Daidalos Rises - nBSG AI/SI Story - Interwar Period!

[Cave_Canem]

Does Daidalos have the prints for the Minotaur? I checked the information tab and there is section on the Minotaur or Atlas.


I have a suggestion of redesigning the Artemis

1.

...You Get The Horns (Battletech Alt-verse, Taurian Stronk) Worldbuilding - Timeline

Things I should not be doing: This. Things I am doing anyway: Also this. I will warn you now...

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

This link shows what a redesigned Artemis could be as the all the big guns would be placed on the centerline of the forward alligator bow and the broadsides of the launch tubes. The battlestar artillery at the bow or broadsides could then elevate or lower to fire at targets at the fore above or below creating a kill zone where the maximum amount of firepower is concentrated while presenting the most armor which is the bow alligator head.

2. Bite the bullet and create telescopic mounts so that all the battlestar artillery can fire like 90 degrees up then rotate the ship to present its ventral side to the enemy throughout the entire battle. This would also have the benefit of allowing the launching of fighters from the port and starboard flight pods to be at the same distance to the target so no need to have 1 squadron wait while the other catches up.

3. Not a redesign, but you could combine the Janus with the Artemis in a sort of Hammer and Anvil strategy with the Janus staying above the target firing its heavy guns and the Artemis below the target with its battlestar artillery

Click to shrink...

Daidalos has blueprints for basically anything the Colonials fielded during the First Cylon War/while Daidalos was a functioning shipyard, as they had loaded the designs into the shipyard computers (and those computers, following standard procedure, backed up enough of it to central storage that its still accessible. Most of the Later War designs will need some changes to be made to their computer systems though.

Re: Redesign, I think I'm going to most Battlestars being broadside-focused, with the variable-telescopic turrets allowing the majority of the turrets to fire either one side or the other. Battlestars focused on forward firepower like the Mercury are a later design philosophy.

Re: Celestra, its definitely showing up, but its videogamey enough that I'm going to put some limits on it. Probably, trying to reapply armour to a ship actively under fire and manuvering is unlikely to get anything useful done other than wasting your drones, so a ship has to at least mostly disengage before it can get patched up.

Dedicated support ships and the tactics that go with them are interesting enough that they'll definitely be used though.

 

[Martin Bajar]

Re: Redesign, I think I'm going to most Battlestars being broadside-focused, with the variable-telescopic turrets allowing the majority of the turrets to fire either one side or the other. Battlestars focused on forward firepower like the Mercury are a later design philosophy

Click to shrink...

I presume they have at least some guns that can fire forward, backwards, upwards and downwards. Otherwise, it would be a bloody massacre if (due to no gravity in space)

I don't have a spaceship model with broadside guns, so I used this airship model with cannons. This should show what I mean when I say you need other guns. As you can see, both fleets are lined up allowing all of them to bring their guns to bear. Only, the ones of the upper fleet are all aimed at the lower fleet, the lower fleet is wrongly angled. It's not exactly crossing the T, as that implies having your entire fleet being able to fire a full broadside at the front ship of the enemy, which is also the only ship that can fire back (but only with its forward guns). If you are solely fielding broadside guns, then you are screwed if you get caught in the lower fleet's position

 

[Cave_Canem]

I presume they have at least some guns that can fire forward, backwards, upwards and downwards. Otherwise, it would be a bloody massacre if (due to no gravity in space)

I don't have a spaceship model with broadside guns, so I used this airship model with cannons. This should show what I mean when I say you need other guns. As you can see, both fleets are lined up allowing all of them to bring their guns to bear. Only, the ones of the upper fleet are all aimed at the lower fleet, the lower fleet is wrongly angled. It's not exactly crossing the T, as that implies having your entire fleet being able to fire a full broadside at the front ship of the enemy, which is also the only ship that can fire back (but only with its forward guns). If you are solely fielding broadside guns, then you are screwed if you get caught in the lower fleet's position

Click to shrink...

Of course they have other guns, they just have a heavier broadside than any other facing.

And they're not just broadside guns, if you look at the video I shared, the 'broadside' guns are also the dorsal and ventral turrets, which can also fire if not directly upwards then at least 70 degrees elevation (We never see them elevate straight up, but they also never seem to need to and they are mounted on telescopic mounts that would give them plenty of clearence to do so, provided the mechanism is capable of it). The 'broadside' is just what happens when you can get both dorsal and ventral turrets firing.

edit: at 0:45 it even shows that at least some of the 'fore' turrets mounted under the alligator head can also fire broadside.

So yeah, not so much only having broadside guns, more that they just ensure that as many of the guns as possible are capable of firing both their designated direction and broadside - the only really directly mounted 'broadside' guns are a number of the PD batteries which again also seem capable of elevating almost straight up.

 

[Martin Bajar]

Of course they have other guns, they just have a heavier broadside than any other facing.

And they're not just broadside guns, if you look at the video I shared, the 'broadside' guns are also the dorsal and ventral turrets, which can also fire if not directly upwards then at least 70 degrees elevation. The 'broadside' is just what happens when you can get both dorsal and ventral turrets firing.

Click to shrink...

So the position I put those models in would be a bad position to be caught in for sure, but not one you couldn't deal with (by rolling for one). I do suspect that such a position would be one you would attempt for in space battles (the one used by the upper fleet that is), maximum number of guns aimed at the opponent, minimum number of guns aimed by the opponent at yourself

 

[Cave_Canem]

So the position I put those models in would be a bad position to be caught in for sure, but not one you couldn't deal with (by rolling for one). I do suspect that such a position would be one you would attempt for in space battles (the one used by the upper fleet that is), maximum number of guns aimed at the opponent, minimum number of guns aimed by the opponent at yourself

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Assuming your opponent is also flying a Battlestar, then yeah.

Basestar design philosophy is a whole different kettle of fish.

Edit:
Its also something of a 'spherical cow' situation admittedly - Battlestars are generally going to be around the same speed and can rotate quick enough that its something usually taught as 'your opponent will not cooperate in formulating your perfect battle' in command schools and why it can be better to go with a more conventional but less risky formation.

 

[Darik29]

Question!

Why are people getting so worked up on designing entirely new ships, or redesigning old ones with entirely new, non standard layouts? Daidalos is barely functional, its only just getting its build capacity restored, and massively lacking in any kind of self defense option.

Before it can worry about making radical design changes to ships it has the blueprints for, it needs to learn how to actually redesign ships. Changing around a few armor bits and the face on a Centurion is Leagues simpler than completely redesigning finished ship blueprints.

Seriously. All thats really needed is to fully automate the designs he does have, which is already going to be a major issue for the bigger ships alone, and build and deploy said ships.

Like, look at what it has to start. The Manticore, the Berzerk, the Adamant. Hell, the Celestra as well so long as it still has those schematics installed.

A Patrol frigate with missiles for aim up punching, a glass canon that holds some massive guns to blow lesser ships away, an outright patrol carrier with the same missile throw weight as the Manticore's, and of course the always glorious Celestra class repair and resupply vessel to rearm and rearmor ships mid battle.

These would likely count as what Daidalos could reasonably expect to build in any kind of reasonable time frame. Redesigning them can come after he learns how ship design actually works, instead of just pushing the blueprint into the automated assembly line and pushing the go button.

…

Sorry, i am mostly just eager to see things continue. The constant poking on angles and turrets and random stuff just makes nosense to me when Daidalos doesn't even have most of its rings yet, let alone its defense armaments.

 

[Cave_Canem]

Question!

Why are people getting so worked up on designing entirely new ships, or redesigning old ones with entirely new, non standard layouts? Daidalos is barely functional, its only just getting its build capacity restored, and massively lacking in any kind of self defense option.

Before it can worry about making radical design changes to ships it has the blueprints for, it needs to learn how to actually redesign ships. Changing around a few armor bits and the face on a Centurion is Leagues simpler than completely redesigning finished ship blueprints.

Seriously. All thats really needed is to fully automate the designs he does have, which is already going to be a major issue for the bigger ships alone, and build and deploy said ships.

Like, look at what it has to start. The Manticore, the Berzerk, the Adamant. Hell, the Celestra as well so long as it still has those schematics installed.

A Patrol frigate with missiles for aim up punching, a glass canon that holds some massive guns to blow lesser ships away, an outright patrol carrier with the same missile throw weight as the Manticore's, and of course the always glorious Celestra class repair and resupply vessel to rearm and rearmor ships mid battle.

These would likely count as what Daidalos could reasonably expect to build in any kind of reasonable time frame. Redesigning them can come after he learns how ship design actually works, instead of just pushing the blueprint into the automated assembly line and pushing the go button.

…

Sorry, i am mostly just eager to see things continue. The constant poking on angles and turrets and random stuff just makes nosense to me when Daidalos doesn't even have most of its rings yet, let alone its defense armaments.

Click to shrink...

I think people just get excited about it and want to have their say, but yeah, while some of this stuff is helpful for longer term plans, thats very much still longer-term.

The largest upfit program likely to happen within the near-ish future (months to a year rather than multiple years) is a project to make a refit of the Janus.

A: Its low hanging fruit, with notoriously old fire control computers specifically called out as an issue and should get a noticeable bump in performance 'just' from updating them (to the extent you can 'just' rip out and replace any major system anyway)
B: Its a (relatively, compared to even an Artemis) cheap way to practice doing the automation refit and just refits in general on a larger ship.
C: Its the cheapest, quickest way to get his subcommander AI's in something with armour comparable to a Jupiter.

But, even that is still going to be a Janus at the end of the day, maybe a few extra PD turrets if there's time and space but Daidalos is not a ship designer.

That's why I gave him all those colonial designs to start with, he's going to spend a good portion of the story using them.

Hell, the Manticore Scout refit is likely to happen before the battlestars, because its a much smaller, cheaper, simpler frame to again, practice significant modification on, before trying to build entirely new ships.

 

[Darik29]

Manticore's are quite excellent at there assigned role, and that role is as scouts and skirmishers. They are meant to fight small ships, throw missiles at other small ships, and in general just be a nuisanceto anything bigger than it.

The Berzerk meanwhile is what happens when you try to put capitol guns on afrigate chassis. It dies to a sneeze from anything but it has the firepower to throw hands with the big boys. If a cluster of Berzerk's actually get close without getting shot at, they can do actual damage to Battlestars. Theoretically.

I mean, given their armor is tissue paper this rarely ever happens, but if an enemy is dumb enough to leave them unmested on approach, they deserve the pounding a Berzerk can give out.

And of course the Adamant is outright just a patrol carrier to the Manticore's patrol cruiser. It can carry a single flight of Raptor's and that generally lets it contribute a hell of a lot more than most other small ships in its weight class. That and the missiles means its pretty much the perfect patrol vessel alongside the Manticore.

And of course the repurposed civilian ship thats been redesigned to act as in the field resupply and armor repair. Nothing beats blowing every speck of ordinance in a massive salvo and then fucking off, only to return afew minutes later fully resupplied and with the armor belt restored.

 

[TheShadowDeamon]

I imagine it going a bit like this:
Stage 1 - Start building corvettes and frigates, it's a quick way to get experience building and to get some mobile forces. Update the plans with latest gen tech he has the plans to where practical- basically what would they be if instead of being declared obsolete they were kept in service with refits. Otherwise it's a stock ship that he'd remote his bots to operate.

Stage 2 - Modify plans for and build destroyers and cruisers, designed from the start to have mostly non-organic crew. Keep life support in a few areas just in case. The rest of the ship would be optimised for the bots- instead of cabins and barracks you'd have Borg style alcoves for the bots. The room this clears up would give more space for small craft/fighters, ammo and perhaps a few extra guns on the hull. This is also the stage where he'd include a dedicated computer network to allow direct control of the ship instead of using his bots. From the outside it would be mostly identical to the stock design.

Stage 3 - Draw up plans for cruisers and battlestars with the practical design ideas mentioned in this thread. Create and test the cruiser first to work out all the problems and work these changes into the battlestar plans. Only start a battlestar prototype once happy with the cruiser. The battlestar will be his first experience building a capital ship and there may be a few design issues so there will be some delays.

Stage 4 - Mass production of the finalised prototypes.

 

[Steakthedog]

An intermediate idea is do what I did earlier in the thread and Kitbash together a vessel using existing components from other ship designs, it's not going to be pretty, and it's not going to be as good as a dedicated design built from the ground up, but existing production capacity can be used, with some modifications, and it gives you capabilities otherwise not necessarily available with existing ships. See the light Cruiser thing I threw together awhile ago here.

 

[BF110C4]

On a different tack, Daidalos is going to need to start mining soon, and he will want to save as much time as possible in the process. One low hanging fruit of already surveyed mining locations available for inmediate extraction are prewar cylon mines, that is human mining companies that made use of cylons to mine in dangerous locations that wouldn't have been economically viable with human operators and were evacuated, destroyed or captured when the rebellion started and in the cylon case abandoned with the Armistice. Even a outdated military database must have the locations to plan raids and either the original owners or the cylons might have left mining equipment and/or detailed survey reports at hand.

That will save weeks in the race to obtain raw materials, including exotic stuff that would require time or luck to find.

 

[Cave_Canem]

Linking this here as I've found myself using it a lot in order to get an idea of how ships compare to eachother and any special abilities they have.

Its a guide for the ships as in the game of course so the info in it can't just be taken as gospel - the PD turret numbers especially are pretty heavily abstracted, presumbably for engine limitation reasons.

Still, just using it as a guide for how ships compare to eachother - which are cheaper or faster to build, which have more armour, which have more accurate guns, etc has been pretty useful for referring back to.

Knowing what all the squadrons and munitions do helps too.

Steam Community :: Guide :: Complete Ship Statistics

What we have here is a complete listing of all of the ships, support craft and munitions raw statistics in BSG Deadlock compiled into one place for easy access. The guide will be updated for more a

steamcommunity.com

 

[mastert3318]

If you're kitbashing ships, I might, and mean *might*, be able to do some 3d modelling stuff with the game models for kitbashing. Be warned that it might look pretty weird though.

Edit: Also I won't be able to do textures for them.

 

[OmegaS]

Personally, I see the Adamant's missile bay being modified to focus on specialist roles like PCM and Nuke deployment, or outright removed to more focused sub-classes. That should free up room to upgrade other features.

EDIT: There's not much to be done about the Minotaur other than what savings you can get out of removing life support. It is solely focused on its task, and it does so very well.

EDIT EDIT: The Janus is an odd case, as it doesn't really fit Colonial doctrine, which is due to being so damn old. Game wise, its role is providing points-efficient missile slots, and thanks to the lack of munition costs works as the corner stone of the nuclear 'Hammer Fleet' list. That's going to have to wait until Daedalus has his own nuclear weapons program, so its actual utility would be limited to being a highly survivable command ship for formation too small to warrent an Artemis derivative. Launcher reload and sensors could be upgraded, and as it would be new construction may as well be done.

The Ranger is frankly in the wrong fleet, and has painfully little synergy with any other Colonial vessel.

The Hercules would normally get a firm 'ehhh' from me due to its light side armor, but if the Cylons have already fully converted to their 'missile-only' doctrine, it can be a decent budget choice, and its straightforward operation would make it less of a headache to have under drone control.

Finally, the Atlas has 'fleet train chassis' written all over it, and it might be practical to replace the weapons with massed PD barrages for self-screening.

 

[BF110C4]

Personally I use the Ranger within a low point Berzerk squadron in order to give them a nice long range punch against enemy patrol fleets while their Viper units erradicate the Cylon long range units and provide targeting data. Also I use them alongside Atlas as torpedo bait, a Cylon fleet without eyes on target will shoot those blindly and its better for them to send them and their light escorts against a target that can dodge and run away than against the slow carriers who are an easy target.

About doctrine I would consider the Ranger as a companion to the Adamant or Berzerks, fast, lightly armored ships that can deliver plenty of munitions and then run expected Cylon response long enough to jump away. or patrols ships capable of guarding a sector of space from occasional raiders and if necessary give long range support to the ship's brawlers like the Minotaurs or Artemis.

 

[Commander Yorp]

I could see them bringing in an engineer and they ask them if it can be stopped and he does the same scene as the officer from Dr. Strangelove where they ask if the bomber can be stopped and the officer excitidly tells them how amazing their pilots are, that the soviets don't have a chance in hell. Except, you know with soviet replaced with cylon. :-D

 

[SuperHeavy]

I could see them bringing in an engineer and they ask them if it can be stopped and he does the same scene as the officer from Dr. Strangelove where they ask if the bomber can be stopped and the officer excitidly tells them how amazing their pilots are, that the soviets don't have a chance in hell. Except, you know with soviet replaced with cylon. :-D

Click to shrink...

If you build an unstoppable self-replicating AI fleetbase you can't get all mad when you lose your password and suddenly you can't stop the thing.

 

[Sixgun]

Our SI also needs to think of a good PR and spy ship. Small merchant and business yacht types that could move around Colonial space without attracting attention. Perhaps he could even make some human friends that can help him buy and sell goods in the Colonial economy and let the Colonials know to keep an eye out for Tricia the sex bot. Six bot.

 

[Cave_Canem]

Our SI also needs to think of a good PR and spy ship. Small merchant and business yacht types that could move around Colonial space without attracting attention. Perhaps he could even make some human friends that can help him buy and sell goods in the Colonial economy and let the Colonials know to keep an eye out for Tricia the sex bot. Six bot.

Click to shrink...

I was thinking about passive asteroid spy ships that drift through recording things before getting picked up again later.

But a merchant fleet that can hide in plain sight is an interesting option for Colonial space....

Albeit would require somehow getting those ships registered first, and finding a reason why nobody ever sees the crew.

 

[Bedpotato]

Our SI also needs to think of a good PR and spy ship. Small merchant and business yacht types that could move around Colonial space without attracting attention. Perhaps he could even make some human friends that can help him buy and sell goods in the Colonial economy and let the Colonials know to keep an eye out for Tricia the sex bot. Six bot.

Click to shrink...

The Colonies just finished a 12+ year long war against the Cylon AI. There is not a chance in Hell that any non Ai Fanatic human would willingly help Daidalus right now. As for the AI One god fanatics a large number is pro cylon and the ones that would be willing to work with daidalus are under colonial observation or already in prison/Dead.

Why would he need to buy Colonial stuff? They do not sell the heavy armor weapons on the civilian market and anything else he easily can produce himself.

There is a problem with the ai ships as I explained below.

I was thinking about passive asteroid spy ships that drift through recording things before getting picked up again later.

But a merchant fleet that can hide in plain sight is an interesting option for Colonial space....

Albeit would require somehow getting those ships registered first, and finding a reason why nobody ever sees the crew.

Click to shrink...

There is a roblem with AI controlled merchant and/or Pleasure ships in Colonial space. Random searches and customs inspections are a thing. So are harbour insectons and people being noisy.

A freigther that is not from one of the official Colonial shipyards will get a shitton of attention. And long range hacking the Central Colonial ship registry to insert the ships is not going to happen any time soon if at all.

Then there is a lack of people on said ships How good an actor is Daidalus to impersonate a large number of different people over radio? How will the ship explain its extensive automation and advanced and Ilegal Computers? Or the lack of human crew?


That plan is just a waste of resources and effort for nothing.

 

[Night]

Albeit would require somehow getting those ships registered first, and finding a reason why nobody ever sees the crew.

Click to shrink...

There's a way to fake everything, and the answer is fairly obvious, honestly; they're passing through. Because of the collapse of the IDRIS system and the fact it's probably not reconstructed, and general safety and don't-lose-the-expensive-ship-and-cargo, a lot of Colonial traffic probably bounces between places they can call for a tow while traveling to destination. If anybody asks what you're doing over Caprica, you're on your way to Virgon. If anybody asks what you're doing over Virgon, you reply with a different transponder code and you're on your way to Gemenon.

 

[Driven by Apathy]

What if Daidalos simply openly registers a few freighters without trying to hide that they're his?

I mean, is there actually any law preventing him from doing that? Unlikely, I'd say - if only because Colonial law probably wasn't written with the idea in mind that any "rogue AI" might ever try something like that... and the Colonial government might very well decide not to interfere, on the reasoning that this means they'll always know where at least a few of Daidalos's assets are, and will have a way to contact him.

Though it might admittedly be more amusing if Daidalos acts openly but the Colonial bureaucracy doesn't even notice, because standards for background checks for freighters are just that low.

"I don't infiltrate. It's all above board."

- receives registration data for his new merchant ships -

"I don't intentionally infiltrate."

 

[BF110C4]

What if Daidalos simply openly registers a few freighters without trying to hide that they're his?

I mean, is there actually any law preventing him from doing that? Unlikely, I'd say - if only because Colonial law probably wasn't written with the idea in mind that any "rogue AI" might ever try something like that... and the Colonial government might very well decide not to interfere, on the reasoning that this means they'll always know where at least a few of Daidalos's assets are, and will have a way to contact him.

Though it might admittedly be more amusing if Daidalos acts openly but the Colonial bureaucracy doesn't even notice, because standards for background checks for freighters are just that low.

"I don't infiltrate. It's all above board."

- receives registration data for his new merchant ships -

"I don't intentionally infiltrate."

Click to shrink...

After the war is more than likely that there are laws specifically to forbid AIs from most maritime activities, including registering ir even leasing spacecraft. I mean, most of the Cylon initial fleet assets were probably captured ships so having regulations to prevent Flying Dutchmans from infiltrating colonial orbitals for intel and raids is natural, and postwar measures will probably formalize and tighten those rules.

 

[Sixgun]

After the war is more than likely that there are laws specifically to forbid AIs from most maritime activities, including registering ir even leasing spacecraft. I mean, most of the Cylon initial fleet assets were probably captured ships so having regulations to prevent Flying Dutchmans from infiltrating colonial orbitals for intel and raids is natural, and postwar measures will probably formalize and tighten those rules.

Click to shrink...

Yes, but there are all kinds of shady operators out in the sketchy areas, along with outright rebels and those that mine and live on asteroids and mining stations like the one he scavenged from. If he has a core or two traveling those parts in a non-scary ship offering good deals, perhaps doing the occasional good turn, he might well make a few friends willing to act on his behalf in the colonies or sign on as as crew for his ships. The Colonials are not a monolith. Besides, he can eventually just buy some registered ships.

 

[Bedpotato]

Yes, but there are all kinds of shady operators out in the sketchy areas, along with outright rebels and those that mine and live on asteroids and mining stations like the one he scavenged from. If he has a core or two traveling those parts in a non-scary ship offering good deals, perhaps doing the occasional good turn, he might well make a few friends willing to act on his behalf in the colonies or sign on as as crew for his ships. The Colonials are not a monolith. Besides, he can eventually just buy some registered ships.

Click to shrink...

Okay these Shady people are also humans that just barely managed to scrape a draw out of a very bloody nearly genocodial war againts AI. You think anyone will willingly interact/help another AI just because?

The Unified Colonies have made AI Illegal and banned advanced computers, they are litterally dumbing down their entire civilisation out of entirely justified fear of AI. So how exactly is interacting and helping Shady Operator(In other words Pirates, slavers, illegal miners, secessionists, rebells, Terrorists and banned cultists.) usefull to Daidalus? If he does so and gets caught or just rumored to help these criminals you can bet on a negative reaction from the Colonies at large.

He has his mission and programming and it is not fuck around in Human controlled space.

Edit: That is if said Criminals actually talk to him. It is far more likely that they will do one of the following out of fear. 1. Do the rational thing and jump far away from the fucking AI. 2. Destroy wathever he uses to contact them and get a bounty from the Government. 3. Report him to the Government in exchange for money clemency for prior crimes.