Remove ads

Blood, Sweat, and Tears (WH40k Design Bureau)

Reader mode
Vanigo said:
How do you feel about using the IN mactocannons we have in storage? Those have medium range. I think a Warrior with one of those, one lance, upgraded shields, and plasma shells would be a decent match for a Claymore all by itself - less durable, but much more capable of dealing with armor.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm willing to use them this turn, yah. I was thinking one of them and one normal Macrocannon, but putting a lance on could also work. I still doubt they'd be a match for a Claymore all by themselves, but we're building two of them if we do that, so...

Also I've been mentally calling the Warrior Variant with one lance an Archer class, though I don't think I've called it that in thread yet.

Vanigo said:
I see some issues there. First, DaLintyGuy has implied that space on military hulls is at much more of a premium than on converted freighters, so cargo decks on Sabres probably can't hold nearly as much. Second, a decent blockade runner needs to be fast, so we'll want to double up on engines, and the Sabre can't do that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The Naval Intelligence reports includes engine stats for enemy vessels. Most of the converted civilian ships, which is still the enemy majority, have acceleration 1, maneuvering 1, which we already outmatch (and though the bulk hauler turned carrier doesn't have engine stats, I doubt it's much faster). The raiders have Accel 4, while the Carmine Glory had Accel 3, but the Raiders can't really stand up to a proper gunfight and the, I'm just gonna call them the Longshoreman Class, would still be a Resolute with two weapon slots full of gun so if the raiders want to try their luck we can shoot at them a lot, while the enemy doesn't really have a lot of naval grade ships, and needs those ships fighting us instead of doing convoy raiding, so I'm less worried about them doing a raid. And even if they do, two Sabres can shoot at them decently enough to have good odds of making it through.

I do acknowledge a specialized design would do better, but the Longshoreman Class could be built now, with what we have currently. Even the plasma pulse engine isn't a true requirement though it would be a bonus, but if it rolls badly it wouldn't stop us from making the Longshoreman.

And we do have some orbital control, if you look at the battle report. It's contested, but we have portions we are strong in, and we can keep supplying our armies through the siege as long as we can actually get a convoy to the planet through the enemy raiders. It's this 'get the convoy through' issue that the problem, and whether we solve it with a new patrol squadron to escort them or the Longshoreman class, it is possible to get stuff to the planet.

Actually, while we're talking about orbital control, @DaLintyGuy, if we build a space station/defense station, would it be possible to have some of our warships tow it to the planet, or is that not really possible?
 
Happerry said:
The Naval Intelligence reports includes engine stats for enemy vessels. Most of the converted civilian ships, which is still the enemy majority, have acceleration 1, maneuvering 1, which we already outmatch (and though the bulk hauler turned carrier doesn't have engine stats, I doubt it's much faster). The raiders have Accel 4, while the Carmine Glory had Accel 3, but the Raiders can't really stand up to a proper gunfight and the, I'm just gonna call them the Longshoreman Class, would still be a Resolute with two weapon slots full of gun so if the raiders want to try their luck we can shoot at them a lot, while the enemy doesn't really have a lot of naval grade ships, and needs those ships fighting us instead of doing convoy raiding, so I'm less worried about them doing a raid. And even if they do, two Sabres can shoot at them decently enough to have good odds of making it through.

I do acknowledge a specialized design would do better, but the Longshoreman Class could be built now, with what we have currently. Even the plasma pulse engine isn't a true requirement though it would be a bonus, but if it rolls badly it wouldn't stop us from making the Longshoreman.

And we do have some orbital control, if you look at the battle report. It's contested, but we have portions we are strong in, and we can keep supplying our armies through the siege as long as we can actually get a convoy to the planet through the enemy raiders. It's this 'get the convoy through' issue that the problem, and whether we solve it with a new patrol squadron to escort them or the Longshoreman class, it is possible to get stuff to the planet.

Actually, while we're talking about orbital control, @DaLintyGuy, if we build a space station/defense station, would it be possible to have some of our warships tow it to the planet, or is that not really possible?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think if we're splitting our forces to escort freighters we're inviting attack, not deterring it. And if we don't escort the Longshoremen they'd be wide open to boarding vessels, so the raiders could just launch shuttles and leave.

As for defense stations, I'm not that impressed by the Trench-class. Building one and fitting it out with the basics plus shields and armor costs 18M before weapons and putting something in the utility slot, compared to 12M for a trio of terrestrial batteries - which would have just as many weapon slots, and be much harder to take out. Even though they probably have some significant tactical limitations, "immune to naval weaponry" is a hard thing to give up, especially when it costs less than nothing. It might be worth building some Trenches to protect the shipyard when our fleets are away (which is, after all, most of the time), but given the option terrestrial batteries seem like a much better choice.
 
Vanigo said:
I think if we're splitting our forces to escort freighters we're inviting attack, not deterring it. And if we don't escort the Longshoremen they'd be wide open to boarding vessels, so the raiders could just launch shuttles and leave.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We have to escort freighters anyway, though, or at least that's my understanding given we have armies on the planet and are under active ground siege, and so need to keep those armies supplied? As for boarding, we're already at risk of that, but that's why we A, have the SDS/new exoframe add on, and B, are doing the new crew quarters this turn for more onboard defense troops/better onboard defense stations?

If anything, they'll be less vulnerable then our current actual military ships because we'll be able to fit the new crew quarters in.

It kinda feels like you're looking at the double cargo hold idea for the Sabre-hulls/Longshoremen and going 'oh merchant ships, those are defenseless' and forgetting that they're still Sabre hulled vessels and can reasonably be expected to handle themselves in normal situations because they're not going to just not have guns and shields suddenly. The whole point behind the idea of the Longshoreman class is that, even if they carry less then a proper merchant ship, they can also shoot most anything that'd give a normal merchant ship in the face after all.

Vanigo said:
As for defense stations, I'm not that impressed by the Trench-class. Building one and fitting it out with the basics plus shields and armor costs 18M before weapons and putting something in the utility slot, compared to 12M for a trio of terrestrial batteries - which would have just as many weapon slots, and be much harder to take out. Even though they probably have some significant tactical limitations, "immune to naval weaponry" is a hard thing to give up, especially when it costs less than nothing. It might be worth building some Trenches to protect the shipyard when our fleets are away (which is, after all, most of the time), but given the option terrestrial batteries seem like a much better choice.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Orbital stations give us orbital coverage though, which ground batteries generally don't to my understanding? Like, ground batteries have been described as 'things that keep the enemy from making a landing near where they are', while defense stations are the sort of thing that would have had an effect in the last battle phase when our ships were hiding behind the planet to keep from facing all the enemies at once, because our ships could have done that by an orbital station which would have added more firepower to that fight? And like you talked about needing orbital control for merchant ships and Defense Stations do that while ground defenses don't, or at least do to a much lesser degree.

And beyond that, ground batteries aren't immune to naval weaponry, they're one of the kinds of thing that our Fusion Breaker was designed to blow up, and the enemy can certainly do something akin if needed. Or just de-orbit a ship into it if they're orks.
 
Happerry said:
We have to escort freighters anyway, though, or at least that's my understanding given we have armies on the planet and are under active ground siege, and so need to keep those armies supplied? As for boarding, we're already at risk of that, but that's why we A, have the SDS/new exoframe add on, and B, are doing the new crew quarters this turn for more onboard defense troops/better onboard defense stations?

If anything, they'll be less vulnerable then our current actual military ships because we'll be able to fit the new crew quarters in.

It kinda feels like you're looking at the double cargo hold idea for the Sabre-hulls/Longshoremen and going 'oh merchant ships, those are defenseless' and forgetting that they're still Sabre hulled vessels and can reasonably be expected to handle themselves in normal situations because they're not going to just not have guns and shields suddenly. The whole point behind the idea of the Longshoreman class is that, even if they carry less then a proper merchant ship, they can also shoot most anything that'd give a normal merchant ship in the face after all.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh, they're not defenseless, but they're absolutely not winning any fights against major opposition on their own, and if those Nurgle ships decide to break away from the planet for a day or two to steamroll some isolated corvettes full of cargo there's not a lot we can do to stop them. And I'm not sure it actually costs them anything to do it. It means leaving our forces in orbit alone for a while, but there's only so much we can do with that time. Light repairs and some bombing runs, I guess?

And even the raiders aren't that bad. Their laser batteries are just as good as our macrocannons, even if they only have the one, their armor is only half a point below our scaffold armor, and they have shields on top of that. And while I agree that we can fight off a fair number of boarders, I wouldn't trust one of our crews to fight off six raiders' worth, especially when they're unimpeded by PD or fighters. We can absolutely put together a fleet that'll stomp up and down on all six of them, but that raises the odds that the real warships will take notice. (Also, I won't be surpised if more show up this turn. Incleon, unlike the rest of the traitors we've seen, is actually building new ships.)

That said, if we decide to use corvettes to carry some cargo, we can just... do that? Literally all of our current corvette designs feature one cargo hold. We could just send the First Naval Squadron to do it. Yeah, it would mean taking ships off the front line, but so would building dedicated cargo-hauling corvettes.

Orbital stations give us orbital coverage though, which ground batteries generally don't to my understanding? Like, ground batteries have been described as 'things that keep the enemy from making a landing near where they are', while defense stations are the sort of thing that would have had an effect in the last battle phase when our ships were hiding behind the planet to keep from facing all the enemies at once, because our ships could have done that by an orbital station which would have added more firepower to that fight? And like you talked about needing orbital control for merchant ships and Defense Stations do that while ground defenses don't, or at least do to a much lesser degree.

And beyond that, ground batteries aren't immune to naval weaponry, they're one of the kinds of thing that our Fusion Breaker was designed to blow up, and the enemy can certainly do something akin if needed. Or just de-orbit a ship into it if they're orks.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hmm. Are they not good for true ground-to-orbit? The description in the tech post is a bit ambiguous. It just say they can "discourage enemy warships from approaching the location they are built on", and I interpreted that as "approach" in a space combat sense, i.e. roughly "this side of the planet". If it's actually just to discourage landing craft, then yeah, that's kind of crap except for hangars.

And okay, yeah, replace "naval weaponry" with "most naval weaponry". But they'd need to have similar specialist weaponry to do that, and I don't know that any of our current opponents have anything suitable.
 
F0lkL0re said:
hey @DaLintyGuy is there a word limit for design suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not particularly.
Vanigo said:
(@DaLintyGuy, can we put engines in Omni slots?)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes.
Happerry said:
Actually, while we're talking about orbital control, @DaLintyGuy, if we build a space station/defense station, would it be possible to have some of our warships tow it to the planet, or is that not really possible?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Maybe. Doing so into combat conditions would end... Poorly.
Vanigo said:
Hmm. Are they not good for true ground-to-orbit? The description in the tech post is a bit ambiguous. It just say they can "discourage enemy warships from approaching the location they are built on", and I interpreted that as "approach" in a space combat sense, i.e. roughly "this side of the planet". If it's actually just to discourage landing craft, then yeah, that's kind of crap except for hangars.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ground defenses can engage ships in orbit. It's just they have limited engagement zones that generally can be simply avoided. This sort of active defense allows for "safe" areas in orbit where enemy ships will be wary of entering for fear of taking fire they can not easily answer.

Their ability to discourage landings nearby comes from this and the fact shuttles typically don't have the longest of legs, meaning their motherships will be taking fire as they disembark and stationary surface to air batteries will be chewing at the shuttles if they get too close to the armored and shielded installations.
 
DaLintyGuy said:
Not particularly.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
ah good then I don't have to feel to bad for inflicting this on you all.

(Life Support) "cistern" Life support system
Having reviewed the current ship designs the Calavarn admiralty had come to a few conclusions first that after "enemy action" the biggest threats to a ship where decompression and fire, second that the current life support systems in use by the navy where starting to become less then effective as crew sizes grew larger (a conclusion drawn from reports of "inefficiencies" in the design and not as some rumours would have you believe because of the agonised sounds the life support systems where making on the last round of ship inspections).
To solve the first problem reinforced bulkheads, strategically place emergency shutters, specialized cogitators and various pumps are placed throughout the ship allowing the crew to more easily seal off decompressed sections, starve out fires and coincidently delay and disrupt enemy boarding parties.
The second problem was an easy fix, enhanced and expanded air scrubbers and water reclamatiors would not only ensure that larger ship populations would cease to tax the ships life support systems to breaking point but would slightly harden the ships against chemical hazards.
The crews where simply happy the extra water rations meant that they could have a wash more then once a month and that the ship no longer smelt of stale sweat and unwashed bodies.
 
Last edited:
Vanigo said:
Oh, they're not defenseless, but they're absolutely not winning any fights against major opposition on their own, and if those Nurgle ships decide to break away from the planet for a day or two to steamroll some isolated corvettes full of cargo there's not a lot we can do to stop them. And I'm not sure it actually costs them anything to do it. It means leaving our forces in orbit alone for a while, but there's only so much we can do with that time. Light repairs and some bombing runs, I guess?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
...No? They'd basically be Resolutes, so they'd be no more steamrollerizable then the ships of the first squadron? Though...

Vanigo said:
That said, if we decide to use corvettes to carry some cargo, we can just... do that? Literally all of our current corvette designs feature one cargo hold. We could just send the First Naval Squadron to do it. Yeah, it would mean taking ships off the front line, but so would building dedicated cargo-hauling corvettes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
...This is a good point.

The counter point though is that the First Naval Squadron is what we're currently using for diplomacy, so a pair of Longshoremen could do the job without needing to not do diplomacy or reinforce something this turn.

I mean, there's reasons to go 'eh' on the Longshoremen, but I still feel that your basic response is 'oh merchants, those are weak right' without actually considering what a Longshoreman is.

Vanigo said:
Hmm. Are they not good for true ground-to-orbit? The description in the tech post is a bit ambiguous. It just say they can "discourage enemy warships from approaching the location they are built on", and I interpreted that as "approach" in a space combat sense, i.e. roughly "this side of the planet". If it's actually just to discourage landing craft, then yeah, that's kind of crap except for hangars.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
By memory, because I'm having trouble finding specific quotes (and I'm starting to think that exchange happened one of the 'not this thread' places I talk to DaLintyGuy about stuff), ground batteries are more for 'local terrestrial area denial' then 'blowing up enemies if they get too close to the planet'.

Aaaand ninjad anyway.

DaLintyGuy, an orbital station gives better orbital coverage in return for worse ground coverage and being more easily shot at, right?

F0lkL0re said:
ah good then I don't have to feel to bad for inflicting this on you all.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Needs better formatting to avoid wall of text syndrome.
 
Last edited:
Happerry said:
...No? They'd basically be Resolutes, so they'd be no more steamrollerizable then the ships of the first squadron? Though...


...This is a good point.

The counter point though is that the First Naval Squadron is what we're currently using for diplomacy, so a pair of Longshoremen could do the job without needing to not do diplomacy or reinforce something this turn.

I mean, there's reasons to go 'eh' on the Longshoremen, but I still feel that your basic response is 'oh merchants, those are weak right' without actually considering what a Longshoreman is.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I am quite certain that a Firestorm and a pair of Claymores can steamroll a pair of Resolutes. Resolutes are good little ships for what they are, but we've seen on many occasions that Claymores are just plain better. The First Squadron, having twice as many hulls and guns, plus carrier support, would fare much better - they'd still lose, but they'd last much longer and we could try to bring the rest of our forces up to pincer them. And yeah, it'd be nice to have the First Squadron free to do something else, but building Longshoremen also means not building the lance/macrocannon corvettes we need to deal with the IN escorts over Uniary.
 
(Life Support) "Cistern" Life Support System: Having reviewed the current ship designs, the Calavarn admiralty had come to a few conclusions. Firstly, that after enemy action the biggest threats to a ship were decompression and fire, secondly that the current life support systems in use by the navy were starting to become less than effective as crew sizes grew larger (a conclusion drawn from reports of "inefficiencies" in the design and not, as some rumours would have you believe, because of the agonised sounds the life support systems were making on the last round of ship inspections).

To solve the first problem reinforced bulkheads, strategically place emergency shutters, specialized cogitators, and various pumps are placed throughout the ship allowing the crew to more easily seal off decompressed sections, starve out fires and coincidently delay and disrupt enemy boarding parties. The second problem was an easy fix, enhanced and expanded air scrubbers and water recyclers would not only ensure that larger ship populations would cease to tax the ship's life support systems to breaking point but would slightly harden the ships against chemical hazards. The crews where simply happy the extra water rations meant that they could have a wash more than once a month and that the onboard barracks no longer smelt of stale sweat.

(There, that ought to do it.)
 
F0lkL0re said:
right so how should I edit the "cistern" text so it's a bit less eye bleedy?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Like so:
F0lkL0re said:
ah good then I don't have to feel to bad for inflicting this on you all.

(Life Support) "cistern" Life support system: Having reviewed the current ship designs the Calavarn admiralty had come to a few conclusions first that after "enemy action" the biggest threats to a ship where decompression and fire, second that the current life support systems in use by the navy where starting to become less then effective as crew sizes grew larger (a conclusion drawn from reports of "inefficiencies" in the design and not as some rumours would have you believe because of the agonised sounds the life support systems where making on the last round of ship inspections).

To solve the first problem reinforced bulkheads, strategically place emergency shutters, specialized cogitators and various pumps are placed throughout the ship allowing the crew to more easily seal off decompressed sections, starve out fires and coincidently delay and disrupt enemy boarding parties.

The second problem was an easy fix, enhanced and expanded air scrubbers and water reclamatiors would not only ensure that larger ship populations would cease to tax the ships life support systems to breaking point but would slightly harden the ships against chemical hazards.

The crews where simply happy the extra water rations meant that they could have a wash more then once a month and that the ship no longer smelt of stale sweat and unwashed bodies.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Now, as breaking paragraphs might make it look like the rest is commentary, you could wrap everything in bold or italicised to indicate that it's part of the same thing.


F0lkL0re said:
ah good then I don't have to feel to bad for inflicting this on you all.

(Life Support) "cistern" Life support system: Having reviewed the current ship designs the Calavarn admiralty had come to a few conclusions first that after "enemy action" the biggest threats to a ship where decompression and fire, second that the current life support systems in use by the navy where starting to become less then effective as crew sizes grew larger (a conclusion drawn from reports of "inefficiencies" in the design and not as some rumours would have you believe because of the agonised sounds the life support systems where making on the last round of ship inspections).

To solve the first problem reinforced bulkheads, strategically place emergency shutters, specialized cogitators and various pumps are placed throughout the ship allowing the crew to more easily seal off decompressed sections, starve out fires and coincidently delay and disrupt enemy boarding parties.

The second problem was an easy fix, enhanced and expanded air scrubbers and water reclamatiors would not only ensure that larger ship populations would cease to tax the ships life support systems to breaking point but would slightly harden the ships against chemical hazards.

The crews where simply happy the extra water rations meant that they could have a wash more then once a month and that the ship no longer smelt of stale sweat and unwashed bodies.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If the whole thing didn't have so many run-on-sentences though you could make it into a single block ironically enough.
 
Sir_Travelsalot said:
(Life Support) "Cistern" Life Support System: Having reviewed the current ship designs, the Calavarn admiralty had come to a few conclusions. Firstly, that after enemy action the biggest threats to a ship were decompression and fire, secondly that the current life support systems in use by the navy were starting to become less than effective as crew sizes grew larger (a conclusion drawn from reports of "inefficiencies" in the design and not, as some rumours would have you believe, because of the agonised sounds the life support systems were making on the last round of ship inspections).

To solve the first problem reinforced bulkheads, strategically place emergency shutters, specialized cogitators, and various pumps are placed throughout the ship allowing the crew to more easily seal off decompressed sections, starve out fires and coincidently delay and disrupt enemy boarding parties. The second problem was an easy fix, enhanced and expanded air scrubbers and water recyclers would not only ensure that larger ship populations would cease to tax the ship's life support systems to breaking point but would slightly harden the ships against chemical hazards. The crews where simply happy the extra water rations meant that they could have a wash more than once a month and that the onboard barracks no longer smelt of stale sweat.

(There, that ought to do it.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Looks like a reasonable design. Better damage control plus incidental boarding defense and possible morale bonuses seems like a significant upgrade. That said, I have no idea where you got this conviction that our life support is at the breaking point (and has presumably been at the breaking point nonstop for the last 25 years).

However, I think line breaks will break the vote tallying script. It'll need to be in one paragraph, and should therefore be rewritten to be less wordy, like so:

(Life Support) "Cistern" Life Support System: Typical civilian life support systems are adequate for day-to-day use, but leave something to be desired in crisis situations. To better deal with the stresses of naval combat, this improved system incorporates reinforced bulkheads, strategically placed emergency shutters, specialized cogitators, and various pumps throughout the ship. This allows the crew to more easily seal off decompressed sections, starve out fires, and coincidentally delay and disrupt enemy boarding parties. Additionally, enhanced and expanded air scrubbers and water recyclers reduce the danger of smoke and chemical hazards, allow the ship to support additional personnel, and noticeably improve crew morale.

Basically all I had to do was trim out all the commentary about how horribly inadequate our current life support is.
 
Life Support can also include things like integrating the infrastructure needed to recharge and reload Preserver bodysuits, thereby allowing you to give every crewman a vacuum proof suit to prevent loos of efficiency when sections of the ship are vented by weapon fire.
 
Vanigo said:
I am quite certain that a Firestorm and a pair of Claymores can steamroll a pair of Resolutes. Resolutes are good little ships for what they are, but we've seen on many occasions that Claymores are just plain better. The First Squadron, having twice as many hulls and guns, plus carrier support, would fare much better - they'd still lose, but they'd last much longer and we could try to bring the rest of our forces up to pincer them. And yeah, it'd be nice to have the First Squadron free to do something else, but building Longshoremen also means not building the lance/macrocannon corvettes we need to deal with the IN escorts over Uniary.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh I see the disconnect now. You're thinking I want and or expect the Longshoremen to have to fight a Firestorm and a pair of Claymores.

I don't.

They're the big ships, and they're not likely to go raiding because they are doing the big ship duties of 'threatening us just by being there' and 'bossing around the smaller ships'. At most, I expect them to try an intercept as the cargo ships approach the planet/enter the system but if they do then the other forces we have there can sally to interfere and they've already shown they don't want to risk those odds after we took out the Carmine Glory.

What I expect them to do is to outshoot the dedicated raiders, and outshoot and outrun the converted civilian craft, that I expect to actually make up the interdiction forces that will make it hard to get stuff into the system or to other places we might want to send a cargo convoy to, like those two forge worlds we just found that DaLintyGuy has confirmed we'll need to send escorted merchants ships to if we want to buy anything from them.

I do agree though that it's more important to get the fighty ships built first, though I continue to think that you're over-estimating how strong they're going to individually be. They're not going to 'deal with' the enemy good ships on their own, even if they will swing the balance of power more towards our own forces.

Vanigo said:
Looks like a reasonable design. Better damage control plus incidental boarding defense and possible morale bonuses seems like a significant upgrade. That said, I have no idea where you got this conviction that our life support is at the breaking point (and has presumably been at the breaking point nonstop for the last 25 years).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yah, better life support is in the 'useful but not an emergency catagory'. IE, the stuff we spend most of our time arguing with each other.
 
Happerry said:
Oh I see the disconnect now. You're thinking I want and or expect the Longshoremen to have to fight a Firestorm and a pair of Claymores.

I don't.

They're the big ships, and they're not likely to go raiding because they are doing the big ship duties of 'threatening us just by being there' and 'bossing around the smaller ships'. At most, I expect them to try an intercept as the cargo ships approach the planet/enter the system but if they do then the other forces we have there can sally to interfere and they've already shown they don't want to risk those odds after we took out the Carmine Glory.

What I expect them to do is to outshoot the dedicated raiders, and outshoot and outrun the converted civilian craft, that I expect to actually make up the interdiction forces that will make it hard to get stuff into the system or to other places we might want to send a cargo convoy to, like those two forge worlds we just found that DaLintyGuy has confirmed we'll need to send escorted merchants ships to if we want to buy anything from them.

I do agree though that it's more important to get the fighty ships built first, though I continue to think that you're over-estimating how strong they're going to individually be. They're not going to 'deal with' the enemy good ships on their own, even if they will swing the balance of power more towards our own forces.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't see how going raiding prevents them from "threatening us just by being there". However, "bossing around the smaller ships" is an issue I hadn't thought of. In a better-organized force, "jump on those isolated corvettes before they can link up with the main fleet" seems like something that'd be a no-brainer, but I wasn't considering the backstabbing angle.

That said, I think you may be underestimating the raiders. A Resolute will beat a raider any day of the week, but I wouldn't bet on a Resolute against a pair of them - they've got just as much firepower between the two of them, and they mount both shields and armor. If they can form up, or they just habitually operate in a fleet, they could do some very rude things to a pair of Longshoremen.

For future campaigns, I think you're forgetting the weakness of the Sabre hull: it can't mount an engine with more than 2 acceleration. This hasn't come up yet, but since we'll be designing new engines this turn, it's going to soon. This means that it's actually pretty bad at outrunning anything that puts effort into going fast, which does not include most civilian conversions, but notably does include every single Ork ship we've seen. I think we'd be much better off just pairing fast freighters with up-engined Warriors - yes, it's more expensive, but at least they can actually match the speed of most threats.

As for split-armament corvettes versus Claymores, my thinking goes like this: The most relevant differences are shields, armor, and weapons. What exactly we bring to the fight depends on how the Haptrix-Alpha design works out, but even if it fails completely we'll still have Shields 2, Armor 2, Macrocannons 3, Lance 3, versus their Shields 4, Armor 2, Macrocannons 3 x2. Our lances ignore armor entirely, and plasma-cavitation shells reduce their effective armor to 1, so we'll actually have a significant edge in armor. They'll hit us with more shells, but our shells will do more, and we'll be poking holes in them with the lances at the same time. They still have a much stronger shield, but that's not so important in a gunnery duel. Now, is that enough to make a 1v1 an even fight? Maybe not, but I think it's close enough to look like one if you squint, and certainly close enough to swing the overall balance of power from "that'll be ugly" to a decisive victory. (Well, assuming the Tzeentchian ships don't get involved with whatever horrible sorcery they're packing.)

Oh, and just to be clear, I definitely don't think our two corvettes can handle all three Nurgle ships on their own; I think they can more or less match the Claymores, but certainly not the Claymores plus the Firestorm.
 
Fair enough point. In all honesty I don't think the Longshoremen would be a good build choice this turn anyway, but I do think they would be a worthwhile investment later on, because if we get two or three of them in a formation that's more firepower then our patrol squadrons have, so they can do patrol squadron stuff most of the time (or actually, I'd like to make an argument for setting them as the 'reserve force' we've had the option of doing for a while and never had the spare ships to actually do), and then when we want to do a trade mission to one of those forge worlds or bring a surface bastion to a besieged planet we can assign them to go do that and have the trade squadron be more self escorting then just assigning a patrol squadron to do it, while I feel that assigning a full combat squadron... isn't overkill, but we have so much stuff we need our combat squadrons to be doing it'd be a hard sell to put them on that.

And I do think you're under-estimating the ability of two or three mutually escorting Longshipmen to protect themselves from raiders. As the GM has said before, just because a group of pirates could take a convoy if they were willing to eat the losses doesn't mean they're actually willing to eat the losses, and Chaos (and Orks, though less so) isn't usually willing to do that, if for no other reason then infighting. I mean, that 'we could take them, but someone or someones would die doing so and I want it to be the other guys, not me' is the very logic that's preserving our forces right now. Because if they all did the push right now or had done so in the last strat turn they would win the push, but none of them are willing to risk ending up weaker then their rivals by risking taking all the damage from said push.

'Looking Scary and making the other guys not want to risk it' is one of the primary patrol duties of our patrol squadrons, even. Don't forget that so far the raiders have avoided engaging even our AMMs and those are... well, distinctly worse ships.
 
I was thinking about how many new troop transports we need next turn.
We are going to keep most troops where they are and move the void army to the hive i expect.
We have the support squadron and the auxiliary squadron to move troops around.
If we send a group that can move troops to each we need one new ship.
I was thinking of building a transport with shields, Harbinger Heavy Transport , and a troop deck and faster engines for that as there are still hostile raiders there and the added speed will help deploy troops.
for large scale redeployments i was thinking of building merchant hulls with a shield and two troop decks but unless we build armies we do not need them this turn.
the type of shield should be chosen when we have the result of the design action for a new one.
 
Last edited:
Vanigo said:
Looks like a reasonable design. Better damage control plus incidental boarding defense and possible morale bonuses seems like a significant upgrade. That said, I have no idea where you got this conviction that our life support is at the breaking point (and has presumably been at the breaking point nonstop for the last 25 years).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well I wanted to write something a bit more interesting then just saying new bit has gubbins that do so and so (and maybe went a bit overboard), So I went first with what I know about life for the lower parts of society in the imperium which is quite frankly shit and so the line about how the crew could wash more often and that the place no longer stank as much.

The bit about the admiralty came about as a sort of backstory kind of justification for why it exists and to poke fun at the fact that it's been 25 turns and virtually no one has thought about upgrading either life support or warp engines.

The logic about the state of the life support systems comes from the fact that crews for combat vessels are higher then that of your average trader (going by the info in the Rouge Trader books your average trader has a crew of 20000 or less unless your in a mass conveyor or something similar, while your average frigate has usually between 20000 and 30000).

in the end I just wanted to write something in a way I thought would be both fun and fit in with 40ks setting.

Also I was under the impression that each turn was about a decade, hey @DaLintyGuy how long do the turns take in universe?
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top