Update has been made, waiting for proof reading.
Just need to stat a couple things out and post it afterwards; so expect an update in the next few days.
Hellscape travel is relatively fast, mostly reliable, and allows someone to go from one point in the galaxy to practically any other point in the galaxy while requiring only a few stops in between on a case by case basis for the trip. This affords those who use it an incredible amount of strategic flexibility.
In practice though, pretty much no one but the Empire willingly uses it for the simple fact of the Entities on the other side of the veil. And even the Empire sets up pre-existing travel 'lanes' to improve upon the safety of their ships and minimize time actually spent within Hellscape. The 'Scripture Aura' would be revolutionary thanks to its ability to render the ship carrying it invisible to the dangers within the alternate dimension, but widespread use is a long way into the future requiring someone to figure out how it even works before replication can begin.
Because of this though, other factions utilize different methods of FTL since their own vessels aren't as 'safe' as Imperial ships in Hellscape.
The Federation, specifically, uses a type of 'Trans-Gate' Network. Specifically utilizing pre-placed structures in order to create wormholes between them in order to get where they're going. Centuries ago, when the Federation was first forming, the requirement for their ships to utilize these pre-placed structures slowed them tremendously. At least until a species known as the Bher'rut joined and discovered not only how to project a short-lived wormhole from these structures to a destination but also designed a cut-down version of the massive gates that could be fit onto battlecruisers and dreadnaughts. These cut-down 'gate drives' allowed Flotilla leads and fleet flagships to momentarily open a wormhole back to an already existent Transfer Gate giving them a way to retrieve fleets.
The drawbacks though are that a Gate had to be involved in every step of the process, and the Gate Drives themselves are so energy intensive that powering them pretty much rendered the vessel charging one up dead in the water. So in order to go from one system, the Flotilla flagship had to open a wormhole back to a gate in Helgast Space, then that gate had to make a new wormhole to fling the flotilla back out into the cosmos. And each Gate can only be active for one wormhole at a time. Leading to the Federation having to construct 'gate hubs'; planets with dozens of Transfer Gates around them to facilitate traffic across Federation space.
The Wormholes generated also had a range limitation, but that's unconnected to your current tangent.
The reason you're bringing this all up though, is that since you're technically putting yourself under Kate's lead for this investigation, and thus being required to stay where she can see you, Childhood's End has to follow her flotilla through the wormholes necessary to get over to the Shetran Stream. And you're of the opinion that wormhole travel sucks.
And considering Childhood herself is complaining about the chunk of rotted hull she accidentally left behind back in the Helgast hub zone, she likely agrees with you. The feeling of getting your constituent matter stretched out across several hundred lightyears then reeled back in like a ball of yarn was nauseous in the extreme, leaving you laying across Childhood's lap trying not to regurgitate that morning's meal. "Hopefully we don't have to do that again." You comment to AD-331's chuckles.
"Don't worry Captain, it should get easier as we use it more."
"Says the ass that isn't currently trying not to vent their insides all over my ship." Instead of being properly chastised, AD-331 just laughs at you, which is totally rude and definitely something you should write him up for, but your stomach rebels as his smile causes it to twist again and you make the executive decision to just bury your face in Childhood's thighs. Her fingers running through your hair go a long way to calming your insides, though a traitorous part of you wishes her ministrations were just a tiny bit rougher. You keep that to yourself.
"We're confirmed. Captain Katetox's vessels are through and the Transfer Gate has closed behind us. All vessels are accounted for." 1344-RDK announces across the bridge. "Captain Katetox demands we take a central position near her flagship."
"Acknowledged. 88-BB-101; move us into position. Make sure we're not too close to be suspicious but make sure if they start shooting us they risk hitting her ship as well." Which is… both easier and harder than it actually sounds. Easy to pretend not to be suspicious; Childhood's End is a ridiculously large vessel, and Kate ordered you to get close. Hard because Childhood's End is a ridiculously large vessel, meaning that chances are if someone starts shooting then Kate's ship is likely going to be happily untouchable in your dreadnought's shadow. "GH-708, what do we have on our initial scans?"
"Better than expected. The Stream's gravitational eddies are causing a lot of interference, but Lady Childhood's sensors are doing well in filtering it all out. We'll have a clear image in a few minutes."
{System Alert! Gravitational-Based Stealth is now countered by Childhood's Clairvoyance System!}
"Good. Keep close to Kate's ships, but focus on the scans. I don't want anything sneaking up on us."
"Ma'am!"
The Shetran Stream is an incredibly unique celestial formation; a sequence of neutron stars all collectively within a mere hundred lightyears of another part of the Stream, with only one or two not being within hat range of more than two other stars. If you remember correctly, Imperial scientists have projected them all coming together in order to form into a single blackhole several billion years from now but those details were never of interest to you. Instead, what you focused on was the effects they had on local space. To start with, their titanic gravitational fields and the extreme quantity of exotic matter in the region made most sensors practically worthless. And that exotic matter? It also refracted light in such a way that could even blind people trying to look outside their ships with the basic mark 1 eyeball. The latter of which was actually a non-issue thanks to Childhood dimming her not-quite-windows in such a way that instead of blinding anyone looking out just painted a vista of incredible color that you didn't have the words to properly express outside of "master painter high off his rocker locked in a bright room".
It was beautiful. Also made it impossible to see anything.
"I hate this place."
It also did a wonderful job of giving you a fucking headache because your eyes were picking up so much stuff you could feel your brain strain to process it all. The last time you'd visited the Stream, you had been a measly five years of age and the sight had knocked you on your ass for close to a week. Following high-definition recordings had eventually just cemented your dislike for the region in spite of your appreciation for it's otherwise beautiful appearance.
"Hopefully we can get out of here quickly."
The search begins easily enough, a few minutes for Childhood's End to adjust her sensors enough that GH-708 eventually manages to cut through the exotic mess that was local space and then for a while after that is just one long period of carefully pinging the entire region. The good news is that the exotic matter and gravity distortions of the region help hide you and Kate's fleet just as much as it should have been hiding everything else from your vessel's own sensors.
Sadly though, thanks to the lack of Hellscape, the entire process is incredibly slow. Once one area is scanned, you have to slow-boat your way to a new area to repeat the process elsewhere. Technically you could drag Kate's fleet with Childhood's End through Hellscape from place to place, but your friend shoots that idea down quickly regardless of whatever assurances you have for your 'untested Hellscape technology'. Childhood offers to do the same but with Subspace and while Kate looked intrigued by the idea you shoot it down both for the potential political consequences of accidentally losing a Federation ship in a jump mixing with the almost inevitable damage it'd cause to Childhood's hull.
Technically you could also just wormhole your way back to the Federation Hub World, but that's blocked by the very understandably paranoid potential of enough jumps back leading to you narrowing down the exact location of said world. A precaution that's already been made kind of moot by the single earlier jump being all Childhood had needed to pinpoint said location, but Kate's superiors didn't need to know about that.
Thankfully though, you do make one nice discovery; getting close enough into the gravitational sphere of one of the local neutron stars does in fact block out enough exotic radiation that your headache is granted a temporary reprieve from the sensory overload you have to deal with personally. These little breaks are enough to actually help you slowly begin to adjust to using so many of your apparently enhanced involuntary senses all at once via exposure therapy.
Doesn't mean you don't use the thighs of your ship's avatar to block out everything you can though. They're comfortable, and her petting is relaxing. Brainwashing be damned.
Eventually though, "Captain, we're being pinged!" all good things must come to an end.
You push yourself up from your bed-throne-thing and march to the spot in the dead center of the upper bridge platform where you can see everyone's stations clearly yourself. "Any idea on what pinged us?"
"It's a buoy marker, Federation Design, but it's sending out Imperial codes. It's definitely our pirates." GH-708 announces, leading you to grunt and exchange a silent look with AD-331.
Your second nods to you before turning to 1334-RDK, "Open a channel to Captain Katetox."
The Communication officer nods before focusing on his station again for a few moments. Then the massive screen from before appears in the air above you, "Morev, what is it?"
"We've been pinged," you immediately state, gaining Kate's undivided attention. "It's a Federation buoy using Imperial Codes. If none of your ships were pinged as well, chances are our shadow is hiding you."
"Useful." The Helion catches onto what you're not saying just as quickly as you imply it. "I'll have my ships pull in closer to your vessel. The buoy being here means we're in their regular ambush zone; we're about to be attacked."
"That's exactly what I was thinking. I'll have my Comm Officer open a channel so your ships can hook into Childhood's sensor net so you can see what we're seeing."
"Good," She waves to someone off screen, and 1334-RDK signals you over his shoulder, "Keep your eyes open Morev, things are about to get interesting."
It hides in the chaos between stars, hard edges with cruel lines.
The design is immediate and obvious; invoking the most primal feelings of fear that reside in all organic beings of the things that hunt and feed in the darkness. Claws and teeth to rend and tear flesh. Memories ingrained in the very basis of all species' survival instincts across the entire cosmos.
"What is that?" You don't know who asks the question, but Katetox answers solemnly.
"Normally I should say 'classified' but considering it's coming to kill us; it's a Fleshship. The EOF are supposed to be under a tight quarantine, so one of their vessels shouldn't be this far out."
"Fleshship? EOF?" You ask briskly, focusing on the living shadow that is rapidly tearing its way towards you and the Federation flotilla escorting you. Thankfully Kate doesn't take offense at your tone, likely recognizing you at what she had said was 'your best'. Taking in information no matter how trivial and organizing it in such a way that had lead you to your position as the best at the academy.
"They call themselves the End of Flesh Coalition. Technically the proper acronym would be 'EFC' but events transpired to lead to them taking the moniker of 'EOF' instead. They're a group of rampant artificial intelligences whose sole goal is the eradication of organic life. Their 'fleshships' are analogous to our warships but designed more for psychological warfare. Don't be fooled though; they're not something we can just shrug off. And if there's one then there's-"
"Multiple contacts! We're picking up another five vessels! Varying sizes!"
"-more. Six ships. They normally operate in sections of three, so we're missing at least three ships. Explains what's been making ships in the region vanish and why they'd want the Federation and Empire at war."
Which is true, but you're also picking up a lot more between the lines of what she's not saying.
Twenty years ago there were a number of smaller polities that existed on the far side of the Federation from the Empire that had suddenly gone dark when the region had exploded into war. It lasted only a measly few weeks before the Federation got involved and annexed the entire area; the official stance being that some of the groups attacked the others and those 'others' begged for the Federation's 'protection' in return for joining. An insignificant event in the grand scheme of things.
But a group of AI whose existence was classified? Mysteriously known to the Federation and under 'quarantine'? Your father's spies had confirmed that the Federation had a large military presence in the former region of the previously mentioned conflict that they and you had all written off as simply making sure their new acquisitions were firmly under their thumb. That Kate has confirmed it's instead an active quarantine force changes things.
It means these AIs are strong enough to require quarantine. And if the Federation has to quarantine it, then that means they're a potential threat to the Federation.
And if they're a potential threat to the Federation, they're a potential threat to the Empire.
But that's not the worst part.
'They shouldn't be out here.' These words have horrific implications. These things are supposed to be under quarantine on the far side of the Federation. The fact they're here and active means either someone fucked up and let them out… or worse they found a way out of the Quarintine.
The original problem, discovering what's been making ships vanish, has evolved into something much worse.
"We need to get word out." Your eventual response causes Katetox to stop whatever she had been in the middle of saying. "Them being here means there's a breach in your Quarantine, and we need to let your leaders know that." Something that's currently technically impossible because the exotic radiation that's been messing with lesser scanners the entire time you've been here is also blocking out-bound communication for Katetox's flotilla.
"I agree, but there's a problem. We can't open a Wormhole with those things coming right at us." In order to activate her flagship's Gate Drives, Kate has to divert all power from everything else in order to power it. Leaving her vessel vulnerable and 'dead in the water'.
And considering her cruiser is the only thing in her patrol larger than a frigate, you can't afford that.
Her cruiser, three frigates, four destroyers.
And your beautiful Childhood's End.
Your ship is massive; Kate's entire flotilla could cower in her shadow and not fear for anything fired at it. But she is also crippled. You have a single capitalship-murdering weapon to call upon and nothing else.
FIRST CONTACT! THE END OF FLESH (Gaze now, upon one of the nightmares to come.)
[ ] Battle Plan
Primary Objective: Survive or Escape
Secondary Objective: Kate's Survival (She's in the Federation Cruiser)
Tertiary Objective: Destruction of all (?) Fleshships
Allies:
-1 Helgast Federation Cruiser
-3 Helgast Federation Frigates
-4 Helgast Federation Destroyers
Battlefield Condition:
Shetran Stream's Gravitic And Exotic Anomalies: Due to warped space and presence of extreme amounts of exotic matters and energy, vessels have a stealth rating of 10. Which allows vessels to get up to 10 hexes inside a sensor envelope undetected. (I'll make a larger rules dump later.)
Missiles are dangerous. Very few other weapons are capable of matching them in both sheer range and damage that aren't some king of specially dedicated platform, and that's not even touching upon their ability to chase targets. Sadly though this does come with a number of drawbacks.
Missiles are single-shot weapons that are expended once used. Each missile tube or torpedo tube come with a single missile or torpedo loaded at a time. There are some types that are refillable via some form of magazine or reserve stockpile, but otherwise the only ways to reload a Missile weapon is either via resupply from a Fleet Base or Fleet Tender, or by manufacturing new missiles via on-board facilities.
A missile will chase it's target until either shot down or it's target is destroyed. If the latter occurs and the Missile has remaining range to move, it will automatically reacquire the closest enemy vessel and start chasing it instead.
Missile will continue flying until they hit their maximum range. If they run out of range, they will self destruct unless specifically programmed to instead reconfigure into proximity "landmines". A missile set to become a "landmine" will lose a single point of range in order to keep the ability to ambush any enemy ship that enters it's ending hex.
Missiles cannot be targeted by anti-ship weaponry. Only weapons specifically named "Anti-Missile", "Point Defense", or "Multipurpose" can be used to shoot them down. So long as they're not already being fired at another target, a ship will automatically use any available point defense weaponry to shoot down any missile in range regardless of the Missile's targeting priorities. This includes missiles sitting around as landmines.
Smallcraft
Fighters, Bombers, and other Smallcraft like Drones are micro-vessels utilized for a variety of purposes. Though the most common role you'll see them in is acting as short-range independent weapons platforms for their motherships.
Smallcraft operate during the "Projectile Movements" phase of each turn.
Fighters cannot deal Hull Damage to larger ships, but are capable of targeting those ship's individual subsystems like Engines and Weapons. Their real role though is to engage enemy Missiles, Bombers, Drones, and other Fighters. Functionally acting as roaming anti-missile and anti-smallcraft weaponry.
Bombers act as armored delivery platforms for heavy anti-ship weaponry, such as missile payloads. If a Bomber expends it's cargo of missiles or torpedoes, then it must return to it's host ship in order to resupply it's ordinance.
If a type of Fighter utilizes missiles as it's weapon, then it must also return to it's host ship in order to resupply it's missiles if they're expended.
Smallcraft cannot be targeted by anti-ship weaponry. Only weapons specifically named "Anti-Missile", "Point Defense", or "Multipurpose" can be used to shoot them down. So long as they're not already being fired at another target, a ship will automatically use any available point defense weaponry to shoot down any smallcraft in range regardless of the Smallcraft's targeting priorities.
If a Fighter, Bomber, or Drone are destroyed, then the mothership must either construct a new one, or receive a new one from a Fleetbase or Fleet Tender.
Part of me really didn't want to return just to throw everyone straight into a fight, but it was kind of necessary considering the plot needs to go forward and there really wasn't anything else of interest in the stream aside finding these things.
Also, @LostDeviljho was feeling a bit exhausted so he's currently unavailable to build a battlemap for us; but once we have it I'll update the end of the map to add it on. If anyone wants to wait to make plans until we have one feel free, otherwise debates for basic plans of action won't be stalled. I'll also update the above post with the special rules regarding Fighters, Drones, and small craft like that later as well since it's so late.
Part of me really didn't want to return just to throw everyone straight into a fight, but it was kind of necessary considering the plot needs to go forward and there really wasn't anything else of interest in the stream aside finding these things.
Also, @LostDeviljho was feeling a bit exhausted so he's currently unavailable to build a battlemap for us; but once we have it I'll update the end of the map to add it on. If anyone wants to wait to make plans until we have one feel free, otherwise debates for basic plans of action won't be stalled. I'll also update the above post with the special rules regarding Fighters, Drones, and small craft like that later as well since it's so late.
how many times can the interceptor missiles be used? or is their enough of them for that to be a non-issue? and how many times can the bomber fire its antimatter payload before needing to reload?
also are the other ships still blinded by the Shetran stream?
Great to see this back! Also nice to see Anastasia and Karen getting along when facing a common foe.
Also, oh boy! Fleshships that evolved from a quarantined AI that have been eating ships moving through the area, and we're still missing some of them? That sounds wonderful. At least the other ships should be able to start picking them out soon if the link to Childhood's sensors is put online quickly.
So according to Kate we're facing up to potentially 9 ships with 6 currently on the field...
Quick question, with weapons that deal multiple instances of damage, can that be split among multiple targets? Like say... Our Subspace Filament Weapons? Also are the SFWs 50 damage and 100 instances or 100 damage and 50 instances?
The only problem is we don't have enough resources to bring anything else online, at most we can spend resources to further regenerate our hull though if we can it'll certainly be useful for "not dying" purposes.
Edit: Wait I read that wrong. Do we have the Lost Cause? Cause it's not in order of battle so I'd assume it's back home.
the lost cause is worthless in this fight: too slow to keep up too little power to power its systems and its guns are basically worthless anyway the lost cause is useful for away teams but that's about it if we want it combat viable we need to do an extensive refit on it
Honestly, looking at the stats, we will be fine. As long as they don't shoot down our engine. Their highest damaging ability is two shots of 50 damage. And it is outright a beam weapon. Against which we gain resistances after first hit. Our main vunrabilities are our engine and guns. But they aren't breaching our amour.
The Federation ships (not the Smallcrafts) are outright faster then Fleshrippers. Federation also suffers from low Sensor range, which is something Childhoods End directly counters.
I'd just scatter the federation ships and let them engage targets from extreme range, in a attempt to bait them out. Childhoods End can use her one ranged gun to deal damage, along with exploiting our Subspace Filament Weapon with microturns to take out the ships one by one. Intertia Drives can change directions at will, which means that under right circumstances we can be right on top of them.
Let us just not engage all 6 ships at once, first try to bait half of them out.
the lost cause is worthless in this fight: too slow to keep up too little power to power its systems and its guns are basically worthless anyway the lost cause is useful for away teams but that's about it if we want it combat viable we need to do an extensive refit on it
Except we had it upgraded. We payed good space bucks for it. At least I'd like to know if it payed off. And the main thing I'm looking at is the simple fact that it has anti-missile guns.
Your upgraded Lost Cause is currently unavailable since the upgrade are still on-going.
(I haven't finished figuring out what all to stick in it and Childhood's End has been procrastinating.)
As they are allied, the Federation ships aren't blind due to sharing sensors with Childhood's End.
I think missiles came up in the previous combat conversation, but I literally just woke up and have work today I getting an answer for that will be a while in coming. If someone else hasn't looked it up and shared before I get back expect one this afternoon.
Quick question, with weapons that deal multiple instances of damage, can that be split among multiple targets? Like say... Our Subspace Filament Weapons? Also are the SFWs 50 damage and 100 instances or 100 damage and 50 instances?
whenever a weapon's formatted as AxB, A will be the base damage of each instance, and B will be how many instances it has or how many times it hits something. For example, Childhood's SFWs do 50 damage each tendril, but they have 100 tendrils.
Missiles specifically the B is how many missiles a ship has to use at combat start. so 10x32, means each missile does 10 damage, but there's only 32 missiles.
If Childhood's End wasn't here, the local space would have blinded the Federation ships and they'd probably be dead.
Also give thanks to @LostDeviljho for his amazing work.
I have created a threadmark to house the specific rules for Missiles and Smallcraft such as Kate's fighters and bombers.
whenever a weapon's formatted as AxB, A will be the base damage of each instance, and B will be how many instances it has or how many times it hits something. For example, Childhood's SFWs do 50 damage each tendril, but they have 100 tendrils.
Missiles specifically the B is how many missiles a ship has to use at combat start. so 10x32, means each missile does 10 damage, but there's only 32 missiles.
If Childhood's End wasn't here, the local space would have blinded the Federation ships and they'd probably be dead.
Also give thanks to @LostDeviljho for his amazing work.
it seems to me that the strategy is to use our pinpoint subspace jump to land on top of an enemy and then hit them with the subspace filament weapon and then shoot another enemy with our slicer beam while keeping the fleshships focused on us as we have enough integrity to tank with minimal damage
it seems to me that the strategy is to use our pinpoint subspace jump to land on top of an enemy and then hit them with the subspace filament weapon and then shoot another enemy with our slicer beam while keeping the fleshships focused on us as we have enough integrity to tank with minimal damage
We need to get our allies out of the center of the encirclement or they're going to lose ships. On the plus side, our allies are faster than the fleshships, and we can subspace jump, so we control the terms of the engagement and our enemies have foolishly spread themselves out. This is a classic defeat in detail tactical situation where we concentrate force to quickly destroy the enemy before they can concentrate to become a threat.
Here's what I propose. Kate's whole squadron dives towards one of the hostiles, severely damaging it with alpha strike but saving missiles. Perhaps the one at the 9:00 position. We subspace hot drop right on top of another one adjacent to the one Kate's squadron targets, perhaps the one at the 12:00 position. We tear it to little pieces with subspace filaments, and fire the slicer beam at the Fleshripper Kate's squadron targeted to finish it off if necessary, or target the one at the 3:00 position if they don't need any help.
From there Kate's squadron moves anti-clockwise, and we move clockwise, targeting and destroying ships opportunistically. It'll probably degenerate into a scrum in the middle, but we aim to kill three or four ships by then. Any of Kate's ships that gets seriously damaged backs off; if the squadron runs into serious trouble it can run for it, opening up the distance using superior speed while we aggressively take out hostiles. At the very least we can take one out every 3 rounds with another subspace jump and kill, and we can lay in serious damage with our long range gun.
Thoughts?
Edit: The way to play this safe, if we want to go for it, would be pretty simple; just dive out of the encirclement (blowing up one or two ships on the way) and keep flying. Kate's ships can eventually open up enough distance to escape safely while we keep up with regular subspace jumps.
Edit edit: Just noticed that smallcraft can't keep up with the larger ships. That's unusual.
Edit edit edit: @Crystalwatcher, will Kate's squadron be able to function outside of the Childhood's End range 10 sensor envelope? I'm not sure how bad the sensor problems they're having are. I may need to retool this if we have to keep the ships close. We could keep the initial split, but have everything attack the 3:00 position after and generally stick closer. That would keep Kate's squadron within 10 while also enabling a reasonable distribution of firepower for quickly taking down ships. The enemy might be able to consolidate faster, though. Depends on if they all fly for the center or if they split into two groups.
Edit edit edit: @Crystalwatcher, will Kate's squadron be able to function outside of the Childhood's End range 10 sensor envelope? I'm not sure how bad the sensor problems they're having are. I may need to retool this if we have to keep the ships close. We could keep the initial split, but have everything attack the 3:00 position after and generally stick closer. That would keep Kate's squadron within 10 while also enabling a reasonable distribution of firepower for quickly taking down ships. The enemy might be able to consolidate faster, though. Depends on if they all fly for the center or if they split into two groups.
They're pretty much blind or nearsighted when outside of Childhood's sensor envelope. But remember: you can increase said envelope via putting more power to the sensors.
For Kate's squadron to get vision more than one or two hexes away from where they're at they'll have to start putting enough power into their sensors it becomes detrimental to other systems.
EDIT:
Actually to make things easier I just added this to the bottom of the update bellow the Aliies list:
Shetran Stream's Gravitic And Exotic Anomalies: Due to warped space and presence of extreme amounts of exotic matters and energy, vessels have a stealth rating of 10. Which allows vessels to get up to 10 hexes inside a sensor envelope undetected. (I'll make a larger rules dump later.)
Just as the Flesh ships can't damage us, the federation ships can't damage the Fleshships.
All Federation ships focused on a single Fleshship deal 60 damage (30 cruiser, 10 per a frigate). Destroyers theoretically deal damage, but range is horrible.
So, closest ship is 7 Hexes away, so no Microturns the first turn. No destroying the nearest ships since order of battle is fire then move.
I'd personally keep the stack for the first turn. Move the stack 5 hexes left and one hex downleft, so it is not in range of the top ship. We would get under fire by 2 Fleshships, but the stack should survive. We deal 210 damage (150 + 60) with Federation and Childhood. Then next move depends on what the enemy does, specifically the closest fleshship. If the Fleshship stays put, just run it over with a microturn and Childhood. If it runs away keep hitting the ship you are hitting. Since Filaments oneshot anything, we should actually focus another ship, since it would be a raste of DPS to focud the nearest one.
Just as the Flesh ships can't damage us, the federation ships can't damage the Fleshships.
All Federation ships focused on a single Fleshship deal 60 damage (30 cruiser, 10 per a frigate). Destroyers theoretically deal damage, but range is horrible.
So, closest ship is 7 Hexes away, so no Microturns the first turn. No destroying the nearest ships since order of battle is fire then move.
I'd personally keep the stack for the first turn. Move the stack 5 hexes left and one hex downleft, so it is not in range of the top ship. We would get under fire by 2 Fleshships, but the stack should survive. We deal 210 damage (150 + 60) with Federation and Childhood. Then next move depends on what the enemy does, specifically the closest fleshship. If the Fleshship stays put, just run it over with a microturn and Childhood. If it runs away keep hitting the ship you are hitting. Since Filaments oneshot anything, we should actually focus another ship, since it would be a raste of DPS to focud the nearest one.
where did you get those numbers from? the cruiser has 6 neutron kill beams each of which deals 10 damage each of the frigate has 60 damage total with 10 range and each of the destroyers has 35 damage with 10 range
altogether the cruiser+frigates will deal 240 damage plus 140 from the destroyers for a total of 380 our slicer beam can then finish it off or we can launch a bomber and have it use its antimatter bombs to finish it off
