A Different Breed (Warhammer 29K)

[Alratan]

All of the standard Space Elf mitigation steps are cultural, not really biological, because most of them still believe themselves to be temporarily embarassed demigods that'll be sorted out as soon as they kill that parasite.

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It would certainly be very embarrassing to have radically and permanently altered yourselves and then only a few thousand years later the status quo of the previous tens of millions of years is restored after the Eldar and their Pantheon chest burst from Slaneesh and re-establish their Dominion.

You'd never live it down, and for the next however many millions of years your peers would never let you forget how you dramatically and hilariously overreacted to a little temporary difficulty.

Now, given this is Warhammer, we can be pretty confident that this isn't actually how things will go down, but IC a lot of Eldar probably believe it will, and quite possibly for very good reason. Hell, for all we know, this isn't the first time the Eldar have shit the bed after partying too hard and manifested a parasitical warp god into existence and then had to clean the nasty mess up afterwards. A lot can happen in sixty plus million years.

 

[Karugus]

Am I going blind, or is Biel Tan not actually on that map? I can see Ulthwe, Alaitoc, Iyanden, Saim Hann and a bunch of smaller ones, but not them.

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Believe me, I spent like 30 minutes looking for Biel-Tan in Tempestus and I couldn't find it either.

Speaking of, do we have those? Considering they function by yeeting attacks into the Warp, I'd expect they mesh with our techbase better than some of the options we already have available for research

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I think you'd be surprised how little we get out of those, our ship system slots are going to be tight even with just Grav-Shields and Holo-Fields. We might be able to squeeze a void shield onto the brigs and new dhows, clippers, or galleons but any other ship would probably at a minimum require us to forgo armor to fit some voids onto it. We might be able to squeeze it into some super heavy vehicles as well.

The same goes for conversion fields as well. Chances are more shield types is going to end with us stacking all of them and more picking and choosing the right ones for the right situation

 

[Skjadir]

The same goes for conversion fields as well. Chances are more shield types is going to end with us stacking all of them and more picking and choosing the right ones for the right situation

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I think we will most likely end up with a balanced approach that doesn't leave any obvious weak points because the way the system works at the moment we can't really adapt our armies in a reasonable time if we are forced into a war.

 

[Karugus]

I think we will most likely end up with a balanced approach that doesn't leave any obvious weak points because the way the system works at the moment we can't really adapt our armies in a reasonable time if we are forced into a war.

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I don't see that happening for the most part. Our vehicles are already spending most of their system slots on defenses, the Ithilmar can't fit it until it's grav shield gets swapped with an infantry scale model, we don't know the size of a ship-scale conversion fields etc. If we stop double layering grav shields we could probably afford it on light grav and above, but we're probably going to run into some serious diminishing returns.

We already have comprehensive and advanced defenses, just trying to double down on that is going to require more and more sacrifices elsewhere.

 

[Skjadir]

I don't see that happening for the most part. Our vehicles are already spending most of their system slots on defenses, the Ithilmar can't fit it until it's grav shield gets swapped with an infantry scale model, we don't know the size of a ship-scale conversion fields etc. If we stop double layering grav shields we could probably afford it on light grav and above, but we're probably going to run into some serious diminishing returns.

We already have comprehensive and advanced defenses, just trying to double down on that is going to require more and more sacrifices elsewhere.

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I mean i plan on going for a Holo-Field, Grav Shield and Conversion Fields when we get the last one instead of doubling up on the Grav shields.

Also have hope that the Conversion Field can be gear that can be added to an infantry unit without using an armor slots (then see what gets the bigger discount if it is in the armor Holo-Fields or Conversion Fields

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

I think you'd be surprised how little we get out of those, our ship system slots are going to be tight even with just Grav-Shields and Holo-Fields. We might be able to squeeze a void shield onto the brigs and new dhows, clippers, or galleons but any other ship would probably at a minimum require us to forgo armor to fit some voids onto it. We might be able to squeeze it into some super heavy vehicles as well.

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I mean, it would let us nosell attacks, and we have more lore to draw on for increasing their efficacy. My understanding of the lore is admittedly limited but I'm pretty sure they're just flat out better than Conversion Fields in most scenarios.

 

[Copperscale]

I think both grav shields and conversion fields have good synergy with holo fields but don't work that well together.
The holo fields reduces the amount of fire that will test the shields, preventing either type from reaching the fail condition.
The conversion field would only come in to play if the attacker has managed to get a lock on our ship with enough firepower to overwhelm the gravity shield.

We are probably better off with another type of system.

Triple shielding i would reserve for something like a webway portal ship.

 

[Skjadir]

I think both grav shields and conversion fields have good synergy with holo fields but don't work that well together.
The holo fields reduces the amount of fire that will test the shields, preventing either type from reaching the fail condition.
The conversion field would only come in to play if the attacker has managed to get a lock on our ship with enough firepower to overwhelm the gravity shield.

We are probably better off with another type of system.

Triple shielding i would reserve for something like a webway portal ship.

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The conversion fields are mainly there to handle Aoe because neither HoloField nor Grav-Shields can handle that.
It also helps with lots of hits that are all low strength, almost all normal infantry weapons fall into this, the Grav-Shields are better at handling a few high power hits from heavy or vehicles sized weapons as the grav-shield has more a problem with the number of hits than the power behind said hits.

They all have their niches, and they play very well together if properly configured.
There is some excellent synergy between all 3 options.

 

[Karnax626]

It depends significantly on how much effort is invested in various stages of the project, whether or not you end up needing to find some kind of McGuffin, what a certain Chaos god does to try to stop you, etc.

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My initial reaction is to want to speedrun as much of it as we can before Slaanesh notices. This part doesn't seem like a part that would get riskier if we stacked more AP on it per turn than if we stretched it out to take our time.

Forge actions can be directed to construction/repair of starships, but are a straight 1d3 turns time reduction (with overflow into projects of the same type). So in theory you could slap out thirty Lance Cutters in one turn, if you rolled high. Of course, at the moment the only ships in your repair list that will be needing multiple turns are the staggering wrecks Arach-Qin is sending your way, because most of your fleet either suffered relatively minor damage or exploded without much in-between, whilst theirs was going "I didn't hear no bell" with several major Ork worlds.

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Wait, I'm an idiot. Does the total amount of Bonesinger AP it takes to build a ship equal the EP cost of the ship divided by 480 (rounded up)?

Does make me tempted to spend a Forge action next turn expediting the work we're doing on Arach Qin's capital ships though.

 

[Karugus]

I mean, it would let us nosell attacks, and we have more lore to draw on for increasing their efficacy. My understanding of the lore is admittedly limited but I'm pretty sure they're just flat out better than Conversion Fields in most scenarios.

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Conversion Fields are easier and cheaper to build at smaller scales, we see some conversion field tech used on vehicles and superheavies iirc, but outside of very specialized Void Harnesses in 30k we don't see almost any use of Void Shields on anything smaller than a Titan. We don't see conversion fields used on anything larger than Imperial Knights (if we're counting the ion screens as something in that vein) and I can't recall any use of it on a starship. Using it on vehicles to replace a Grav shield layer is probably viable, and we might be able to eventually fit it on some Ithilmar suits with either downsizing the Grav shield or giving them rosarius equivalents.

Void-shields also tend towards having layers unlike how Mechanis explained how Holo-Fields are all functionally the same just covering larger volumes. This leaves me thinking that Void Shields function like vehicle scale Grav-Shields in that you can stack them. Which while neat probably means they take up way more system slots to get a healthy amount of shield layers than we'd like. We might be able to squeeze in a weak voidshield to block some more specialized bullshit but that's probably it.

 

[Zoolimar]

We don't see conversion fields used on anything larger than Imperial Knights (if we're counting the ion screens as something in that vein) and I can't recall any use of it on a starship.

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Starships, titans and other heavies use reactors instead of batteries or some other semi-limited ammo and they have a hard time finding cover. So conversion fields would be overwhelmed pretty fast.

You could probably swing them on interceptors and other strikecraft since they are supposed to be all about minimum contact with the enemy for maximum damage dealt.

 

[Nomadic Maniac]

While I must say your update rate has been impressive I'm somewhat worried you'll burn yourself working so hard for this quest. @Mechanis The level of detail you were willing to commit to the maps, icons, gun designs, armor designs, ship designs, and god knows what else is insane. I just hope you're making yourself miserable doing it.

Edit: *not making yourself miserable. I meant not making yourself miserable.

 

[Shadowrobot6]

I just hope you're making yourself miserable doing it.

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Did you mean you hope he's not making himself miserable? Because otherwise I'm worried we have a sadist in the thread.

 

[Mechanis]

My initial reaction is to want to speedrun as much of it as we can before Slaanesh notices. This part doesn't seem like a part that would get riskier if we stacked more AP on it per turn than if we stretched it out to take our time.

Wait, I'm an idiot. Does the total amount of Bonesinger AP it takes to build a ship equal the EP cost of the ship divided by 480 (rounded up)?

Does make me tempted to spend a Forge action next turn expediting the work we're doing on Arach Qin's capital ships though.

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Nope. The primary resource for naval construction is time, because at that scale of construction tracking non-Exotic material expenses particularly closely would be far more work than anyone wants to deal with.

Shields: shielding in this quest is split between two overarching types: Passive shields are things like Conversion fields or Atomantic Shielding: they're on and blocking everything that they're effective against until they reach their fail state and turn off. As a result, passive defenses are normally (but not always) "have them or don't" type systems, because usually more than one doesn't actually increase their effectiveness.

Active defenses involve actually targeting enemy attacks specifically, like Grav-shields or, yes, Void Sheilds. This means that they always have the weakness of only being able to affect so many discreet attacks at the same time, because each system has limited throughput. There can be additional limits---for example most vehicles are limited to only two Grav-shields simply because the things eat a great deal of energy and there's only so much space it's practical to devote to bigger power supplies, combined with the relative limits of how far away they have to be to avoid destructive interference (which you definitely don't want in your protective system!) When operating.

Voids specifically have the fairly major limitation that you can only open so many small warp rifts in the same volume before they crack open into a large warp rift and you abruptly have much, much bigger problems than whatever was shooting at you.

 

[Karugus]

Does make me tempted to spend a Forge action next turn expediting the work we're doing on Arach Qin's capital ships though.

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We committed to a really ambitious infantry roll out plan, and we've had it confirmed we can refit detachments without being gated by Warrior AP instead with Steward AP letting us refit multiple detachments it seems. At the risk of being the no fun, we probably need to at least commit to both VAP going towards the army for a few turns if we want to do a meaningful roll out in time for Biel-Tan. Especially next turn as the method Mechanis explained basically involves paying the entire upfront cost for the new style detachment and then being reimbursed with the old kit we can then use to lower the costs of replacing other detachments. If we pay a decent upfront cost next turn we should be able to manage 12+ modernized detachments while only using ~4-5 VAP over 3 turns, but we can and probably should aim for more than that if we can. Some of that can be made up with BAP but I think everyone wants to get all of our Brigs and quite a few Carracks combat ready if we can.

I think Arach-Qin would accept us not prioritizing an expedite on their repairs over dealing with the Major Craftworld looking to push our shit in- not unless they were willing to fight for us or guarantee the Serpent that Strikes from the Shadows with no Warning for our defense. I definitely would be willing to make the effort if they were going to help us with Biel-Tan, but I'm not going to expect or plan for them to do so unless they come forward.

Voids specifically have the fairly major limitation that you can only open so many small warp rifts in the same volume before they crack open into a large warp rift and you abruptly have much, much bigger problems than whatever was shooting at you.

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Would this actually be a bigger problem for Eldar than it would be for Imperials given just how actively the various things in the Warp want to go after the large mass of people that are all some degree of psyker on an Eldar ship? Obviously the scale and conditions are different, but in a way it reminds me of some of the concerns that go into a Black Ship- just with less grimdark and no prison brutality.

 

[Mechanis]

Would this actually be a bigger problem for Eldar than it would be for Imperials given just how actively the various things in the Warp want to go after the large mass of people that are all some degree of psyker on an Eldar ship? Obviously the scale and conditions are different, but in a way it reminds me of some of the concerns that go into a Black Ship- just with less grimdark and prison brutality.

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To a degree. The whole reason anyone can use Void Sheilds at all is because the rifts they open are small enough and brief enough that, generally, unless a fairly small Daemon is waiting right where a given void-rift opens and manages to not get hit by the macro-weapon shot coming from the other side (a difficult proposition, as one typically opens a rift as close to the cross-sectional area of the incoming attack as possible, both for that reason and for energy efficiency), it's not really possible for horrible gribbly things to crawl out of the momentary rifts the things use. That said, the density an Aeldari ship could afford before something with enough power uses those momentary weaknesses to smash open a larger rift from the other side is almost certainly lower than what most other people can, if only because something like a quarter of all existing Daemons want to eat them specifically rather than just "tasty Psykers" in general.

 

[Alratan]

To a degree. The whole reason anyone can use Void Sheilds at all is because the rifts they open are small enough and brief enough that, generally, unless a fairly small Daemon is waiting right where a given void-rift opens and manages to not get hit by the macro-weapon shot coming from the other side (a difficult proposition, as one typically opens a rift as close to the cross-sectional area of the incoming attack as possible, both for that reason and for energy efficiency), it's not really possible for horrible gribbly things to crawl out of the momentary rifts the things use. That said, the density an Aeldari ship could afford before something with enough power uses those momentary weaknesses to smash open a larger rift from the other side is almost certainly lower than what most other people can, if only because something like a quarter of all existing Daemons want to eat them specifically rather than just "tasty Psykers" in general.

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Hopefully we have, or will have, better psytech and ability to forecast where enemy projectiles are so we can open smaller rifts more accurately that need to stay open for a shorter length of time to swallow a shot.

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

To a degree. The whole reason anyone can use Void Sheilds at all is because the rifts they open are small enough and brief enough that, generally, unless a fairly small Daemon is waiting right where a given void-rift opens and manages to not get hit by the macro-weapon shot coming from the other side (a difficult proposition, as one typically opens a rift as close to the cross-sectional area of the incoming attack as possible, both for that reason and for energy efficiency), it's not really possible for horrible gribbly things to crawl out of the momentary rifts the things use. That said, the density an Aeldari ship could afford before something with enough power uses those momentary weaknesses to smash open a larger rift from the other side is almost certainly lower than what most other people can, if only because something like a quarter of all existing Daemons want to eat them specifically rather than just "tasty Psykers" in general.

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Would warding techniques then also increase the efficacy of Void Shields since we'd be reinforcing the Veil against undesirable rifts and keeping daemons away form the local immaterium?

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

Hopefully we have, or will have, better psytech and ability to forecast where enemy projectiles are so we can open smaller rifts more accurately that need to stay open for a shorter length of time to swallow a shot.

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I do wonder if Psyscopes can be used for non Fatecaster purposes. @Mechanis, what precisely are Psyscopes and Starcrystals? I imagine that, like with Blackstone if we'd picked Voidcannons, there's more to our Exotics than their use in one specific weapon system.

 

[Skjadir]

Hopefully we have, or will have, better psytech and ability to forecast where enemy projectiles are so we can open smaller rifts more accurately that need to stay open for a shorter length of time to swallow a shot.

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Mostly sounds to be that we are better off using Grav-Shields or Conversion Fields if we get the latter scaled up enough that it can protect the sails from what goes for aoe/low level damage in a naval battle.

Bonus points for the Grav Shields because they also protect from naval grav weaponry, something that i don't think void shields do*?

*mostly based around the fact that it is noted that grav shields are one of the few types that can block them.

 

[Karugus]

So we have diminished benefits from Void Shields, and I don't actually think starship scale Conversion Fields help us with our biggest problem. Holo-Fields can handle torpedos and volume of fire (to an extent), Grav-Shield is pretty effective against everything else- that really leaves strikecraft and area of effect attacks. Strikecraft are best countered by point defense and fighters, along with to a lesser extent better ship armor (they explicitly bypass Void Shields), and area of effect attacks are going to strain a Void Shield by opening a rift along a massive part of the shield's surface area. Likewise, a Conversion Field is going to be easily strained because it has to be able to convert the entire energy of the part that hits the shield as one discrete attack compared to a blast being distributed across an armor belt.

To a degree. The whole reason anyone can use Void Sheilds at all is because the rifts they open are small enough and brief enough that, generally, unless a fairly small Daemon is waiting right where a given void-rift opens and manages to not get hit by the macro-weapon shot coming from the other side (a difficult proposition, as one typically opens a rift as close to the cross-sectional area of the incoming attack as possible, both for that reason and for energy efficiency), it's not really possible for horrible gribbly things to crawl out of the momentary rifts the things use. That said, the density an Aeldari ship could afford before something with enough power uses those momentary weaknesses to smash open a larger rift from the other side is almost certainly lower than what most other people can, if only because something like a quarter of all existing Daemons want to eat them specifically rather than just "tasty Psykers" in general.

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Okay, so we probably don't get enough out of Void Shields to make them particularly worthwhile for us. How would Void Shield's tendency to have multiple layers here work? Would we just buy a single Void Shield and be done with it, or are they intended to have several of them stacked like how vehicle Grav Shields work?

Mostly sounds to be that we are better off using Grav-Shields or Conversion Fields if we get the latter scaled up enough that it can protect the sails from what goes for aoe/low level damage in a naval battle.

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I'm not sure Conversion Fields are all that helpful for us in a naval battle. See above. The only thing they're really suited for is stopping strikecraft small weapon fire- but we have point defense and fighters to potentially address those issues.

 

[Skjadir]

I'm not sure Conversion Fields are all that helpful for us in a naval battle. See above. The only thing they're really suited for is stopping strikecraft small weapon fire- but we have point defense and fighters to potentially address those issues.

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Mostly looking at them as protection for the sails from AOE attacks that would otherwise destroy them and mitigate the damage strikecraft can do to the sails before they are destroyed.
Its kind of synergistic with the Holo-Fields, they benefit greatly from high speed and mobility. The Conversion Fields in turn will make it really hard to mobility kill them with AOEs as they protect the sails and due to the Holo-Fields will have to absorb (far) less attacks.

 

[Alratan]

I do wonder if Psyscopes can be used for non Fatecaster purposes. @Mechanis, what precisely are Psyscopes and Starcrystals? I imagine that, like with Blackstone if we'd picked Voidcannons, there's more to our Exotics than their use in one specific weapon system.

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Presumably if we'd gone with Voidcannons, we could look into designing super-Void Shields that open little holes that lead outside the universe rather into the warp.

 

[Zoolimar]

Would we just buy a single Void Shield and be done with it, or are they intended to have several of them stacked like how vehicle Grav Shields work?

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Considering how they work in the game "layering" is probably having multiple shield generators that can cool down while the other one is working. Which allows to stretch the time they give effective protection. So it is very effective if you can stuff your ship full of void shield generators but also ups the risk of attracting attention of something nasty since there is almost no time between rifts.

Imperium gets away with this due to prayers, Gellar fields and some ridiculous tech from DAoT. Eldar tech was never developed in this direction.

 

[BigFungus26]

I think Arach-Qin would accept us not prioritizing an expedite on their repairs over dealing with the Major Craftworld looking to push our shit in- not unless they were willing to fight for us or guarantee the Serpent that Strikes from the Shadows with no Warning for our defense. I definitely would be willing to make the effort if they were going to help us with Biel-Tan, but I'm not going to expect or plan for them to do so unless they come forward.

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I'd actually like to forward the idea of maybe floating a BAP or two towards helping repair Arach-Qin's shipyard to get us some good will for them, so that they'll be more willing to help defend us even if the ships aren't fully repaired yet (at least we'd get a chance at our Rohan riding in to save the day if we need it)

I said it way back in the thread, but if nothing else, helping to fix their shipyards would definitely help improve relations / wash the salt out of their mouth, and if nothing else it should speed up their own ship repairs.

Then again, we do have like, three other craftworlds we need to dedicate at least 1 BAP each to unfucking, plus our own equipment, we have to wait until next turn to get any idea on what we need to do first.

With any luck, Zahr-Tann and Meros will fix their engines and progress will be made towards repairing Arach-Qin's fleet (probably a handful of the escorts will go back to their system).


Speaking of Meros...

Judging by the map and the fact that Meros is entirely surrounded by Orks (with Wazdakka - The capital - right next to them) our plan to extract them is gonna be a bit complicated depending on one key detail:

Can the craftworld go from its current position to Erd-Varesh in a single webway transit / Does Meros have to physically travel to each system on the way to the

If so, then we won't have much to worry about as long as we map out the webway and direct Meros to Varesh to keep them safe for a moment to catch their breath.

If not... well there's gonna need to be a mad dash STRAIGHT through the Wazdakka system and might get intercepted by Tork-Toofa before they can reach our system (and if nothing else, the Orks will probably try and chase after Meros and accidentally find us)

If this is the case, we'll probably have to beef up the Meros security (naval and military) while we go and glass Wazdakka (preferably we get a confirmed kill on the Warboss - who is infamous for being declared dead only to show up years later - with some headhunters after we finish glassing the planet) (basically, a two pronged operation with one prong defending Meros and the other clearing the path for the craftworld)

Then, Meros (if they listen to us) should allow that second prong to escort them to Erd-Varesh (to keep any freebooters from getting the drop on them and ruining everything) so we can patch them up (barring Biel-Tan fuckery, it should be the safest spot on the map thanks to us being there)

If we're very lucky we can get Arach-Qin to take the rear and add a third prong to the attack by glassing Dat Purple One, and if RNGesus loves us a LOT, we'll have Zahr-Tann giving us support as well.

Zappagits and Tork-Toofa aren't officially in Meros' path to us, but I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to intercept, so we might have to wait in Wazdakka until we can link up with Meros, or directly meet them and escort them all the way.

To summarize, assuming Meros can't just use the webway to skip over to us, we gotta clear the path for them (luckily, we're very interested in killing Orks and their capital isn't even that far away from us relatively speaking, We can totally get away with glassing the planet)