Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
I'd really like to make a case for replacing them with a warp drive design, we're still using the merchant warp drives we started out with, which are noted to be slow and every time we've seen our ships enter a system they've been scattered around and need to reform formations. Neither is good for the kind of longer range operations we're getting into and the second is especially bad for convoys like to the world we're fighting over that's now under siege by chaos.
If not a warp drive, I'd heavily advocate one of these two designs to support the Narwhal and let us actually use it, because regardless of all else, if we go around putting troop decks on ships at this point in time what's going to happen is that we aren't going to use them as boarding specialist, we're going to go 'aaah we need more troop transports' and use them to carry armies around to planets instead. And we've got GM confirmation that we need a source of boarders if we want to do boarding combat.
(Utility) Armsmen Garrison Deck
By dedicating an utility component's worth of space to housing Naval Armsmen and associated gear, as well as the needed equipment to maintain and repair frame armor such as Shelters, it is possible to maintain a substantial amount of them on board in both the deck itself and across the ship to supplement already existing security stations. This vastly increases both the quantity of trained manpower for shipboard combat operations and the amount of Shelter type Frame Armor available given the continual maintenance and repair issues such assets face. With this increased manpower, a ship so equipped can expect consistently superior results for onboard combat, both defensively or, if paired with an appropriate delivery system, offensively.
(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.
Honestly, I don't think we should be really looking into offensive boarding combat this turn, it's another specialty ship thing when we shouldn't be building a unit of specialty ships this turn, but if we make the boarding craft there's going to be heavy pressure to use them instead of making what we actually need, IE, troop transports, something for Yttreum, and more general combat units to deal with how we're being overstretched.
