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The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up

Investigate the Sea?

  • Yes

    Votes: 592 80.3%

  • No

    Votes: 145 19.7%
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    737
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Note to self: Don't forget to alter the repair nanites to work on Hives.

Some tech not only tech ideas:
A stealthy/cloaked mine laying hovercraft.
AA mines. Buried stealthy but cheap missile launch tubes. Might need something else to trigger them and provide targeting data. Could allow for harassment to take a bite out of large aircraft concentrations without being smote.
Stealth and Cloak modules for Titans. Depending on how effective those techs are...
We will need to ward our Titans I think. Modular Warding? Maybe?
Soil liquefaction is a thing that might be very very useful against enemy Titans. Well, walkers in general. Actually, tanks and infantry too. Perhaps deployed by sub terrain units? It would be a powerful sonic emitter probably, perhaps one that needs lots of data on local geological conditions to be effective? Variant of the earthquaker?
Cloak generator tank. Like the Tetsudo, only Cloak instead of void shield. Lots of potential. For example, combined with Tetsudos and AA tanks, makes up a stealthy mobile fortified AA emplacement. Would make enemy aircraft far more cautions, moving in larger numbers and thus covering less area, helping our stealth units and harassers a lot. Hmm, could a prefab fortress be assembled under a Cloak I wonder?
Honeypot lily mines. Attracting Avernus wildlife to the enemy? Hell yes.
A very very stealthy, Cloaked, and fast boarding craft. Would probably need a DM reactor.
I am not sure, but Cloaks and Ragnarok/Banishment cannon ships could probably get up to some nasty shenanigans, and might be better protections than void shields at that distance.
Note to self: Ward the Banishment cannon ships. Seriously.
Hmm. Do we have Phase Tigers among our boarding forces? Would be nasty.
...Teleportarium+Blink Spiders? We would need to be really really sure that they can't reproduce, but...
Or trolls? Can they assume metal bodies? Being made of a void ships bulkhead and passing through it without problems... Right, they are People. No go.
Alter repair nanites for Titans? No, Callamus will take care of it.
Hmm... our ships have artificial gravity and inertial compensators. Could Tranth make those more variable and maybe stronger, after gaining gravity fundamentals? It would make boarding our ships very nasty indeed I would think.

@Durin
1. Because this keeps bugging me, how many Fellswords would be needed to confidently win a battle against one Avernus pattern Titan?
1a. If you don't mind answering, what would be the expected losses?
2. How many years would it take to expand our Fellsword numbers?
 
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Enerael said:
Soil liquefaction is a thing that might be very very useful against enemy Titans. Well, walkers in general. Actually, tanks and infantry too. Perhaps deployed by sub terrain units? It would be a powerful sonic emitter probably, perhaps one that needs lots of data on local geological conditions to be effective? Variant of the earthquaker?
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I'd suggest a phase tank variant for the task.
EDIT: Although, given the weight of a titan's steps, I wouldn't be surprised if titans incorporate sensors to detect soil that would be vulnerable to liquification as a a matter of course.
 
thamuzz said:
Although, given the weight of a titan's steps, I wouldn't be surprised if titans incorporate sensors to detect soil that would be vulnerable to liquification as a a matter of course.
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At the very least Imperium era Warlord titans do, it's shown when they walk through a plain that's partially burning promethium. I didn't mention it because it's technology falls under "Obsolete by Tranth".
 
@Durin
1)can lin research the omnissiah ?
2)can lin research machine spirits ?
3)how would 1 and 2 effect technomancy ?
4)how would 1 and 2 effect developing our own Techsorcists ?
5)how would 1 and 2 effect the admech as a whole ?
 
Enerael said:
I am not sure, but Cloaks and Ragnarok/Banishment cannon ships could probably get up to some nasty shenanigans, and might be better protections than void shields at that distance.
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No, stealth ships will always be way worse at survivability in direct combat. What cloaking gives is greatly enhanced harrassment and ambush capabilities and ability to engage where you normally would be able to.
 
DeusFerreus said:
No, stealth ships will always be way worse at survivability in direct combat. What cloaking gives is greatly enhanced harrassment and ambush capabilities and ability to engage where you normally would be able to.
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Well, my reasoning was that depending on how Cloaks work, they could decloak, fire from extreme range, cloak, and move. This could make hitting them back really really hard, and if the enemy tries a breakthrough or send their own stealth ships after them, they would have a hard time finding them.

Also would be great for raids probably. Enter system, cloak, move into range, fire a single devastating volley, cloak, get out.

But I do not know how Cloaks work.

Am really looking forward to examining the tech.
 
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Enerael said:
Well, my reasoning was that depending on how Cloaks work, they could decloak, fire from extreme range, cloak, and move. This could make hitting them back really really hard, and if the enemy tries a breakthrough or send their own stealth ships after them, they would have a hard time finding them.

Also would be great for raids probably. Enter system, cloak, move into range, fire a single devastating volley, cloak, get out.

But I do not know how Cloaks work.

Am really looking forward to examining the tech.
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The problem with the first plan that you can't just "recloak", our stealth is not perfect invisibility but rather a minimisation of emissions, and while it's great when enemy doesn't know where exactly you are, once they detect our stealth ships enemy will have much easier time keeping track of them even with stealth systems engaged. They would need to fully disengage to shake off enemy sensors before coming in for another run, meaning they would able to provide a fraction of firepower a conventional ship would.
The fact that our stealth ships are rather slow makes this even more difficult, since enemy fast elements would be able to catch up to them and keep them from disengaging quite easily.
 
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DeusFerreus said:
The problem with the first plan that you can't just "recloak", our stealth is not perfect invisibility but rather a minimisation of emissions, and while it's great when enemy doesn't know where exactly you are, once they detect our stealth ships enemy will have much easier time keeping track of them even with stealth systems engaged. They would need to fully disengage to shake off enemy sensors before coming in for another run, meaning they would able to provide a fraction of firepower a conventional ship would.
The fact that our stealth ships are rather slow makes this even more difficult.
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I think (emphasis on the think) that with Corvus's stuff we maybe able to do a cloak thing...

I think.
 
the idea of a clock and a short-range high punch weapon is an old one, the ole stealth ambush is a classic. That said, my understanding is that stealth ships have tight power budgets, so it's unlikely we'd be able to put power-hungry weapons on them.

that said, stealth ships are not actually entirely a liability in a fight. looking at the fog light cruiser as an example, it has a 10% reduction in armor, 25% reduction in hp, a 75% reduction in lance mountings, but a targeting priority that's about a 5th of the other ship in its weight class.

Looking at our larger stealth ships, it's a bit odd. the stealth BC has around the same armor hit, but less hp reduction, and has the same amount of weapons as the other macrocannon BC. The stealth BB, however, has a staggering 62% armor reduction and 30% hp reduction, as well as a shockingly anemic weapons loadout, however, it seems to be using primarily lances.


from what we know about the system, there is at least a loose set of rules behind ship design. From this, I think I can make a few educated guesses about what kind of weapons we could give our stealth ships. There seem to be either harsh armor ceilings or a size sweet spot round BC for stealth ships. They also seem to be better able to afford space hungry macro cannons and torpedoes far better than power-hungry lances, so this means the fun weapons like naval grav cannons and Ragnarok cannons are going to be too power hungry to mount on stealth ships with our present reactors. we might be able to do it with ship scale dark mater reactors, but that would be pricy as hell.

that said, in the distant future when we can use ship scale DM reactors, mounting specialized weapons on stealth ships might not be a bad idea. it's pricy but the low targeting priority means a small contingent of stealth ships would have decent survivability. It might be a way to make sure your specialist ships survive.
 
I think part of that is that it's relatively easy to obfuscate the source of a torpedo or macrocannon shell, especially compared to a lance. Thus, they can be fired without fully sacrificing the benefits of stealth—it might give away that some enemy ships are nearby (as a Skyrim-like situation of blaming the wind is unlikely to occur even with Orks) as well as a rough distance and direction depending on how good of a read they got on the , projectiles coming in, but nothing close to accurate enough for a firing solution or even plausible saturation fire.
 
Reynal said:
I think part of that is that it's relatively easy to obfuscate the source of a torpedo or macrocannon shell, especially compared to a lance. Thus, they can be fired without fully sacrificing the benefits of stealth—it might give away that some enemy ships are nearby (as a Skyrim-like situation of blaming the wind is unlikely to occur even with Orks) as well as a rough distance and direction depending on how good of a read they got on the , projectiles coming in, but nothing close to accurate enough for a firing solution or even plausible saturation fire.
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Look Skyrim has extremely high windspeeds especially when a crypt corridor happens to funnel it like a wind tunnel.
 
Reynal said:
I think part of that is that it's relatively easy to obfuscate the source of a torpedo or macrocannon shell, especially compared to a lance. Thus, they can be fired without fully sacrificing the benefits of stealth—it might give away that some enemy ships are nearby (as a Skyrim-like situation of blaming the wind is unlikely to occur even with Orks) as well as a rough distance and direction depending on how good of a read they got on the , projectiles coming in, but nothing close to accurate enough for a firing solution or even plausible saturation fire.
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Possibly, but lances are known to be a power-hungry system, and I doubt the system is granular enough that different weapons give different modifiers to stealth. So I think it's more likely a power concern.
 
Dark as Silver said:
Look Skyrim has extremely high windspeeds especially when a crypt corridor happens to funnel it like a wind tunnel.
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And what people don't seem to realize is that the wind can be cursed at times, its a real problem. Some people have had their lives ruined by maliciously thrown objects like bowls,rocks and arrows. The PC doesnt know about it because it just never comes up for them, lucky I guess or something.

Its actually why so many guards have that one line....
 
@Durin
1. Any chance that HWWO can tell us bout some permissible (ie: things the Planet Mind is okay with us knowing) but incredibly difficult divination targets for Ridcully? Would he be okay with us divining him?
 
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Afterparty
  • Sidestory
    • Afterparty
    Set shortly after The First Miasma Crusade.

    The realms of the Gods where, as a rule strange. The madness of the warp twisted in on itself to reflect the madness of the god that had claimed it, inhuman thoughts producing impossible sanity-shattering vistas. Places hostile to mortal thought and utterly beyond the capacity of any mortal tongue to describe save in the most general and misleading ways. Any vague logic or reason a mortal might find merely their minds desperate attempt to preserve itself. So the fact that Zahak and the shieldmaiden seemed to be sitting on a simple blanket in an entirely mundane arboretum was quite unusual.

    The god filled two glasses with a drink once so cheap as to not be worth glass, now made priceless by age and potent by an old promise. Besides to her sits her most potent servant in mortal form. The shieldmaiden raised her glass, now filled with the wine of a bygone age.

    "To victory."

    With a sad smile, her master tings it with her own. "To the fallen."

    The toast is a somber one, and the silence that follows melancholy.

    "We did a hell of a lot better than we expected."

    "Which is really the saddest part about this whole affair."

    The shieldmaiden lets out a long-suffering sigh. "We knew all knew going in that it would be bloody, and they knew the risks."

    Zahak responds with a dismissive snort, "The gods did, I don't think the poor bastards in the expense were quite as informed."

    The maiden frowned. " That fleet would have crushed them without help. Saving half is worse than letting all of them die."

    "We didn't quite save half did we though? The fat fuck got half, but we tipped a bit over that line with our very own massacre."

    "They volunteered Zahak ."

    Thes laugh was bitter and ugly, "oh they put out the call and they got a lot of folks willing to die, but not enough."

    Her companion looked away, "their choice wasn't yours."

    "No, but they would have chosen otherwise without me. I talked five hundred twenty-three million, seven hundred thirty-four thousand and eighty-three people onto the altar."

    "Don't you of all people take their choice from them!" the maiden snapped back." Don't spit on their self-sacrifice by insisting you have their blood on your hands."

    "We both know how good a manipulator I am. They would not have made that choice without me whispering in their ears. Most of the blood spilled on that alter was self-sacrifice sure, but whatever sliver of blame I deserve is still enough to dye my hands red."

    "You saw the fleet number Zahak, we needed to trim the fleet to have any hope, and we needed that ritual to be able to do it."

    The god snorted derisively "The ends justify the means, that's an old idea. Yet it almost never seems to work does it? Justify enough means and eventually, you taint your own ends. Eventually, your ends just become yet another horror your unleashing."

    The maiden looked into the eyes of her god." we've both done worse."

    Zahak flinched and cast her eyes down, but her companion continued.

    "I know you, your sins don't weigh upon you more heavily just because they're fresh. Talk to me, what is really eating you?"

    Zahak rippled, her form blurring for a moment before she gathered herself to respond, her voice slow and measured.

    "When I started this, I had hoped I would be able to stop bloodying my hands, that I could finally stop being a monster."

    "That's… boss, you had to know that we were heading for desperate times, with mostly assholes for company when we started this."

    "I know!" Zahak exclaimed, "I know we are working with monsters, I know we're in desperate days, and yet, and yet" the goddess trailed off, clutching at empty air with taloned fingers.

    The shieldmaidens eyes filled, with sorrow "You had hope, even when you knew you shouldn't."

    Zahak nodded, and her frame seemed to sag under an unseen burden. "It's stupid, but for just a bit, I felt that this was finally it, that I could finally survive without having to bloody my hands, that I could be the person I swore I'd become."

    Her companion sighed. "Its a very human kind of stupid, you gave up a lot for this scheme, feeling like it owed you an immediate payoff isn't that strange, its human."

    The goddess huffed, and leaned into her companion."Being human sucks."

    "Sometimes."

    "I've been playing at it for thousands of years, and I'm still finding new ways it sucks."

    The shieldmaiden smiled ruefully. "And yet, you stick with it. you're better at being human than a lot of people born to it."

    "We both know that's a low bar." Zahak darkly remarked

    Her companion rolled her eyes, before reaching out to her god and flicking her on the nose.

    "Ow!"

    "Accept the compliment for your dedication to humanity and drink your wine."

    "Hmph." Zahak began to pout. "I'm sure the other gods don't have to put up with this from their heralds." before taking a sip.

    "Other gods don't raid their herald's booze collection."

    "One time! One time almost a thousand years ago!"

    "And yet I'm still rebuilding the damage."

    "We couldn't have drunk that much surely."

    "You got a primarch drunk!"

    "One time!"

    The old worn argument drained the tension, and both women broke into honest laughter. Time passed in idle conversation, old friends, deeds past and fragile dreams of a brighter future. The lights dimmed, and the box of wine drained.
    "Do you think we might do it? With this alliance I mean." A drowsy herald asked the goddess above her.

    "Hmm?" Zahak looked down at supine form of her oldest companion.

    "That we could," the former mortal paused, pushing through a warm fog on intoxication to find the words. "That we could finally stop." she finished, the last word weighed down with thousands of years of bloody shame and guilt.

    The neverborn signed. "I think, one way or another, we're not going to be committing any more atrocities by the end of this."

    The shieldmaiden made a quiet sound as she nuzzled into her lord's lap. "Izat why you stuck with it? When the raid was louder than you thought it would be?"

    "What?"

    "Raid was supposed to be practice, find sane sorts we could work with." the intoxicated demon paused to collect her befuddled thoughts "when it went bigger than that, you ran with it, didn't run." she turned to face her god, and spoke with a certainty born of long millennia of experience. "Running would have been the smart play."

    Zahak's smile turned sad. "I thought I was supposed to be a master manipulator." her voice strained.

    "Know you." was her herald's simple reply.

    She rippled again, drawing a disgruntled mrgle from the woman resting in her lap. When she finally spoke, her voice was quite "Yeah. that's why I ran with it." the silence stretched on for long moments, begging to filled. " I just," the last of her masks fell away, revealing an ichor deep wariness. "Can't" she finished, her silver tongue failing her. "I'm sorry."

    "No, no apologies. Not for this."

    "I might get you killed."

    "Yeah."

    "I didn't tell you."

    "Should've."

    Zahak's stared into the drowsy face of the shieldmaiden, looking for any trace of anger or reproach. "I don't deserve you."

    Her inebriated companion smiled "Damn straight." simply basking in a moment of intimacy. "So, tell me the odds boss."

    The goddess hmmed thoughtfully. "A coin flip, maybe a bit better, maybe a bit worse."

    "Had worse."

    "Not by choice."

    The drunk woman made a vaguely affirmative sound. "Scared?"

    Zhark laugh was short and bitter. "I'm a neverborn facing death, of course I'm scared."

    A drunk and swaying hand reached up, shakily flicking her on the nose again.

    "Bein scared of death is human. Iz why humans are so good at not dyn." came the insistent, if somewhat slurred reply. "Leave your survival instinct alone, make my job eshier."

    Zhark smiled with genuine warmth. "You're a bossy drunk you know that?"

    "An your sober."

    "A bit yes."

    "Ok, sho, this is what your gunno do, ol human tradition! Your gonna stop willing your shelf sober, an then we're gonna have a night of drunken shenanigans, an yer gonna feel better bout your odds."

    Zhark raised an eyebrow. "I'm fairly sure you weren't this drunk a second- "a finger on her lips silenced her.

    "Shush. No words, drunk now."

    The goddess pale cheeks reddened, and she began to sway, before collapsing into a puddle of boiling mud. With her collapse came the collapse of the semblance of sanity her will had managed, leaving the realm the usual patchwork madness of the Aetherium.

    "Hokay, to drunk."

    @Durin another omake.
    I find the idea of gods and demons being domestic amusing, hence this omake sitting on the back burner for an embarrassingly long time. Many thanks to ArchAIngel for his assistance.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Doomed Wombat said:
    I think (emphasis on the think) that with Corvus's stuff we maybe able to do a cloak thing...

    I think.
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    Reflex Shields are invisibility style cloaking. That said don't be surprised if the Eldar, Necrons and Krork can still see through them via bullshit clarktech(or bullshit psyker powers in the Eldar and Krork's case) or if Chaos diviners can predict where they are. Just because they are useful doesn't mean they are unstoppable after all. The best defense for a cloaked anything is to not be looked for in the first place.
     
    yeah, in my system stealth works best when either used for first strikes or to fade into the background of large scale naval battles, where people often can't track where every shot comes from anyway
     
    Inquisitor Klovis-Ultan would like to note that this is what is currently known about Vlad, and is quite possibly missing a massive amount.

    Age: approximately 25,000 years
    M: 16+18=34 (+70 bonus)- While Vlad usually tries to avoid the spotlight his great experience still allows him to command forces of all types with the skill of a respected general, or admiral.
    I: 18+40=58- Vlad's skills in the personal aspects of intrigue, both stealth and disguise, are unmatched by any living human, and possibly by any human in history. his skills as a spymaster are significantly below this, but are still on the upper bounds of possibility.
    A: 12+17=29- Over his long life Vlad has learned much about administration of all levels, though it has never been a passion for him.
    L: 15+26=41- While Vlad has never been particularly technically inclined he has received the best possible education of a dozen eras, including the Dark Age of Technology.
    P: 18+34=52- Vlad's will and mental defences are immaculate, anchored as they are by the type of self-knowledge that only lifetimes of meditation can achieve.
    D:12+27=39- Vlad's abilities in the social area have been honed by by long life and the issues integrating in the ever changing galaxy.
    C: 15+40=55- Vlad Tepes was able to survive exploring the majority of Avernusin his youth, a feat that requires incredible combat skills. In the tens of millennia since then he has only improved his skills at combat.

    Paragon Stealth Trait:
    Paragon Intrigue Trait:
    Paragon Combat Trait:
    Paragon Piety Trait:
    First Explorer of Avernus (+10I, +8P, +20C, +2 to all other stats, near certain not to die, +200 to all rolls to deal with environmental challenges, +200 to rolls dealing with the dangers of Avernus)- Vlad Tepes was the first person, human or other, to fully explore the nearly entirety of Avernus, a feat that he accomplished in a mere five centuries. In accomplishing this feat he developed a wide range of skills to an incredible level, mostly those related to survival.
    Commissar of the Phase-Tigers     (+1M, +2I, +1D, +2C, +5 to stealth rolls for forces under his direct command, +15 to morale for forces in his presence, less likely not to die, double statistic bonuses when commanding Phase-Tigers)- Under the name of Commissar Sepet Vlad became the Commissar of the Catachan 813th "Phase-Tigers", the most legendary force of warriors in the Imperial Trust and has been since their founding a decade before the initial colonization of Avernus.
    Ancient Master     (+12 all stats, +50 to all rolls)- In his long life Vlad has lived in countless situations and mastered an incredible variety of skills, many to a level that it is near impossible to reach in a single lifetime.
    Paragon of Stealth     (+12I, +3C, +80 to all stealth rolls)- Vlad is is able to pull off seemingly impossible feats of stealth with casual ease.
    Wraithwalker     (+1I, +1P, +25 to all stealth rolls vs psykers and daemons) - In the Second Demonic Incursion, Commissar Sepet, the Phase-Tigers, Grandmaster Xavier, and Mittens killed countless daemons via stealth, learning how to hide even from the Warp touched eyes of daemons and earning the title of the Wraithwalkers.
    Adamantium Mind (+12P, +120 to resist mental intrusion, roll twice on attempts to resist mental intrusions and pick the highest)- In his time on Avernus Vlad dealt with countless forms of psychic assault, and learned to live though all of them. When combined with the mental walls that he has been strengthening for longer then most civilizations exist breaching his mind is all but impossible even for the greatest of telepaths.
    Social Chameleon (+8D, can easily blend into groups)- Vlad lived for tens of thousands of years in the background of human civilization without being found. he did this in large part by learning how to blend in with the society around him.
    A Ancient Education     (+12L, +3 to all stats, chance of knowing anything ever known by humanity)- Vlad Tepes was born in the early years of the Dark Age of Technology, and received his first education then. Since then he has studied under hundreds of educational institutes of varying types, giving him the most though education that you know of.
    still waiting on paragons
     
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