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BATTLESHIPMAN: Space-Infantry of the Space-Future

Jenny

Jenny

anonymous user
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MJ12 Commando said:
Every time someone wants to apply wet navy terminology to ships inappropriately, I want to do it to infantry.

You obviously have the Battleshipmans, who are the biggest and hugest and have the largest pauldrons and carry weapons firing large explosive shells and wear armor impenetrable to the mere rifles of most enemy infantry, while the mainstay of most forces would be the cruiserman, whose armor is lighter so they can operate for extended periods of time on their own or in small units. Then you would have the Destroyermans, who are engineered to be fast and agile with excellent senses and agility, to take out similar Destroyermans before they can close into close combat with your Battleships. Of course, recent technology has created the Dreadnought-a Battleshipman who discards mixed weapons for a single, high-power gun. And treaties have led to Space-Germany creating the Pocket Battleshipman, or the Pokeman for short.
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Fascinating stuff, really.

What of the Men-of-the-Line, though? Their illustrious predecessors, who fought, of course, in linear formations, and generally only in the great actions of wars, unlike the Sloopmans and Frigatemans. Those, as you might be aware, doubled as police, couriers... even scientists, on occasion, like the famous Beagleman.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Every time someone wants to apply wet navy terminology to ships inappropriately, I want to do it to infantry.

You obviously have the Battleshipmans, who are the biggest and hugest and have the largest pauldrons and carry weapons firing large explosive shells and wear armor impenetrable to the mere rifles of most enemy infantry, while the mainstay of most forces would be the cruiserman, whose armor is lighter so they can operate for extended periods of time on their own or in small units. Then you would have the Destroyermans, who are engineered to be fast and agile with excellent senses and agility, to take out similar Destroyermans before they can close into close combat with your Battleships. Of course, recent technology has created the Dreadnought-a Battleshipman who discards mixed weapons for a single, high-power gun. And treaties have led to Space-Germany creating the Pocket Battleshipman, or the Pokeman for short.
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<+MJ12> open_sketch: If you want to work with me
<+MJ12> on making BATTLESHIPMAN
<+open_sketch> i'm down
<+open_sketch> public development plz
<+open_sketch> make a thread

So what is BATTLESHIPMAN?

Battleshipman is probably (this is currently a very basic ideas sketch) a squad-based tactical tabletop game, like @open_sketchbook's Steel Titans, about fighting mans. A world where the primary and largest combatant is the fighting man, and other weapons have largely been delegated to the scrapheap.

The Battleshipman is the eponymous main feature of the game-an infantryman who towers over other, smaller infantry (magic? genetic engineering? cyborging? power armor? Who knows) and bristles with a multitude of weapons. He, or she, is what navies (we're calling all armed forces here navies) pride themselves on. Basically, they're Doomguys. They carry six guns and move surprisingly fast.

Of course, Battleshipmans are expensive and a whole host of other types of infantry have spawned to take advantage of their weaknesses, from the quick and short-ranged Torpedoman, who excels in melee combat, and the Destroyerman, originally designed to escort Battleshipmans and prevent them from being bogged down, and the Cruiserman, whose long endurance and multirole ability make him more useful than the Battleshipman in peacetime.

As @open_sketchbook has suggested we do open development, the floor is open to ideas of how to make this fun, interesting, and kind of absurd.
 
What about Submans? Do they only exist for cheap D/S jokes? Or do they use advanced mole suits to create tunnels to strike unseen from behind enemy lines?
 
"Torpedo" is clearly a nickname or an acronym for some absurd system centred around melee weapons such as heat blades, pikes that double as depth charge, knight lances with energy weapons built into the frame and so on, so forth. Maybe they are the Titanfall Pilots to the Destroyermen's Doomguy- Far more agile, but also far more frail.
 
Obviously we need some Battlecruisermen who carry big guns but pop like water balloons if shot by anything like those guns.
 
Cornuthaum said:
What about Submans? Do they only exist for cheap D/S jokes? Or do they use advanced mole suits to create tunnels to strike unseen from behind enemy lines?
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I think the best time to stop it is around WWI/pre-WWI combat dynamic-wise. It gets that dynamic and leads to the one new weapon shaking things up that creates amusing backstory (the Dreadnoughtman, who is a Battleship man that, instead of carrying different weapons for different situations carries a single huge BFG and secondary guns [by which I mean his biceps]). Similarly, you'd keep it at the scale of naval battles, which would make this pretty solidly squad-based. You'd have a dozen or so combatants for the most part, rather than giant hordes, unless you want to have a huge bunch of Torpedomen.

So who knows. Like right now I'd like to start with basic stuff before playing with having stealth and whatnot.

greendoor said:
Obviously we need some Battlecruisermen who carry big guns but pop like water balloons if shot by anything like those guns.
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That's why the idea might actually be tactically interesting-you've got a lot of interplay between different classes in the Vaguely WWIish Wet Navy In Space idea that turns amusing when you make them mans instead of ships (in space).
 
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Acatalepsy said:
You realize that someone is going to try to make their BATTLESHIPMEN into historically-themed magical girls, right? Right?

...just so we're clear on that.
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You say that like it's a downside.

MJ12 Commando said:
I think the best time to stop it is around WWI/pre-WWI combat dynamic-wise. It gets that dynamic and leads to the one new weapon shaking things up that creates amusing backstory (the Dreadnoughtman, who is a Battleship man that, instead of carrying different weapons for different situations carries a single huge BFG and secondary guns [by which I mean his biceps]). Similarly, you'd keep it at the scale of naval battles, which would make this pretty solidly squad-based. You'd have a dozen or so combatants for the most part, rather than giant hordes, unless you want to have a huge bunch of Torpedomen.
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So, make the Subman a specialist unit that you can only use in support of a regular BATTLESHIPMAN formation. HAving them as some sort of mole-ninja specialist that can attack from unexpected directions but can't really fight on its own and woe betide them if they are out of position.
 
Cornuthaum said:
So, make the Subman a specialist unit that you can only use in support of a regular BATTLESHIPMAN formation.
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No, see, they get around by crawling. BATTLESHIPMEN are so heavily armored, they have a hard time looking down, so a SUBMAN can get close and shank them in the ankles. Unfortunately, it means that SUBMAN can't see very well themselves, and aren't very fast either.
 
I'm imagining Torpedomen as basically guys with like Rocket packs or some kind of enhanced mobility, no armor, and a Vibroknife that can punch through even heavy Battleship power armor. Destroyermen would be like those guys, but with a little bit more survivability and a dinky little carbine or SMG.
 
greendoor said:
I'm imagining Torpedomen as basically guys with like Rocket packs or some kind of enhanced mobility, no armor, and a Vibroknife that can punch through even heavy Battleship power armor. Destroyermen would be like those guys, but with a little bit more survivability and a dinky little carbine or SMG.
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Well my idea would be like, you have your Torpedomen, who are basically Pilots going melee only, and Destroyermen, who are basically Pilots. Then you have Cruisers, who are the mainstay soldiers with a couple of different weapons-like, for example, a gun and a grenade shooty thing and maybe a close combat thing, and the Battleshipmen, who are what the game is based around and would be showcase expensive units. There would be subtypes of these units, possibly-like the aformentioned Dreadnoughtmen, who don't have multiple guns, preferring one huge gun which makes them powerful but vulnerable if you get into ranges their one weapon isn't good in.

If we're including Submen, we'll have Frigatemen as well, who are heavily loaded with sensor equipment-de-cloaking devices and whatnot-to detect Submen.

There will not be carriermen, at least not initially, because I thought of that idea, wondered how it'd work, flashed to The Pain from MGS3, and cracked up.
 
Yes. You want to keep Carriers out of this, because as soon as carriermen show up most of the diversity gets snuffed out. Instead, it turns into Carriermen with their flocks of remote-controlled bird-sized drones being the decisive strike arm, making the poor Battleshipman too expensive and too vulnerable.

In the darkness of the future, destroyermen and frigatemen are the main shipmen and they're mostly just there to protect the carriermen, shoot down drones, and fire tomahawk shoulder-mounted mortars.

Nay, sirs! Reject that dark future! Return to the bravery of the battleshipmen, back when everything wasn't decided by remote-controlled drones.
 
Arkalest said:
"Torpedo" is clearly a nickname or an acronym for some absurd system centred around melee weapons such as heat blades, pikes that double as depth charge, knight lances with energy weapons built into the frame and so on, so forth. Maybe they are the Titanfall Pilots to the Destroyermen's Doomguy- Far more agile, but also far more frail.
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To me, they sound something like these guys.


Much more maneuverable in their favored environment, and they can cut a Battleshipman to ribbons if they get in close...but in open terrain a BSM at full sprint will easily outrun them, and of course it will blast them off the face of the planet at range.

The Battleshipmen themselves...they're not just a big shooty thing, they're a symbol, of the military/industrial might of their faction. And I think that since they are so symbolic...just looking at one you should be able to go "Ah; yes, that's a (Faction) Battleshipman right there".

Maybe not to the point of G-Gundamesque "Space-America's Battleshipmen look like cowboys with eagle heads, Space Canada's are lumberjack Mountie grizzly bears, Space Italy has Roman centurions with Pope hats..." or maybe that's exactly the aesthetic to shoot for, depending on how serious the setting is supposed to be.
 
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Well, I know the focus so far in this thread has been about man-to-man combat, which is all and good, but perhaps we should also look into the role of Battleshipmans in providing fire support, given the unmatched firepower and range of their guns?
 
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