We took out a major problem for the sector as most worlds would be in trouble if the orcs had a few more years to grown in numbers and the hulk appeared near their world. We did get a powerful attachment for our armies with the knights and their troops.
Blood, Sweat, and Tears (WH40k Design Bureau)
- Thread starter DaLintyGuy
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- Sci-Fi
Warmach1ne32
Machine of War and Quests
- Location
- Indonesia
There are still a lot of ships in a space hulk that could be used for salvage or research.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
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You could express it through little gestures they make, like straightening out a crease, inspecting the seams or otherwise checking over their uniforms, even in a tank in the midst of a combat operation. The noble crest patches on the uniforms would be a nice touch, but you don't have to go into exposition to explain it, just have the noble character whose POV its written from remark on it offhandedly, for example; someone in the crew takes a moment to center themselves while placing a hand over it subconsciously. The commander makes a little remark about the house the patch has the heraldry of being minor compared to his.
I'd argue it has the opposite effect. When the narrative text breaks in the middle of a scene to throw in a sound effect, it disrupts the flow more severely in my opinion than just a line about the sound. It also somewhat inhibits the reader filling in the blanks, since that is supposed to be left to their imagination. I mean, which of these two paint a more vivid image in your mind?
"KRAKOOM!"
or
"The blast ripped through the air, a sudden tide that set dust into flight and hammered into the body and the eardrums with equal ferocity, seen and felt every bit as much as heard."
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
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The current description of the Scaffold armour says that the regular softer hull plating has an outer facing of plasteel, so we can make it. Presumably that means the second proposed answer is the correct one.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
The point isn't to build two at once, the point is that once we get done with the first one we can start making a second one, or that mobile repair ship that I wanted, or a super troop carrier, or so on.
Distinctly not interested in a ship that force specializes so many of its modules. We need what's going to be our probably only Light Cruiser design for a while to be more flexible then that.
I'm 99% certain you are incorrect on this, or more specifically incorrect on the 'number of modules' thing. Specializing makes things easier, it is true, but the War Hawk still has an overly large amount of component slots for an escort rated design.
Escort squadrons need numbers more then pure ability though, as long as they're still superior to pirate ships, because they often need to be in ten places at once for convoy escorts and the like. Also I'd super prefer to see if we can spare the M to build two or three warriors, pair those with the new carriers, and get a 4th Naval Squadron running.
The actual main downside is that it costs 30M instead of 23M, honestly, whether or not that's more cost efficient per deck. It's noticeably easier to fit that 23 into a budget instead of a 30. Looking at that design write up my first inclination is actually to pair, say, two Ferrymen with one Viator or such, for a troop transport unit that can better escort itself. Which is a good capacity to have given how many enemy chaos armies we've killed in the void. (For those who haven't read the battle reports yet, the number is 'lots'.)
I'm still super not a fan of specializing our first light cruiser as with the torpedoes only prow mount, given that for a noticeable amount of time it's likely to remain our only light cruiser design.
They are good ships.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
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My preliminary idea was that we'd make the Martinet and then we could design hulls that are specialized to other equipment that are just modifications of the Martinet, which ought to be easier than designing a new hull each time. And considering how few ships we're going to be able to feasibly build, I'd argue we should specialize the hulls so as to get as much in terms of bonus traits as possible.
That would take a LOT of design actions, and we only have 4 per turn.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
With our Void Army probably being available next turn for deployment alongside other units, I wonder if we might want to design a boarding craft soon so we can deploy them to more reliably capture enemy ships.
Probably not something we want with the Chaos forces over Uniary though. Nurglite's like the worst group to go do a boarding action on, and the Tzeentchians aren't much better with all their sorcery nonsense.
But when things start souring with Gehault, they might be one of the better counters we can come up with. If Gehault's still following largely navy regulations, then their Armsmen won't be coming very well equipped, and the IN has always prioritized big guns over Strike Craft. At the very least, our Exoskeletons would probably give us better odds fighting them in boarding actions than we'd have fighting them in a gunnery duel.
Probably not something we want with the Chaos forces over Uniary though. Nurglite's like the worst group to go do a boarding action on, and the Tzeentchians aren't much better with all their sorcery nonsense.
But when things start souring with Gehault, they might be one of the better counters we can come up with. If Gehault's still following largely navy regulations, then their Armsmen won't be coming very well equipped, and the IN has always prioritized big guns over Strike Craft. At the very least, our Exoskeletons would probably give us better odds fighting them in boarding actions than we'd have fighting them in a gunnery duel.
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As refits take a ship out of service for a turn i like to match the design actions to the ships that are going to be build so they have the most advanced tech they can have.
So for this turn:
New shields to put on the bulk hauler frame as the current ones are unreliable at cruiser size.
New engines for the escorts so they can keep up with the heretical ships(we have a +1 bonus for plasma drives)
are the two i really want
A variant of the hawk with -1 weapon slot and +1 engine slot and a dedicated shield defense slot and if it is not to hard dedicate a weapon slot to macrocannons
The mk2 marcocannon we add them to all our ships and have two IN ones that are longer ranged at a higher fire rate so there is room for improvement.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
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And we've still got quite a ways to go before we can start building Light Cruisers. It would be a long term project, but dice willing, it would be worth it.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
Even if we want to specialize our light cruisers, which I'm not sure we'd actually do considering we always have other things to spend actions on, I'd much prefer to start with a generalized hull so if we end up not spending an action to make a specialized carrier frame or whatever when we want to start a carrier we can still use the generalized hull.
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
Not to mention we can still get a good amount of millage out of our escorts even after we breach the light cruiser barrier. The escorts can still be lance/torpedo boats and carriers while the capitals serve as our tanks.
That does matter... on a turn where we're only building one transport. But that's not going to be this turn.
At minimum, one for each theater to transfer Armies one at a time into or out of. At maximum, a Troop Deck for every Army.
Being able to make the quantity of quality material needed for naval armor.
Interesting, though has some issues. Such as tense problems, going from third to first tense in the first two sentences.
Take a point of XP for the 1st Armored.
It might be overkill, but I put together an automated ship design spreadsheet. Adding new hulls and modules to the appropriate tabs should just work. Feel free to copy it and give it a try!
I had to make the assumption that utility slots on light cruisers have their costs tripled like weapons, but it's an easy fix if they're not.
I had to make the assumption that utility slots on light cruisers have their costs tripled like weapons, but it's an easy fix if they're not.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
Let me assure you it matters more, not less, when we're building more of them. That extra 7M per Viator doesn't sound like much, but it's enough so that making three Ferrymen instead of three Viator classes is sufficient to potentially fit another ship in. 7*3=21, which is just a hair off of the 26M of a Warrior or, perhaps more pressingly, the 24M cost of a Scorn class ship, when 'giving orbital bombardment' to our troop squadrons seems like a generally sensible thing to do. As well as actually being over the 18M of a modernized AMM design that replaces the self defense guns with proper guns and the hull armor with Scaffold armor, when we're running up against a need for more patrol squadrons so we can refocus our naval squadrons and other direct warmaking units on active combat zones.
I do think that it'd be worth putting at least one Viator in each Support Squadron/Transport Squadron for self escorting purposes, but the Manufacturing crunch has not let up enough to make me want to mass produce them instead of Ferrymen.
The point, which doesn't seem to have gotten across, is that we shouldn't compare the price of three Ferrymen to three Viators. We should be looking at three Ferrymen versus one Ferryman and one Viator, since those are the plans that give us the same amount of troop transport. The latter plan is 16M cheaper, and does the job at least as well, unless we really need to send them into three separate theaters and we aren't putting them in squadrons at all. Heck, we could build two Viators, the squadron would still be 6M cheaper than three Ferrymen, and it'd have more transport capacity.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
I take the math point you have made. Before I go 'ok, I am wrong and Vanigo is right', I do have one question to ask the GM though.
@DaLintyGuy how important is it to have a hanger full of transports per army deck? I'm assuming that if we have more army decks then transports it'll just mean that the troops get deployed in successive waves instead of all at once, right?
(Though I do note that 'we need to deploy in successive waves' makes me really want to make sure we have a Scorn-Class assigned to the squadron with Saviors, so there's fighters running cover on the transports, even if the Harbingers can defend themselves and actually are better combatants then the Combat Lighters are.)
@DaLintyGuy how important is it to have a hanger full of transports per army deck? I'm assuming that if we have more army decks then transports it'll just mean that the troops get deployed in successive waves instead of all at once, right?
(Though I do note that 'we need to deploy in successive waves' makes me really want to make sure we have a Scorn-Class assigned to the squadron with Saviors, so there's fighters running cover on the transports, even if the Harbingers can defend themselves and actually are better combatants then the Combat Lighters are.)
It'll be a drawn out process, yeah, meaning you can get interrupted by enemy warships if you don't have the strength to outright crush the enemy.
Why would you use Combat Lighters over Saviors?
Ignore the threadmark alert, technical error. I'm working on another Sidestory.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
Er, I wouldn't? I think you misread my reference to Harbingers having PD 2 verses the PD 1 of the Arvus Combat Lighter.
I think if we're making a contested landing, fighter coverage is a no-brainer even if we're doing a drop-and-scoot, but in that case we'd be sending more naval assets than just the transports anyway, so organic fighter coverage isn't really crucial.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
Fair enough. I still want to stick a Scorn into any support squadron we have though, because orbital fire support and orbit to ground airstrikes makes a lot of 'invading a world' problems just kinda... go away, if you get my drift.
On another note, given it's going to be a design phase soon, and so far everyone seems interested in a plan that goes back and upgrades our fundamentals, what's people's opinion on this potential design plan?
Plan Fundamentals
(Life Support) AirGuard Ventilation: What is, apart from expanded oxygen stores, a completely standard life support has been altered to provide a deadly last-ditch deterrent against boarding parties. If boarders have occupied a chamber, it can be isolated from the rest of the system, flooded with oxygen and have a spark introduced within. Gas baffles will disperse the explosive force without damaging internal bulkheads. It is also noted that the description of such serves as an excellent deterrent for crew mutinies.
(Housing) 'Bastion' housing complex. Further experience with ship building has allowed for more effective placement of ratings and deckhands living space; giving better 'elbow room' while keeping mass and space costs low. As an additional benefit, this redesign includes security garrisons at vital locations (reactor, warp drive etc) to counter on-board rebellions or boarding attempts.
(Sensor) Distributed Array Auspex: The time when merchant grade sensors, no matter how expensive or cheap, can serve the crusade is now almost over. Fortunately, before this happened they've given the Mechanicus of Calavar ample information on what capabilities are needed for an actual, proper, militarized sensor array. Such requirements include hardened receivers that do not overload from detecting voidfire, a wide and distributed structure spread across the ship's hull for accurate long ranged scans, ample backups in case of combat degradation of said sensors, and specialized integrated cogitators to make sense of what the sensors are actually seeing. And lastly, they need to be hardened against enemy electronic counter-measures... or just plain old blasphemous screaming across the void. Fortunately, such capabilities are within the capacity of the Mechanicus to build.
(Warp drive) 'Longstride' Warp engine. While the typical drive utilized in merchant shipping suffices, the minimal use of technology and advanced components to save costs caused them to have slow charge times, greatly limited speed through the Warp and not being suited for fast/emergency jumps. The Longstride was Calavar's first attempt at improving their engines to something closer to what is utilized on Imperial Navy ships.
Also @Warmach1ne32 I noticed while getting the housing and such designs people had written up that your consolidated design ideas post has the Martinet-class down twice. I suspect the second copy was supposed to be the other suggested cruiser design, because that doesn't seem to be on there?
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
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While the Bastion sounds promising, there was a fair amount of talk earlier that we should start working on a boarding craft, so I'd suggest switching the Bastion for the Narwhale boarding craft. Also maybe one of the better engine modules instead of an upgraded Warp Drive?
I don't think we need both the Bastion housing and the AirGuard ventilation, or at least not on the same turn. We did pretty well over Uniary this turn, and they had a ton of dedicated boarding ships. I'd also like to see a shield upgrade; we really need that before we can do anything with the Bulk Hauler or other LC-sized vessels.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
Our current engines are pretty decent though? We've already upgraded them, and they've got better stats then all the chaos merchant ships we've been fighting and are generally equal to the ork ships (one point better maneuvering, one point worse acceleration, and ours don't have the Volatile trait so don't randomly explode) while keeping the 'good fuel efficiency' ability of the base merchant engines, which I don't really want to loose right now because we're in the middle of a succession of sieges so operating efficiency is a good thing. Even for potentially sending some raiders out to, say, do some relief operations and support some of those forge worlds, I'm of the opinion that long distance operations can really benefit from fuel efficiency. But we've not upgraded our FTL engines at all, and we've been described as coming out of the warp all over the place and needing to reform the unit before we can do anything and the merchant FTL is outright called slow, so I'd prefer to upgrade our warp engines before going back to our normal engines.
The 'no need to double up on anti-boarding' point is a fair one though, I mostly just put them in because they were the life support and crew quarters upgrades that seemed most relevant out of what had been written up. There is the Oasis I guess...
Point taken.
How's this look?
Potential Plan Airguard and Other Things
(Life Support) AirGuard Ventilation: What is, apart from expanded oxygen stores, a completely standard life support has been altered to provide a deadly last-ditch deterrent against boarding parties. If boarders have occupied a chamber, it can be isolated from the rest of the system, flooded with oxygen and have a spark introduced within. Gas baffles will disperse the explosive force without damaging internal bulkheads. It is also noted that the description of such serves as an excellent deterrent for crew mutinies.
(Boarding Craft) Narwhale Breacher Craft: The first dedicated boarding craft developed in the Crusade, the Narwhale outwardly bears a great deal of resemblance to the Harbinger Transport, because it uses the same hull configuration. Internal space has been sacrificed to add additional reinforcement to the superstructure, more powerful engines, and even install a small Void Shield. An array of hull cutters is affixed to the prow to force entry onto an enemy vessel and deliver its cargo of boarding parties.
(Warp drive) 'Longstride' Warp engine. While the typical drive utilized in merchant shipping suffices, the minimal use of technology and advanced components to save costs caused them to have slow charge times, greatly limited speed through the Warp and not being suited for fast/emergency jumps. The Longstride was Calavar's first attempt at improving their engines to something closer to what is utilized on Imperial Navy ships.
(Defence) Haptrix-Alpha Interlock Shields: The Haptrix-pattern shields are a serviceable design, but are fairly expensive, and have proven somewhat unreliable in practice. Perhaps worse, they are projected to scale up poorly both in terms of cost and in ability to stop capital-scale weaponry. This redesigned version uses a smaller number of larger shields to simplify the design and strengthen each pane, and arranges them in two concentric shells with the panes offset like bricks to provide redundant coverage.
Though if we do the boarding part, i want to really push people to either look at doing the Combat Servitor Bay soon, or another design that adds dedicated boarding troops to a ship. Something based off the army deck but for Naval Armsmen instead? (I'd use the word marines, but that might lead people to think I think we have access to the Astartes. Which we don't.)
(Utility) Combat Servitor Bay: While all ships carry armsmen aboard, they are primarily meant to combat human-scale opponents and lack the strength and melee prowess of some xenos and heretic forces. Supplementing onboard troops with monotask combat servitors outfitted with integrated chain-weapons and heavy firearms will give our troops means to contend with hostile invaders and supplement our boarding forces with readily available and obedient forces stationed across the ship. Their numbers can also be maintained by a built-in servitor processing facility where Adeptus Mechanicus adepts can recycle the gravely wounded into functional combat servitors.
Also if more people want a better normal engine instead of a better warp engine, here's the current write up suggestion for a better normal engine.
(Engine) Plasma Pulse Drive Array: One means of increasing the thrust of the merchant grade drives is to compress the expelled plasma and propel it through a narrower aperture in the drive nozzle. Such would even theoretically allow the new drives to retain much of the original's fuel efficiency, more so than simply making the drives bigger. The only complication to doing so is the increased thermal stress on the components, which made long burns infeasible without access to more advanced materials. Instead, the reduced size has been taken advantage of to include a greater amount of thrusters in the drive assembly, firing in short pulses in tandem to facilitate greater speed without risk of melting the drive. Because of the smaller size, each nozzle can now also be mounted on a gimbal, which allows for greater fine maneuvering mid-burn.
I'm not entirely happy about taking out the sensor upgrade, but it's not like we've been having sensor problems yet. Even if better sensors would probably help protect against the enemy raiders that are now showing up.