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A Different Breed (Warhammer 29K)

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Magnificate said:
Is this something that can be done now? If not, just the part when we grab our guys and drive them to behind-the-lines hospitals could work.

BTW, are these holo-fields the sort that make you invisible or can they "display" images? Can we do some sort of decoy drones with them? Our enemies are more numerous than us, sometimes significantly so. No reason not to give them extra targets to shoot at.
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Have a QM post on them:
Mechanis said:
Holo-fields are holo-fields, regardless of scale---that is why they're a binary "have one or don't" type choice---the difference in scale is more in the area effected/how far away they can create believable illusions than in how "good" the protection is. An infantry holo-field might only be able to displace an image a couple of meters, but that's plenty to make a shot from most weapons miss by a proverbial mile; one covering a 15 kilometer Voidship is probably able to displace an image a few tens of kilometers at "good enough to fool advanced sensors" effectiveness but despite the scale difference it's still fundamentally the same trick, for example.

Holo-fields are "you can't hit me, because I'm invisible, surrounded by illusuary smoke, and there are a half a dozen illusion clones your sensors can't tell apart from the real thing scattered over the nearby area." Or "you can't hit me, because I'm surrounded by flashing lights that are confusing your targeting system, swarming clones that are all merging and passing through eachother, and also I'm four feet from the edge of the mass and invisible" type shenanigans.


Edit: essentially, if you can think of a way to make it difficult to impossible to hit you with an incoporial---but otherwise convincing---illusion over an area generally around 2-5 times the sphere-volume you occupy, then a Holo-Field can do that. It's like having your own pocket Bastard Illusion Mage trying to keep you from getting shot, and yes it is exactly as frustrating and nightmarish to fight against as that description implies.
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Answer is they can do a lot and a nightmare to fight against.
They can do high grade stealth, but also just fuck a lot with what they are seeing or not see.

Different weapon load out on a vehicle yeah, look like a completely different vehicles yes, if the vehicles aren't too much larger.

Be offset from your actual position -> off to the side or closer/further away than you actually are etc.

Correct usage of them make you the nightmare of pretty much all military units, that can't somehow break through the sensor fuckery.
 
Magnificate said:
Is this something that can be done now? If not, just the part when we grab our guys and drive them to behind-the-lines hospitals could work.
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It's not something we have an option for, at this point, BUT we have some biomancers (a race of universal psykers...) and we have a facility to train psykers.
In theory, if Mechanis approves of the concept, there's nothing stopping us from starting it now.

In practice, Seer AP are too valuable and we've already locked 3 of them training Warcasters.

Magnificate said:
BTW, are these holo-fields the sort that make you invisible or can they "display" images? Can we do some sort of decoy drones with them? Our enemies are more numerous than us, sometimes significantly so. No reason not to give them extra targets to shoot at.
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This is what mechanis said about holo fields
Mechanis said:
Holo-fields are holo-fields, regardless of scale---that is why they're a binary "have one or don't" type choice---the difference in scale is more in the area effected/how far away they can create believable illusions than in how "good" the protection is. An infantry holo-field might only be able to displace an image a couple of meters, but that's plenty to make a shot from most weapons miss by a proverbial mile; one covering a 15 kilometer Voidship is probably able to displace an image a few tens of kilometers at "good enough to fool advanced sensors" effectiveness but despite the scale difference it's still fundamentally the same trick, for example.

Holo-fields are "you can't hit me, because I'm invisible, surrounded by illusuary smoke, and there are a half a dozen illusion clones your sensors can't tell apart from the real thing scattered over the nearby area." Or "you can't hit me, because I'm surrounded by flashing lights that are confusing your targeting system, swarming clones that are all merging and passing through eachother, and also I'm four feet from the edge of the mass and invisible" type shenanigans.


Edit: essentially, if you can think of a way to make it difficult to impossible to hit you with an incoporial---but otherwise convincing---illusion over an area generally around 2-5 times the sphere-volume you occupy, then a Holo-Field can do that. It's like having your own pocket Bastard Illusion Mage trying to keep you from getting shot, and yes it is exactly as frustrating and nightmarish to fight against as that description implies.
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[X] "Vaul's Anvil" Superheavy Grav-Tank (Revamped)
[X] "Forgehammer" Main Battle Tank (Max slots)
[X] "Chisel" Fast Assault Jetbike (Bright Talon Refit)
 
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If their anything to actually Breakout the cheque book for, its our superheavy. It going to need to be fighting the top of the peak for otherraces and faction, and its the only unit we can currently field that will be able to fufill it operational niche. When we deploy one, we NEED it to be as effective as possible, Befcause if we scimp, and it Fails to actually Anwser the enemies own deployed superheavy/Superheavy'S, It has failed in its niche as was a waste of EP anyway, and leads to losing hundreds of other troops and vehicles.


The way I see it, Everything else can be made Nice and cheap, Efficient and economical, But if their is one thing that actually DOES need to break the bank, Its the Thung that will be expected to fight Full blown Gargants and stompas and win, because If it DOESN't win, Not only have we lost a 400-600 EP platform, Those stompa's and Gargants are going to Stompa all over the rest of the force.
Scimping on weaponry on our superheavy anwser is a hell of a good way to lose the forces it deployed beside, It and the battle. we are currently making a Glass cannon of a superheavy because its basically the baneblade equivalent of a Hylux, If we scrimp on the cannon part of it, we just fielded Glass.
 
Mithrill said:
[X] "Forgehammer" Main Battle Tank (Max slots)
-[X] Light Grav-Vehicle Chassis
-[X] 1x Starlance (Vehicle Slot)
-[X] 1x Spike Cannon, 1x Heavy Needler (Heavy Slot)
-[X] Vehicle Holo-Field
-[X] 2x Vehicle Grav-Shield
-[X] Convert 4 System Slots -> 1 Heavy + 1 Ranged Slot
-[X] 1x Starcarver (Heavy Slot)
-[X] 1x Needler Rifle (Regular Slot)
-[X] (Crew Equipment), Void Guard Armour, Spike Rifle, CCW Knife.

[X] "Chisel" Fast Assault Skimmer
-[X] Skimmer Chassis
-[X] 1x Starcarver, 1x Fatecaster Rifle (Heavy Slot).
-[X] 2x Needler Rifles (Ranged Slot)
-[X] 1x Vehicle Holo-Field
-[X] Convert 3 System Slots -> 1 Heavy Slot.
-[X] (Crew Equipment) Void Guard Armour, Flamer Pistol + CCW

[ ] Suncleave Heavy Tank

I hope no one has trouble with me breaking up a plan like this, but I prefer Suncleave for a Titan killer over Anvil. I'm just waiting for the author to post finalized design before marking.
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Appreciate the support, designs finalized.

But yeah, if you want a dedicated Titan killer the Starblade is much better than a superheavy Starlance. Even when twin-linked I doubt the Starlance will be be anywhere near as killy as even a single Starblade given that the Starblade is straight up overkill vs Scout Titan equivalents and we know the Orks have Battle-Titan equivalents.

The Starblade's lower ROF is probably a bit overblown too since the description only says that it sacrifices the "majority of its refire speed for even greater power", not all of it. Given that it is being compared to the Starlance in this case and the Starlance fires 4-5 times as fast as their las counterparts the Starlance probably isn't that much slower if not comparable to a Turbolaser in terms of ROF.

I would also caution against assuming that the Fatesheer would be comparable to a Starblade Vs Orks. Ork Titans will likely have Power Fields which judging by the description are probably Conversion Field type shields. Given the fact that Fatesheer's are only capable of one-shotting Knights vs Starblades being capable of overkilling Scout Titans the Fatesheer definitely wins out Vs foes that don't rely on Holo-fields.

[X] Suncleave Heavy Tank (796EP 66SC 6PS 30 System Slots)
-[X] Heavy Grav-Vehicle
-[X] Slots: 22 System Slots Converted
--[X] 6 Heavy Weapon Slots (18 System Slots)
--[X] 1 Ranged Weapon Slot (1 System Slot)
--[X] Vehicle Holo-Field x1, Vehicle Grav-Shield x2 (108 EP) (11 System Slots)
-[X] Weapons:
--[X] Superheavy: 1 Starblade (400 EP 50SC)
--[X] Vehicle: 2 Fatesever Cannon (120EP 4PS)
--[X] Heavy: 2 Starcarver, 2 Fatecaster Rifle, 4 Heavy Needlers (150EP 16SC 2PS)
--[X] Ranged: 3 Needler Rifles (18EP)

[X] Sunslayer Heavy Tank (933EP 100SC 2PS 30 System Slots)
-[X] Heavy Grav-Vehicle
-[X] Trade
--[X] 2 Vehicle Weapon slots for System Slots (+8 System Slots)
--[X] 1 Heavy Weapon slot for System Slots (+2 System Slots)
--[X] 2 Ranged Weapon slots for System Slot (+1 System Slot)
-[X] Slots: 30 System Slots Converted
--[X] 1 Superheavy Weapon Slots (30 System Slots)
--[X] Vehicle Holo-Field x1, Vehicle Grav-Shield x2 (108 EP) (11 System Slots)
-[X] Weapons:
--[X] Superheavy: 2 Starblades (800 EP 100SC)
--[X] Heavy: 1 Fatecaster Rifle (25EP 1PS)
 
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LOLROFL said:
Appreciate the support, designs finalized.

But yeah, if you want a dedicated Titan killer the Starblade is much better than a superheavy Starlance. Even when twin-linked I doubt the Starlance will be be anywhere near as killy as even a single Starblade given that the Starblade is straight up overkill vs Scout Titan equivalents and we know the Orks have Battle-Titan equivalents.

The Starblade's lower ROF is probably a bit overblown too since the description only says that it sacrifices the "majority of its refire speed for even greater power", not all of it. Given that it is being compared to the Starlance in this case and the Starlance fires 4-5 times as fast as their las counterparts the Starlance probably isn't that much slower if not comparable to a Turbolaser in terms of ROF.

I would also caution against assuming that the Fatesheer would be comparable to a Starblade Vs Orks. Ork Titans will likely have Power Fields which judging by the description are probably Conversion Field type shields. Given the fact that Fatesheer's are only capable of one-shotting Knights vs Starblades being capable of overkilling Scout Titans the Fatesheer definitely wins out Vs foes that don't rely on Holo-fields.

[X] Suncleave Heavy Tank (826EP 74SC 6PS 30 System Slots)
-[X] Heavy Grav-Vehicle
-[X] Slots: 22 System Slots Converted
--[X] 7 Heavy Weapon Slots (21 System Slots)
--[X] 1 Ranged Weapon Slot (1 System Slot)
--[X] Vehicle Holo-Field x1, Vehicle Grav-Shield x3 (108 EP) (8 System Slots)
-[X] Weapons:
--[X] Superheavy: 1 Starblade (400 EP 50SC)
--[X] Vehicle: 2 Fatesever Cannon (120EP 4PS)
--[X] Heavy: 3 Starcarver, 2 Fatecaster Rifle, 4 Heavy Needlers (180EP 24SC 2PS)
--[X] Ranged: 3 Needler Rifles (18EP)

[X] Sunslayer Heavy Tank (970EP 100SC 2PS 30 System Slots)
-[X] Heavy Grav-Vehicle
-[X] Trade 2 Vehicle Weapon slots for System Slots (+8 System Slots)
-[X] Slots: 30 System Slots Converted
--[X] 1 Superheavy Weapon Slots (30 System Slots)
--[X] Vehicle Holo-Field x1, Vehicle Grav-Shield x3 (108 EP) (8 System Slots)
-[X] Weapons:
--[X] Superheavy: 2 Starblades (800 EP 100SC)
--[X] Heavy: 2 Fatecaster Rifle (50EP 2PS)
--[X] Ranged: 2 Needler Rifles (12EP)
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Your math is wrong for the Grav shields. Each Grav Shield costs 3 Slots, so your defences cost 3x3 + 2 = 11 slots, not 8.
 
@Mechanis should we be voting for all three vehicle designs in one plan, or can we do them all separately and have it just be top three win?
LOLROFL said:
But yeah, if you want a dedicated Titan killer the Starblade is much better than a superheavy Starlance. Even when twin-linked I doubt the Starlance will be be anywhere near as killy as even a single Starblade given that the Starblade is straight up overkill vs Scout Titan equivalents.
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That's ignoring the cost though. Even if we recycle the Starcrystals from the Starlances we take from the Assault Ketches CIWB, you're still paying 100's of EP to make the Starblades themselves.

And just because a Starblade is the most powerful Superheavy weapon we have access to (per shot) doesn't mean Starlances will be bad at it. Considering the Star-line is an improvement overall to the las-weapons of the Eldar and other races, that means the Starlance is essentially a Volcano cannon with both more power and an improved fire rate.
Besides you said it yourself that a Starblade has the potential to be overkill against Scout Titan equivalents, which means it'd be doubly so against anything smaller than a superheavy vehicle. It's overspecialising to a significant degree into killing Superheavy's whilst making it worse in comparison at dealing with anything else.
 
LOLROFL said:
But yeah, if you want a dedicated Titan killer the Starblade is much better than a superheavy Starlance. Even when twin-linked I doubt the Starlance will be be anywhere near as killy as even a single Starblade given that the Starblade is straight up overkill vs Scout Titan equivalents.
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The thing is after we refit all the Ketches we'll have about 900 starlances ready to install, and these superheavy guns are 70% of the vehicle cost. Until we run out of these, for every single-Starblade platform we'll have two twin Starlances (so four guns) for the same cost in EP. For twin starlances it's going to be six or seven guns. I don't think Starblade is four times better than Starlance against a titan.
 
[X] "Vaul's Anvil" Superheavy Grav-Tank (Revamped)
[X] Cloudburst Mortar Assault Skimmer
[X] "Forgehammer" Main Battle Tank (Max slots)
 
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[X] Eucalyptus Light Grav-Vehicle: Infantry Fighting Vehicle/Anti-Air: (106 EP 12 System Slots)
-[X] Light Grav-vehicle:
--[X] 1 Lascannon (Vehicle Weapon Slot) (20 EP)
--[X] 2x Heavy Needler (Heavy Slot) (20 EP)
--[X] +1 Heavy Slot (Heavy Needler) (10 EP)
--[X] Vehicle Holo-Field (18 EP)
--[X] Vehicle Grav-Shield (30 EP)
--[X] 4 slots Open Top (8 capacity)
-[X] (Crew Equipment x2) Wraithweave Brigantine, Flamer Pistol + CCW (8 EP)

So I decided to get rid of the vehicle mounted flamer and just used the extra slot to bring the capacity up to eight. This means that if we need to we can use this to bring the marine militia around and the hearth guard can have extra transport capacity if needed for whatever reason which seems more useful then a single ranged flamer especially since the open top transport can contribute firing. Given that the Firestorm (and the Falcon it's based on) have two crews it should only cost 8 EP total for Wraithweave Brigantine, a Flamer Pistol, and a CCW for the entire crew (but given it's only 4 EP individually if it ends up having more crew it shouldn't be a problem).

Regardless this should have more anti-amor then the Firestorm (it only has a Shuriken cannon which I think should be a heavy slot, or twin linked Shuriken catapults which is two ranged weapons), slightly more transport capacity then the Firestorm, and has more defensive utility given the holofield/grav-shield combination.


Now for voting on other people's plans.

[X] Cloudburst Mortar Assault Skimmer
[x] Anvil of Stars Titankiller

This is a really good skimmer with regards to the future grenade options. Then the anvil of stars so we can put those star lances to good use from the ketch refit.
 
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vsh said:
The Anvil of Tank Titankiller sacrifices everything for a sturdy triple grav-shield and two superheavy starlances, retrofitted from voidship-grade close-in weapons batteries. Doctrinally, it'll have to be defended from smaller targets by the infantry it supports and small squads of heavy infantry it can carry on top of the armor.
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Out of curiosity, why do you think it should carry infantry to defend itself from other other targets instead of just carrying a heavy weapon for that purpose (like a needler)? Especially since the awkward capacity means we'd need to split up squads.
 
Karnax626 said:
Out of curiosity, why do you think it should carry infantry to defend itself from other other targets instead of just carrying a heavy weapon for that purpose (like a needler)? Especially since the awkward capacity means we'd need to split up squads.
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It can get 1 heavy slot or a platform for 4 Ithilmar-clad soldiers with 4 full loadouts, that can include 4 heavy weapons and some sidearms.
 
IronFist said:
Your math is wrong for the Grav shields. Each Grav Shield costs 3 Slots, so your defences cost 3x3 + 2 = 11 slots, not 8.
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Fixed, slots are fine, for some reason I had 3 Grav-Shields when 2 was the max though. Costs should also be adjusted accordingly.

frostgiant said:
[X] Suncleave Heavy Tank (826EP 74SC 6PS 30 System Slots)
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Please adjust the cost down to 796EP, I messed up when factoring in how many Grav-Shields you could fit so had 1 extra.

Karnax626 said:
@Mechanis should we be voting for all three vehicle designs in one plan, or can we do them all separately and have it just be top three win?

That's ignoring the cost though. Even if we recycle the Starcrystals from the Starlances we take from the Assault Ketches CIWB, you're still paying 100's of EP to make the Starblades themselves.

And just because a Starblade is the most powerful Superheavy weapon we have access to (per shot) doesn't mean Starlances will be bad at it. Considering the Star-line is an improvement overall to the las-weapons of the Eldar and other races, that means the Starlance is essentially a Volcano cannon with both more power and an improved fire rate.
Besides you said it yourself that a Starblade has the potential to be overkill against Scout Titan equivalents, which means it'd be doubly so against anything smaller than a superheavy vehicle. It's overspecialising to a significant degree into killing Superheavy's whilst making it worse in comparison at dealing with anything else.
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First off the Starblade is only 5 extra Starcrystals compared to a superheavy Starlance, if we went with the single Starblade design we'd be saving 40 Starcrystals per tank over a twin superheavy Starlance design while the double Starblade design only costs 10 extra Starcrystals.
Starlance
Type: Vehicle | Superheavy | Naval | Heavy Naval
Equipment Points cost: 100 | 350 | 10 | 20
Special Resource Requirement: 20 Starcrystals | 45 Starcrystals | 100 Starcrystals | 350 Starcrystals
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Starblade
Type: Superheavy
Equipment Points cost: 400
Special Resource Requirement: 50 Starcrystals
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Regarding, Starlance lethality. If the Starlance were comparable to a Volcano cannon the fact that the Starblade is able to overkill a Warhound wouldn't be considered notable.

The Volcano cannon's claim to fame is it's ability to cripple a Warhound in one shot, considering the fact that the Starblade explicitly sacrifices some of it's ROF to achieve the superior result the Starlance is unlikely to be able to match the Volcano cannons in that department given it is only marginally cheaper than a Starblade.

Considering the fact that we will be facing Gargants which are a step above Warhounds I think this is a situation where shelling out the extra Starcrystals can be worth it.
 
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Skjadir said:
All of this results in me thinking that most of the vehicles we design now are never going to be actually build/retrofitted because better versions become available directly when we might build some.
Add in that most of the versions design now are quite EP heavy due to exotic weapon usage (because we need to build a few from scratch at first before we can cycle them in for the old stuff) and I think the EP for that will not be available to build some for retrofitting while we are doing that.
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I disagree with your timeline and assessment fundamentally, and apart from the increased variety of weapons available, fundamentally no vehicle we design is inherently obsolete. The insistence that any vehicle needs or can even afford conversion fields is questionable and your VAP priorities are incredibly arbitrary.

Simply put, if we're using VAP for the navy anytime soon? We've fucked up. It only takes a lot of AP to start ship builds and only 1 AP (barring exceptions) to maintain ALL ship building and the like and the VAP only shortens that much, much lower BAP cost for a given ship. Meanwhile every single VAP used for EP is saving over 10 BAP compared to maybe in a favorable scenario saving 3 BAP for ship builds. That button exists to crash build warships incredibly inefficiently but fairly rapidly. Investing VAP into infrastructure is similarly as inefficient likewise and we should be earmarking BAP for that rather than VAP.

I'm stuck phone posting so I'm not going to go all out providing an alternative timeline but I want everyone to seriously look at the effective BAP saved by all the various uses of Vaul AP and realize the best case scenario for infrastructure has a 1/3 chance of saving 6 BAP, a 1/3 chance of 4, and a 1/3 chance of 2 by shaving off turns compared to 10 BAP and change of EP. That option exists as an emergency to avoid bottlenecks, using it as a matter of course on it is actively sabotaging our military build up and recovery.
 
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vsh said:
It can get 1 heavy slot or a platform for 4 Ithilmar-clad soldiers with 4 full loadouts, that can include 4 heavy weapons and some sidearms.
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That doesn't really answer my question. If we put 4 soldiers on the tank either we split up squads or you're saying we should design a squad specifically to have them stationed on the tank, which feels wasteful? If we want to have infantry supporting the tank we can just assign squads to them the normal way, by putting them in the same detachment.
LOLROFL said:
First off the Starblade is only 5 extra Starcrystals compared to a superheavy Starlance, if we went with the single Starblade design we'd be saving 45 Starcrystals per design while the double Starblade design only costs 10 extra Starcrystals.

The Volcano cannon's claim to fame is it's ability to cripple a Warhound in one shot, considering the fact that the Starblade explicitly sacrifices some of it's ROF to achieve the superior result the Starlance is unlikely to be able to match the Volcano cannons in that department given it is only marginally cheaper than a Starblade.

Considering the fact that we will be facing Gargants which are a step above Warhounds I think this is a situation where shelling out the extra Starcrystals can be worth it.
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No, Starblades in this case would be 400 EP and 50 Crystals more expensive than Starlances, because we'll be getting 10 of the latter for free for every Assault Ketch we refit.

The description below is what I'm going off, which makes them seem like the equivalent of Superheavy Lascannons. I acknowledge I might be wrong about the power, but you haven't said anywhere where you expect to find the EP to pay for all of the Starblades. With Starlances subsidised by the Ketch refits we can afford more Titan-killers without compromising the build queue for everything else we need. A lot more most likely, considering they're literally a fraction of the price (especially if you're going for the two Starblade variant).
Mechanis said:
Effectively a starship scale Las-Lance that has been cut down sufficiently to fit into a conventional vehicle, Volcano Cannons might lack the range of their larger counterparts but have lost less than half of their destructive power, allowing them to act as suitable weapons for engaging large targets such as Ork battle-walkers.
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Picking a Starblade over a Starlance when we're literally going to have more of the latter than we know what to do with is a very questionable choice, and given the sheer wasteful overkill it's going to have over a Starlance every battle it's in where super-heavy vehicles aren't present is a battle it's really unsuited for. To say nothing of the fact we're a hell of a lot likelier to run into various shades of killa- and Battle/Gunfortress super heavy tanks than we are outright Titans, both of which are still liable to be over killed compared to weaponry designed around one shotting a Warhound.

There's reasons to standardize on something like a Baneblade or a Scorpion over a Shadowblade.
 
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IronFist said:
Heavy Grav Vehicles can have 3, so it's possible to do that as well.
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This is what I get for doing this right out of bed, hopefully fixed the errors this time.

Had to remove 1 Heavy weapon Slot to fit the 3rd Grav-Shield.

[X] Suncleave Heavy Tank (796EP 68SC 6PS 30 System Slots)
-[X] Heavy Grav-Vehicle
-[X] Slots: 22 System Slots Converted
--[X] 6 Heavy Weapon Slots (18 System Slots)
--[X] 1 Ranged Weapon Slot (1 System Slot)
--[X] Vehicle Holo-Field x1, Vehicle Grav-Shield x3 (108 EP) (11 System Slots)
-[X] Weapons:
--[X] Superheavy: 1 Starblade (400 EP 50SC)
--[X] Vehicle: 2 Fatesever Cannon (120EP 4PS)
--[X] Heavy: 2 Starcarver, 2 Fatecaster Rifle, 4 Heavy Needlers (150EP 18SC 2PS)
--[X] Ranged: 3 Needler Rifles (18EP)

[X] Sunslayer Heavy Tank (933EP 100SC 1PS 30 System Slots)
-[X] Heavy Grav-Vehicle
-[X] Trade
--[X] 2 Vehicle Weapon slots for System Slots (+8 System Slots)
--[X] 1 Heavy Weapon slot for System Slots (+2 System Slots)
--[X] 2 Ranged Weapon slots for System Slot (+1 System Slot)
-[X] Slots: 30 System Slots Converted
--[X] 1 Superheavy Weapon Slots (30 System Slots)
--[X] Vehicle Holo-Field x1, Vehicle Grav-Shield x2 (108 EP) (11 System Slots)
-[X] Weapons:
--[X] Superheavy: 2 Starblades (800 EP 100SC)
--[X] Heavy: 1 Fatecaster Rifle (25EP 1PS)

Karnax626 said:
That doesn't really answer my question. If we put 4 soldiers on the tank either we split up squads or you're saying we should design a squad specifically to have them stationed on the tank, which feels wasteful? If we want to have infantry supporting the tank we can just assign squads to them the normal way, by putting them in the same detachment.

No, Starblades in this case would be 400 EP and 50 Crystals more expensive than Starlances, because we'll be getting 10 of the latter for free for every Assault Ketch we refit.
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You brought up recycling the SH Starlances from those Ketch's in your previous post so I was going with that, which was why I said that a single Starblade is 40 Starcrystals cheaper than two SH Starlances.
Karnax626 said:
That's ignoring the cost though. Even if we recycle the Starcrystals from the Starlances we take from the Assault Ketches CIWB, you're still paying 100's of EP to make the Starblades themselves.
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Presumably the EP would also get recycled since all our gear is made from Wraithbone which Bonesingers should just be able to sing into a different configuration.
Karnax626 said:
The description below is what I'm going off, which makes them seem like the equivalent of Superheavy Lascannons. I acknowledge I might be wrong about the power, but you haven't said anywhere where you expect to find the EP to pay for all of the Starblades. With Starlances subsidised by the Ketch refits we can afford more Titan-killers without compromising the build queue for everything else we need. A lot more most likely, considering they're literally a fraction of the price (especially if you're going for the two Starblade variant).
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SH Starlances should be equivalent to Turbolasers, not Volcano cannons as while both are SH las-weapons one clearly trades ROF for power.
Mechanis Turbolaser Post said:
Effectively the opposite of a Volcano Cannon, a Turbo-Laser is an enlarged and empowered Lascannon of sufficient size and power to qualify as a superheavy weapon. While not as powerful as a Volcano Cannon, Turbo-Lasers are significantly less expensive due to the differences in their fundamental components and design.
Depending on the size of the vehicle and the price its designer is willing to pay, some vehicles may carry several Turbo-Lasers in a single linked array of two, three, or even four individual weapons—these are generally referred to as "Turbo-Laser Destructors" due to their increased firepower, and offer the ability to either fire single simultaneous blasts or a steady stream of fire by alternating the individual weapons. This capacity is particularly valuable for machines which expect to engage both Super-heavy vehicles and more conventional armor, as it allows them to avoid "overkilling" units with slow-firing blasts when even a single Turbo-Laser would be sufficient.
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Karugus said:
Picking a Starblade over a Starlance when we're literally going to have more of the latter than we know what to do with is a very questionable choice, and given the sheer wasteful overkill it's going to have over a Starlance every battle it's in where super-heavy vehicles are present. To say nothing of the fact we're a hell of a lot likelier to run into various shades of killa- and Battle/Gunfortress super heavy tanks than we are outright Titans, both of which are still liable to be over killed compared to weaponry designed around one shotting a Warhound.
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The Starblade's lower RoF is a bit overstated since the quote about sacrifices to it's RoF is in relation to the Starlance which fires 4-5 times quicker than a conventional las-weapon of comparable size.
A Starblade is a modified Starlance designed to engage Titan scale combatants, sacrificing the majority of its refire speed for even greater power - a single shot from a Starblade can core a fresh Warhound Titan like a mere infantryman hit by a Lascannon.
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Starlances can be found on vehicles as small as tanks or as large as battleships, and are generally roughly three times as powerful as an equivalent weapon of human design, while able to fire four or five times as quickly.
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It should still be comparable to a conventional las-weapon of the SH size like a Turbolaser.

With that in mind, the fact that it can one-shot all the non Battle-Titan things that our vehicle grade Starlances will struggle against doesn't seem like that big of a drawback.
 
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Thinking about super heavies in the future I hope we can end up using the old Epic Eldar knight titan designs for something. It's a shame they were effectively just dropped instead of given a updated redesign.
 
Karnax626 said:
That doesn't really answer my question. If we put 4 soldiers on the tank either we split up squads or you're saying we should design a squad specifically to have them stationed on the tank, which feels wasteful? If we want to have infantry supporting the tank we can just assign squads to them the normal way, by putting them in the same detachment.
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It does though? You asked why I went for infantry space instead of just a heavy gun, and the answer is one heavy gun is about the same as no guns at all for the target of this importance. But an option to glue 4 heavy guns in heavy suits on top allows to go commando when there's enough screen, and have at least some respectable firepower when there isn't.
It comes with the logistical difficulties but I think the optionality is worth them.
 
Skjadir said:
Have a QM post on them: [holo-fields]
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OK, that's even better than I've expected. We could build a bunch of small "disco-balls" that do nothing else than turn the entire battlefield into a cacaphony of distractions. If they're small enough it would be relatively difficult for a stray shot to destroy them and even if they're destroyed it doesn't matter since that shot didn't target our actual warriors.
 
LOLROFL said:
You brought up recycling the SH Starlances from those Ketch's in your previous post so I was going with that, which was why I said that a single Starblade is 40 Starcrystals cheaper than two SH Starlances.
Presumably the EP would also get recycled since all our gear is made from Wraithbone which Bonesingers should just be able to sing into a different configuration.
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You're right about the crystals, that was my bad, but EP doesn't work like that. Otherwise we could just dissolve a destroyer and make a shitton of wargear from it. In-universe EP seems to represent not just the material cost, but the time and expertise cost to turn that into something usable.
 
Karnax626 said:
You're right about the crystals, that was my bad, but EP doesn't work like that. Otherwise we could just dissolve a destroyer and make a shitton of wargear from it. In-universe EP seems to represent not just the material cost, but the time and expertise cost to turn that into something usable.
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Presumably, recycling the Starlances from the Ketch will let us save all the exotic resources, and a non-negligible amount of EP though.

We don't know how much yet.
 
Karnax626 said:
You're right about the crystals, that was my bad, but EP doesn't work like that. Otherwise we could just dissolve a destroyer and make a shitton of wargear from it. In-universe EP seems to represent not just the material cost, but the time and expertise cost to turn that into something usable.
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A Starblade is outright stated to be a modified Starlance, it wouldn't surprise me if you could just just straight up refit an SH Starlance into a Starblade if you payed the extra 5 Starcrystals out of pocket.
A Starblade is a modified Starlance designed to engage Titan scale combatants
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Heck, the fact that it is explicitly stated to be designed for engaging Titan scale combatants is another reason to suggest that just spamming SH Starlances probably isn't going to cut it against Gargants. Otherwise why bother designing the Starblade in the first place?

I get that we don't want to break the bank on everything we design but we currently do not have ANYTHING in our Warhosts that can deal with Titans or Superheavy vehicles.

This is not something we want to penny pinch on just so we can save resources for something else, especially since the designs for the other two vehicle types don't appear to be breaking the bank.
 
Karugus said:
I disagree with your timeline and assessment fundamentally, and apart from the increased variety of weapons available, fundamentally no vehicle we design is inherently obsolete. The insistence that any vehicle needs or can even afford conversion fields is questionable and your VAP priorities are incredibly arbitrary.

Simply put, if we're using VAP for the navy anytime soon? We've fucked up. It only takes a lot of AP to start ship builds and only 1 AP (barring exceptions) to maintain ALL ship building and the like and the VAP only shortens that much, much lower BAP cost for a given ship. Meanwhile every single VAP used for EP is saving over 10 BAP compared to maybe in a favorable scenario saving 3 BAP for ship builds. That button exists to crash build warships incredibly inefficiently but fairly rapidly. Investing VAP into infrastructure is similarly as inefficient likewise and we should be earmarking BAP for that rather than VAP.

I'm stuck phone posting so I'm not going to go all out providing an alternative timeline but I want everyone to seriously look at the effective BAP saved by all the various uses of Vaul AP and realize the best case scenario for infrastructure has a 1/3 chance of saving 6 BAP, a 1/3 chance of 4, and a 1/3 chance of 2 by shaving off turns compared to 10 BAP and change of EP. That option exists as an emergency to avoid bottlenecks, using it as a matter of course on it is actively sabotaging our military build up and recovery.
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Hard disagree there, Using the Forge AP on the surge out equipment is the emergency option.

We very much want to get away from having to spend any Bonesinger AP directly on equipment as fast as possible because even with the forge that is not AP efficient*, and can't actually equip several detachments at once to a for us reasonable degree.

Foundries are pretty much the only way to actually get enough gear for anything but the very extreme short term, due to being vastly more AP efficient to create gear this way.
(ignoring for now Forge AP usage for other infrastructure or exotics foundry boosting).

It will some time for the forge speed build foundries to pay back their higher price, but it is a pretty easily to see compounding effect if you boost the foundry building over EP gear it just takes time. Something i think we have after the first Biel-Tan attack happened.

Edit:
Personally i think the Foundries will have a break even time of something between 2-4 turns.
Keeping in mind the AP build costs for the foundries:
Infantry weapons and armor - 2 AP: 240-480EP production per turn
Vehicle - 3 AP: 360-720 EP production per turn
Superheavies - 4 AP: 480-960EP production per turn

Could be faster, but i don't think its going be slower.

*it's time efficient, but costs us a ton of AP in the long run and while we need to get some gear for our troops now (as in until turn 4, afterward it is not nearly as important.



LOLROFL said:
Presumably the EP would also get recycled since all our gear is made from Wraithbone which Bonesingers should just be able to sing into a different configuration.
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This is like saying that a smelting down a very small naval canon and reusing the material into an artillery piece is pretty much as cheap as just taking the small naval cannon a putting that on a chassis.
 
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