Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest

[NavySeel]

The biggest issue here to me is if they're still holding something back for this particular battle, to my knowledge Maroon sea isn't as fortified as our other relays, meaning it would be a perfect place to try to lure in our fleets to fight them without worrying about our fixed defenses.

It's possible that they're attempting to make us panic and rush in with a large portion of our fleet, only to send in even more reserves.
Potentially with whatever small amount of actual purpose build ships they have with barriers.

I don't think this is a distraction, if it was I doubt they would be tipping their hand with their barrier equipped ships if they were planning a big attack on the Citadel or Terminus, or even our other systems.

So they have to have a plan here, and taking Maroons sea doesn't seem worth it on it's own really, unless it's to damage our ability to contribute to the war.

 

[Pittauro]

We dont. Not to my knowledge.

Screening vessels are there to scout, prevent enemy vessels from scouting, prevent other smaller ships from mobbing our capital ships, and to mob enemy capital ships in turn. They do not physically put themselves between capital railgun fire and its targets; thats suicide, and we do not ask suicide of our soldiers.


Ship and fleet commanders take time to season and to get the experience that makes them effective.
Even on purely pragmatic grounds, the rachni would not simply throw their Queens, who act as fleet commanders, away. You waste that Martial 20 queen, and then you get to start again with a Martial 10 newbie.

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screening vessels are primarily there to screen.

it's in the name.

Soldiers WILL die in battle. We suffered historically super high attrition, and If the capital ships go down, the smaller ships lose most of their firepowers and are even more likely to be destroyed.

so yes, we DO send ships to try to block shots at capital ships. Everyone does it. It's established doctrine.

fleet commandes are on the dreadnoughts. strategic decisions mostly come from there.

We lost the advantageous position of fighting a Relay battle on defensive, and during Wrath of the Swarm 1st battlefleet struggled to hold position against 2 Rachni battlefleets - that's the old standard.
Right now Rachni also have a fleet with barriers - if anything, worth more than a regular one - and an unknown number of battlefleets still waiting to jump, at half-hour interval.
If it was just three battlefleets we'd seen, then throwing our forces and betting on skill could work. Maybe even if they add one or two more fleets.

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to be fair we added quarian tech, and might have already added yulair power and ablative armor to some of our ships, so we MIGHT have been able to deal with 3 fleets if they didn't have barriers.

 

[Randino Treviani]

Screening vessels exist for 3 purposes. The first is to intercept shots from weaker vessels so the barriers of light cruisers are intact enough to shield dreadnoughts. The second is to intercept other screening vessels to keep them from closing to our fleets and unloading torpedoes. The third is to close to range and unload into enemy ships with torpedoes. Beshkar does this in wrath of swarm.

Regardless, this has been happening since the earliest turns which featured quest combat, year 3 specifically.

The biggest issue here to me is if they're still holding something back for this particular battle, to my knowledge Maroon sea isn't as fortified as our other relays, meaning it would be a perfect place to try to lure in our fleets to fight them without worrying about our fixed defenses.

It's possible that they're attempting to make us panic and rush in with a large portion of our fleet, only to send in even more reserves.
Potentially with whatever small amount of actual purpose build ships they have with barriers.

I don't think this is a distraction, if it was I doubt they would be tipping their hand with their barrier equipped ships if they were planning a big attack on the Citadel or Terminus, or even our other systems.

So they have to have a plan here, and taking Maroons sea doesn't seem worth it on it's own really, unless it's to damage our ability to contribute to the war.

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This assumes they expected us to be in their way in the first place, in which case they would have sent the barrier fleet in first to take the earlier attention with fewer casualties(they lost a dreadnought already, which is a foolish and needless sacrifice if they expected us to be here).

When we talk about it being a distraction, we are talking in terms of pulling fleets away from more critical clusters or relays. By applying pressure to the MS-CR relay for instance, they could pull terminus fleets from Styx Theta and Shadow Sea relays in Caleston Rift, softening them up for assault their. This is more probable than simply baiting us into combat in a worthless system or attempting to retake maroon sea. The same technically true of attican beta, but it's a much less significant target compared to Caleston rift or exodus cluster.

We can't be entirely sure of their aims, but as Suna has demonstrated, in maroon sea we have the freedom to disengage from them and buy time for barriers to recover or pull out if more fleets than we can handle shows up. This is not an occupied system and we still have the advantage overall in the number of barrier using ships to field. If we commit strongly we can start taking apart their barrier lacking ships early in the conflict and gain numerical superiority before they can bring in further reinforcements.

 

[Dwergar]

This assumes they expected us to be in their way in the first place, in which case they would have sent the barrier fleet in first to take the earlier attention with fewer casualties(they lost a dreadnought already, which is a foolish and needless sacrifice if they expected us to be here).

When we talk about it being a distraction, we are talking in terms of pulling fleets away from more critical clusters or relays. By applying pressure to the MS-CR relay for instance, they could pull terminus fleets from Styx Theta and Shadow Sea relays in Caleston Rift, softening them up for assault their. This is more probable than simply baiting us into combat in a worthless system or attempting to retake maroon sea. The same technically true of attican beta, but it's a much less significant target compared to Caleston rift or exodus cluster.

We can't be entirely sure of their aims, but as Suna has demonstrated, in maroon sea we have the freedom to disengage from them and buy time for barriers to recover or pull out if more fleets than we can handle shows up. This is not an occupied system and we still have the advantage overall in the number of barrier using ships to field. If we commit strongly we can start taking apart their barrier lacking ships early in the conflict and gain numerical superiority before they can bring in further reinforcements.

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We already lost the best position to fight in aka the relay to Rachni space proper, and Rachni have unknown numbers of their battlefleets still not committed - so far, we have a battlefleet jumping in at every half-hour, probably more of an organisational preference than anything.
Trying to match Rachni strength for strength would be costly (unless you bet on them deploying just three battlefleets), and likely would result in grievous casualties - especially if we don't call in Joint Fleets (and so far people seem to lean towards no).

Meanwhile, if we deny Rachni fleet battle?
Deployment of raiding fleets to harass Rachni forces would work towards our strength and their weakness, since they have little orbital infrastructure to make use of for defence and repairs, while our raiders could make use of widespread intelligence net which is not normally available on such operations.

And what choice Rachni would have? To leave Maroon Sea, cutting their losses, or to remain - whether to hold the cluster or to use for further attacks against Attican Beta and/or Caleston Rift (and there we and TJF would have fleets at high readiness, so more likely to prevent Rachni incursion) - and accumulate further losses.

 

[Mad0Slayer]

I don't think we can avoid a fleet battle, we need to hold the Maroon sea and do it with overwhelming force, we can debate what they might do but if we deploy in force we can knock out all 3 battlefleets with limited losses and hopefully counter any of their other actions if they take any.

We also can't let the rachni roam free if they attack Caleston Rift even once the amount of egg on our face is gonna suck, better to try and force a fleet battle it's only 1 fleet that has barriers and they probably have endurance issues with heat build-up these are their old class vessels, we still hold an edge in quality ships though not as much as I like we can leverage that and a fleet battle favours us using both our battle fleets.

So if we were to send both battle fleets and two of our raiding fleets we'd match them roughly and while reinforcements could come in there is always the option to retreat if things look incredibly bad, as for this being something to draw us out of Attican Beta, well we have a spare raiding fleet to hold that with our defence's.

If they attack Attican Beta we can just pull back, we'll look bad but at least we'll make a good showing of defending our territory. If they don't we can crush the Rachni fleets and if we are lucky not come out too battered though to do that, we need to deploy the fleets that can get there quickly.

[ ] Plan: Operation Burning lance
[ ] Inform the Alliance?
] Yes. They're impacted by this, and you're a formal member now. This is no longer the time to hold back.
-[ ] Call for the Terminus Joint Fleets?
] No. This isn't the kind of battle they train to fight, and you have yet to thresh out a joint command

(We're not alone so best to just let them know that we are under attack and be prepared, as for calling them in, I'd rather not we don't have a working join command and while they could act independently things could cause problems and battles are far from the most ordered of things, we'll probably be happy for the extra numbers but it'll be chaotic and the chance that commanders make a bad choice based on incorrect information from poor communication and we could see fleets out of position or getting an allied ship caught in the crossfire so best to leave them out of it.

As for our fleet deployments
-[ ] Who reinforces Maroon Sea? Check all that apply.
] 1st Battle Fleet. You need firepower, you need it now.
] 1st Raiding Fleet. They will (in part) get there fastest.
] 2nd Raiding Fleet. They're not in a frontline system.
-[ ] Who holds Attican Beta? Check all that apply.
] 3rd Raiding Fleet. You trust Mordin to buy time if he needs to.

If they attack I'd want one of our best commanders there to help hold Attican Beta, it's not ideal but he is the best choice he's fleet will be late to the battle and while the 2nd Raiding fleets would also get there late they'll make for a great reserve in the Maroon sea and their commander is not as good, rather they move in with our other better commanders.

As for deploying the other's to Maroon Sea, both the 1St Battle Fleet and 1St Raiding fleet get there quickly and will help reduce our losses to the 2nd Battle Fleet and hopefully crush the current Rachni fleets, also if things go well quickly we can resecure the relay and have a favourable battlefield once again. Also if things are calm enough we could maybe kick the door open to the Shadow Sea and let loose the 1St and 2nd raiding fleets.

[ ] Plan: Operation Burning lance
[ ] Inform the Alliance?
--[ ] Yes. They're impacted by this, and you're a formal member now. This is no longer the time to hold back.
-[ ] Call for the Terminus Joint Fleets?
--[ ] No. This isn't the kind of battle they train to fight, and you have yet to thresh out a joint command
-[ ] Who reinforces Maroon Sea? Check all that apply.
--[ ] 1st Battle Fleet. You need firepower, you need it now.
--[ ] 1st Raiding Fleet. They will (in part) get there fastest.
--[ ] 2nd Raiding Fleet. They're not in a frontline system.
-[ ] Who holds Attican Beta? Check all that apply.
--[ ] 3rd Raiding Fleet. You trust Mordin to buy time if he needs to.

 

[Randino Treviani]

If we just need a fleet to stall for time in attican beta, between the defenses and the fact that we are only a relay away fighting in Maroon sea, I don't see why the second raiding fleet wouldn't suffice, allowing us to better leverage mordin sentra's expertise in dealing the fleets already in maroon sea as much damage as possible, and leaving him in a position to participate in a retaliatory raid if no attack in attican beta or additional Rachni fleets manifest. that said, I'd be fine approval voting for the plan in the previous post.

 

[Simon_Jester]

screening vessels are primarily there to screen.

it's in the name.

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Yes, but "screen," in the language we use when talking about "screening vessels," historically meant "put a layer/cloud of lighter ships between yourself and the enemy, so they can't easily or safely get close for a decisive attack or detailed scouting run."

In earthly English, "the cavalry are screening the infantry formation" does not mean "the cavalry are trying to dive into the path of incoming fire to stop it from hitting the infantry."

so yes, we DO send ships to try to block shots at capital ships. Everyone does it. It's established doctrine.

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I'm not saying you're wrong, but it does feel odd to imagine, say, the asari adopting this as a doctrine. Salarians, yes, militaristic batarians, maybe, but asari? Quarians?

I wonder... if we managed to near-completely destroy the barrier-equipped fleet, might we end up convincing them that they're not worth the cost, and delay their integration in the rest of their fleets?

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Worth a shot, though the fact that our fleet which destroyed theirs consisted 100% of barrier-equipped ships will tend to send a mixed message.

 

[Pittauro]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it does feel odd to imagine, say, the asari adopting this as a doctrine. Salarians, yes, militaristic batarians, maybe, but asari? Quarians?

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to be fair this is mostly done, I think, to protect Dreadnoughts.

Dreadnoughts have probably 10 to 100 times the crew of the screening vessels, AND if a fleet loses the dreadnoughts the fleet dies.

It makes more sense if we assume that barriers allow the screening vessels to survive and then retreat, but yeah...

and of course dreadnoughts don't WANT to waste their shots on frigates or light cruisers (usually), so I can imagine that many times they'd just abort the shot to try and retarget. After all there's only so many shots available before heat spikes too high.

I'm now a bit unsure if the only ships putting themselves between dreads would be ones with barriers strong enough to survive at least one shot now though.

 

[Simon_Jester]

to be fair this is mostly done, I think, to protect Dreadnoughts.

Dreadnoughts have probably 10 to 100 times the crew of the screening vessels, AND if a fleet loses the dreadnoughts the fleet dies.

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Yes, but it's still a sort of explicitly "banzai" mentality that is a lot easier to imagine from some alien species than from others.

 

[Randino Treviani]

Worth a shot, though the fact that our fleet which destroyed theirs consisted 100% of barrier-equipped ships will tend to send a mixed message.

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Ahh but it's not about convincing them that barriers are worthless, just that they aren't enough of a difference maker to complicate ship design and increase production costs. If they send a fleet into the maroon sea and they all get taken out, with no data on what benefits if any kinetic barriers provided, well, that doesn't entire stop the production of Rachni barrier fleets, but it delays them adopting the policy of building only barrier using fleets, which leaves us with a numerical advantage in barrier fleets fielded for at least a few years.

 

[Simon_Jester]

One can hope so, I suppose.

 

[NavySeel]

This assumes they expected us to be in their way in the first place, in which case they would have sent the barrier fleet in first to take the earlier attention with fewer casualties(they lost a dreadnought already, which is a foolish and needless sacrifice if they expected us to be here).

When we talk about it being a distraction, we are talking in terms of pulling fleets away from more critical clusters or relays. By applying pressure to the MS-CR relay for instance, they could pull terminus fleets from Styx Theta and Shadow Sea relays in Caleston Rift, softening them up for assault their. This is more probable than simply baiting us into combat in a worthless system or attempting to retake maroon sea. The same technically true of attican beta, but it's a much less significant target compared to Caleston rift or exodus cluster.

We can't be entirely sure of their aims, but as Suna has demonstrated, in maroon sea we have the freedom to disengage from them and buy time for barriers to recover or pull out if more fleets than we can handle shows up. This is not an occupied system and we still have the advantage overall in the number of barrier using ships to field. If we commit strongly we can start taking apart their barrier lacking ships early in the conflict and gain numerical superiority before they can bring in further reinforcements.

Click to shrink...

Barrier equipped ships are going to be more valuable, not risking them in the first wave makes sense to me for a species that isn't averse to casualties.

For all we know the first two fleets were the rachni deciding that these old ships weren't worth converting or mothballing, and so they would be used to soften us up for the actual barrier equipped fleet.

Maybe they decided that after testing it just wasn't worth refitting over building new ships to really take advantage of barriers.

 

[PoptartProdigy]

In a battle with multiple friendly fleets, how do we know which admiral's Martial score applies?
Does the best admiral's Martial apply ie the nominal commander listening/benefitting from the advice of the most skillful?
Or is it simply a coin toss?

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In situations where I want to resolve the whole thing as a single roll, the admiral leading will be the admiral either with seniority or the one specified as being in command.

In this one, I'll be breaking things down more finely. Each formation in combat will roll to resolve their part of it, so every admiral will roll against the challenges arrayed against them. Given the sheer size of fleets, you're not going to have a case where multiple admirals are overcoming the same challenge.

Say you send absolutely everything to Maroon Sea, leaving no forces elsewhere at all. Don't, but pretend for a moment that you do. You might see, for instance, FADM Lirak rolling to stonewall the barrier fleet at the Rachni center, FADM Yi'hun rolling to turn their right flank and break one of the unshielded fleets, FADM Beshkar rolling to successfully interdict any vessels retreating from Yi'hun and positioning for a crossfire, FADM Ulannavael rolling to engage the left flank from above the ecliptic, and FADM Mordin rolling to engage from below. Each would be opposed by a DC signifying how hard that particular task is in light of the forces arrayed against it and how the enemy is prioritizing their efforts.

We dont. Not to my knowledge.

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You do, albeit differently. The logic of a frigate dying so the flagship might live is incontestable, and your crews are all very much of an existential struggle mindset. When your barriers were new and fragile, it wasn't mandatory, because as you observe that's suicide and you weren't there yet — albeit, it would hardly be the bleakest thing a military has successfully made its soldiers to do en masse.

Now, however, that smaller vessels can actually survive (one, single) dreadnought round due to barriers, it has become a point of doctrine. At extreme — and even long — range, a capital ship's screen has as part of their duties projectile interception. They're to rotate out of the way when their barriers drop, but when barriers are up, they are indeed instructed to take shots for them dreadnoughts.

This changes at long and medium range; while they're still asked to if they can, the sheer amount of fire getting thrown around makes it harder and you can't keep an orderly rotation the way you're used to at that point. Plus the cruisers are busy.

Ships are not asked to sacrifice themselves to save the dreadnought.

They still sometimes do.

 

[Randino Treviani]

Barrier equipped ships are going to be more valuable, not risking them in the first wave makes sense to me for a species that isn't averse to casualties.

For all we know the first two fleets were the rachni deciding that these old ships weren't worth converting or mothballing, and so they would be used to soften us up for the actual barrier equipped fleet.

Maybe they decided that after testing it just wasn't worth refitting over building new ships to really take advantage of barriers.

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Dreadnoughts are automatically an expensive investment, especially since there is a Rachni queen in every one. If they understand that the point of barriers is to soak up shots so that a fleet can survive longer under sustained enemy fire, then it should be obvious that using them as a vanguard for unshielded fleet is the sensible approach.

And what choice Rachni would have? To leave Maroon Sea, cutting their losses, or to remain - whether to hold the cluster or to use for further attacks against Attican Beta and/or Caleston Rift (and there we and TJF would have fleets at high readiness, so more likely to prevent Rachni incursion) - and accumulate further losses.

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To press forward, to move on to another system, like Caleston, and become a threat which draws fleets out of position to oppose a push through other relays in that system, allowing them to better bring their fleets to bear. They don't need to hold Maroon sea to become a threat to Caleston rift. Just being three battle fleets is that. They have two relays to use to advance into one of the wars most critical clusters. If they can pull defenders away, allowing them to bring fresh fleets in not immediately under the guns of a few dozen or more dreadnoughts.

One can hope so, I suppose.

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I'd say hope is all we have, but we also have Kurik. Yulair energy and ablative armor too i guess, but mainly kurik.

@PoptartProdigy will Kurik be available to perform his usual Kuroic feats next update?

 

[jjffjhjf]

Huh, so even if we sent everything Mira still wouldn't be part of the rolls for leading combat. That's pretty rough, she's "only" useful in regular turns now then and personal combat interludes I guess.

 

[Pittauro]

You do, albeit differently. The logic of a frigate dying so the flagship might live is incontestable, and your crews are all very much of an existential struggle mindset. When your barriers were new and fragile, it wasn't mandatory, because as you observe that's suicide and you weren't there yet — albeit, it would hardly be the bleakest thing a military has successfully made its soldiers to do en masse.

Now, however, that smaller vessels can actually survive (one, single) dreadnought round due to barriers, it has become a point of doctrine. At extreme — and even long — range, a capital ship's screen has as part of their duties projectile interception. They're to rotate out of the way when their barriers drop, but when barriers are up, they are indeed instructed to take shots for them dreadnoughts.

This changes at long and medium range; while they're still asked to if they can, the sheer amount of fire getting thrown around makes it harder and you can't keep an orderly rotation the way you're used to at that point. Plus the cruisers are busy.

Ships are not asked to sacrifice themselves to save the dreadnought.

They still sometimes do.

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as I thought. and yeah, it wasn't mandatory, but considering that "existential war"... it probably happened pretty often in defense of the few poor heavy cruisers we had.

 

[Randino Treviani]

Huh, so even if we sent everything Mira still wouldn't be part of the rolls for leading combat. That's pretty rough, she's "only" useful in regular turns now then and personal combat interludes I guess.

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I think if we had taken maroon sea action this turn, with mira providing her personal bonus, she might have been present for a battle. As it is, she is involved in internal diplomacy instead and hashing out Ardak Yakshi policy, as well as failing to relax, so she isn't on point in maroon sea. Narratively the situation doesn't merit pulling a leader of the commonwealth from her post as no important infrastucture or populations are at risk of yet.

 

[jjffjhjf]

I think if we had taken maroon sea action this turn, with mira providing her personal bonus, she might have been present for a battle. As it is, she is involved in internal diplomacy instead and hashing out Ardak Yakshi policy, as well as failing to relax, so she isn't on point in maroon sea. Narratively the situation doesn't merit pulling a leader of the commonwealth from her post as no important infrastucture or populations are at risk of yet.

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yeah I get that, just sad that our best commander isn't commanding.

 

[PoptartProdigy]

@PoptartProdigy will Kurik be available to perform his usual Kuroic feats next update?

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While Kurik is indeed exceptional, he's not Shepard-class. There are limits to his ability to affect an ongoing fleet battle.

Any contributions he has would target something else. Perhaps if somebody comes up with a truly insane strategy, he'll have a, "Sounds like a suicide mission…I'm in," moment and then he'll matter.

Huh, so even if we sent everything Mira still wouldn't be part of the rolls for leading combat. That's pretty rough, she's "only" useful in regular turns now then and personal combat interludes I guess.

Click to shrink...

Mira will command again. This just isn't the fight for her.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

i'm in favor of sending 2 raiding fleets to maroon sea to help with that fight while keeping First Battle Fleet and the Second Raiding fleet in Attican Beta for just in case. I'm also in agreement with alerting the Terminus of the attack immediately.

 

[Randino Treviani]

i'm in favor of sending 2 raiding fleets to maroon sea to help with that fight while keeping First Battle Fleet and the Second Raiding fleet in Attican Beta for just in case. I'm also in agreement with alerting the Terminus of the attack immediately.

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A single battle fleet can hold heavily fortified Hades Gamma-Attican Beta Relay for about two days against two Rachni fleets single handedly. We know because it happened during wrath of the swarm, when their were fewer stationary defenses and mines on the relay than there currently are. Two raiding fleets could more than hold one for a day given Mordin's performance during the same event.

If we under commit to maroon sea, we'll probably still win, but we'll lose a lot of dreadnoughts with the Rachni focusing on them 17 dreadnoughts to 6, and overall cassualties will be higher as well, because we'll be facing 3 battle fleets with about 1.5 in the next phase of battle. If we are worried about Attican beta, 2 raiding fleets are sufficient to defend it, allowing us to force them to split their Dreadnoughts fire between another half dozen Dreadnoughts and greater concentration of screening vessels, while Beshkar in the first raiding can do what he does best, exploit battlecruiser mobility to the fullest to kill the barrier lacking rachni vessels. It's the minimum commitment we need for decent odds of favorable casualty exchange in the next few phases to turn the battle distinctly in our favor.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

To get approximate parity with three Rachni battle fleets, we'll need two of our battle fleets and two raiding fleets, because two raiding fleets is equal to one battle fleet in a straight up fight, right?

I think we need the extreme concentration of force option, allied fleets, or both.

 

[KhazintheDark]

[ ] Plan [NAME]
-[ ] Inform the Alliance?
--[ ] Yes. They're impacted by this, and you're a formal member now. This is no longer the time to hold back.
-[ ] Call for the Terminus Joint Fleets?
--[ ] No. This isn't the kind of battle they train to fight, and you have yet to thresh out a joint command structure. There are also the obvious political reasons not to call for help on this particular issue.
-[ ] Who reinforces Maroon Sea? Check all that apply.
--[ ] 1st Battle Fleet. You need firepower, you need it now.
-[ ] Who holds Attican Beta? Check all that apply.
--[ ] 1st Raiding Fleet. It's not their job, but they're present and can (in part) stand up immediately.
--[ ] 2nd Raiding Fleet. To be blunt, they offer the least to the actual, ongoing fight in Maroon Sea.
--[ ] 3rd Raiding Fleet. You trust Mordin to buy time if he needs to.


1st Battle Fleet goes to the Maroon Sea because it's the fastest way to get an entire fleet's worth of firepower there. 2/3rds of 1st Raiding is ready in Attican Beta and 4/3rds of 2nd and 3rd raiding are on the way immediately and don't have to fly across a system to get to the next relay. In total that's 2 raiding fleets so probably around 2/3rds of a battle fleet in power with another 1/2 fleet inbound as the ships get reactivated

I would also like to include the following write in for calling in the joint fleets.

---[ ] If the Rachni pull another three+ fleets into Attican Beta (more than three raiding fleets can handle) / more into the Maroon Sea than two fleets battle fleets can handle then call the Joint Fleets in. At that point worrying about a feint, prestige and the political consequences is secondary to keeping the Maroon Sea open. If they commit enough to break Attican Beta then communicate to the Joint Fleets that at least one of the Battle Fleets is pulling back and we need assistance. (Assuming that the joint fleets are committed.)

 

[Randino Treviani]

1st Battle Fleet goes to the Maroon Sea because it's the fastest way to get an entire fleet's worth of firepower there. 2/3rds of 1st Raiding is ready in Attican Beta and 4/3rds of 2nd and 3rd raiding are on the way immediately and don't have to fly across a system to get to the next relay. In total that's 2 raiding fleets so probably around 2/3rds of a battle fleet in power with another 1/2 fleet inbound as the ships get reactivated

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A raiding fleet is between 40-45% of a battle fleet. There are also stationary defenses and mines to account for, which are over fulfilled, so somewhere over 125%. A single Raiding Fleet and 100% stationary defenses were able to hold off a Rachni Battle fleet for over a day during wrath of the swarm. 1⅓ raiding fleets, assuming Rachni fleet arrives in the next 12 hours, would be more than enough to hold for the 6 or so hours we would need for two battle fleets and a raiding fleet to destroy enough Rachni ships to achieve slight numerical superiority, allowing us to recall that raiding fleet in time if a Rachni fleet appears in Attican Beta. Beshkar and first Raiding plus 1st battle fleet is the minimal concentration of force to turn the battle in our favor with minimal casualties.

 

[PoptartProdigy]

Everybody tag me with their write-ins for the unlock!