BananosMoon
Banana lover.
- Location
- Poney banana paradise.
I can't speak for the other planets, but these are pretty far away from us, except for the Marian Hegemony of course.
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The Lords of Ruin -- Battletech/Killzone
- Thread starter prometheus110
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- The internet
I expect the OWA is probably still debating talking to us in their parliament, and as a practical matter they have good relations with the Taurians so they can basically run any diplomacy through them. The Lothians are probably in a similar state, running any minor relations they have through their historical allies and parent nation in the TC.
Kind of yes, and kind of no. In terms of time they might be months or even more than a year of travel away from us, but historically that hasn't really been an issue for diplomatic relations, where those sort of travel-times could be the norm rather than the exception. It might mean that diplomatic connections and relations aren't quite as high of a priority as they'd be with factions more immediately relevant to their national interests, but there's almost certainly still trade, travel, and whatnot, so it's not like diplomacy would be pointless.
Like I kind of said, though; it's probably that handling all that sort of stuff would simply be too much work for @prometheus110 to handle on top of all the other things he already needs to keep track of, the writing he has to do, and of course all of the real-world obligations he has.
OpSihg_Stabr
Crazy (Evil) Genius
Helghast Railgun
With research into reverse engineering the Inner Sphere lostech of Gauss Rifles proceeding at a appreciable pace, with demonstrations of a prototype already underway, many interested Military artillerists and gunsmiths were inspired to re-examined preexisting Electronic Launcher systems. The Hephaestus H11 Accelerator Rifle, and the VC39 it was based upon, although using highly energetic and conductive Petrusite as their projectiles both utilized the principle of a Railgun. With the Gauss Rifle proving the destructive potential of an inert metallic projectile, these divergent military engineers decided to repurpose the capacitors and electromagnetic barrel materials of one of the prototype gauss rifles into a more simplistic and crude Rail Gun.Whilst not as efficient in principle as a Gauss weapon, with the bullet friction and plasma build-up along the barrel-rails causing the weapon to generate more 'tactical heat' than an Inner Spheroid Medium Laser, yet still less than a Particle Projector or Large Laser, it worked. Initial designs showed that it could fire its rounds at comparable ranges to the Gauss Rifle, but with slightly less damage potential and also a greater Ammo-per-ton capacity.
_-_-_
Would be nice if this also lead to us creating our own Helghast version of the LSR44 Spoor from Killzone Shadowfall, or at least something close enough - like a Railgun Infantry Rifle.
BananosMoon
Banana lover.
- Location
- Poney banana paradise.
You misunderstand. ComStar still controls the HPG Network, thus their disrupting of the mail would cull the vast majority of rumors spreading about us. Instead, they would send what they like, so that the far away Periphery Powers would think of us as just another PS with some shiny toys that got lucky and managed to sway the MoC, AC and TC into some sort of loose alliance.
It's been what? 11 years since ORDI was formed? Honestly, it is not unbelievable that they haven't contacted us by now.
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That's a very good point, and considering how I recently talked about how Comstar was almost certainly already hostile to us, I can't believe I managed not to think of that.
Beyogi
and a fairy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hm... kinda been wondering about something as I read through the quest. Research seems to have been pretty focussed on military development, while stuff like Battletech-FTL research or Petruside teleportation hasn't really been touched.
AFAIK we have pretty much top tier military even for inner sphere powers, so I'm a bit surprised about that.
AFAIK we have pretty much top tier military even for inner sphere powers, so I'm a bit surprised about that.
OpSihg_Stabr
Crazy (Evil) Genius
When the Helghast first appeared in the Battletech universe, whilst we had a good military it was at a drastic technological disadvantage, even against rag-tag and shoddily maintained pirate forces. My understanding of it is that there was ALOT of effort expended, both in direct reverse engineering and political schemes, to close that techno-military gap.
I think "Tex Talks Battletech: The Mackie" would be a good source to kind of better understand the gap that exists between the 'Near-Future esque' weapons of Killzone and what kind of overpowered futuristic awesomeness the rest of the Battletech space is based on and uses.
As noted there was the tech-disparity between us and potential enemies (though I maintain that Killzone's stuff was rather under-sold in a number of areas; you don't build something like the MAWLR without some very serious chops in material sciences), coupled with the fact that the tech-tree in general is extremely heavy on the tactical stuff (ie, weapons, armor, reactors, etc. for various combat vehicles), due to the heavy influence of the Battletech tabletop game.
Now that we've reached parity (and actually a slight advantage over) typical IS forces, I think there are a number of players inclined to start looking into other areas. We've started research into improving our FTL comms this turn, and IIRC a number of players are interested in starting research into improving our warp drives, getting started on gravity lifts, and some advanced automation research.
Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We have just in the last few years gotten to the point that we actually have combat tech parity with the IS. Before that, when pirates landed they had Unions doing fun things like one-shotting our original cruisers (500m long warships) with single shots from their PPCs. We lost IIRC 9 out of 21 cruisers to 2 droppers and their 4 ASF while they took no losses. Now that we basically have the standard tech for the IS and then a bit, our size, industry, and military-industrial complex has turned out plenty of toys to let us equal or exceed anyone else in quality and have a ton of quantity to play with.
The voting tide is starting to shift away from "dakka dakka dakka!" but we'll see if that trend continues. It did this turn.
As far as KF drive goes, IMO it's not actually superior to our warp drives. Arguably it's worse in every way other than being better for long-range logistical movements, because warp-ships can't just deploy solar sails to charge; warp ships definitely have a speed advantage, though, and can jump tactically as well as jump almost anywhere within a system negating the need to use jump points far away from a planet. The particulars of that argument have been argued bitterly over and over and over again in the thread here, though.
They probably could - just like the GM said we could power our warp-drives off the recharge-stations that already exist - but it'd generally be counter-productive since it'd sacrifice one of the main advantages our warp drives have over KF drives.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'd probably be coy about the exact speed to avoid having to answer awkward questions, but it's basically a Meteor BVRAAM that fires smaller missiles, so I'll chuck it in as a req option.
Yeah, it's been bugging me for ages and has been really annoying to keep track of. I'll be trying to improve it over the next few updates (and implementing the whole public goals idea I had ages back).Heya, nice to see you here, Beyogi!
I was going to write about how in-character the Helghan government has no idea Comstar is anything other than a phone company that leveraged its monopoly into a potentially somewhat worrying degree of power (depending on how much public knowledge our ambassadors and spooks gathered), but @Forgothrax beat me to it.
That aside, it's honestly a weakness of how @prometheus110 has handled diplomacy in general so far, as it is quite rare that other factions initiate diplomacy or agreements with us, and it's typically on us to forward proposals or requests to other factions, or even make contact in the first place. The other major independent players throughout this part of the Periphery - Detroit, Rockawellawan and Fronc - for example probably should've contacted us in order to sound us out about our intentions, capabilities, etc. shortly after our existence became public, but especially so after Portland and Independence joined us.
Similarly, other periphery nations in general - the Marian Hegemony, Lothian League, Niops Association, Illyrian Palatinate, Mica Majority, Outworlds Alliance, etc - also seem content to just ignore our existence.
It's probably a lot less work for the GM than constantly having to consider how those various powers might react to our various actions or what they might try to gain from us, but it also makes the other nations look a bit like, well, the NPCs from video games, I'm sorry to say.
Well, as @Theraptor99 pointed out, you *do* have a ready-made excuse in "Comstar's been fucking with you" in regards to other polities not talking with us.
I'm curious about that "public goals" thing you mentioned, though? Could you elaborate on that a bit?
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
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I've got the actual explanation available somewhere, but basically, every X years you'll get to pick a set of goals to complete with maybe 1 or 2 automatically chosen for you based on what's happening in the universe. Completing the goals grants you bonus influence (which I really need to expend more of) while failing costs you something appropriate to the goal. For example, right now you basically have the goal of punishing the Celestial Mandate in some way for the bioattack on Helghan. Completing that would grant you certain benefits while failing to do so in a reasonable timeframe would make everyone in the Republic really mad.
It's a way to encourage you to do stuff instead of just turtle all the time.
BananosMoon
Banana lover.
- Location
- Poney banana paradise.
@prometheus110 , I hate to ask, but my excitement won out in the end. Will the update be ready by, say, 10-11 hours from now on?
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prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
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- La Ballena City Raft
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- He/Him
Maybe? There isn't a ton of stuff left to do but finalizing everything takes a bit.
Sounds good to me.I've got the actual explanation available somewhere, but basically, every X years you'll get to pick a set of goals to complete with maybe 1 or 2 automatically chosen for you based on what's happening in the universe. Completing the goals grants you bonus influence (which I really need to expend more of) while failing costs you something appropriate to the goal. For example, right now you basically have the goal of punishing the Celestial Mandate in some way for the bioattack on Helghan. Completing that would grant you certain benefits while failing to do so in a reasonable timeframe would make everyone in the Republic really mad.
It's a way to encourage you to do stuff instead of just turtle all the time.
As for ways to spend influence, maybe introduce something like policies or edicts a la Stellaris?
- Location
- USA
Okay so for the KF drive there is another point of order you have to remember besides the mouth drooling amount C-Bills that can be made just selling Jumpships you also have to take into consideration that per collar per jump is 50,000 C-Bills (unless it's been changed but as far as I know that's the going rate) now while not impressive by itself it's almost never just one collar in use and barely ever just one jump.
When you take that into consideration along with the fact that most of the government owned dropships would be used as trade ships most of the time that quickly turns into "Woah" amounts of money allowing us to do more. Including paying planets to join us, Buying equipment or tech with out trading our own and Licensing Fee's if we want to produce our own variants of mechs.
When you take that into consideration along with the fact that most of the government owned dropships would be used as trade ships most of the time that quickly turns into "Woah" amounts of money allowing us to do more. Including paying planets to join us, Buying equipment or tech with out trading our own and Licensing Fee's if we want to produce our own variants of mechs.
Playing the devil's advocate here, we don't really have that many mech designs to really flush out the military battalions. We have what, maybe three mech's total, whatever we still have for our R&D division, and what our state-funded mercs picked up during the 4SW. None of our domestic designs are true heavies or assaults. No answer for an Atlas, no jack-of-all-trades, no fast attack, no tank-mech built for punishment, no AA, no artillery/snipers. What we have is like the Mackie, prototypes and baby steps.
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Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
I'd purpose a four legged Marauder knock off for an all rounder. Pair of medium lasers, pair petrusite cannons, overbuilt front legs for smacking and smashing, and a heavy cannon on the back mount.
OpSihg_Stabr
Crazy (Evil) Genius
I love Marauders, so I cannot and will not say NO to that.
However, the basic idea seems a feels a bit 'wrong' for how I imagine Helghast would make a Mech. If there are Energy weapons, it would trends more towards fewer larger ones - see MAWLR Arc Cannon. Also in our story we haven't had any notable encounters with Marauder, let alone salvaged one to let us get a closer look at it. I think we've gotten our hands on plenty of Warhammers due to buying Mechs from the Taurians though, and we've found at least 1 Rifleman so we might have a 'convergent evolution' moment of making our own version of a Rifleman II - with Symetrical pairs of Autocannon 10s and Large Lasers, and maybe SRMs to emulate the Anti-Air Turrets that guarded Stahl Arms Deep South.
In short, I think a Helghast Assault mech would use Autocannons (and later a Gauss Rifle), for that gritty bullet-hell feeling that is a hold-over from KILLZONE.
Does anyone know what happened to the Bull Shark in our game-universe - because that is exactly (apart from not being a Quad Leg) the Helghast would make an Assault / Superheavy Mech. Maybe House Arano / Markham's Marauders has data, or at least a photographic evidence, for us to base our new Assault Mech on In-character. That would be awesome.
From a Roleplay perspective, maybe we should try to reverse engineer the Royal Highlander we got (and thoroughly disassembled) from the Nautilus Base deal. However if we're going to build it this turn it would have to use a AC10. It would be awesome if were able to make it as a Quad Leg design - in true Helghast style.
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Transition Event Study Update - Petrusite Gate
Omaka: Transition Event Study Update - Petrusite Gate
From: Dr. Kreig VernBrawn Exotic Materials & Physics Department Head
To: Office of the Prime Minister of the Helghan Republic
Date: November 10, 3036
Subject: Update on Investigative Study of the Transition Event
Dear Prime Minister ######## ##########
The Investigation of the Transition Event continues steadily. As stated in the previous update Helghan was engulfed in a wave of petrusite seemingly confined to the upper mid exosphere. What is now known it that this wave was undoubtedly irradiated petrusite. This is confirmed by trace analysis of the burns found on the upper most portions of the destroyed orbital elevator cables and recently acquired spectrographic recordings made during the event. More concerning is that analysis of the internal behavior of the irradiated petrusite wave greatly resembles theoretical modals for that of the detonation of an Irradiated Petrusite Bomb. I shudder to consider the damage that such a wave could have done had it not been so confined as it had. However I am able to say that the likely resulting loss of life and property damage could safely be described as apocalyptic. That the wave was so confined as it was is little short of miraculous.
Further analysis of the destroyed orbital elevator's cables indicates that everything caught inside of the wave was vaporized, with the only surviving objects being on the periphery receiving intense petrusite burns. As for the spaciotemporal transposition effect I believe that what happened was an extreme variation of Petrusite Teleportation as theorized in Dr Donald Cypress's paper on Petrusite Teleportation. If the Transition Event can stand as an example of what is possible with Petrusite Teleportation than once we have sufficiently researched it, it may be possible to design a station to transport our ships hundreds of light years in barely an hour. This theoretical Petrusite Warp Gate would undoubtedly require a significant amount of petrusite to function in a stable manner, but if it works we could establish the Helghan Republic's influence across a much more significant territory.
Sincerely Dr. Kreig VernBrawn
Exotic Materials & Physics Department Head
Pyrrhus University
//Writers Notes: It is so rare in an Isekai or ISOT for the cause of the transition to be researched, but when it is it often leads to interesting developments. In our case petrusite was the cause so there is no way in hell we are not going to look into it, and as I have tee'd up we may even develop a sort of FTL Gate tech. I would expect such a station to require a significant amount of effort to construct (5 years/turns at least for each station) and the tech be gated behind primitive teleportation, and maybe improved or advanced warp drive technology. What do you think @prometheus110?
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If we want a real anti-ship missile could make out own version of the Arrow IV deployed Davy Crockett or the Alamo, which I would argue would be the better missile payload.
Despite the democratic stance of the republic, I still think that there is still enough hold-over thinking from the Visrai era in the military to use Focht-like thinking and deploy tactile nuclear warheads. It's not like the Helghast aren't used to harsh conditions and the odd WMD being shoved in their face. I'm pretty sure that Red Dust just pissed the Helghast military off during the ISA invasion.
Sidenote, @prometheus110. Is there some way we can snap up Anastasius Focht? I think that he compliments the Helghast High Command thinking really well.
I do really like the idea of the additions of the Highlander and Bull Shark to the design arsenal. My suggestion would be to rip out the two lasers and replace them with a PPC or Arc Cannon. But the Idea of an up-jumped quad-legged Blackjack with a series of UAC-10/Rotary AC-5 for a pure dakka dispenser tickles me too.
If I knew what I was doing and hadn't hit a wall, I'd finish up the designs for that Borischek super-heavy. if anyone wants to have a crack at that and the 75 Radec, I'll get you what I have for specs.
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OpSihg_Stabr
Crazy (Evil) Genius
I was thinking more a Rifleman II with more armor and normal AC-10s - although that would require either a Biped design, or a Superheavy if we REALLY want/need it to be a Quad-Leg.
I feel strongly about the normal Autocannons so we can make full use of the special ammunitions that has been our export strength; and there is the fact we might not be able make Ultra or LB-X Autocannons yet(?).
Jump jets would be nice though...
I've been trying to brainstorm my own Helghast Superheavy Quad-Leg. Maybe we can compare notes.
Although my working names are Azmodan and Tathomet ('Tathomet' if we ever make an Omni-Mech version). We are the HEL-ghast, why not name it after a demon of Hell~
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- Location
- USA
Well I do have a 85 ton mech sitting in MekLabs 2 AC/10s, 2 LLs, 2 tons of ammo and CASE in each side torso to protect ammo. With 5.5 tons of armor and a 4/6 speed. Though in the design PM I do have a 18 AC/2 with 60 turns of flak ammo 200 ton tripod.