) for the week would be useful. And finalizing your use of the 10 Equipment and 15 Vehicle Parts.

Construction of vehicles at the moment is, by the way, instantaneous through the magic of Interchangeable Parts and the magic of I'm Not Dealing With Construction Times On Everything In This Entire Game. Honestly, at the moment, you're basically just welding METAL BAWKSES, engines, hovertreads, and weapons together, connecting some circuitry, and declaring your engineering successful. More sophisticated Vehicles will in fact have to have their parts designed specifically, but that's an issue for later.

Oh, by the way, any unit who gains 10 Experience while assigned to a Vehicle gains the __ Driver trait. It gives them extra bonuses to stuff with their Vehicle of choice and a bit of general boostan to their Vehicle-use-y-stuff. This CAN happen to Elites. You can also unlock a Driver unit class. Drivers (instead of having their own values in most stats) adds stats to their vehicles and have the Magitechnician Trait to maintain their vehicle in the field.

So yeah, if you guys get the essential stuff hammered out, I can start procrastinating on running the turn while you talk more about the maybe-oil platforms.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I think the most popular choice for a vehicle is the Thunderhead. See if we can't squeeze another Part out of somewhere, and if we can, make a Paperback. If at all possible, spare that part and don't build LTD's for the Paperback, use four Equipment and mount quad MGs on it instead, firing arcs be damned. The rest of equipment should go to making infantry, I think.

Rotate squads this week. C and D remain in the Shell and train, A and B scout. Have A scout the shorelines along the east coast, starting directly east and moving south. See if there are any Raider landings or anything else of note. B makes a trip to Ironhold (or whatever that village was - you really should add some kind of legend to the map), claiming to be a "regular patrol", and inquires of the state of affairs. Better use just the Elites for this, keeping the soft recruits away from guns that could rip them to chunks in half a round. Elites can at least 'port out of trouble. Alternatively, if construction is instantaneous-instantaneous, give the Thunderhead to squad B, and have them do the same trick with teleporting through the gates. Afterwards, they scout the rest of the northern segment of the continent for raiders, and return home along the West coast, also looking for anything notable.

[RAM]

I would rather save our vehicle parts, but the thunderhead seems to have popular support.
 If anyone is patrolling the coast I would give them a vehicle, those raiders have the potential to be a very large force.
 I want to research transport vehicles to enhance slavaging and trading operations,
 I also want to build a large farm to generate food for trading.
 Spend 6 equipment to get 6 infantry into a squad, upgrade recruits from the reserves if need be.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I think that the Ironhold visitors would be better off having a heavy transport, unless we want to send the T-Tank their way again. We need to show those people that we are as strong as we claim, so that they might take our "safety of the badlands" statement a little more seriously. If the Paperback-MG gets done, assign it to the shore patrol squad, with explicit orders not to engage raiders if they are found, unless fired upon. We need to observe their movements and see what they are doing, maybe they have a land base we could grab.

As for the T-Tank, I thought of maybe letting the tank crew train as well? Set up some simple pop-up targets in a large area outside the Shell, and let the crews practice driving and shooting things. We won't be able to rely on the T-Tank being superior technology forever, gotta start proper training sometime.

Large Farm is a yes, but I thought we could only build a Small Farm now, with an upgrade to Large later?

And I think we need our research put into Magitek Hovertechnology. If we can upgrade those hovertreads to something like repulsorlifts, allowing some sort of limited flight, or at least movement regardless of terrain type, we'll be a lot better off in both the short (ocean raiders) and long term (getting to other continents).

[Pandarsenic]

You could fit at most 2 MGs on a Paperback, which would have the final result of changing its attack from 6x2(AP2) into 5x2(AP3), since Vehicle weapons can't benefit from the Doctrine: Superior Training path. Unless you encounter something with 8 defense and decide to attack it with a scout, that makes almost no difference (if something has 0-2 Defense it's actually weaker). Also, MGs scale at 1/2 Magitech's level, so when Magitech levels your MGs don't get stronger yet (Minor cost for that it scales with Doctrine: Fortification, but that wouldn't help now and on a vehicle it wouldn't scale because, well, vehicles and fortification don't go together. Yet.).

A Thunderhead can be slapped together in the course of a few hours when you want it. Like I said, welding stuff to a metal box. Squad C is not quite back from Invictus but it's close enough.

Currently, hovertreads work by pushing off the ground (thus the problems on sand dunes... or water). It's temporarily resolved by spreading it out over a larger area, snow-shoe style, but Naval units would require adaptation of antigravity units, and advanced air power will involve moving over to antigrav units entirely (eventually, anyway; the helicopter path isn't bad by any stretch of the word).

[Sean Mirrsen]

Why are the Thaumatank Machineguns stronger? They get 5+2*Magitek+2*SRA... somehow getting 9. Man, you should really recheck all your formulas.

Also, I suddenly got an idea about a Magitek WIG craft. If you can describe it before I can draw it, you win half an internet for knowing a partly obscure mode of transportation.

[Pandarsenic]

The Thaumatank's Machine Guns are hooked to the crazy-beefed up, original-tech, full-quality, not-reverse-engineered reactor. Also, rechecking that formula...

*checks*

Gahhh, I keep doing things as though Magitech is Level 1 and I don't know whyyyy. Fixed it to list it as doing 11x2 like it should.

But yeah. You could power about half the foundries and factories in The Shell if you hooked your Thaumatank's reactor up to them. It couldn't keep it up forever, but it could do it. That's the only piece of Magitech you have from when it was the sort of thing you could mass-produce. Its systems are all optimized and it loses almost nothing to inefficiency.

And a ground effect vehicle could actually reasonably work with your current Magitek stuff... Getting one working probably wouldn't be too hard to imagine.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Tried a quick sketch, it turned out horrible:

Spoiler: Dontlookatitdontlookatit (click to show/hide)

Yeah, the main idea is to supplement the usual wing-in-ground-effect principle with our magitek hovertreads. The 'treads will actually allow the machine safer movement across land, and at sea the WIG effect will keep it up, using the hovertreads as an additional lifting force (say, to take off from water, removing the need for a massive array of jet engines) and control method. On land, it'd move with hovertreads, and over water it'd use magitek-powered impeller turbines.

So, as far as researching something like that, I'm guessing we'll need either Mobility or its air-related analogue to develop the turbines, and... I don't know, what governs aircraft engineering? We could probably have a design for our own little Sea Monster in two weeks, with perhaps enough parts to make one in a month.

[Pandarsenic]

Yeah, I'm definitely okay with that idea. I would actually classify it as not-quite-an-air vehicle, and so not requiring Doctrine: Air Power, but still benefiting from any research you do into it; I'd be fine with letting you research Doctrine: Mobility for that (after all, research into conventional old-world methods of transport could turn up info on a ground effect vehicle and the Magitech use is gravy, not the main course). I'd... probably require its pilot have the Driver trait or a later equivalent to fly it, but other than that, yeah, I'd be totally cool with that.