First Command - Torchship Captain Quest

[open_sketch]

Vehicle Commander Smith​

Dakota "Kodi" Smith Kodi is fascinated with space travel, other cultures, and stories her mama told her about the war. She sees fighting as an unfortunate burden she is taking on to spare others. More of a cat person. Drives Investigate Everything, Pursue Truth Relentlessly, Be Merciful, Avoid Social Awkwardness Relationships Friend - Crush - Rival - Selena Green​

Montana "Monty" Smith Monty has always wanted to be an explorer, to tell his mom stories about far-away places. Though not inclined to violence, he never backs down. Loves dogs. Drives Make New Friends, Be Forward and Direct, Try New Things, Be A Show Off Relationships Friend - Crush - Rival -​

Traits
Void-Born: You never take complications from 0g or space suits, but take -2d6 to feats of strength and double complications from high gravity.
Shifting Gears: You can spend 1 Determination to switch profiles. Costs +1 Determination each time per episode.
Well-Connected: You can spend 1 Determination to create an old friend, comrade, instructor, etc on any appropriate ship, facility, station, etc you might visit. They are always willing to help if you help in turn.
Certifications
Wild Animal 5+, Physical Instrument 5+, Social Being 5+, Cosmonaut 4+
English 3+, Russian 5+, OSL 4+
Artillery Officer 4+, Drone Pilot 3+, Missile Plotter 4+, Space Marshal 4+
Diplomat +4, Leader +4, Bureaucrat +4, Social Scientist +4
Modern Small Arms 4+, Damage Control 4+
Hobbies: Animal Handling,

Star Patrol Vessel Yeager-1
Statline will be linked above when ready.

Features
Corvette Dock, Transmaterializer

Weapons
x1 Sandblaster, x2 250MW Laser, x2 Probe Bay

Crew
7/42 Crew Assigned!​

Person	Department 1	Department 2	Expertise	Other Certs & Notes	Traits
VC Smith	Tactical	Admin	Demolition	Modern Small Arms, Working With Working Animals	Spacer, Plural, Well-Connected
XO Evelyn Rosa Paz	-	Admin	-	Slugthrowers	Veteran, Cyborg
SPC Nyiko Shilubana-Bolonkin	Engineering	-	Jury-Rigging, Flashfab		Spacer
SPC Kroshtnyr Satkol	Research	-	Sensors		Augment (Mental/Medical), Heavyworlder
SPC Selena Green	Security	-	-	YOUR RIVAL	Heavyworlder
SPC Kerman Ó Caolaidhe	Astrogation		Orbits		-
SPC Ariadna Struna	Tactical		Drones		-

 

[Acatalepsy]

I think the question for our ship and crew is: is it our priority to ensure we safely reach our destination? Or is our priority to disable or check this potential threat?

If the former, can we potentially evade by taking a longer path, away from them, then trying to random walk enough that their need to pop in and out of cloak to keep track of us leads them to fall behind? Maybe with probes to harass and keep an eye on them?

If the latter, it feels like something like 'gotcha' might be the play, with an aim to shred radiators and such - people are already on the details. But a Star Patrol that decides its first option is to engage and destroy an enemy vessel is...thinking in a particular way.

 

[Eater]

Could you add fabbing up two defensive bubble poppers and have them hand out in the supply ship's FTL bubble

Click to shrink...

As we're sharing a bubble right now, i figured our own pd + the drones should hopefully be enough to counter incoming missiles? If the drones aren't any good for pd and can't engage missiles with their own warp ring then swapping them out makes sense, but I'll probably wait for details on what the various types of drone/missile do.

On that note, i only went with the howitzers cause i think they're neat. Not sure what the benefit of using them would actually be? I wonder if they're primarily for overloading screens quickly, in which case it might not be the best choice? Can screens be up in while cloaked or is it too power intensive?

I'm not sure if splitting up makes sense, especially as we don't know for sure of theres just one.

Also, we can't pinpoint the vector the enemy will come along, so we actually want to make several rapid randomized turns to extend the time they spend under cloak chasing us down.

Click to shrink...

This was my thought too. I feel like this should just be a different plan though. Gotcha is based on assuming that they're on the earliest possible intercept from the spot they id'd us and entered cloak, with minimal periscoping. If they pop out as soon as possible we can pop their bubble and run for it or disable them, possibly negotiate or board, etc. otherwise we should probably re evaluate.

As gotcha involves slowing down slightly we should probably do something completely different if we're aiming to evade entirely.

But a Star Patrol that decides its first option is to engage and destroy an enemy vessel is...thinking in a particular way.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. Id initially been much more aggressive but as it stands gotcha only disables the cloak, nothing that should directly harm them right now.

 

[beleester]

Our mission is to chart a safe route, and secondarily to identify whatever has killed the other Patrol ships that came here. I would think both of those are compatible with popping the cloak to see what's there.

Also, given that cloaks are a short-term ability, the cloaker is almost certainly interested in us instead of someone else. The only question is if they're going on an intercept course (which is the only case where plan Gotcha actually threatens them) or if they're doing some sort of fancier move, in which case we might end up repeating this dance when they drop their cloak to look around.

On that note, i only went with the howitzers cause i think they're neat. Not sure what the benefit of using them would actually be?

Click to shrink...

If I'm reading the rules right, a casaba howitzer is very high damage and hard to intercept, but costs more supply to make. They'll be very good if we need a knockout punch, but maybe wasteful if we end up talking our way out.

Here's a modified plan that holds back a bit:

[x] Plan Cheap Decoy
-[x] immediately begin fabricating 2 laser drones, launch them within the screens and task them to intercept enemy missiles
-[x] fabricate 1 bubble popper and an ftl probe, launching them within the screens when ready
-[x] 15 minutes before earliest possible contact change course away from the enemy
-[X] Keep screens at normal

If they intercept us directly, they go pop. If they send missiles in our direction, we have point defense. If they take a longer, slower intercept, at least we're farther away and they might run out of cloak.

I'd like to keep screens low for now, since we need to be able to see what we're shooting at.

 

[samdamandias]

Could you add fabbing up two defensive bubble poppers and have them hand out in the supply ship's FTL bubble, tasked with intercepting enemy bubble poppers trying to knock them out of warp? That way the supply ship can keep retreating while we fight and we don't have to worry about protecting them.

Click to shrink...

I think FTL missiles with flak warheads would be more effective in disabling enemy bubble poppers. I don't think a bubble popper by itself does any damage.

I'd like to keep screens low for now, since we need to be able to see what we're shooting at.

Click to shrink...

To my understanding, screens don't make it harder for us to see out, because we know how our screens distort things and can thus un-distort them. However, keeping screens lower means we have more power for FTL.

 

[Eater]

To my understanding, screens don't make it harder for us to see out, because we know how our screens distort things and can thus un-distort them. However, keeping screens lower means we have more power for FTL.

Click to shrink...

Looks like using screens to hide things goes both ways.

You can bring the screens up to full to completely scramble anything other than There's Two Ships Here, but they'll blind you in turn

Click to shrink...

 

[CyberFemme]

Apropos of absolutely nothing, I want to just take a moment to appreciate how literally the first line item under the Death heading in the rules is Curing Death?

Ok, before I get down to the brass tacks of mathing out optimal missile volleys, I need to know more about the enemy ship. @open_sketch, can we have an IC best guess at how many radiators the enemy has, what kind of weapons (external tubes?), etc?

edit: Also, what makes a drone Reusable?

 

[GAWR]

[X] Plan gotcha

 

[open_sketch]

Apropos of absolutely nothing, I want to just take a moment to appreciate how literally the first line item under the Death heading in the rules is Curing Death?

Ok, before I get down to the brass tacks of mathing out optimal missile volleys, I need to know more about the enemy ship. @open_sketch, can we have an IC best guess at how many radiators the enemy has, what kind of weapons (external tubes?), etc?

edit: Also, what makes a drone Reusable?

Click to shrink...

two big radiators, some large torpedo tubes, and two particle beams is the usual loadout

reusable drones are specialty builds (you'd need to custom-design them) and usually have to use less powerful chemical engines

 

[CyberFemme]

two big radiators, some large torpedo tubes, and two particle beams is the usual loadout

reusable drones are specialty builds (you'd need to custom-design them) and usually have to use less powerful chemical engines

Click to shrink...

No point defense?

edit: Also, I'm not quite clear on the interaction between cloaks and FTL. Are cloaked ships just cpable of changing their FTL vector by a lot without dropping our of warp by just slowing down? Or do they still need to effectively 'drop out of warp' and then reengage in the new direction? And do these moves also follow the 'you need to spend power to jump to warp' rule?

 

[open_sketch]

No point defense?

edit: Also, I'm not quite clear on the interaction between cloaks and FTL. Are cloaked ships just cpable of changing their FTL vector by a lot without dropping our of warp by just slowing down? Or do they still need to effectively 'drop out of warp' and then reengage in the new direction? And do these moves also follow the 'you need to spend power to jump to warp' rule?

Click to shrink...

Cloaked ships won't turn any faster than regular FTL drive ships, but they can do it over a smaller turning radius by slowing down. It'll still take them hours (or even days, for the largest ships) to make a full 180 degree turn, they can just do it in a few thousand kilometres instead of most of a light year.

 

[CyberFemme]

[X] Pirates HATE Them!
-[X] Within the first 4.5 hours to intercept, execute a set of randomized course corrections, made up both of slower meandering of our vector while at FTL, as well as randomized hard turns (not quite handbrake turns, we still want to be headed in roughly away from the enemy contact to extend the chase) by dropping out of FTL, then dumping capacitors into the FTL on a new vector. Our sensor operators will watch for enemy emissions to see if they can localize them.

We time these manoeuvres so they take place within the first 4.5 hours or so, with enough time left over for our screen to recharge back to full before the predicted 5 hour intercept.
In order to maintain their own chase, the enemy will have to periodically drop to STL and extend periscopes to get our new vector. Every time they do so they get a complication added to their Cloak roll, which makes it easier for our peeps to spot them and then focus our active sensors on them, at which point the jig will be up for them because we have a weapons quality track with FTL missiles. (The rule-book mentions that it's much harder to stay undetected once active sensors are pointed at you.)

-[X] Fabricate seven missiles: four flak warheads, one chaff, two bubble popper. One bubble popper is launched right away, it will fly escort. The chaff and flak missiles and the last popper are held in their tubes. (total cost: 23 Supply, 7 Remass)

The enemy is cloaked, which means we need to use the bubble popper to knock out their cloak before we can do damage to them. I want the bubble popper out there, ready to launch the split second that we detect the enemy or they drop their own cloak to fire a bubble popper at us.

By my calculations one flak missile can almost (on average) take out one radiator (35 damage to knock out a radiator), Sketch said that the enemy will have two main radiators (and I assume a third dedicated drive radiator), so three flak missiles with one more for insurance against a poor roll (flak missiles do 3d6 x 3 damage, so they're quite reliable). Stealth ships also tend to carry their missile tubes externally, which means that extra damage is likely to roll over to taking out their long range weapons! The chaff missile in the meantime is cheap in terms of supply and soak enemy PD fire, letting our flaks do their job.

-[X] A half hour before the 5 hour intercept, get everyone into suits and decompress the ships, and put the paratroopers on high alert in case they have to repel borders or board in turn.

This is just best practice. Decompressing the ship minimizes the damage we take and makes it harder for them to board. And ideally we want them to surrender, but even so we want to have troops on standby in case we have an opportunity to get intel. Part of our mission is to find out what makes this sector dangerous, and first hand records from a pirate computer would really help.

-[X] If they fire on us first, Yeager 1 and the supply ship will drop out of FTL just before the enemy bubble popper hits their bubble. Yaeger will lase the bubble popper, and the supply ship will dump capacitors and make a discount FTL jump.

You only have to spend half the usual cost in power if you jump again within 1 cycle of dropping from warp, so the supply ship should be able to do this ezpz. We want to get them out of there, because Yeager has extra trust to control the range at which it fights, but the supply ships does not and will fall behind during manoeuvres.
This bubble popper can be equipped with a expanded RCS thruster supply to keep up with us semi-randomwalking our FTL vector.

-[X] Once they are detected or they drop cloak to fire their own bubble poppers/missiles, our bubble popper will race out to hit their cloak.

This is as far ahead as I want to plan. Based on what happens next we can pick an appropriate course of action. If they intercept our bubble popper, we can launch a second, if they're hit then we close to long range and fire our STL missiles - or execute an FTL bowshock attack, or something.
I hope we don't have to use a second bubble popper, those are expensive.

 

[Eater]

[X] Pirates HATE Them!
-[X] Within the first 4.5 hours to intercept, execute a set of randomized course corrections, made up both of slower meandering of our vector while at FTL, as well as randomized hard turns (not quite handbrake turns, we still want to be headed in roughly away from the enemy contact to extend the chase) by dropping out of FTL, then dumping capacitors into the FTL on a new vector. Our sensor operators will watch for enemy emissions to see if they can localize them.

We time these manoeuvres so they take place within the first 4.5 hours or so, with enough time left over for our screen to recharge back to full before the predicted 5 hour intercept.
In order to maintain their own chase, the enemy will have to periodically drop to STL and extend periscopes to get our new vector. Every time they do so they get a complication added to their Cloak roll, which makes it easier for our peeps to spot them and then focus our active sensors on them, at which point the jig will be up for them because we have a weapons quality track with FTL missiles. (The rule-book mentions that it's much harder to stay undetected once active sensors are pointed at you.)

-[X] Fabricate seven missiles: four flak warheads, one chaff, two bubble popper. One bubble popper is launched right away, it will fly escort. The chaff and flak missiles and the last popper are held in their tubes. (total cost: 23 Supply, 7 Remass)

The enemy is cloaked, which means we need to use the bubble popper to knock out their cloak before we can do damage to them. I want the bubble popper out there, ready to launch the split second that we detect the enemy or they drop their own cloak to fire a bubble popper at us.

By my calculations one flak missile can almost (on average) take out one radiator (35 damage to knock out a radiator), Sketch said that the enemy will have two main radiators (and I assume a third dedicated drive radiator), so three flak missiles with one more for insurance against a poor roll (flak missiles do 3d6 x 3 damage, so they're quite reliable). Stealth ships also tend to carry their missile tubes externally, which means that extra damage is likely to roll over to taking out their long range weapons! The chaff missile in the meantime is cheap in terms of supply and soak enemy PD fire, letting our flaks do their job.

-[X] A half hour before the 5 hour intercept, get everyone into suits and decompress the ships, and put the paratroopers on high alert in case they have to repel borders or board in turn.

This is just best practice. Decompressing the ship minimizes the damage we take and makes it harder for them to board. And ideally we want them to surrender, but even so we want to have troops on standby in case we have an opportunity to get intel. Part of our mission is to find out what makes this sector dangerous, and first hand records from a pirate computer would really help.

-[X] If they fire on us first, Yeager 1 and the supply ship will drop out of FTL just before the enemy bubble popper hits their bubble. Yaeger will lase the bubble popper, and the supply ship will dump capacitors and make a discount FTL jump.

You only have to spend half the usual cost in power if you jump again within 1 cycle of dropping from warp, so the supply ship should be able to do this ezpz. We want to get them out of there, because Yeager has extra trust to control the range at which it fights, but the supply ships does not and will fall behind during manoeuvres.
This bubble popper can be equipped with a expanded RCS thruster supply to keep up with us semi-randomwalking our FTL vector.

-[X] Once they are detected or they drop cloak to fire their own bubble poppers/missiles, our bubble popper will race out to hit their cloak.

This is as far ahead as I want to plan. Based on what happens next we can pick an appropriate course of action. If they intercept our bubble popper, we can launch a second, if they're hit then we close to long range and fire our STL missiles - or execute an FTL bowshock attack, or something.
I hope we don't have to use a second bubble popper, those are expensive.

Click to shrink...

Hmm. Are the updated rules in the same google doc from last time?

Edit: nvm found it
yeah that looks good.
[X] Pirates HATE Them!

 

[Draz]

[X] Pirates HATE Them!

Always up for a Cyber plan

 

[Hestia&theCourt]

[X] Pirates HATE Them!

 

[GAWR]

[X] Pirates HATE Them!

 

[Derpmind]

[X] CyberFemme