To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

Briefvoice · Apr 14, 2018

brmj said:
@Briefvoice, what's your justification for reinforcing Boldly and Forward? I would say if anything we should be weakening them, and certainly moving those diplo attachments from Forward to Peace or Royal.

I only tossed one extra cruiser Boldly's way. That's nothing. And Forward is in a very dangerous position where combat is expected.

065tdsa said:
Aside from that, Breen versus Gorn is plain hard, but I'm inclined to move the task force on the Trill to the Gorn because if the Gorn-Ittik-ka war happens the Trill will be stuck in it anyways. It'll still need more ships but it's something to start with.

You can't actually do that. The Trill Task Force (Forward) is mostly made up of member ships from the STO donated for this specific task. They will refuse to leave until the task is done. They can't be put elsewhere.

Simon_Jester · Apr 14, 2018

@Briefvoice :

I like your plan, it does a good job of weaving in the 'crap we need more ships' element. I would like to make one suggestion, and one request.

1) Can we name the task force that's working on the Licori-Laio-Alliance War "Task Force Unity" instead of "Task Force Peace?" I just like it more for some reason, if you don't mind. And if the Harmony is behind this it's thematically appropriate, because they're probably trying to deliberately sow disunity and take advantage. Besides, I suggested a name for that task force first.

2) We may want to give up on Ashtarr for this year. He's good, but I'm not sure he's 10pp worth of goodness (that is, half a diplomatic push) in a year where we've got such a big lump sum of PP being devoted to upscaling our task forces.

065tdsa said:
More member world ships are a must in this time. As for where we should lose I'm thinking just abandon Task Force Beyond's struggle against the Harmony in the straight diplo front and dedicate it to preventing the war. After all the war is being caused by the Harmony so if they get to the bottom of things we'll probably come out ahead.

Uh... I wouldn't bet on that. Plus, the Harmony is 'pushing' species who are not affected directly by this war. Leaving the Harmony with an unopposed opportunity to crank up their "Harmony Influence" levels for a year could set us back by quite a bit, especially since it sounds like they're going to be reinforcing their own quite sizeable task force.

Aside from that, Breen versus Gorn is plain hard, but I'm inclined to move the task force on the Trill to the Gorn because if the Gorn-Ittik-ka war happens the Trill will be stuck in it anyways. It'll still need more ships but it's something to start with.

The Gorn-Ittick-ka war almost certainly isn't going to happen for years. IF we spend more PP on ships as Briefvoice is doing, we can afford to have task forces on both the Breen and the Gorn.

In summary, jettison every task force that isn't essential, and add more ships.

I'm not sure it makes sense to jettison things that are important for the sake of having 25 ships working on the 'critical' missions instead of, say, twelve. There's such a thing as diminishing returns.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
[] Briefvoice

I know people think we should be weakening task forces but this is what we need. Forest for the trees and all that, we need to keep pressure up on all fronts if doing so is feasible.

Honestly, I haven't seen a lot of advocacy for weakening task forces. Some, but not a lot. The biggest problem was "which way do we expand them?"

065tdsa · Apr 14, 2018

Briefvoice said:
You can't actually do that. The Trill Task Force (Forward) is mostly made up of member ships from the STO donated for this specific task. They will refuse to leave until the task is done. They can't be put elsewhere.

They do realize if the Gorn and the Ittick-ka start shooting each other the task force will end up stuck in that mess? I mean seriously here, what do they want to achieve there that's more important than keeping that entire piece of the galaxy not on fire?

Briefvoice · Apr 14, 2018

Simon_Jester said:
@Briefvoice :

I like your plan, it does a good job of weaving in the 'crap we need more ships' element. I would like to make one suggestion, and one request.

1) Can we name the task force that's working on the Licori-Laio-Alliance War "Task Force Unity" instead of "Task Force Peace?" I just like it more for some reason, if you don't mind. And if the Harmony is behind this it's thematically appropriate, because they're probably trying to deliberately sow disunity and take advantage. Besides, I suggested a name for that task force first.

Oh, all right. I will rename.

2) We may want to give up on Ashtarr for this year. He's good, but I'm not sure he's 10pp worth of goodness (that is, half a diplomatic push) in a year where we've got such a big lump sum of PP being devoted to upscaling our task forces.

What's everyone else's opinions?

Uh... I wouldn't bet on that. Plus, the Harmony is 'pushing' species who are not affected directly by this war. Leaving the Harmony with an unopposed opportunity to crank up their "Harmony Influence" levels for a year could set us back by quite a bit, especially since it sounds like they're going to be reinforcing their own quite sizeable task force.

We may well lose ground to Harmony this year, but at least we won't lose all the ground.

charysa · Apr 14, 2018

Briefvoice said:
Langa Mbeki: 5 pp per year. Effect: +2 to the lowest diplomatic roll each quarter - 5pp [FORWARD]

What are your thoughts of moving Mbeki to one of the other TFs like someone suggested earlier? To reinforce Beyond, or Royal, or Peace, are all candidates.

[NEW] Task Force: Peace (Stop coreward war.)

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

...
2323.Q1 Ships:
Explorers: 3 or 4 Starfleet Excelsior-As: [Rru'adorr (B), Pleezirra (B), Lakota] + Opportunity if if is out of the EC

If you're going to assign Opportunity to the PEACE task force, why take it out of the EC since there's an option to assign an EC ship to that TF? I mean, leaving it in the EC lets us pick the captain and keep the blooded rating.

brmj · Apr 14, 2018

Briefvoice said:
I only tossed one extra cruiser Boldly's way. That's nothing. And Forward is in a very dangerous position where combat is expected.

It's a cruiser we could put somewhere more important, like Peace, Royal, Beyond or even a hypothetical Dreamer task force. And Forward is certainly dangerous, but also of minimal importance and using up two very nice diplomacy attachments that could be better used elsewhere.

Simon_Jester · Apr 14, 2018

Briefvoice said:
Oh, all right. I will rename.

Thanks!

We may well lose ground to Harmony this year, but at least we won't lose all the ground.

Yeah, exactly this.

065tdsa said:
They do realize if the Gorn and the Ittick-ka start shooting each other the task force will end up stuck in that mess? I mean seriously here, what do they want to achieve there that's more important than keeping that entire piece of the galaxy not on fire?

They could reasonably point out that keeping the Trill from being conquered by the Hishmeri, the Ittick-ka, the Cardassians, or all of the above is just as important to keeping the galaxy not on fire as whatever other random thing we're fixating on right this minute.

I mean, the Gorn maybe fighting the Ittick-ka in several years' time isn't a Biophage-level threat where you drop literally everything to deal with it. It's a concern, but it's one of several medium to long term concerns on our borders. And remember that the status of Ruby Eyes' Folly, and the Ittick-ka and Hishmeri threats to that system and to the nearby Trill, are among those concerns.

Briefvoice · Apr 14, 2018

charysa said:
If you're going to assign Opportunity to the PEACE task force, why take it out of the EC since there's an option to assign an EC ship to that TF? I mean, leaving it in the EC lets us pick the captain and the blooded rating.

If that's what you want to do, you can vote for that. But we can only assign one EC ship, and for only one of three possible options. I voted to take the Opportunity out of Service to go to UNITY and then assign the Sarek to help in preventing the war on top of that.

brmj said:
It's a cruiser we could put somewhere more important, like Peace, Royal, Beyond or even a hypothetical Dreamer task force. And Forward is certainly dangerous, but also of minimal importance and using up two very nice diplomacy attachments that could be better used elsewhere.

There are lots of important places. However, I am open to the argument about assigning Mbeki elsewhere if more people chime in saying that is a good idea.

Forgothrax · Apr 14, 2018

Briefvoice said:
What's everyone else's opinions?

He's 5 points per quarter or 20 per year. Our pushes average in the high 20s. I can understand cutting him but he is cheaper than a push for similar effect.

SynchronizedWritersBlock · Apr 14, 2018

Forgothrax said:
He's 5 points per quarter or 20 per year. Our pushes average in the high 20s. I can understand cutting him but he is cheaper than a push for similar effect.

You're thinking of someone else. Ashtarr is +2 to a Gorn diplo roll each quarter. I would agree (@Briefvoice) that Ashtarr isn't quite worth 10pp when we might have to shave 1-2 pushes this year if we're not lucky, in a year where we desperately need all five pushes.

Glassware · Apr 14, 2018

Briefvoice said:
There are lots of important places. However, I am open to the argument about assigning Mbeki elsewhere if more people chime in saying that is a good idea.

I think it'd make the most sense to move him to Royal. Really try to stack the boosts to diplomatic rolls.

Redhead222 · Apr 14, 2018

@Briefvoice
question? your plan is too remove a explorer for a TF but then looking at your TF i do not see that explorer?

personally i say let is explore.
also is there anyway the lower that amount of ships because a 100pp investment is hell of painfull right now

065tdsa · Apr 14, 2018

Simon_Jester said:
They could reasonably point out that keeping the Trill from being conquered by the Hishmeri, the Ittick-ka, the Cardassians, or all of the above is just as important to keeping the galaxy not on fire as whatever other random thing we're fixating on right this minute.

I mean, the Gorn maybe fighting the Ittick-ka in several years' time isn't a Biophage-level threat where you drop literally everything to deal with it. It's a concern, but it's one of several medium to long term concerns on our borders. And remember that the status of Ruby Eyes' Folly, and the Ittick-ka and Hishmeri threats to that system and to the nearby Trill, are among those concerns.

Which is nice, caring for the Trill. Except we have bigger fish to fry now. The task force was nice when we had comparatively few things to do, but now it's exactly the one task force I'd say without hesitation we should cut, the only one we can cut to reinforce something else without something very bad happening.

Even if manage to cover everything against the Breen, the Cardassians working on the Gorn and the Harmony both overtly and covertly, and have plenty of ships in those task forces so we can win handily, I'd still rather have an Ittick-ka task force than this task force.

SynchronizedWritersBlock · Apr 14, 2018

Redhead222 said:
@Briefvoice
question? your plan is too remove a explorer for a TF but then looking at your TF i do not see that explorer?

personally i say let is explore.
also is there anyway the lower that amount of ships because a 100pp investment is hell of painfull right now

20pp of that is to maintain the ships we already have. But no, we don't have the ships without investment.

065tdsa said:
Which is nice, caring for the Trill. Except we have bigger fish to fry now. The task force was nice when we had comparatively few things to do, but now it's exactly the one task force I'd say without hesitation we should cut, the only one we can cut to reinforce something else without something very bad happening.

Even if manage to cover everything, I'd still rather have an Ittick-ka task force than this task force.

We were mandated to to the Trill task force by a reaction vote we took to deal with Ruby-Eyes Folly. We can't back out of it now, that's one of the task forces we're locked into.

Simon_Jester · Apr 14, 2018

brmj said:
It's a cruiser we could put somewhere more important, like Peace, Royal, Beyond or even a hypothetical Dreamer task force. And Forward is certainly dangerous, but also of minimal importance and using up two very nice diplomacy attachments that could be better used elsewhere.

Forward is a task force that has almost exclusively science-related missions. It is by far the best place we can put an S6P4D4 ship if we want to make useful progress.

Starfleet's missions include exploration and surveying, and it's okay for us to allocate one more ship to that while at the same time allocating something like a dozen or more ships to diplomatic and defensive missions.

Here is a version of the vote that embraces Briefvoice's deployment choices, except for keeping the Opportunity in the Explorer Corps for one more five-year mission with an eye to sending her to help Task Force Unity prevent the war this year. It also drops Ashtarr to save 10pp, at the cost of not getting a +2 bonus to a single roll with the Gorn each quarter...

[X][EC] Assign a vessel to support attempts to stop the Coreward Border War between the Licori, Laio, and OSA. - Assign the Opportunity
[X][OPPO] Continue as Explorer Corps Ship

[X] [SQUAD] Briefvoice 2323 Garrison Vote
[X] [FLEET] Call up 24 points of ships (100 pp, call up three cargo ships)

[X] [TASK] Briefvoice 2323 Task Force Vote Minus Ashtarr
Task Force: Boldly
-Mission [Explore the Adazzi Gulf]
-Straak - +15 BR/SR on the first resource gain of each quarter
-Attachments:
All Pyllix Geological Institute Team. Cost: Free.
Lt. Sadd-Har's Cadet Field Training Team: 3 pp per year. Effect: Increased experience gain for missions involving S rolls.
Tellar Prime Academy of Mineral Science Team: 10 rp per year. Effect: +5BR or +5SR on the first resource gain each quarter
Henn-Makad Mineral Engineering Institute Team: 10 rp per year. Effect: +2 on the first mapping roll each quarter.
Igata Nikelda: 10 rp per year. Effect: Increased chance of finding resource colony sites.Vulcan Science Academy Science Team. Cost: 10 rp on Purchase, 5 rp per year. Effect: Reroll first failed Science test involving an anomaly per quarter. [BOLDLY]
NEW Vulcan Science Academy Science Team. Cost: 10 rp on Purchase, 5 rp per year. Effect: Reroll first failed Science test involving an anomaly per quarter.

Ships 2323.Q1:

Explorers: 1 Excelsior-A [Excalibur]
Cruisers: NEW 1 Gaeni Tech-Cruiser-A
Frigates: 1 Kepler [Kepler], 1 Miranda-A [Dryad (B)], 1 Oberth [Hawking (B)], 1 Forager (free with mission
Notes: Added Gaeni ship as reinforcements. TF is now 6 ships strong.

[X] [TASK] Task Force: Forward
-Mission: [Discourage attacks on the Trill]
-Pavel Chekov - Nullifies the first 2pts of crew casualties per year, reroll the first failed Away Team Combat each year
-Attachments:
FDS Diplomatic Team. Cost: 5pp on Purchase, 5pp per year. Effect: Reroll first failed Diplomatic Roll each quarter;
Langa Mbeki: 5 pp on purchase, 5 pp per year. Effect: +2 to the lowest diplomatic roll each quarter
NEW Yoyodyne Research Team: 10 rp per year. Enables reroll on first failed D-Test each quarter.
NEW Pallas-Abat Institute Ship Design Team: 20 rp on purchase, 10 rp per year. Effect: Ships in this task force get +1 to shield and hull checks to resist damage. [FORWARD]
NEW Kedaia Naar Institute Doctrine Team: 20 rp on purchase, 10 rp per year. Effect: +1 to the first space combat roll each quarter. [FORWARD]
REMOVED Starfleet Intelligence field team.

-2323.Q1 Ships:

Explorers: 1 Excelsior-A (6) [Thirishar (B)]
Cruisers: STO Audacious [Serene], 2 STO Constrictors, NEW 1 Renaissance [Torch (pa)]
Frigates: 2 STO Arquilla, 1 Amarki Centaur-B, NEW 1 Amarki Anacail
Notes: TF is 9 ships strong.

[NEW] Task Force: Royal (the Gorn Task Force)
-Mission: Resolve [Great Power Ambitions: 75/300] and [Distant Stars: 0/100] tags on Gorn. If a [Cardassian Influence: 0/100] tag emerges, resolve that tag as well.
-Commander: Leaniss Larai - May add one additional member fleet frigate to this task force, separate from other ships called up [adds Amarkian Centaur-B]
-Attachments:

Free FDS Diplomatic Team attachment. Effect: Reroll first failed Diplomatic Roll each quarter;

-2323.Q1 Ships:

Explorers: 1 Starfleet Excelsior-A [Avandar (B)], 1 Amarkian Riala-A [Riala]
Cruisers: 2 Rigellian Turtleships, 2 Starfleet Renaissances (new construction in Q2)
Frigates: 1 Amarkian Centaur-B, 2 Tellarite Centaur-B
Notes: TF is 7 ships strong, growing to 9 with the arrival of reinforcements in Q2

[NEW] Task Force: Unity (Stop coreward war.)
-Mission: Mission: Resolve [Corps are Lying to Us 0/100] tag on OSA, [On the Brink of War N/A] tags on OSA, Licori and Laio.
-Commander: Rear Admiral Michel Thuir - Reroll first event failure each quarter
-Attachments:

Free FDS Diplomatic Team attachment. Effect: Reroll first failed Diplomatic Roll each quarter;
Ambassador Sarek: 5 pp per year. Effect: Reroll the first failed diplomatic roll each quarter; add +1 to the reroll. - 5pp [PEACE]
Ambassador Nikael Dalera: 8 pp on purchase, 5 pp per year. Effect: Double progress on the first passed Diplomatic event each quarter. = 8pp [PEACE]

2323.Q1 Ships:
Explorers: 3 or 4 Starfleet Excelsior-As: [Rru'adorr (B), Pleezirra (B), Lakota]
Cruisers: 1 Orion Nelhiar Savings & Loan Enforcer Cruisers [Nelhiar's Honor]
Frigates: 1 Vulcan Centaur-B, 4 Betazoid Centaur-B, 1 Caldonian Centaur-B, 1 Andorian Centaur-B, 1 Starfleet Centaur-B [Zephyr (B)], 3 Molhane Patrol Escorts (in Q2 add 1 Centaur-A [Gale (B))
Notes: 15 Ships, then +1 in Q2.

[X][BREEN] Breen Task Force
Mission: To carry out the opening stages of the reconnaissance response to the Breen, including monitoring the movements of their warfleet, reinforcements from the Breen core worlds, and communications surveillance, a separate task force is required.
Commander: Diego Zaardmani - +1S on Flagship, Re-roll first failed Science check each year
Attachments: Hallad-Wel Institute Computing Team: 10 rp on purchase, 8 rp per year. Effect: Reroll the first failed Science test of this task force each quarter, but at -1 to the roll.
2323.Q1 Ships:
Cruisers: 1 Starfleet Constellation-A [Stalwart (B)], 1 Gaeni Tech-Cruiser-A
Frigates: 2 Starfleet Oberths [Inspire, T'Mir (V)], 1 Starfleet Centaur-B [Yukikaze (B)]
SFI Ships: SS Rocinante, SFI Ship, Capable of Signal Intercepts, SS Winter, SFI Ship, Capable of Signal Intercepts

Glassware · Apr 14, 2018

Simon_Jester said:
Here is a version of the vote that embraces Briefvoice's deployment choices, except for keeping the Opportunity in the Explorer Corps for one more five-year mission with an eye to sending her to help Task Force Unity prevent the war this year.

For goodness sakes, why? Opportunity is a Green Excelsior-A. I sincerely doubt that she can actually survive another five-year mission, and assigning her to the task force is basically giving them the worst of our Explorer Corps ships-doesn't averting a war between our affiliates deserve our best?

chriswriter90 · Apr 14, 2018

Briefvoice said:
Sydraxian Border Zone – Requires D11 (Supports Apinae, Amarkia, Tellar, Sol, and Rigel sectors)

Homeworlds/Major Worlds in sector: 2 major worlds (Vega, Klivvar Proxima)

2323.Q1 - 3 Renaissance (15) [Enlightenment, Suffrage, Concord], 1 Centaur-B (5) [Winterwind (B)], Starbase I (7) [Vega] = 27D

You think we could get away with pulling Winterwind or one of the Rennies?

Simon_Jester · Apr 14, 2018

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
20pp of that is to maintain the ships we already have. But no, we don't have the ships without investment.

Yeah; we'd definitely have had to either give up a task force to the Gorn, or greatly nerf our forces in multiple other areas (sector garrisoning, TF Boldly, or multiple other task forces throughout our space) without spending the extra pp.

Briefvoice · Apr 14, 2018

Redhead222 said:
@Briefvoice
question? your plan is too remove a explorer for a TF but then looking at your TF i do not see that explorer?

It's in Task Force Unity.

personally i say let is explore.

Then vote to keep it in the EC. That is a separate vote, so you can do that without interfering in anything else.

also is there anyway the lower that amount of ships because a 100pp investment is hell of painfull right now

....

If we dropped the Riala from the Gorn Task Force, 1 of the Turtleships from the Gorn TF, dropped the Apiata Little Queenship and its two Stingers from the anti-war task force, dropped the Gaeni Tech-Cruiser-A from Boldly, dropped the two Amarkian frigates from Forward, and dropped two more member frigates, then we could get down to 16 points. I will post a plan for that if people want it.

Nervos Belli · Apr 14, 2018

If I can make a small suggestion, both the RBZ and KBZ seem overstuffed with ships to me. An explorer, two modern cruisers and a frigate made perfect sense during the war, but now that it's over, I think we could safely remove a Rennie from at least the KBZ, though with the Breen war it might be safer to keep the RBZ strong. I know they aren't the best ships for passing events but it could provide some extra firepower for Chekov or help Unity if things go pear-shaped. Not a major change, but it might help out.

Edit: It might also help convince the Klingons we aren't planning to attack them, if they are worried about that. Though I suppose they could also take it as an insult. Hard to say with Klingons.

Simon_Jester · Apr 14, 2018

Glassware said:
For goodness sakes, why? Opportunity is a Green Excelsior-A. I sincerely doubt that she can actually survive another five-year mission, and assigning her to the task force is basically giving them the worst of our Explorer Corps ships-doesn't averting a war between our affiliates deserve our best?

The master list appears to rate Opportunity as Blooded. Incidentally, Explorer Corps ships almost always hit Blooded on their first five-year mission, because the threshold to do so is somewhere in the neighborhood of ten events.

chriswriter90 said:
You think we could get away with pulling Winterwind or one of the Rennies?

The problem is that, as you quoted, the SBZ reinforces like five sectors and is in some cases their only source of outside support. Any ship removed from the SBZ is almost certainly going to cost us later on in terms of events not responded to in, oh, say, Tellar Sector.

charysa · Apr 14, 2018

Briefvoice said:
There are lots of important places. However, I am open to the argument about assigning Mbeki elsewhere if more people chime in saying that is a good idea.

Maybe move Mbeki to replace Ashtarr's spot?

Simon_Jester said:
[X] [TASK] Briefvoice 2323 Task Force Vote Minus Ashtarr

I think your formatting here only replaces the vote for TF Beyond and not the actual contents of TF Royal when it comes out the tally tool...

Simon_Jester · Apr 14, 2018

I'm not going to lie, I have no clue how to format those massive "TASK" votes.

Glassware · Apr 14, 2018

[X] Briefvoice

Simon_Jester said:
The master list appears to rate Opportunity as Blooded. Incidentally, Explorer Corps ships almost always hit Blooded on their first five-year mission, because the threshold to do so is somewhere in the neighborhood of ten events.

That doesn't answer my question of why you're giving them the dregs of our explorer corps, or why you're keeping Opportunity in the EC even though rising event difficulties will likely see to it she doesn't survive her next five-year mission. Aren't we supposed to begin rotating out the Excelsior-A's barring Veteran and Elite ships?

Nervos Belli · Apr 14, 2018

Briefvoice said:
If that's what you want to do, you can vote for that. But we can only assign one EC ship, and for only one of three possible options. I voted to take the Opportunity out of Service to go to UNITY and then assign the Sarek to help in preventing the war on top of that.

There are lots of important places. However, I am open to the argument about assigning Mbeki elsewhere if more people chime in saying that is a good idea.

I'd be in favor of moving Mbeki. Diplomacy is only a secondary priority for his task force, and we're nearly through with the Aloof tag anyways. To be honest, I suspect that when we finish the deter attacks tag we'll get a relations boost like with the Goo TF that will push the Trill to affiliate anyways. And if I'm wrong, they are still only one push away.

To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

Not Going Gently

Don't think this means you've won!

Don't think this means you've won!