It's interesting how the
options for the Titanium Rose's upgrade parallel the
choices for our protagonist's specialization. In both cases essentially choosing between offense, defense, or intelligence.
In the end we chose to make Amani a sensor officer with sub-specialization in encryption, going all in on intel. We also chose to make the Titanium Rose a
Ranger-class heavy reconnaissance craft, specializing in speed and maneurvability.
There's an argument to be made for choosing shields, for a more rounded build. But considering the points we've invested in Amani's developmenpt, stealth and ECM offer the greatest opportunity for the players to actively effect the outcome of events. (If we had chosen kinetic barrier specialist or weapon officer as Amani's career track instead, then the best combination would be different.) Given that we also know stealth and ECM work well with the Titanium Rose's strengths, I think making the Rose the best recon/skirmisher in the fleet offers a better payoff than making her a pocket cruiser.
I think stealth is a vote based on believing we will be able to control the terms of engagement, and deny battle if it does not favor us.
A vote for shields is a vote based on the idea we are likely to be forced into unfavorable actions, either by our commanders or by enemy manuevers. It also lets us linger in hot zones longer, in case of retrieval missions.
In the immediate future, I'm seeing a 100% chance of the second and little chance of the first. The invasion has begun, we just lost 1/4 of our defense array (and all the civilians on them) and are about to fight to the knife against a (very likely) larger invading force, in a system that just had all scans shot to hell via hot new debris, but little room to manuevers.
Stronger shields would let the Titanium Rose survive more hits, of course. That's obviously a valid point, and I would agree there.
But I think this downplays the role of stealth in combat. The idea that choosing stealth means hiding without acting seems to be floating around, but I don't think that's the case.
As described, the stealth option is definitely useful in active combat:
Although, the quasi stealth system would be something that makes it harder to get a decent firing solution on the Rose as well and could make it harder to hit even in a pitched battle -- none of these options will be useless in the immediate scenario.
It's going to do shit all if someone eventually does land a shot, though.
Essentially, it fucks around with detectable heat emissions and releases interference that makes it slower and harder for convention scans suites to figure out what the ship is and precisely where it is/where it's going. Allies can be sent data from the ship to make sure they don't get similarly confused.
An enemy can tell that something is there and emitting heat regardless, but it would become much slipperyer beyond that.
Firing ship weapons without knowing precisely where you're shooting and whether it's going to hit something is something that is generally pretty irresponsible and dangerous.
If weapons officer had won most of your job would have been math, even more than Amani's which has a substantial element of interpretation.
If that's your interpretation, sure. It's a pretty big advantage. It emphasises the Ranger's key strengths -- speed and maneuverability. Shields make up for its biggest weakness, though, which is an underlying fragility compared to the other ship options available at the start.
If anything, it sounds like the best tactics for a stealthy Rose would be sharp turns and staying on the move while shooting.
Also, space is big. The debris, and the collision of fleets? Won't prevent ships from tactical maneuvering to score or avoid hits.
The way I figure, stronger shields are a plain and simple choice that's hard to mess up, offering stronger defense. Similarly, bigger guns offer the best offense.
Stealth, on the other hand, doesn't provide a direct offensive or defensive boost. But with the right handling, it could enhance both profiles. In other words, not as solid or straightforward as the other upgrades in their respective domains but more flexibile and versatile.
I mean, okay, no. We've been told quite clearly that none of the upgrades are useless. We can also reasonably infer by extension (and based on this quest's general pattern of vote options) that none of the upgrades are strictly superior to any of the others, which would be the case if (e.g.) stealth was a better defensive upgrade than shields. In this case, while stealth may let us avoid more hits than shields would let us soak, I have to imagine that'd only be the case if we're making significant sacrifices in pursuit of that goal - for instance, refraining from being involved in the battle, because firing would give away our location and get us shot. If we want to get stuck in, shields have to be the best defensive option, simply by the way the choices are set up.
(all that said, do note that I'm still voting for stealth - I just don't want people overestimating its capabilities to the point where shields look like a useless pick)
Yeah, it's worth keeping in mind each upgrade has its pros and cons.
I think stealth's obvious limitations are: that it takes more skill to use it to gain an edge since it doesn't improve offense and defense as directly or as much as the other upgrades, and that the Titanium Rose won't be as good at it as the prototype Night Lily was (though the Rose's more limited upgrades should be more reliable than the Lily's experimental equipment).
Though the fact that the stealth upgrade is stated to work in part by making the Rose's heading harder to determine, and that it "
emphasises the Ranger's key strengths -- speed and maneuverability", suggests shoot-and-scoot and high-speed turns are more likely to be the optimal pattern than sitting still.
That makes me feel better about the stealth option, thank you for finding all that.
I still prefer the shields for other reasons, though.
Sure. Shields would be my second choice, personally, as a safe option.
I was trying to sum up my thoughts, but this says it much more succinctly than I was managing.
I don't see anyone considering just how much morale could suffer with the stealth system, which is something I was getting at. The Rose is already a recon ship, a backwater posting for people the navy would rather just forget about. Becoming partially-invisible in a very literal way is not going to help that perception, no matter how often Mazlo probably brings up that it's based on technology from Her Highness's personal prototype ship. As much as anyone doesn't want to die horribly in battle, sneaking around isn't going to get them the glorious victories they secretly want but can't get while posted there. It's hard to brag about skulking around and shanking corvettes in the back.
Shields let them/us do what we already seem to want to do: give up when maneuvering is no longer an option, and slug it out with whichever similarly-sized Usurper ship happens to look at them funny. Something we've already done a few times, and got righteously mangled for it.
I can't really see that happening, to be honest. This isn't a setting where anything other than honorable, face-to-face combat is frowned upon. We've seen plenty of ambushes, suprise attacks, and infiltration. Where there were objections, it was not to the element of surprise. Killing an enemy by getting the jump on them or because they can't target you effectively is perfectly valid.
As such, it just doesn't make sense for morale to go down after the Titanium Rose receives any of the upgrades. All of them would raise the Titanium Rose's profile. The stealth upgrade in particular, since it includes ECM and sensors related work, would enhance Amani's career.
It's also worth remembering that maneuvering doesn't mean hiding or running away. We are always maneurvering, including in the midst of battle. The military advantages of ECM and hiding our heat signature extend to combat. In the fights the Titanium Rose has seen, stealth would have certainly been useful, as would the other upgrade options.
