Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest

Versharl said:

I'm sorry, I just don't see that being a practical long-term strategy. Relay assault seem to carry quite a bit of random chance regarding where you'll end up. Our forces might end up in the middle of a superior defense fleet with no way out(like the Rachni scouting fleet we demolished). Putting aside the incredible risk of a diversionary relay assault, the Rachni would surely figure the strategy out after the first couple of tries and create a reserve to engage the raiders or just ignore the diversionary fleet entirely. Furthermore, I don't see how the return-trip would work since you have to get close the relay in order to activate it, which would be trivial for a defensive fleet to prevent, regardless of whether or not you have a "covering assault."

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Well, for the breakthrough and relay defense fleets we will probably need Dreadnoughts, if they are heavily fortified or garrisoned. They just won't be the stars where the best officers and supply's go. Their job will be to contest the relay engage the enemy, while the raiding fleets comes in asa a second wave, in as very short time frame as possible.

The raiding fleet due to BC core will then provide a flanking force and once they are ready for jump disengage, the admiral will do one of two things, continue and win the battle if they are winning hard or disengage with the raiding fleet going inside the enemy cluster and our relay fleet going back through the relay. The raiding fleet will probably have timed intervals for communication where they have a scout frigate enter the edge of the system waiting for us to shoot through a probe and this would allow for coordinating a similar battle when they need resupply or to retreat back and then again the same repeats.

Its why I want to go full marine, since with that we get them a small group of marine ships (probably one or two groups of one marine heavy cruisers and two support frigates that can function for boarding, counter boarding and designed with the ground assault doctrine in mind) attached so they can not only blow space infrastructure but also planetary infrastructure. We don't aim to occupy shit or fight any battle that we are not certain to win with the raiders just blow everything.

To get this done right you need your best and brightest in the raiding fleets and the raiding marines(preferably elite numerous version) and get them the best gear, because the relay fleet get the heavy metal to defend and assault but the raiders will be doing the most real damage to the enemy by fucking everying in their back yard, torching their garage, sneaking in to rape the dog and generaly acting as much as deranged lunatics as possible to force the enemy to chase and focus on them instead of thinking of assaulting the relay and doing their best to fuck that up by said burning, raping, pillaging and looting. You will note that for us it is more important to burn than to loot, unless the raiders go our of scheduled contact.

Rakuhn said:

Remember our first trans-relay assault? The vast majority of the Rachni fleet was stationed far away from the relay itself. Presumably, it is too resource-intensive to keep a significant portion of their fleet mobilized. If we time things right, the assault fleet should be able to overwhelm the beachhead defenses and get the raiding fleet back across the relay before the main Rachni fleet is able to intercept them.

If the Rachni do start keeping their fleet mobilized around a relay, that is a win for us. It means that they will be continuously wasting resources without us taking any losses.

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Plus also the constant need for a larger garrison in the cluster propped and a additional fast response fleet. These are some pretty big expenditure to defend against raiders, especially our potential heavy raiders with not only BC support but with some elite marine elements that are trained to assault worlds. The cry for more defenders will be massive in their choir.

Imho raiding with the mass elite marine works great for us as a proactive defense because when your house is constantly on fire by a crazed arsonist who has a habit to not get caught by the police you want 24/7 guards and firefighters more. In fact you need the firefighter the most, and the more the arsonists is successful the more you need them.

Only when the arsonist stops burning shit would you think of going after potential employers. First yo stop the madman.

Raiding doctrine is a good way to gain Attention with the Rachini. At this point we are facing garrison forces. And sure that will be good news for the Citadel when they divert a fleet to push us back but unless we are coordinating with someone that is a loss of vimire situation.

So for raiding you need to get in touch with the Citadel or the rest of the terminus to coordinate actions. Otherwise we just draw one of their major fleets our way once we start costing them too many resources.

Anyway, I noticed that Commander Shepard was historically born before canon's First Contact War. This may mean that if we do not make contact with humans until after 2154 A.D. (his/her), Commander Shepard's existence will not have been butterflied away, and he/her may still pop up as an NPC.

gutza1 said:

Anyway, I noticed that Commander Shepard was historically born before canon's First Contact War. This may mean that if we do not make contact with humans until after 2154 A.D. (his/her), Commander Shepard's existence will not have been butterflied away, and he/her may still pop up as an NPC.

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That is literally two thousand years in the future.
I'm sorry to say but, barring the QM doing it on purpose, Shepard does not exist.

Rukia said:

That is literally two thousand years in the future.
I'm sorry to say but, barring the QM doing it on purpose, Shepard does not exist.

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The other galactic races had no interaction with humanity before the First Contact War. This will mean that humanity will likely experience exactly the same events as it did in canon until a race makes contact with it. Remember, this is an alt-history quest, and the only point of divergence is Mira coming to power.

It's like WW2 all over again! In terms of fleet size, it seems to be the tall vs wide argument. Are we trying for Citadel sized area of control (many) or a smaller polity with few clusters (large). I don't really have thoughts on this, but I'm leaning large. I like is carving a chunk out of the Terminus and setting up a little empire.

For doctrine, fleet battle is out. Relying on massive fleet engagements when we know we are outnumbered and are smaller seems like a recipe for disaster. In the same vein, while ground attack makes sense, we currently don't have the numbers and would probably require cloned or robotic troops to finish.
Until we can reach technological and numerical parity with the Rachni, we must inflict disproportionate losses and raiding and defensive both allow us to do that in slightly different ways. I don't like defensive since it provides no interaction with Rachni outside our zone of control. They can simply choose not to attack and there is not much we can do besides a full relay assault. I prefer raiding since is broadens our scope of tactical and strategic options.

For marines, the medium route is the best I feel. Being able to support boarding operations and first strike capability for planetary assault is good, but we don't need a whole arm of them.

gutza1 said:

The other galactic races had no interaction with humanity before the First Contact War. This will mean that humanity will likely experience exactly the same events as it did in canon until a race makes contact with it. Remember, this is an alt-history quest, and the only point of divergence is Mira coming to power.

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A ship moving will displace atoms, eventually this will butterfly through the galaxy one way or another. Simply changing one tiny thing is enough to remove people from existence, since maybe the Atom that made Shepard's parents got shifted one to the right, so they don't exist.

The more likely result is that the players will go looking for Humanity at some point and butterfly them away that way.

Rukia said:

A ship moving will displace atoms, eventually this will butterfly through the galaxy one way or another. Simply changing one tiny thing is enough to remove people from existence, since maybe the Atom that made Shepard's parents got shifted one to the right, so they don't exist.

The more likely result is that the players will go looking for Humanity at some point and butterfly them away that way.

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I think the distances between star systems are so vast that displaced atoms won't make it to the Solar System in time to affect Shepard's birth. Plus, I think that the GM may be interested in having Shepard as a character. Who knows, we may even get to play as him/her.

gutza1 said:

Plus, I think that the GM may be interested in having Shepard as a character. Who knows, we may even get to play as him/her.

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This is not Shepard Quest, the world does not revolve around them.
It's quite likely that we might never meet any Canon characters, just because we butterfly them away by intervening with the Rachni war, if we survive that long.

Hmm looking on all this I'd say: "be the wound"

Alectai said:

The upside of course of being the weakest party in a multi-way crossfire is that no single element of the enemy force can dare assault you in their fullest strength. This was just common sense that couldn't be subverted, after all--if you bother spending the energy needed to put paid to the weakest party, you expose yourself to punishment from your rivals. No, this was not a day for Maeve to go hunting--she'd much rather let her small fleet act as a small, bleeding injury against the others--insignificant in itself, but sapping away their strength inch by inch. Admittedly, the remaining ground based defenses not shooting at her helps, as that limits their avenues of approach.

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But considering we're mainly fighting indoctrinated enemies, such tactic is not feasible, especially if we need to reach our "allies".

IMO we need to get Citadel's attention and aid otherwise we're going to be defeated by the war-machine that is Indoc!Rachni.

—By having Many Fleets we can create "island" or staging grounds where we can gather our or our ally forces and create "chains" through which we can fast-forward to engagement zones.
-Note: such strategy would benefit from Ground Assault Doctrine creating semi-permanant friendly "islands" with refule, repair, and staging ground.

— But adopting Fleet Battle Doctrine, would give us speed, in such that we abstain from making semi-permanent safe-zones, allowing to concentrate on reaching the Citadel, but risking cutting our forces off from our support


Considering we want to expand in our cluster as much as possible, avoid a ground war with species that necessitated Krogan uplifting (which at that time{bofore it worked} was a controversial move), and most importantly INDOCTRINATED(brainwashed), which is a mix-bag*.

* = one one hand they have a compulsion to destroy other species and they'll try, but on another, they will come (and the longer we fight, the worse the decay and their control they will come and attack), making out "turtle up and defend" partially feasible: Enemy will attack.

So tentatively, this might be optional:

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[ ][FLEET] Large Fleets
+
[ ][DOCTRINE] Retain Territory Defense Doctrine
+
[ ][MARINES] Grant Tannuvael's request

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Zenbeast said:

For marines, the medium route is the best I feel. Being able to support boarding operations and first strike capability for planetary assault is good, but we don't need a whole arm of them.

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I kind of disagree on this since the marine arm would be pretty much a courts of dekuma style fleet element, especially one thwqt we can attach to the raider fleet and can punch hard on Rachni worlds to blow up space ports and critical infrastructure with heavy orbital support and also extra manpower and varying capacity to said rading fleet, thus vastly increasing the damage they do and it is a integrated ground army to the raiding fleet that if we stumble on a contested world can immediately reinforce the defenders.

Also,once the war is over, fun blitzkrieg time for the whole terminus.

remulian said:

we can attach to the raider fleet and can punch hard on Rachni worlds to blow up space ports and critical infrastructure with heavy orbital support

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PoptartProdigy said:

Additionally, this new and expanded Corps will have the strength to lend orbit-to-surface support of ground operations as elite paratroopers, and will be responsible for clearing hostile void installations without army support.

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This is what the mid option does. Sadly the heavy orbital support will only occur in an actual assault. Raiding will almost never generate heavy orbital presence. The raiders are going to fly in, shoot stuff in orbit and potentially drop marines (odst anyone?) And fly out. Returning later to grab them all again. The heavy marine option requires us to create ships specifically for troop transport and landing, which would require a full fleet to defend the landing if we want a large presence.

Zenbeast said:

This is what the mid option does. Sadly the heavy orbital support will only occur in an actual assault. Raiding will almost never generate heavy orbital presence. The raiders are going to fly in, shoot stuff in orbit and potentially drop marines (odst anyone?) And fly out. Returning later to grab them all again. The heavy marine option requires us to create ships specifically for troop transport and landing, which would require a full fleet to defend the landing if we want a large presence.

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Not really. Frigates can land on worlds. So the main marine ship would be a planetary assault frigate that can also help in boarding. And probably a modified heavy cruiser that has ground support options with the aforementioned ODST option if we crit.

One thing to remember is that the marine contingent will be vastly smaller with a raiding feet and thus compensating with the greater marine numbers in availability and yes new ship design imediately.

Aandoing the marines on the planet is imho a bad idea. I see it more like the assault frigates go to the surface, provide firesuport and drop the crazy murderous cargo. They try to superficially penetrate the tunnels to the first or second level, plonk a nuke and then get the fuck out, back to the frigates that retreat with the fleet.

The marine contingent would raid the world while the fleet raids the space and keeps the garrisoning fleet occupied, or it has already defeated it and is providing orbital support.

When the fleet leaves the system, they leave all -raiders and marines- because leaving paratrooper analogues on a Rachni world without fleet support or worse with only a Ranchi fleet is a bad idea.

Imho marines can only be expected to accompany and meaningfully engage in raiding only with the maximum marine option as the marine ship design pretty much allows them the option to go for a Assault frigate and they can pull a ME 1 Normandy MAKO drop, but as a dedicated ship for that probably drop four or five of them and some one hundred marines or more, while it also manages to provide heavy gun support and when necessary board the troops immediately and get out of the atmosphere and FTL away with the fleet.

If there was a need for krogans to meaningfully damage rwchni worlds then if we want to raid them we want numerous, elite and well supported by dedicatd ships combatants. Paratroopers are light infantry and that is not something you want stranded on rachni worlds if a rachni counter raiding fleet jumps in system.

I want them to be close to a FTL option and be able to insert and extract as the raiding fleet engages, and have the manpower and firepower to do serious damage in that short timeframe.

If we going raiding and want to truly torch everything we can get that might help support a Ranchi fleet operation then we need to also raid the planets and if we have to raid the planets then imho we best do it right, with people trained to assault the shit out of them, be as heavily armed and armoured as possible to have a decent chance of surviving the odd warrior strains they might encounter in their short time on the planet and able to leave immediately and not in need of a shuttle ride that not only makes them vulnerable to be left behind but also keeps the fleet busy with embarking said marines.

[X][FLEET] Many Fleets. Smaller fleets will struggle to address determined resistance and force you to bring in reinforcements from other fleets, but can be produced in greater numbers, allowing you to more reliably cover ground.
[X][DOCTRINE] Retain Territory Defense Doctrine. Ultimately, Virmire remains a world with its back against the wall, and any offensives you make must be made only once you are sure of your position. Turtle up, and turtle harder. Make your space a brick wall, against which the Rachni might break themselves. You will serve the larger struggle with the forces the Rachni must devote to bottling you up. Will not cost additional resources to implement.
[X][MARINES] Grant Tannuvael's request. Now that the fight is moving beyond your space, there is a need for an elite, navy-integrated ground force responsible for void-borne operations. Will require an eventual fleet-wide refit.

[X][FLEET] Many Fleets. Smaller fleets will struggle to address determined resistance and force you to bring in reinforcements from other fleets, but can be produced in greater numbers, allowing you to more reliably cover ground.

[X][DOCTRINE] Adopt Raiding Doctrine. Virmire faces a situation outside the planning of conventional military thinkers, and thus it is only fitting that you adopt a doctrine designed by Virmireans. You cannot hope to face the Rachni in the open once they truly turn their focus to you. Instead focus on slipping through their lines and striking at their rear, wreaking havoc and forcing them to split their focus a thousand ways. The chaos you leave in your wake will be your contribution to the struggle.

[X][MARINES] Completely reform the marines, making them a massive, elite force capable of striking any target from space without army support. Will require immediate production of dedicated vessels and a navy-wide refit.

[X][FLEET] Many Fleets. Smaller fleets will struggle to address determined resistance and force you to bring in reinforcements from other fleets, but can be produced in greater numbers, allowing you to more reliably cover ground.
[X][DOCTRINE] Retain Territory Defense Doctrine. Ultimately, Virmire remains a world with its back against the wall, and any offensives you make must be made only once you are sure of your position. Turtle up, and turtle harder. Make your space a brick wall, against which the Rachni might break themselves. You will serve the larger struggle with the forces the Rachni must devote to bottling you up. Will not cost additional resources to implement.
[X][MARINES] Grant Tannuvael's request. Now that the fight is moving beyond your space, there is a need for an elite, navy-integrated ground force responsible for void-borne operations. Will require an eventual fleet-wide refit.

[X][FLEET] Many Fleets. Smaller fleets will struggle to address determined resistance and force you to bring in reinforcements from other fleets, but can be produced in greater numbers, allowing you to more reliably cover ground.

[X][DOCTRINE] Adopt Raiding Doctrine. Virmire faces a situation outside the planning of conventional military thinkers, and thus it is only fitting that you adopt a doctrine designed by Virmireans. You cannot hope to face the Rachni in the open once they truly turn their focus to you. Instead focus on slipping through their lines and striking at their rear, wreaking havoc and forcing them to split their focus a thousand ways. The chaos you leave in your wake will be your contribution to the struggle.

[X][MARINES] Completely reform the marines, making them a massive, elite force capable of striking any target from space without army support. Will require immediate production of dedicated vessels and a navy-wide refit.

[X][FLEET] Many Fleets. Smaller fleets will struggle to address determined resistance and force you to bring in reinforcements from other fleets, but can be produced in greater numbers, allowing you to more reliably cover ground.
[X][DOCTRINE] Retain Territory Defense Doctrine. Ultimately, Virmire remains a world with its back against the wall, and any offensives you make must be made only once you are sure of your position. Turtle up, and turtle harder. Make your space a brick wall, against which the Rachni might break themselves. You will serve the larger struggle with the forces the Rachni must devote to bottling you up. Will not cost additional resources to implement.
[X][MARINES] Grant Tannuvael's request. Now that the fight is moving beyond your space, there is a need for an elite, navy-integrated ground force responsible for void-borne operations. Will require an eventual fleet-wide refit.

These i support, no ground breaking changes needed as we are slowly building our current colonies. I think our bond is due this or next turn?

VoidZero said:

I think our bond is due this or next turn?

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The bond is due turn 17, so in 5 turns, and we are already putting aside the necessary credits out of our per turn income to pay for it. You can basically forget it exists unless something seriously major comes up that we need credits for, and even trading on the next turn income isn't enough. (really, really unlikely IMO)

[X][FLEET] Many Fleets. Smaller fleets will struggle to address determined resistance and force you to bring in reinforcements from other fleets, but can be produced in greater numbers, allowing you to more reliably cover ground.
[X][DOCTRINE] Retain Territory Defense Doctrine. Ultimately, Virmire remains a world with its back against the wall, and any offensives you make must be made only once you are sure of your position. Turtle up, and turtle harder. Make your space a brick wall, against which the Rachni might break themselves. You will serve the larger struggle with the forces the Rachni must devote to bottling you up. Will not cost additional resources to implement.
[X][MARINES] Grant Tannuvael's request. Now that the fight is moving beyond your space, there is a need for an elite, navy-integrated ground force responsible for void-borne operations. Will require an eventual fleet-wide refit.

[X][FLEET] Many Fleets. Smaller fleets will struggle to address determined resistance and force you to bring in reinforcements from other fleets, but can be produced in greater numbers, allowing you to more reliably cover ground.

[X][DOCTRINE] Adopt Raiding Doctrine. Virmire faces a situation outside the planning of conventional military thinkers, and thus it is only fitting that you adopt a doctrine designed by Virmireans. You cannot hope to face the Rachni in the open once they truly turn their focus to you. Instead focus on slipping through their lines and striking at their rear, wreaking havoc and forcing them to split their focus a thousand ways. The chaos you leave in your wake will be your contribution to the struggle.

[X][MARINES] Completely reform the marines, making them a massive, elite force capable of striking any target from space without army support. Will require immediate production of dedicated vessels and a navy-wide refit.

[X][FLEET] Many Fleets. Smaller fleets will struggle to address determined resistance and force you to bring in reinforcements from other fleets, but can be produced in greater numbers, allowing you to more reliably cover ground.

[X][DOCTRINE] Adopt Raiding Doctrine. Virmire faces a situation outside the planning of conventional military thinkers, and thus it is only fitting that you adopt a doctrine designed by Virmireans. You cannot hope to face the Rachni in the open once they truly turn their focus to you. Instead focus on slipping through their lines and striking at their rear, wreaking havoc and forcing them to split their focus a thousand ways. The chaos you leave in your wake will be your contribution to the struggle.

[x][MARINES] Grant Tannuvael's request.

Honestly focusing on the defence is not enough though I'm not fully sold on the Marines right now
edit changed Marines vote since I missed the it was by task

[x][FLEET] Many Fleets.
[x][DOCTRINE] Adopt Raiding Doctrine.
[x][MARINES] Grant Tannuvael's request.

[X][FLEET] Large Fleets. Large fleets will be able to secure their zones of responsibility with greater ease, but given the administrative difficulties in spreading them out across multiple clusters, and the inescapable fact that you'll be able to afford fewer, you will be able to cover less ground.
[X][DOCTRINE] Retain Territory Defense Doctrine. Ultimately, Virmire remains a world with its back against the wall, and any offensives you make must be made only once you are sure of your position. Turtle up, and turtle harder. Make your space a brick wall, against which the Rachni might break themselves. You will serve the larger struggle with the forces the Rachni must devote to bottling you up. Will not cost additional resources to implement.
[X][MARINES] Grant Tannuvael's request. Now that the fight is moving beyond your space, there is a need for an elite, navy-integrated ground force responsible for void-borne operations. Will require an eventual fleet-wide refit.

Large fleet so we have a concentrated defense at the relay leading into Attican Beta from the other 4 Prime Relays under Rachini control. No point in spreading ourselves out thin to the point they can overwhelm us and punch through. Control of the prime relay will make or break our defense efforts as we occupy a planet around the Prime Relay for Sentry Omega. Spreading out only invites defeat in detail. Also for Retain Defense, Attican Beta is connected to four Rachini controlled Prime Relays so we can expect attacks from more than one direction. I see it being difficult to raid into all four (three if you discount the cutoff Kepler Verge). We guess wrong on where their fleet aiming to take back Attican Beta is and it leaves the infrastructure to support their strike untouched while also grinding our fleet down against their garrison in one or more of the other prime relays.