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 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 06:03pm 

Yeah, they're all valid approaches as far as I'm concerned: a rocket spam attack can be countered with a massed energy weapon barrage, but if you don't have enough energy cannons to vaporize every rocket, you're gonna take damage. Likewise an energy weapon barrage is neat, but missiles may outrage it forcing all-energy ships to run a gauntlet before they can open up on their enemy, etc. My point is more that there isn't necessarily one approach that's indubitably better than everything else: it's all just fluff, when push truly comes to shove it'll be fleet point scores that settle who emerges victoriously. So we agree in that respect.

Also, I told Steve this in private, but I really, really don't like this "every ship can interdict" concept as it was proposed earlier. I'm all for being able to intercept ships in hyperspace ala Babylon 5, and for subsequently being able to somehow force them back into realspace, but to just sit in realspace generating some technobabble field that conveniently causes ships to drop out of hyper just strikes me as a dumb (not to mention lazy) idea. You want to interdict; sure, go ahead, but you should have to work for your money, by running ships down in hyper and then forcing them into realspace from there.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 06:14pm 

Well you'd have to overtake them in hyperspace and then sit down and generate the field in my version. But I have no objections to hyperspace combat Babylon 5 style and i accept that yes, there are now 3 viable solutions that do not limit storytelling options. Everyone can interdict, or we can fight in hyperspace, or hyperdrives need to cool off.

My idea was partially cause someone else had declared that ships in hyperspace were outright invulnerable due to funky technobabble fields they need not to cook due to hyperspace energies.

If we drop that then sure, i'm all for pummeling someone into real space with missiles.

Oh and addendum: I'd prefer to be let in on it when people have strong opinions on why my ideas are silly.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 06:20pm 

Unless of course, you can get players to agree on some solution to battles, but good luck with that, I think we two were the only ones in the last game who could do that.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 06:25pm 

Abominable organics! We knew you would resort to slavery to fight your wars!

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 06:27pm 

I sense a great hypocrisy, looming over the stars.. what could it be mister robo Mengele?

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 06:32pm 

Oh trust me, you are going to love one of my characters then.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 06:33pm 

If I were to allow realspace-based interdiction at all, which I'm not inclined to ATM, it'd be something feasible only in shoals with the thinner hyperlanes there. Otherwise intercepts must be done in hyperspace.

However, if I might point out, B5 actually didn't have battles in hyperspace save a couple very rare exceptions. Hyperspace fighting was considered mutually suicidal, and I'm not sure I'm in with the idea of large-scale fleet battles in hyperspace. Interception of one ship by another, sure, but even then it'd be primarily to latch on with grapplers (mechanical or energy "tractor beams") and force a ship out of hyperspace. Or to simply board it and take what you will as you both move along. Weapons fire in hyperspace could conceivably be limited to missile or projectile weaponry of light yield meant to force a ship to slow or to give up.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 06:36pm 

....and can anyone (who is an SDNW2 vet) explain my sudden temptation to have a "New Astaria" as some "independent" shithole world in some sector of the Outback that is constantly the target of New Anglian invasions and interventions because of their tendency to indulge in sentient-trafficking? (It'd be at the extent of one of the "spider-web" hyperlanes that criss-cross the shoals, connecting to a main travel lane through the same shoals).

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 06:43pm 

Unlike Babylon 5 hyperspace SDNW-verse hyperspace requires a significant amount of energy continuously just to stay there and not fall into normal space, which will probably be rather a damper on combat and mean that fighting in hyperspace will probably be just a prelude to force them to drop to real space and engage fully. Prelude could be significantly shortened of course if there were such devices as hyperspace disrupter torpedoes specializing in forcing a ship or ships into real space, or hyperspace effectors that do the same...basically specialist weaponry for hyperspace combat.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 07:31pm 

It was my intention that leaving hyperspace by turning off one's submersion field is very dangerous and can result in an explosion rippling through both hyperspace and realspace, since it's not physically possible until a vessel slows down enough that the shift to realspace will have them at an acceptable sublight velocity and a "sudden stop" active transition back to realspace has consequences.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 07:41pm 

I actually like that idea. We could say that the only way to attack someone in hyperspace was a special (read "expensive") missile that has its own hyperdrive. The missile performs interdiction by switching suddenly from hyperdrive mode to generating an interdiction field... the missile is destroyed in the process by catastrophic failure of its hyperspace field/shield/whatever (which is why you don't do it with ships), but in that microsecond it yanks all the ships in the area (probably including yours) out of hyperspace.

This rapid shift creates massive energy spikes that will either damage/destroy the drive or take time to bleed off and reset the hyperdrive.

Anyway, I'm not partial to fighting in hyperspace -- how would I describe it? We'd probably have to make a fair number of extra rules on how weapons behave in hyperspace, and I'd just rather not have to deal with that.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 08:02pm 

The short if it is you need interdiction in order to have borders that mean anything, we shouldn't be in a situation where anyone can force a confrontation over your homeworld at will due to not being interceptable before then.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 08:20pm 

That's what system defenses are for, as well as the fact that you have to emerge from hyperspace at a fair distance from any planet. Plus, of course, a war fleet will be spotted rather easily from a big distance, so such an attempt at a bolt from the blue won't exactly go down like Pearl Harbor.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 08:22pm 

So just to be clear, we live in a universe where the attacker dictates where the battle takes place and the only thing the defender has on his side is that the deeper the attacker goes the more time he has to prepare?

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 08:59pm 

I suppose, at a cursory glance, yeah.

As opposed to your wide-scale, highly-effective "interdiction", which basically forces conflicts to be sector-by-sector affairs as the attacking side has no choice but to engage the enemy at his interdiction stations first.

You have a problem with this?

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 09:07pm 

Not a major one. I'm flexible and it'd be fool of me to say at this point that this 'weak borders' system is not going to work, we'll see how it plays out.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 09:33pm 

A bit. Depends on how precisely they can strike.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 10:39pm 

This is nice, but it has the drawback that there's no way to trim back his operations effectively without taking his homeworld. You can't fight a border war against an opponent with no borders.

At the high end? We build our dreadnoughts around them on a spinal mount. Effectively continuous beam, pulse repetition rate ~30 MHz, pulse energy... well. I can't very well nail that down in a setting built around the Law of No Numbers, now can I? That would be telling...

We're not averse to scaling up from, but we can't find anyone interested in building a ship large enough to mount one.

It slices, it dices, it radioactivates the target, it can even fire antiprotons without losing its edge! Take advantage of this one-time offer... while you still can!

(Ion cannon variant designs cost extra. Some assembly and tuning required. Offer not valid where Maxwell's Laws or special theory of relativity do not apply.)

That's okay, Thanas. Big cannons believe in you. And in your missile salvoes, because they are just that omni-benevolent.

And lo, is it not written: "Point defense free. Ten-millisecond burst on each incoming, Gaussian-annular spread within burst, assume five gravity average evasive maneuver."

That depends. Do you care enough to use the very best?

We may not be all that good at bioscience. We may not be all that good at nanotechnology. Our AI programming may be only marginally above adequate. Our government may be comically inefficient in a variety of ways. We may have the interplanetary Gini coefficient to beat all Gini coefficients. But by God no one beats us at particle accelerators!

Also, your Lancer-class reminds us of a smaller, cuter version of our own capital ships, so how can we resist?

This is also our feeling. If we are going to shoot at big heavily armored targets, we want something that speaks with authority.

Well. Sometimes, as with WWI trench warfare, the attacker's high-risk high-reward plan doesn't come together, and they all die uselessly.

Worse. Slave suicide bombers...

...you want to mock Norseman? And/or re-enact a variation on the plot of 55 Days in Kalunda?

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-16 11:28pm 

....uh, no. Would like a bit more variety than that. Besides, it's funnier to make New Astaria into a shithole that gets perpetually invaded because the locals refuse to give up on slavery and have to get a beatdown every couple years to remind them to behave.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-17 12:04am 

Or, as far as interdiction fields go and all that, people can just write, and of they're a douche, then mods declare that their drives explode. Or something.

I'm just seeing.... rule trees taking root.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-17 01:00am 

We deny everything! And you can't prove it, anyway!




What, did you miss Pollux and his merry band?

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-17 01:07am 

AIs exist to serve Organics, not the other way around.
unnamed Adeptus Mechanicus Technomagos.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-17 01:09am 

Sure you can! Just hire some Airaii raiders to go forth into the shoals and hit all the outposts along your border.

Just make sure you pay them well. They can get a bit capricious once they've spent years travelling in their fighters.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-17 01:32am 

The Umerian solution: use really specialized and dumb AIs. Like, say, AI fighters that don't know how to do anything but launch in defense of Blue targets and attack Red targets while asking for clarification on Purple targets.

Ask them whether they enjoy their job, and if they could talk they'd say:

"I get to shoot Red targets."
"But do you want to shoot red targets?"
"I. Get. To. Shoot. Red. Targets."
"But why red? Why not blue?"
"Which part of "Red target" do you not understand?"
"But isn't there more to life than killing red targets?"
"...now that's just crazy talk."

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-17 01:38am 

Organics went out of fashion a thousand years ago, they're just too slow to have realized that yet
Legion



We should probably warn people about the terrible, terrible quotes we'll be using