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

[guyfromtheplace1]

Ok again it will take 134 days to reach the nearest Amirka world with all the Navigator upgrades. Not all of the Trust has the them so at 1 lightyear a day that is 400 days ( if they do not get attacked) for the rest do the Trust fleet. We will not be sending the fleet that far it's to big of a risk. Now if we do want to send fight outside our borders we Tugozak's realm.

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Disagree. You don't want to send part of the fleet so many days away because you want them around to provide an advantage against unknown threats to us, but we have a known threat to us coming right at us that sending the ships out would provide us an advantage against.

At some point the certainty of increased losses to war against a known threat becomes more important than the possibility of increased losses against an unknown threat.

I'm pretty sure that sending our fleet out early to hit the nids would go terribly, as it'd be a relatively slow target moving through the untouched bulk of Amir'ka's territory. I find it very hard to believe they wouldn't try and gank our fleet, either as an official op or one of their many partisan groups trying for an advantage of some sort, and end up both wrecking our fleet and a portion of Amir'ka's naval assets so the nids have an even easier time rolling through. Like, the plan relies entirely on Chaos undivided not giving in to the temptation to backstab both themselves and someone else when that's essentially their main characteristic.

Like, maybe if we send it out during wave 2/3 and Amir'ka has already lost a quarter of their worlds and is getting scared, but definitely not before then.

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This is a more convincing argument. I was in favor of acting early both because I am really worried about their ability to grow, and there is an uncorrupted Xenos world that's going to be attacked by the first wave and I thought we could set up a forward operating base there. Get them assistance and tau tech inexchange for gratitude/a chunk of land for a base, Plonk down some cellular forges, simplify the supply situation.

Countersuggestion: half our fleet goes out in the expeditionary force and they are told to keep together as one blob until Amir Ka has started taking serious losses. The blob saves the one uncorrupted world getting hit in the first wave and bases there. To minimize treachery opprotunities we don't land or negotiate with Amir Ka worlds, and we use Ridcully to ensure we only intervene in those systems that don't have a realistic chance of capturing ships from us. Keeping them all together after that is too much overkill, and wont let us hit enough Nid fleets, but we'd only split it into two or three forces and our ships are faster than Chaos in realspace so if an organized attempt to steal them materializes we can play keepaway.

Hey
@Durin
Reposting questions + a new one

1. Could Ridcully divine well enough in support of the war to counteract the effect of none of the fleet astropaths being able to pierce the shadow in the warp?
Instead of them sending reports and requests back Ridcully divines more or less what they would have sent, or they do send them back on ships for redundancy, but Ridcully divines the contents of the reports anyway to reduce command and control turnaround. I suppose this might just fall under a general 'provide divining support to our forces' action.

2. Does the fact that the Shadow in the Warp is projected from Tyranid ships make it any easier to locate them through Psykic divination in combat? It must be fairly psykicly 'loud'.

3. If it doesn't could we research a way to make it do that?
So there is a debuff to psykers for operating in the Shadow, but bigger buff to Divining the location of big sources for the projection of the Shadow.

4. When you mention the Tyranids striking 40 Ork worlds are you saying that they will also strike 40 ork worlds near Amir Ka while attacking them? Or are those worlds part of Tugozak's domain?

 

[Reynal]

So, Fleet-only (or near only) engagements with the Nids. It has potential, but also potential problems.

Thanks to the new Shadow in the Warp, harassment-only tactics against their fleets is doomed to fail. Once we send our ships in, they're stuck in the same system until enough of the Nids are gone that warping out becomes possible. Even if we're able to trade quite favorably in the harassment it still pins our forces down until well after they'd need repair and resupply.

Fortunately, the Nids are splitting up small enough that defeat in detail is quite plausible. We can put together battle fleets large enough to handle the group they send at a single system, wipe them out, and then either rearm/resupply or move on to another system. This is likely the only way our military can meaningfully reduce the number of Nids coming at this part of the galaxy.

Now, it's not all sunshine and daisies. There are a LOT of systems that the Nids are hitting, and while I haven't looked too closely at the numbers it would take a pretty significant fraction of our Void forces to be able to handle the Nid forces being sent even to a single system. We also want to send quite a bit more than an equivalent force to deal with the Nids, as it will allow us to kill them with fewer casualties on our side. That means we need to balance how many forces we hold back (to prevent opportunistic raiding), how many systems we can hit, and how much force we can send to each system we're hitting.

On top of that, there's the question of target choice for what systems we do hit. Now, obviously our highest priority there is saving uncorrupted human polities (I like saving alien polities too, but given the fact that humanity first is literally enshrined in our religion that's not going to be acceptable to include in the top priority), but there are also other factors at play. For example, on top of the general unpleasantness of saving Chaos, fighting over a Chaos controlled system has a decent chance of letting some of our tech fall into the hands of Chaos.

 

[random_npc]

nineteen human and the single system held by the Boessaewth.

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so thats 20 systems that we might be able to set up a FOB in. The Boessaewth have the advantage of not really needing to get permission from the locals. just roll up, and gunboat diplomacy our way into basing rights, and then mostly ignore them. it might be helpful to coordinate with them especially if they have that small chaos cult bubbling away, but it would not be necessary.

 

[Nurgle]

so thats 20 systems that we might be able to set up a FOB in. The Boessaewth have the advantage of not really needing to get permission from the locals. just roll up, and gunboat diplomacy our way into basing rights, and then mostly ignore them. it might be helpful to coordinate with them especially if they have that small chaos cult bubbling away, but it would not be necessary.

Click to shrink...

Still faces the same problem of logistics, A year or more away without the upgrades for a fleet , and we have to convince a bunch paranoid planets that we are telling the truth.

 

[random_npc]

Still faces the same problem of logistics, A year or more away without the upgrades for a fleet , and we have to convince a bunch paranoid planets that we are telling the truth.

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true, but it makes the logistics less of an issue. build a FOB ramillies out and set it up, and if we have the time some orbital infrastructure and we could take a lot of the strain off. we'd only need a few bases, so we'd only need to fine a few powers we can either talk around, or force to let use their system.

 

[Doomed Wombat]

so thats 20 systems that we might be able to set up a FOB in. The Boessaewth have the advantage of not really needing to get permission from the locals. just roll up, and gunboat diplomacy our way into basing rights, and then mostly ignore them. it might be helpful to coordinate with them especially if they have that small chaos cult bubbling away, but it would not be necessary.

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TBF we don't actually know where they are ATM (something I intend to try and rectify). It does point out in the local area thing that the species may not be as we remember.

That being said remember the Boessaewth have 3 worlds in their one system, the Nids successfully taking them would add an instant +1.5% to their mass.

Still faces the same problem of logistics, A year or more away without the upgrades for a fleet , and we have to convince a bunch paranoid planets that we are telling the truth.

Click to shrink...

Actually the problem of logistics is one we've got down to a minimum.

Lots of checking on the Discord, but in order

1. The Geller fields the Deus uses eliminate the risks of transporting starbases like the Muspelheim forward operating stations through the warp, allowing them to move as fast as our actual ships (they've got eye patches and abaci to go with them). We have at least 1 per Nomad city, and they've got major internal factories as well as huge storage capacity.
2. The Trust has a dozen Goliath factory ships.
3. The Trust also has seed forges, so we can set up industry at an almost hilariously fast pace and reduce supplies of things like food with ration pills.
4. And of course the Well of Urd is the perfect command ship for all this.
5. The actual speeds are a bit different according to Durin

the closest would take a bit over 20 days, the furthest would take around 40 in a straight line but that would involve going straight though Amir-ka, which would be stupid. The long way would take 60 days. + a week at each end to reach the planet and however long loading takes

Presumably this is with the abaci and eye patches, but even then its still far shorter than I expected.

As random has said depressing as it is the Boessaewth will likely be the easiest people for us to convince to let us set up a forward base in their system either by force (we're tech level 19 vs their 6) or by actual diplomacy (they're not human which should hopefully mean they're more inclined to not have imperium syndrome).

We've certainly got plenty to offer if we need to sweeten the pot as well.

Its just a pity that rushing the completion of a Ramilies forward ops station (the one we designed) is likely non viable.

 

[guyfromtheplace1]

Still faces the same problem of logistics, A year or more away without the upgrades for a fleet , and we have to convince a bunch paranoid planets that we are telling the truth.

Click to shrink...

For supply logistics we have cellular forges and food pills making everything easier. I will grant that it makes upgrade logistics much harder, but we never had the shipyard space to upgrade everything at once so it should be possible to shift ships back and forth in batches until they're all done.

But the planets are going to be a problem, they're either going to welcome us, or are going to be too paranoid to negotiate with. As the guy above said, there is also the risk of leaving tech samples behind. But maybe we could handle that by salvaging or blowing up everything left behind?

 

[random_npc]

for the chaos systems, we could hit the hive fellet after they have mauled the defenders. so if we win we'll be able to clean up after ourselves.

 

[Angelform]

As of turn 122 the Trust's combined fleets consist of: 2 Dreadnoughts, 5 Command Battleships, 159 Battleships, 6,650 Capital Ships, 41,200 Escorts.

Three to one superiority of numbers should be sufficient to ensure cheap victories over the Nid splinter fleets. As such we would need to send a force of 84 battleships, 900 cruisers and 9,000 escorts. Which aside from BBs is only a small proportion of our fleet. Swap a third of the battleships for twice their number of grand cruisers (of which we have over 400) and use a command battleship as the flagship. We could have two such fleets and still be sending less than half our ships.

 

[Nurgle]

Remember there is still a Waagh (level 3) in the region, chaos will attack us, and we may have a Abomination crusade.

 

[guyfromtheplace1]

for the chaos systems, we could hit the hive fellet after they have mauled the defenders. so if we win we'll be able to clean up after ourselves.

Click to shrink...

I also thought of this. Of special note is how this tactic works in an interaction between our and the Tyranids' tactics: the Tyranids now rely on stealth and speed to go with their numbers instead of armor and even more numbers, while we could be using stealth ships, but mostly we rely on numerous ships with external torpedos on them.
External torpedos are vulnerable to ambush attacks, meaning that we either take a risk or lose one of our best advantages, but this is a rare opportunity to make that risk much less likely. By having at least one ship watch the Tyranids come in and fight the Chaos defence fleet we can wait for them to expose all of their ship positions, then swoop in while the Tyranids are obligated to defend their captured world while stripping it of resources, then mass torpedo them while their fleet is pinned in place.

Obviously getting the Tyranids before they strike a world is better because that world can still contribute to the war, but even then we barely care about the survival of Chaos worlds, so we can choose to sacrifice the planet for an advantage in the naval battle.

 

[random_npc]

I also thought of this. Of special note is how this tactic works in an interaction between our and the Tyranids' tactics: the Tyranids now rely on stealth and speed to go with their numbers instead of armor and even more numbers, while we could be using stealth ships, but mostly we rely on numerous ships with external torpedos on them.
External torpedos are vulnerable to ambush attacks, meaning that we either take a risk or lose one of our best advantages, but this is a rare opportunity to make that risk much less likely. By having at least one ship watch the Tyranids come in and fight the Chaos defence fleet we can wait for them to expose all of their ship positions, then swoop in while the Tyranids are obligated to defend their captured world while stripping it of resources, then mass torpedo them while their fleet is pinned in place.

Obviously getting the Tyranids before they strike a world is better because that world can still contribute to the war, but even then we barely care about the survival of Chaos worlds, so we can choose to sacrifice the planet for an advantage in the naval battle.

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I was thinking along similar lines. sure there might be some chaos ships lurking around. but if we show up with the forces to take the nids we can likely be sure we can chase them off.

 

[Doomed Wombat]

Three to one superiority of numbers should be sufficient to ensure cheap victories over the Nid splinter fleets. As such we would need to send a force of 84 battleships, 900 cruisers and 9,000 escorts. Which aside from BBs is only a small proportion of our fleet. Swap a third of the battleships for twice their number of grand cruisers (of which we have over 400) and use a command battleship as the flagship. We could have two such fleets and still be sending less than half our ships.

Click to shrink...

The problem with this is that it relies on us having a qualitative advantage over the nid ships, or at least enough of one that such an advantage allows for easy wins.

The problem then becomes that we simply do not know if we do a problem brought up on Discord.

The problem then becomes we won't know exactly how powerful they are vs us until we get into combat with them.

I hope that this is the case, but given how the dice apparently have been loving us recently (4% chance of nids and 10% chance of orks...yikes.)

Remember there is still a Waagh (level 3) in the region, chaos will attack us, and we may have a Abomination crusade.

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Apparently we managed to not roll the absolute lowest of the low on the waaargh and have it come this way.

As for the abomination crusade 1 thing at a time, but if it is in coming then up favours BRING IN THE ELDAR!!!!

 

[Nurgle]

Guys let's just see what chaos and the Necrons do before we decide what to do.

 

[Doomed Wombat]

Guys let's just see what chaos and the Necrons do before we decide what to do.

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Well first we'd have to make sure they actually know the Nids are a thing...

Necrons maybe, but chaos ain't unless we shove em in the right direction.

 

[Angelform]

Remember there is still a Waagh (level 3) in the region, chaos will attack us, and we may have a Abomination crusade.

Click to shrink...

Regarding the Abomination Crusade:
Citation Please.
As far as I can see the only thing to even hint at such is an in-character offhand remark about how everything else seems to be hitting us so why not them as well. Do we have any reason to think such is actually happening?

The problem with this is that it relies on us having a qualitative advantage over the nid ships, or at least enough of one that such an advantage allows for easy wins.

Click to shrink...

If you require a qualitative advantage in addition to a three-to-one quantitative advantage then you are doing something very wrong.

Also I would like to remind people that back in the days of the old Imperium Nid ships were worse than their Imperial equivalents. Significantly so. And our ships are vastly superior to Imperium age ships.
While it is possible the post War in the Void Nids are our equal ship for ship I really doubt it.

Guys let's just see what chaos and the Necrons do before we decide what to do.

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We can't. We have the council meeting coming up next and anything we do is going to need Trust wide co-ordination.

 

[Durin]

TBF we don't actually know where they are ATM (something I intend to try and rectify). It does point out in the local area thing that the species may not be as we remember.

That being said remember the Boessaewth have 3 worlds in their one system, the Nids successfully taking them would add an instant +1.5% to their mass.


Actually the problem of logistics is one we've got down to a minimum.

Lots of checking on the Discord, but in order

1. The Geller fields the Deus uses eliminate the risks of transporting starbases like the Muspelheim forward operating stations through the warp, allowing them to move as fast as our actual ships (they've got eye patches and abaci to go with them). We have at least 1 per Nomad city, and they've got major internal factories as well as huge storage capacity.
2. The Trust has a dozen Goliath factory ships.
3. The Trust also has seed forges, so we can set up industry at an almost hilariously fast pace and reduce supplies of things like food with ration pills.
4. And of course the Well of Urd is the perfect command ship for all this.
5. The actual speeds are a bit different according to Durin

the closest would take a bit over 20 days, the furthest would take around 40 in a straight line but that would involve going straight though Amir-ka, which would be stupid. The long way would take 60 days. + a week at each end to reach the planet and however long loading takes

Presumably this is with the abaci and eye patches, but even then its still far shorter than I expected.

As random has said depressing as it is the Boessaewth will likely be the easiest people for us to convince to let us set up a forward base in their system either by force (we're tech level 19 vs their 6) or by actual diplomacy (they're not human which should hopefully mean they're more inclined to not have imperium syndrome).

We've certainly got plenty to offer if we need to sweeten the pot as well.

Its just a pity that rushing the completion of a Ramilies forward ops station (the one we designed) is likely non viable.

Click to shrink...

The time numbers here are wrong and I am not sure how I reached them. The closest world would take 50 days trsvel, the most distant 120 straight or 180 by going around
Sorry for the earlier error

 

[Durin]

Disagree. You don't want to send part of the fleet so many days away because you want them around to provide an advantage against unknown threats to us, but we have a known threat to us coming right at us that sending the ships out would provide us an advantage against.

At some point the certainty of increased losses to war against a known threat becomes more important than the possibility of increased losses against an unknown threat.


This is a more convincing argument. I was in favor of acting early both because I am really worried about their ability to grow, and there is an uncorrupted Xenos world that's going to be attacked by the first wave and I thought we could set up a forward operating base there. Get them assistance and tau tech inexchange for gratitude/a chunk of land for a base, Plonk down some cellular forges, simplify the supply situation.

Countersuggestion: half our fleet goes out in the expeditionary force and they are told to keep together as one blob until Amir Ka has started taking serious losses. The blob saves the one uncorrupted world getting hit in the first wave and bases there. To minimize treachery opprotunities we don't land or negotiate with Amir Ka worlds, and we use Ridcully to ensure we only intervene in those systems that don't have a realistic chance of capturing ships from us. Keeping them all together after that is too much overkill, and wont let us hit enough Nid fleets, but we'd only split it into two or three forces and our ships are faster than Chaos in realspace so if an organized attempt to steal them materializes we can play keepaway.

Hey
@Durin
Reposting questions + a new one

1. Could Ridcully divine well enough in support of the war to counteract the effect of none of the fleet astropaths being able to pierce the shadow in the warp?
Instead of them sending reports and requests back Ridcully divines more or less what they would have sent, or they do send them back on ships for redundancy, but Ridcully divines the contents of the reports anyway to reduce command and control turnaround. I suppose this might just fall under a general 'provide divining support to our forces' action.

2. Does the fact that the Shadow in the Warp is projected from Tyranid ships make it any easier to locate them through Psykic divination in combat? It must be fairly psykicly 'loud'.

3. If it doesn't could we research a way to make it do that?
So there is a debuff to psykers for operating in the Shadow, but bigger buff to Divining the location of big sources for the projection of the Shadow.

4. When you mention the Tyranids striking 40 Ork worlds are you saying that they will also strike 40 ork worlds near Amir Ka while attacking them? Or are those worlds part of Tugozak's domain?

Click to shrink...

1. He could but it would take a major portion of his time
2. No, it is to spread out to isolate unless there is only a few ships left
3. You do not have any paths to right now

4. They are hitting 40 Ork worlds around Amir-ka

 

[Andres]

Do we have any reason to think such is actually happening?

Click to shrink...

The Abomination wants to kill Lin before he dies of old age and Lin is close to dying of old age.

 

[Doomed Wombat]

As far as I can see the only thing to even hint at such is an in-character offhand remark about how everything else seems to be hitting us so why not them as well. Do we have any reason to think such is actually happening?

Click to shrink...

Chaos is a petty bastard son of a bitch, who in this case has it personally out for Lin in particular.

It's far from an unreasonable assumption unless the Abomination really has something else it should be doing.

If you require a qualitative advantage in addition to a three-to-one quantitative advantage then you are doing something very wrong.

Click to shrink...

No its saying that these guys are an apocalyptic threat for a good reason.

And as far as I am aware their ships weren't worse, simply very over designed for their purpose.

In this case primarily brawlers surpassing even the orks capable of annihilating pretty much anything they got close too.

Sorry for the earlier error

Click to shrink...

Not a problem, still much better than I thought to be honest.

@Durin
1. Does Vanaheim/Muspelheim have any idea if they could rush construction of a forward operating base Ramilies?

 

[Andres]

Happy April Fools Day everyone!

@Durin

1. How viable are Dark Age boots as food items compared to Imperial boots?
2. Have any of our living Administratum and Munitorum heroes made Rotbart fanfiction in their youth?
3. If Frederick had a fursona, what would its name be?
4. If Jesus was statted out in the Embers system what would his stats be?
5. Does Avernus have some kind of World Martial Arts Tournament?
6. Has love bloomed on the battlefield between an Avernite human and a xeno yet?
7. In Embers, did Eminem finish transcending into a rap god before he died?
8. Do furries have ultimate anti-Chaos power because of the Primal Warp?

 

[Nurgle]

Regarding the Abomination Crusade:
Citation Please.
As far as I can see the only thing to even hint at such is an in-character offhand remark about how everything else seems to be hitting us so why not them as well. Do we have any reason to think such is actually happening?

If you require a qualitative advantage in addition to a three-to-one quantitative advantage then you are doing something very wrong.

Also I would like to remind people that back in the days of the old Imperium Nid ships were worse than their Imperial equivalents. Significantly so. And our ships are vastly superior to Imperium age ships.
While it is possible the post War in the Void Nids are our equal ship for ship I really doubt it.

We can't. We have the council meeting coming up next and anything we do is going to need Trust wide co-ordination.

Click to shrink...

Usually when someone Durin writes says something that is him being nice and giving us a hint. Also the Abomination wants to murder Saint Lin and has a bounty that is attractive to any follower of the Abomination or undivided chaos follower.

I agree with Doomed that we should assume the Tryanid ships are more advance than what we think since they use psyker powers to boost them. Also the cloaking and speed boost makes them more danger.

 

[Durin]

Chaos is a petty bastard son of a bitch, who in this case has it personally out for Lin in particular.

It's far from an unreasonable assumption unless the Abomination really has something else it should be doing.


No its saying that these guys are an apocalyptic threat for a good reason.

And as far as I am aware their ships weren't worse, simply very over designed for their purpose.

In this case primarily brawlers surpassing even the orks capable of annihilating pretty much anything they got close too.


Not a problem, still much better than I thought to be honest.

@Durin
1. Does Vanaheim/Muspelheim have any idea if they could rush construction of a forward operating base Ramilies?

Click to shrink...

1. Vanaheim thinks they could build one in a decade, muspelheim thinks that they could convert on of their cities into one in three years

 

[Durin]

Happy April Fools Day everyone!

@Durin

1. How viable are Dark Age boots as food items compared to Imperial boots?
2. Have any of our living Administratum and Munitorum heroes made Rotbart fanfiction in their youth?
3. If Frederick had a fursona, what would its name be?
4. If Jesus was statted out in the Embers system what would his stats be?
5. Does Avernus have some kind of World Martial Arts Tournament?
6. Has love bloomed on the battlefield between an Avernite human and a xeno yet?
7. In Embers, did Eminem finish transcending into a rap god before he died?
8. Do furries have ultimate anti-Chaos power because of the Primal Warp?

Click to shrink...

1. They taste worse
2. Yes some have
3.?
4. Transcendent piety, Paragon diplomacy
5. Yes it does, Oakheats are seeded into the semi finals of the armed division
6. There are questions about that Psyker siren pairing
7. He did not
8. Well space wolves do

 

[HanEmpire]

Those are the real questions.

3.?

Click to shrink...

@Durin he means "If Frederick was a furry, what animal-person would he want to be and what would he be called?".