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Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest

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Simon_Jester said:
The problem is that we're not going to get the advantages of "wait until you have a fully formed, full-sized, organized reserve force" during the timescale of this battle. The bulk of our scattered forces are going to take something like 2-3 days to get here. In Mira's assessment, if nothing major changes, we will be on the brink of losing the system by that point.
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We don't need a full week to get something combat capable. A day or two (At most) would be enough, as that would get us from "Functionally annihilated, manuals are useless, withdraw ASAP" raiding fleet (Our 28%) to "Understrength, combat capability limited" raiding fleet (Something around or above 50%).
Not every commander and up in our fleet is T'Vael, however much we might wish otherwise. There are plenty enough of reasonably competent officers, but there is a difference between competent officer and "I can conjure and hold an FTL-stopping cloud of screen for 20 hours and not suffer hideous losses, without any sort of handbooks or simulations" Legendary Admiral.
Most likely, there are no manuals and step-by-step instructions on how to face off and survive against Rachni line fleets in a barely coordinated mass of ships with total mass being around tenth of enemy's mass displacement.

And no, we can't make up for that by stuffing Mira on a reserve ship and sending this blob somewhere, because we need someone to control the overall flow of battle, which is kinda hard to do out of unprepared installation or ship.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
@PoptartProdigy , if we commit the ships of our reserve force right now, will they fight at one tenth the strength of a normal fleet of comparably strong ships? I wouldn't think so, because I think you would have mentioned it if the ships of our reserve force would be fighting at an additional -90% penalty to their strength. That would definitely alter the calculation, if @Murska is right about that
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No.
KhazintheDark said:
Does the Rachni discovering FTL limit their strategic mobility in a cluster in any way by having less advanced heat sinks, slower ly/day travel, inferior mass reduction tech and worse engines?
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It does, although they are still in your general league. This is one thing that makes your raiding fleets successful in evading pursuit.
 
It sounds like we've already been exploiting our edge in FTL tech, but maybe there are other ways we can do it that we haven't been yet. Scout vessels built for extreme speed to avoid engagements, maybe.
 
How long would it take for the Rachni to deploy reserves from, say, Caleston Rift, where I suspect they are located?
 
TaliesinSkye said:
Good to know! I wonder if there are any viable plans for using those to infiltrate Rachni space and do stuff like see how many fleets they have and where their major infrastructure is. Maybe something for a future Intrigue option?
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That's a suicide mission, which we won't even get any results from because they'd have to come back through the relay to report. Issue is, Rachni end of relay is typically blockaded, and even if the scouts slip through, they'll bring up more ships to make sure the scouts never come back. Without any refueling, they'll get caught or die in space eventually.

The reason I've suggested sending scouts through Maroon Sea relay is because the Rachni should have committed most or all of their forces there to actually attacking us. Still risky, of course, but may be vital info.
 
TaliesinSkye said:
Keeping a reserve is a hedge against the unknown. Taking it to exploit an opportunity is making a bet that there are no unknowns about to bite you in a way the reserve could have countered. Whether that bet is worth making is hard to say because of incomplete information. Personally I like to hedge against risks when possible.
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I'm arguing that the "could have countered" part is the crux of the problem here. We don't have enough ships. With about one battle fleet worth of ships (1.25 total, 0.14 already here, minus some stragglers that will come in on Days 5 and 6) due to arrive on Days 1-4 of this battle, by the time a raiding fleet worth of ships arrive, 24-36 hours will have passed.

By the time our reserve is big enough that we can swing it like a club and break a force that would otherwise have broken us, we'll have already lost the battle. The enemy attacked us, they have the initiative, and we've been caught without the prepared, organized, focused forces we'd have in place to act as defensive reserves if we'd had more advance warning of the attack.

The only way for us to regain the initiative is by exploiting their misfortune to increase our own flexibility.

tapkomet said:
That's a suicide mission, which we won't even get any results from because they'd have to come back through the relay to report. Issue is, Rachni end of relay is typically blockaded, and even if the scouts slip through, they'll bring up more ships to make sure the scouts never come back. Without any refueling, they'll get caught or die in space eventually.

The reason I've suggested sending scouts through Maroon Sea relay is because the Rachni should have committed most or all of their forces there to actually attacking us. Still risky, of course, but may be vital info.
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I mean.

Our entire raiding doctrine is based around slipping fleets past those relay blockades. We've figured out how to make it work. Scouting missions a bit deeper into enemy space aren't an impossibility with that in mind.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Thors_Alumni on Jun 2, 2019 at 7:35 PM, finished with 183 posts and 63 votes.
  • [X] Plan Parthian Shot
    -[X][1st Battle Fleet/AB-HG Relay]Withdraw away from the relay and try to make it to extreme range. The rachni have a massive cruiser advantage, and long range is where cruiser guns start coming into play. Try and get to extreme range, dragging them past the defense platforms on the way, and try to buy time with the slower pace of a capital ship duel.
    -[X][2nd Battle Fleet/AB-MO Relay] Reinforce the encirclement. The platforms have done their job par excellence, but the rachni will escape if this exchange rate continues. Surround and obliterate them. Of course, if you don't kill ships quickly enough, the rachni will charge you in a glory-or-death assault.
    -[X][3rd Raiding Fleet/AB-NE Relay] Remain at extreme range at all costs. Through good gunnery, you've taken out most of the rachni dreadnoughts, leaving you facing just one dreadnought and a bevy of battlecruisers. If you remain at extreme range, you are facing what is effectively an only slightly-larger hostile force, and you can draw this out for much longer.
    -[X][Reserve] Do not commit them. You do not need them badly enough to accept the casualties of doing so just yet.
    [X] Plan Slowly at First, and Then All at Once
    -[X] Withdraw away from the relay and try to make it to extreme range. The rachni have a massive cruiser advantage, and long range is where cruiser guns start coming into play. Try and get to extreme range, dragging them past the defense platforms on the way, and try to buy time with the slower pace of a capital ship duel.
    -[X] Reinforce the encirclement. The platforms have done their job par excellence, but the rachni will escape if this exchange rate continues. Surround and obliterate them. Of course, if you don't kill ships quickly enough, the rachni will charge you in a glory-or-death assault.
    -[X] Remain at extreme range at all costs. Through good gunnery, you've taken out most of the rachni dreadnoughts, leaving you facing just one dreadnought and a bevy of battlecruisers. If you remain at extreme range, you are facing what is effectively an only slightly-larger hostile force, and you can draw this out for much longer.
    -[X] Commit them. You need them, meager as they are.
    --[X] They will help the 2nd Battle Fleet clean up.
    [X] Plan Charge
    -[X] Withdraw away from the relay and try to make it to extreme range. The rachni have a massive cruiser advantage, and long range is where cruiser guns start coming into play. Try and get to extreme range, dragging them past the defense platforms on the way, and try to buy time with the slower pace of a capital ship duel.
    -[X] Dive in and shatter them. They have failed to form a formation; now make it impossible. Put an end to this assault with crushing speed so that you can reinforce one of the other fleets. Of course, rachni carry a lot of torpedoes, so if you don't shatter them, this could hurt.
    -[X] Remain at extreme range at all costs. Through good gunnery, you've taken out most of the rachni dreadnoughts, leaving you facing just one dreadnought and a bevy of battlecruisers. If you remain at extreme range, you are facing what is effectively an only slightly-larger hostile force, and you can draw this out for much longer.
    -[X] Do not commit them. You do not need them badly enough to accept the casualties of doing so just yet.
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PoptartProdigy said:
If they start moving now, you can expect them by the end of this upcoming turn.
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Wow, the Rachni organizational edge from being a hivemind really tells there. Their reinforcements are two relays away to our one, and they can do in hours what will take us up to six days despite slower FTL drives.

tapkomet said:
That's a suicide mission, which we won't even get any results from because they'd have to come back through the relay to report. Issue is, Rachni end of relay is typically blockaded, and even if the scouts slip through, they'll bring up more ships to make sure the scouts never come back. Without any refueling, they'll get caught or die in space eventually.

The reason I've suggested sending scouts through Maroon Sea relay is because the Rachni should have committed most or all of their forces there to actually attacking us. Still risky, of course, but may be vital info.
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There is another way besides risking lives and ships slipping a relay blockade.


Proposal: Operation Farsight​

Operation Farsight calls for assembling a group of remotely operated drone vessels. The group needs mining capability for asteroids and helium-3, a refinery, at least one small automated factory, storage, and tanker capacity, plus whatever premade scout platforms we want to send. Likely designs too large or complex to easily manufacture without a shipyard. To get this functionality we can adapt existing ship designs intended for biological crew, adding off the shelf VI automated robots with supplementary remote teleoperation to use machinery and conduct repairs. Real ships don't work this way because if you are going to hire teleoperators you might as well have onboard crew, but for Farsight not having crew means not needing to bring the ships back from the mission and instead being able to leave them in Rachni space to gather intelligence indefinitely, all without risking lives.

The mission plan is to get the ship group to the outskirts of Rachni space by conventional FTL, dropping FTL comm buoys behind them and stopping to mine fuel as needed depending on allocated tanker capacity. The group sets up operations in a deserted system, and begins manufacture of stealth probes to send deeper into Rachni territory to return intelligence back to Virmire in real time thanks to the buoy link. Once the network is established it is an ongoing mission that provides constant intelligence on Rachni fleet movements and orbital infrastructure.

Passive observation should be emphasized; we don't want the Rachni finding our network and going to all the effort to systematically search their space to eradicate it, but watching them with minimal chance of detection is doable with outer system telescopes. Expertise built up from the observation platforms seeded in Lystheni space will pay dividends here. Even if stealth fails and the Rachni deduce the existence of an entire observation network in their space, eliminating it will assist the war effort by tying up a significant portion of their ship resources for some time.
 
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TaliesinSkye said:
Wow, the Rachni organizational edge from being a hivemind really tells there. Their reinforcements are two relays away to our one, and they can do in hours what will take us up to six days despite slower FTL drives.
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Ah, I see the confusion.

The Rachni reinforcements from Caleston Rift, assuming that that is where they are, are traveling by relay. Your reinforcements are traveling via conventional FTL. Much slower.

EDIT: To clarify, they're spread out through their clusters, and need to slow-boat it back to the relay systems.
 
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PoptartProdigy said:
Ah, I see the confusion.

The Rachni reinforcements from Caleston Rift, assuming that that is where they are, are traveling by relay. Your reinforcements are traveling via conventional FTL. Much slower.
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Ahh, I was confused because the Explorer Corps was based out of a relay system, but now I realize that not many of them were probably actually in the relay system being out exploring.
 
Simon_Jester said:
I mean.

Our entire raiding doctrine is based around slipping fleets past those relay blockades. We've figured out how to make it work. Scouting missions a bit deeper into enemy space aren't an impossibility with that in mind.
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As I understand it, raiding fleets punch through a blockade, blow shit up, and retreat before any serious opposition materializes. The Explorer Corps don't really have the firepower to do that. They'd have to cover quite a few systems to get any serious scouting done. It's one thing to scout for "attacks targets in close-ish range", which I assume is a thing the Raiding fleets do as a matter of course, it's another to actually look for their major infrastructure and fleets as Taliesin suggests. In particular, jumping another relay from hostile space deeper into hostile space would be a no-go for the Explorers, as it'd be defended on both sides. At least, I think. The QM might have other ideas, but I feel we'd have scouted more by now if that was a realistic possibility.
PoptartProdigy said:
If they start moving now, you can expect them by the end of this upcoming turn.
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If I was in charge of the Rachni, and wanted to seriously cut down or even destroy Virmire, that's probably what I'd order, before we annihilate the MS fleet and have the 2nd reinforce the others, and gather our reserves, and complete our evacuation. Though of course we have no idea what, if anything, they are currently doing to the other polities. It wouldn't make too much sense to have reserves sitting right behind the relays, as that's just sending forces in piecemeal. And Caleston Rift is also a great place to hold fleets against Terminus. So my full prediction for next turn:

- the 2nd beats down the MS fleet
- the two other fleets will push our fleets
- end of the turn, Rachni reinforcements show up from NE relay
- we still won't have reserves to counter them, unless we can send the 2nd
- if the 2nd is free by then, we can fight on, if we don't, the NE fleet will quickly become overwhelmed and we'll have to seriously consider withdrawing

TaliesinSkye said:
Ahh, I was confused because the Explorer Corps was based out of a relay system, but now I realize that not many of them were probably actually in the relay system being out exploring.
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They and the Raiding fleets were mostly engaged in partols/occupation in Attican Beta/Kepler Verge, as there are still plenty Rachni-held planets in those systems. Which, as Simon_Jester noted, is another reason why we absolutely must hold here. If we don't, they are doomed.
 
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tapkomet said:
As I understand it, raiding fleets punch through a blockade, blow shit up, and retreat before any serious opposition materializes. The Explorer Corps don't really have the firepower to do that. They'd have to cover quite a few systems to get any serious scouting done. It's one thing to scout for "attacks targets in close-ish range", which I assume is a thing the Raiding fleets do as a matter of course, it's another to actually look for their major infrastructure and fleets as Taliesin suggests. In particular, jumping another relay from hostile space deeper into hostile space would be a no-go for the Explorers, as it'd be defended on both sides. At least, I think. The QM might have other ideas, but I feel we'd have scouted more by now if that was a realistic possibility.

If I was in charge of the Rachni, and wanted to seriously cut down or even destroy Virmire, that's probably what I'd order, before we annihilate the MS fleet and have the 2nd reinforce the others, and gather our reserves, and complete our evacuation. Though of course we have no idea what, if anything, they are currently doing to the other polities. It wouldn't make too much sense to have reserves sitting right behind the relays, as that's just sending forces in piecemeal. And Caleston Rift is also a great place to hold fleets against Terminus. So my full prediction for next turn:

- the 2nd beats down the MS fleet
- the two other fleets will push our fleets
- end of the turn, Rachni reinforcements show up from NE relay
- we still won't have reserves to counter them, unless we can send the 2nd
- if the 2nd is free by then, we can fight on, if we don't, the NE fleet will quickly become overwhelmed and we'll have to seriously consider withdrawing


They and the Raiding fleets were mostly engaged in partols/occupation in Attican Beta/Kepler Verge, as there are still plenty Rachni-held planets in those systems. Which, as Simon_Jester noted, is another reason why we absolutely must hold here. If we don't, they are doomed.
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They could also show up at the Maroon Sea relay, if they wanted to help their beleaguered fleet. Both are equidistant from Caleston Rift.

Pinning down the 2nd Battle would leave the 3rd Raiding in trouble, which might be a good move strategically as well as possibly saving the remains of their fleet on the MS relay.
 
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PoptartProdigy said:
If they start moving now, you can expect them by the end of this upcoming turn.
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Well, our opposite number is clearly using her head for something other than holding up the magnificent bicorn hat that I choose to imagine all rachni queen admirals wear, so I wouldn't rule that out.

I feel like this is a further good reason to commit all our forces to beating down the Maroon Sea fleet as fast as we can, and to ensuring that Mira is present to take personal command if-when the 2nd Battle Fleet is needed to reinforce one of the other fleets if-when the rachni reserves arrive. Because if the rachni drop another battle fleet or two on either of the other two relays, we're in serious trouble without a battle fleet of our own to reinforce it with.

Basically, both sides here have a strong incentive to reinforce success, rather than trying to shore up failure and stave off defeat. Both sides are susceptible to defeat in detail if either side can free up an overwhelming force, win at one relay, and begin rolling up the others. A prolonged pitched battle isn't really favorable to either side, either; in Virmire's case it means our fleet gets ground into varren-fodder, while in the rachni's case it increases the risk that other fleets they don't know about will pile in (they know we have ships they haven't seen yet, and probably expect to see the quarians whom they haven't seen at all).

The rachni will be even MORE worried about a prolonged battle here in the Hercules system if they know we have a connection to the outside galaxy. Because that means we could conceivably be reinforced, and could very easily have spoiling attacks from the Citadel or Alliance hit them while they're preoccupied. I strongly suspect that given our predilection for launching raids in their rear area whenever we see an opening, the rachni will have timed this attack to squash us just before the rest of a major offensive against Citadel and Terminus space... but that conversely means that this would be a pretty good time for the Citadel and Terminus fleets to hit them, while one of their sharper admiral-queens is busy crushing us and while a sizeable portion of their rear area forces are busy and unable to reinforce us.
 
TaliesinSkye said:
They could also show up at the Maroon Sea relay, if they wanted to help their beleaguered fleet. Both are equidistant from Caleston Rift.
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True, but by the end of the next turn the beleagured fleet should be close to destroyed. Sending reinforcements in would mean simply throwing those reinforcements effiectively alone into our 2nd fleet and surviving static defenses. This would likely result in us having not two engagements that we are very slowly losing, but three. Which doesn't actually destroy us any faster, and thus allows us to complete our evacuation and muster our reserves, and potentially for the Terminus and/or the Citadel to strike while they've committed a pretty large force to slowly grinding us down. Plus, there's no real reason to even fight our MS defense platforms if they break through at NE relay. No, if they are smart, they'll want to knock us out quick. Beat down our fleets , send us running through the Sentry Omega relay, destroy our reinforcements as they are cut off.
 
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TaliesinSkye said:
They could also show up at the Maroon Sea relay, if they wanted to help their beleaguered fleet. Both are equidistant from Caleston Rift.

Pinning down the 2nd Battle would leave the 3rd Raiding in trouble, which might be a good move strategically as well as possibly saving the remains of their fleet on the MS relay.
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They might do that. The drawback is that now that we've got a whole battle fleet in position to surround and bombard ships coming out of the relay, it's a risky position for them to jump into. If we pulled off something like what the 3rd Raiding Fleet did at the relay from the Nubian Expanse and managed to focus fire on the emerging rachni capital ships, we could inflict a lot of very inconvenient damage to them very quickly.

They're more likely to have most of their reserve force get off the relay and into operation in the Hercules system alive and intact if they jump to a location where their ships won't be emerging directly under the guns of the enemy battlegroup.
 
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TaliesinSkye said:


You're welcome.
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Brilliant. Majestic. Beautiful. This must be the best pirate I've ever seen!
Adhoc vote count started by tapkomet on Jun 2, 2019 at 9:43 PM, finished with 198 posts and 66 votes.
  • [X] Plan Parthian Shot
    -[X][1st Battle Fleet/AB-HG Relay]Withdraw away from the relay and try to make it to extreme range. The rachni have a massive cruiser advantage, and long range is where cruiser guns start coming into play. Try and get to extreme range, dragging them past the defense platforms on the way, and try to buy time with the slower pace of a capital ship duel.
    -[X][2nd Battle Fleet/AB-MO Relay] Reinforce the encirclement. The platforms have done their job par excellence, but the rachni will escape if this exchange rate continues. Surround and obliterate them. Of course, if you don't kill ships quickly enough, the rachni will charge you in a glory-or-death assault.
    -[X][3rd Raiding Fleet/AB-NE Relay] Remain at extreme range at all costs. Through good gunnery, you've taken out most of the rachni dreadnoughts, leaving you facing just one dreadnought and a bevy of battlecruisers. If you remain at extreme range, you are facing what is effectively an only slightly-larger hostile force, and you can draw this out for much longer.
    -[X][Reserve] Do not commit them. You do not need them badly enough to accept the casualties of doing so just yet.
    [X] Plan Slowly at First, and Then All at Once
    -[X] Withdraw away from the relay and try to make it to extreme range. The rachni have a massive cruiser advantage, and long range is where cruiser guns start coming into play. Try and get to extreme range, dragging them past the defense platforms on the way, and try to buy time with the slower pace of a capital ship duel.
    -[X] Reinforce the encirclement. The platforms have done their job par excellence, but the rachni will escape if this exchange rate continues. Surround and obliterate them. Of course, if you don't kill ships quickly enough, the rachni will charge you in a glory-or-death assault.
    -[X] Remain at extreme range at all costs. Through good gunnery, you've taken out most of the rachni dreadnoughts, leaving you facing just one dreadnought and a bevy of battlecruisers. If you remain at extreme range, you are facing what is effectively an only slightly-larger hostile force, and you can draw this out for much longer.
    -[X] Commit them. You need them, meager as they are.
    --[X] They will help the 2nd Battle Fleet clean up.
    [X] Plan Charge
    -[X] Withdraw away from the relay and try to make it to extreme range. The rachni have a massive cruiser advantage, and long range is where cruiser guns start coming into play. Try and get to extreme range, dragging them past the defense platforms on the way, and try to buy time with the slower pace of a capital ship duel.
    -[X] Dive in and shatter them. They have failed to form a formation; now make it impossible. Put an end to this assault with crushing speed so that you can reinforce one of the other fleets. Of course, rachni carry a lot of torpedoes, so if you don't shatter them, this could hurt.
    -[X] Remain at extreme range at all costs. Through good gunnery, you've taken out most of the rachni dreadnoughts, leaving you facing just one dreadnought and a bevy of battlecruisers. If you remain at extreme range, you are facing what is effectively an only slightly-larger hostile force, and you can draw this out for much longer.
    -[X] Do not commit them. You do not need them badly enough to accept the casualties of doing so just yet.
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