Remove ads

To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

Linked contents
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
Reader mode
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Why did she not use all of TF3 for the attack on the outpost, then? Her plan was outlined in an earlier update, and it was to use TF3 as the attacking force alone, with TF1 and TF2 as blocking forces. So she is telling us directly that she plans on attacking using only TF3.

e: Plus, Nix, look at how the combat engine works now. We don't get the benefit of all our ships anyway. Heavy ships need to be massed seriously to have a proper effect on the battle.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You seem to be simultaneously arguing that the situation has changed so plans need to be changed and that Eaton would stick to the old plan. Does that mean you believe her to be incompetent? Or do you believe using both TF1 and TF2 as blocking forces is strictly necessary for success? That would suggest your voting for sending TF2 away is intentionally sabotaging the attack (or do you expect them to be back intact before it starts)?

And how would combining several task forces for the attack not be massing heavy ships, considering that each of the task forces contains some?
 
Last edited:
I should have all the ships under repair listed on the tab after starfleet and next quarter we get several ships back.

Our second engineering team I figure we either setup an outpost if we have a system that needs one or setup defenses in the system we just took.

@OneirosTheWriter How easy is it to move an outpost if we wanted to set one up in the system we just took or Gammon once we take that since we would want them moved after the war
 
[X][IXIRA] Order Task Force 1 to join the attack
[X][GAMMON] Two Months
[X][CALAMAR] Cut off Calamar
[X][TARGET] Hunt all trade ships
[X][TURTLE] Suggest raising their mobilisation level

[X][ENG] Commence outpost build at <Kappa Tau> (3 Months - apprx)
[X][IND] Brute force repairs (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase) Yagad-Tich
[X][IND2] Rush Starship Construction for <Mega-Tortoise> (Variable, ship will proceed at 2x rate)

OneirosTheWriter said:
I do love Megatortoises, tho. I mean, that mine would have destroyed most ships outright. The Yagad-Tich shrugs it off and says that you'll need more than that to even slow me down.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Speaking of which, do we have dedicated minesweeper platforms? a shuttle carrier with drone shuttles (maybe obsolete ones at that) could give us some ablative armor to our ships, perhaps
 
Last edited:
OneirosTheWriter said:
I do love Megatortoises, tho. I mean, that mine would have destroyed most ships outright. The Yagad-Tich shrugs it off and says that you'll need more than that to even slow me down.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
*insert smug turtle pic*

[X][IXIRA] Order Task Force 1 to join the attack

[X][CALAMAR] Cut off Calamar
[X][TARGET] Hunt all trade ships
[X][TURTLE] Suggest raising their mobilisation level
[X][ENG] Commence outpost build at New Seoul (3 Months - apprx)
[X][ENG2] Commence outpost build at Kappa Tau (3 Months - apprx)
[X][IND] Brute force repairs (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase) Yagad-Tich
[X][IND2] Rush Starship Construction for <Mega-Tortoise> (Variable, ship will proceed at 2x rate)
 
Last edited:
Okay, here is my logic. I'd like to get the Yagad-Tich back before going after Gammon. Therefore I'm *not* voting to take Gammon immediately. My plan is to assign the Heavy Industry team to brute force repair fo the Yaga-Tich. This will allow it to be repaired in 6/4 = 1.5 months... meaning that if I set the goal as "take in 2 months" it'll be back in time. Everything flows from that.

[X][IXIRA] Order Task Force 1 to join the attack

Ka'Sharren in TF2 is down two ships, the Hood and the Winterwind. It makes more sense to send TF1 to support, which is down no ships.

[X][GAMMON] Two Months

As above.

[X][CALAMAR] Cut off Calamar

Yeah, let's leave them alone in preparation for the peace.

[X][TARGET] Hunt all trade ships

I don't believe we're ready to go after Morshadd, and Gesseria was another faction noted as being potentially able to help with the peace. Plus we've been developing an anti-convoy doctrine.

[X][TURTLE] Suggest raising their mobilisation level

They may need the resources.

[][UNASSIGN] Federation Emergency Committee

Box left unchecked for now... but it will be time to do this very soon. We can't afford to be spending 20 war support every turn.

[X][ENG] Place defensive minefields in Kappa Tau (Sets minefield of Low Density, Low Waves, High Strength, Medium Stealth)

EDIT: Changed this to "set minefield" since it only takes 1 month.

[X][ENG2] Commence outpost build at Kappa Tau (3 Months - apprx)

Let's get an Outpost built around our forward operating base.

EDIT: Switching my Heavy Industry votes around to match what others have been doing.

[X][IND] Brute force repairs (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase) Yagad-Tich

Let's get our mega-tortoise back in action! Starfleet can swallow the repair costs.

[X][IND2] Brute force repairs for USS Hood (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase)

Let's get the Hood back in action.
 
Last edited:
Man, we keep running into reinforced outposts. Ours only get H9 L9.

Combat system:
To be honest, @OneirosTheWriter, I think you've removed most of the point of having frigates screens with this new system. It seems the short length of the skirmish phase would be very likely to result in no casualties, and gives a perverse incentive to build sturdy frigates over other components. That the frigates don't participate in the battle after skirmish in our doctrine becomes somewhat strange. I presume they must participate in certain other races' doctrine, given fleet comps like the Apiata and Klingons. But for us, I don't really see a point to competing for advantage if those resources can go to another heavy ship, especially since that means enemy skirmishers are wasted resources. It would also necessitate rewriting all of the frigate-focused battle maneuvers and combinations in offensive doctrine.

There's not really any feedback on what it means to have an advantage, but even so, that skirmish ships don't bother doing anything to heavy ships seems a level of abstraction too far. No torpedo charge or ships breaking through a flank or anything?

In addition, reducing the time a ship spends in battle, plus the damage buff, has greatly reduced the effect of shield regen.



Void Stalker said:
Should we set up a minefield with our second engineering team
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If we build the Kappa Tau outposts I would not mind protecting it with a minefield. Otherwise I don't see the point yet.


Nix said:
You seem to be simultaneously arguing that the situation has changed so plans need to be changed and that Eaton would stick to the old plan. Does that mean you believe her to be incompetent? Or do you believe using both TF1 and TF2 as blocking forces is strictly necessary for success? That would suggest your voting for sending TF2 away is intentionally sabotaging the attack (or do you expect them to be back intact before it starts)?

And how would combining several task forces for the attack not be massing heavy ships, considering that each of the task forces contains some?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We haven't had the opportunity to juggle task forces in any situation. It's not going to happen now just because you have some wishful thinking about how Eaton ought to commit forces.

You intend to order the impossible, and if Eaton tries to implement that she will either fail to meet the deadline or fail in the attack, even despite best efforts. We could have failed the last attack against one single outpost. 1.5x the forces aren't going to cut it for a major colony. I expect to lose half the fleet even if/when TF3 is fully intact.

My belief is that all forces used need to be adequate for their role. A blocking force needs to have the firepower to make a fleet of the expected size think twice, which we have in any one of our task forces. And an attack force needs to have the heavy components that can take on the enemy heavy components and win handily. We don't have such an attack force until repairs are complete.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
We haven't had the opportunity to juggle task forces in any situation. It's not going to happen now just because you have some wishful thinking about how Eaton ought to commit forces.

You intend to order the impossible, and if Eaton tries to implement that she will either fail to meet the deadline or fail in the attack, even despite best efforts. We could have failed the last attack against one single outpost. 1.5x the forces aren't going to cut it for a major colony. I expect to lose half the fleet even if/when TF3 is fully intact.

My belief is that all forces used need to be adequate for their role. A blocking force needs to have the firepower to make a fleet of the expected size think twice, which we have in any one of our task forces. And an attack force needs to have the heavy components that can take on the enemy heavy components and win handily. We don't have such an attack force until repairs are complete.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You are the one who brought up specifics, I'm perfectly happy to let Eaton decide the details, that's her job. It's also her job to tell us if she believes such an attack to be impossible. Since the option is being offered up in the first place she clearly doesn't believe it to be impossible. If she were to just go ahead with the old plan out of inertia despite knowing better like you suggest she would very much deserve to be stripped of her rank.
 
Last edited:
[X][IXIRA] Order Task Force 1 to join the attack
[X][GAMMON] Two Months
[X][CALAMAR] Cut off Calamar
[X][TARGET] Hunt all trade ships
[X][TURTLE] Suggest raising their mobilisation level

[X][ENG] Place defensive minefields in Kappa Tau (Sets minefield of Low Density, Low Waves, High Strength, Medium Stealth)
[X][ENG2] Commence outpost build at Kappa Tau (3 Months - apprx)
[X][IND] Brute force repairs (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase) Yagad-Tich
[X][IND2] Rush Starship Construction for <Mega-Tortoise> (Variable, ship will proceed at 2x rate)
 
Last edited:
This is a preliminary vote and some comments, I'll probably say more and vote on more things when I've had more time to think.

OneirosTheWriter said:
QM/N: I ran that battle a number or times while I was debugging the Tech-Ship Doctrine class, believe me, that could have gone a lot worse :V on no less than two occasions the Radlawxa blew up, for instance, and on one occasion Task Force 3 actually retreated due to ship loss!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hm... I think that may be a bit too much volatility in the combat engine. The defenses here were pretty light- a 2/1/2 frigate plus the 6/12/12 outpost, plus of course the mines. In the opposing pan of the balance, we have a 2/1/2, a 3/1/2, a 3/2/3, and a 3/3/3 frigate/"cruiser," two 4/5/5 cruisers, and the dreaded 6/8/9 HERO TURTLE that's basically an outpost with rocket engines glued to its butt. Adding up the stats just to get a sense for the weight of metal involved, we have 25/25/29 being thrown against 8/13/14. Roughly a 3:1 advantage in raw firepower and a 2:1 advantage in durability, even if much of the durability is scattered among puny spaceships.

If Task Force 3.1's "withdrawal" was prompted almost entirely by the mines, then I could see it (say, if three frigates hit mines on the way in). However, in that case the minefields are really really lethal. In and of itself that's okay, but I have to ask... to roughly what extent to we get to have minefields in wartime? Does it always take deliberate team deployment? Might we not have facilities that are equipped to lay mines on their own initiative if they anticipate war in the near future?

Things could get unbalanced, if that's the case. At that point maybe we should have actual anti-mine techs the way that the game started with us having anti-cloak techs in anticipation of having to worry about Romulans and Klingons.


Briefvoice said:
Ka'Sharren in TF2 is down two ships, the Hood and the Winterwind. It makes more sense to send TF1 to support, which is down no ships.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I agree. Also, Michel Thuir is probably one of the few fighting officers we have who can plausibly connect to the Ked Paddah, a species I suspect are inclined to not send the away teams down to the surface. They can share "stupid Gaeni" anecdotes!

[Also, Q may be stalking Thuir, and if so then I'd be interested to see interaction between Q and a Ked Paddah]

[X][IXIRA] Order Task Force 1 to join the attack

Oneiros said:
Set objectives for Rear Admiral Eaton
Time Limit to Capture Gammon
[ ][GAMMON] Own Gammon orbit before the end of the quarter
[ ][GAMMON] Two Months
[ ][GAMMON] Before the half-year mark
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm very comfortable giving Eaton 2-3 months. I wouldn't actually be opposed to giving her 5-6 months, if only because I'm curious what she'll do with it.

[X][CALAMAR] Cut off Calamar
[X][TURTLE] Suggest raising their mobilisation level

Gorc Belth Colonial Engineers
[ ][ENG] Commence outpost build at <Target> (3 Months - apprx)
[ ][ENG] Commence starbase build at <Target> (12 Months - apprx)
[ ][ENG] Build listening post builds in <Subsector> (5 Months - apprx)
[ ][ENG] Build heliopause sensor pickets in <Target> (+1 to Sci-T against infiltrating craft) (3 Months - apprx)
[ ][ENG] Place defensive minefields in <Target> (Sets minefield of Low Density, Low Waves, High Strength, Medium Stealth)
[ ][ENG] Keep in reserve for now
(If you want to just place in a given subsector as a picket, just nominate the subsector instead of a particular world)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hm... still thinking about this one.

Starfleet Engineering Command
[ ][ENG2] Commence outpost build at <Target> (3 Months - apprx)
[ ][ENG2] Commence starbase build at <Target> (12 Months - apprx)
[ ][ENG2] Build listening post builds in <Subsector> (5 Months - apprx)
[ ][ENG2] Build heliopause sensor pickets in <Target> (+1 to Sci-T against infiltrating craft) (3 Months - apprx)
[ ][ENG2] Place defensive minefields in <Target> (Sets minefield of Low Density, Low Waves, High Strength, Medium Stealth)
[ ][ENG2] Keep in reserve for now
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And this one.

I definitely agree with the repair priorities, though.

Enterprise:
[staggers away from front lines carrying Connie!Hood, making protective noises]

[X][IND] Brute force repairs (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase) Yagad-Tich
[X][IND2] Brute force repairs for USS Hood (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase)
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
To be honest, @OneirosTheWriter, I think you've removed most of the point of having frigates screens with this new system. It seems the short length of the skirmish phase would be very likely to result in no casualties, and gives a perverse incentive to build sturdy frigates over other components. That the frigates don't participate in the battle after skirmish in our doctrine becomes somewhat strange. I presume they must participate in certain other races' doctrine, given fleet comps like the Apiata and Klingons. But for us, I don't really see a point to competing for advantage if those resources can go to another heavy ship, especially since that means enemy skirmishers are wasted resources. It would also necessitate rewriting all of the frigate-focused battle maneuvers and combinations in offensive doctrine.

There's not really any feedback on what it means to have an advantage, but even so, that skirmish ships don't bother doing anything to heavy ships seems a level of abstraction too far. No torpedo charge or ships breaking through a flank or anything?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Torpedo charge and flanking tactics are something I plan to implement.

However, the basic thing that the skirmish screens do is modify the weight factor attached to each ship. Do you see in the detailed ship logs during the skirmish phase it shows a Reaction Test? The cumulative difference of those tests is applied to the fleet weighting of the victorious side, so they are able to fire more.

It is absolutely possible to win the skirmish phase sufficiently to overcome significant disadvantages in the main battle.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
In addition, reducing the time a ship spends in battle, plus the damage buff, has greatly reduced the effect of shield regen.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm actually considering buffing that back up again for that very reason.
 
Last edited:
How do mines become so effective (seems like, more effective than torpedoes?)? Are they stealthed, maintenance-free big torpedoes with a really good passive sensor suite?
 
[X][IXIRA] Order Task Force 1 to join the attack
[X][GAMMON] Two Months
[X][CALAMAR] Cut off Calamar
[X][TARGET] Hunt all trade ships
[X][TURTLE] Suggest raising their mobilisation level

[X][ENG] Place defensive minefields in Kappa Tau (Sets minefield of Low Density, Low Waves, High Strength, Medium Stealth)
[X][ENG2] Commence outpost build at Kappa Tau (3 Months - apprx)
[X][IND] Brute force repairs (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase) Yagad-Tich
[X][IND2] Rush Starship Construction for <Mega-Tortoise> (Variable, ship will proceed at 2x rate)
 
@OneirosTheWriter you don't give a duration for the "setting a minefield" task.

Place defensive minefields in <Target> (Sets minefield of Low Density, Low Waves, High Strength, Medium Stealth)

Is that a 3 month deal? More? Less?
 
[X][IXIRA] Order Task Force 1 to join the attack
[X][GAMMON] Two Months
[X][CALAMAR] Cut off Calamar
[X][TARGET] Hunt all trade ships
[X][TURTLE] Suggest raising their mobilisation level
[X][ENG] Place defensive minefields in Kappa Tau (Sets minefield of Low Density, Low Waves, High Strength, Medium Stealth)
[X][ENG2] Commence outpost build at Kappa Tau (3 Months - apprx)
[X][IND] Brute force repairs for USS Hood (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase)
[X][IND2] Brute force repairs (1.5x penalty to cost, 4x speed increase) Yagad-Tich

(Edit: changed [IND] votes around to align with majority)

OneirosTheWriter said:
Battle Bridge, USS Renaissance
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I wonder where this might be located. I'd have thought it'd be too small for one. Perhaps it's somewhere deep in the engineering hull: the neck's too small for it to be there like in a Galaxy.
 
Last edited:
Gravitas Hunt said:
I wonder where this might be located. I'd have thought it'd be too small for one. Perhaps it's somewhere deep in the engineering hull: the neck's too small for it to be there like in a Galaxy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's still a million-ton ship, and having an auxiliary control facility isn't that hard. Bridges don't actually take up very much space if they don't come with a whole bunch of ancillary support facilities that wouldn't be strictly required during a battle. But yeah, I figure the norm is for battle bridge to be buried in the engineering hull; part of the point is that its placement is designed to be a protected secondary control facility.

Alternatively, what we call "battle bridge" could be Starfleet's idea of flag accomodations during battle.

Nix said:
You are the one who brought up specifics, I'm perfectly happy to let Eaton decide the details, that's her job. It's also her job to tell us if she believes such an attack to be impossible. Since the option is being offered up in the first place she clearly doesn't believe it to be impossible. If she were to just go ahead with the old plan out of inertia despite knowing better like you suggest she would very much deserve to be stripped of her rank.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This sounds a lot like saying that every option we have for "issue orders to our field commanders" is automatically a smart option, because the option to issue them dumb orders wouldn't be made available.

That sounds, uh... overly optimistic. I'm pretty sure Oneiros would let us give stupid orders to Eaton, and if they weren't absolutely pants-on-fire crazy, Eaton would try to carry them out. Because Eaton's a by-the-book person. But she's also as brave as a barrel full of bears, and she's the kind of person who's gone into difficult, dangerous, all-in situations many times before. She's very likely to try to implement a risky plan that is the only way to carry out an unwise order, rather than resist that order.

We have to assume that our field commanders will actually try to follow our orders, but correspondingly we can't assume that every order we give is one that our own tacticians would logically think probably has good consequences associated with it.

Nix said:
Is anyone telling Easton which task forces to use? Is anything stopping her from using taskforces 1, 2 and 3 for the attack (if we don't send any of those to support the Ked Paddah), for instance?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think at the very least we should take time to make sure we've neutralized that moon cannon. An immediate attack comes with a lot of risks along those lines. Especially without knowing Eaton's battle plan and to what extent she plans to concentrate her forces.

UbeOne said:
The Licori's secret weapon! Even rum can be made devastating in the hands of a mentat. :V
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The really frightening thing is what happens when the rum goes down the gullet of the mentat instead.

Chaos Blade said:
Speaking of which, do we have dedicated minesweeper platforms? a shuttle carrier with drone shuttles (maybe obsolete ones at that) could give us some ablative armor to our ships, perhaps
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Sounds like the sort of thing we'd get an option to work on after developing some counter-mine doctrines. Right now we don't actually have minesweeping doctrine as such, our ships just sort of... fly right through the minefield and hope they don't get hurt. While they're no doubt zapping any mines they actually see just out of self-preservation and basic common sense, that's not the same as deliberately sweeping the minefield.

OneirosTheWriter said:
Torpedo charge and flanking tactics are something I plan to implement.

However, the basic thing that the skirmish screens do is modify the weight factor attached to each ship. Do you see in the detailed ship logs during the skirmish phase it shows a Reaction Test? The cumulative difference of those tests is applied to the fleet weighting of the victorious side, so they are able to fire more.

It is absolutely possible to win the skirmish phase sufficiently to overcome significant disadvantages in the main battle.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think the problem is that in the combat log as written that's entirely invisible, so it looks like the frigates are achieving nothing tangible.

Plus, as noted, it is... really rough, potentially, having situations where your frigates fight their frigates and your heavies fight their heavies, but your frigates don't fight their heavies and vice versa. Viewed in the abstract, this means that an opponent whose ships are "balanced" between lights and heavies has effectively divided their strength in the face of the enemy, compared to someone who focuses on either lights or heavies.

And you can try to compensate for this with various special detailed mechanics, but it's not going to be easy to compensate for.

You may have already done this, I genuinely don't know, but what I'd do is throw together some fleets made up of roughly equal-sized resource investments (i.e. 1000/800 resources and 30/30/30 crew or whatever, I pulled those numbers out of a hat). See if "mixed lights/heavies" fleets actually win against "all lights" and "all heavies" fleets, or at least hold their own. If not, the combat engine as written cripples combined arms tactics, and with it cripples a lot of nations' fleet design paradigms, especially ours, but to an extent also the Romulans.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top