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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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[JK] (Bluff) Inform House Ixaria that if the don't surrender that we will enact Base Delta Zero General Order Twenty Four on the surface.

Hey it's May Fourth, I had to make a certain reference.
 
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We seriously need to develop better anti-mine countermeasures. Anyone up for making some wargames in the future, after this war is over, be attacking fortified positions?
Because we very much can't go into another war as unprepared for attacking fortified positions as it turns out we currently are.

On another topic, Starfleet very much needs to increase how many Auxiliaries it has, and I mean more than just one or two shipyards worth... How many Auxiliary Shipyards do we have under construction or working again? Because we probably need 1 for every 4 Sectors or something... including Border Zones...
 
I'll just be straight with you guys, I don't think mines are going away, and I don't think the countermeasures we'll have are going to be more than +1 to run a minefield. +1 won't stop small ships from just exploding. This is going to be the fact of offensive war for the entire quest.

e: To be clear, minefields remained a serious military constraint all the way up to the Dominion War. That means that technologies or doctrine that counter them at best kept pace with development of mines.
 
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[X] Attack Iron Hail with Excelsior, Lexington, Krinuk, Lightning, Calgary and Cautious.

That should be enough to smash the torpedo station whilst the rest of the fleet remains in orbit of Ixaria Prime to prevent more mines being laid.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
You know what? Right now, I'm kind of hoping someone can convince me that we shouldn't withdraw our fleet...
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If we're abandoning this place, we may as well smash some research stations here on the way out. We have the ships for it. Take down Iron Hail and one of the ship boosting stations, that forces them to leave a garrison here, and we can in a matter of days to a week rotate in another task force and blow through to orbit unopposed.

I'm not against withdrawing at this point. I made the point last round that if the Imperials arrive in force, the only sane choice is to withdraw. It wouldn't matter what battle we'd have to fight, none of them would be wise.

e: The other option is to prep the system for the Imperial arrival by taking down multiple ship-boosting stations, and then once they arrive judge whether we can take them or not. We can leave Iron Hail in theory as long as we do not commit troop ships.
 
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We still have five explorers. Ixaria orbit is now absent advantages. Time to destroy the remaining research stations, then see if the imperial fleet wants to come out to play on an even field.

How long would it take them to lay another minefield? It takes us months...
 
Forgothrax said:
This seriously rebalances our use of frigates. Like, a capital can take a hit. A MiriA can't.
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Yeah.

I feel sorry for the Klingons, having to send a dozen Birds of Prey into each battle, all of which roll to get through the minefield, none of which have a Science score worth mentioning to detect the minefield, and none of which have the slightest prayer of surviving a mine blast.

I'm honestly not sure the Apiata (for instance) can cope with this situation either.

Glassware said:
We still have five explorers. Ixaria orbit is now absent advantages. Time to destroy the remaining research stations, then see if the imperial fleet wants to come out to play on an even field.
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Precisely how much force do you propose to commit to each research station? How many ships will we have left in fighting condition after flying them through another wave of minefields? I wouldn't be too cheerful about our chances on an even field against the size of force the imperials are likely to throw at us.
 
Briefvoice said:
@OneirosTheWriter can we get a better idea on the risks of escorting the auxiliaries? What is the worst case scenario, that the auxiliaries will be destroyed or that they'll definitely make it through out our escorts get smashed taking them through?
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Picture a minefield except with 1/10th the damage output, many more waves, and a much higher chance of being hit per wave (your last encounter was a 15-wave, combat 8 attack, and the task force made it through that without losing shields). So the auxiliaries can get iced, but the screens will help identify and evade incoming. Losing Torbriel means that you'll probably lose ships on the way in, though. In all honesty, it's a desperation move.

Forgothrax said:
This seriously rebalances our use of frigates. Like, a capital can take a hit. A MiriA can't.
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I've tried to rebalance them from being needed because they just fight better than explorers, and push them towards being needed because if you don't have them your explorers are going to be facechecking minefields, entering combat at large weight penalties, you won't have enough hulls to cover all points and run escorts.

I mean, don't misunderstand - the frigates have taken a hell of a beating working through these minefields, but they've taken the beating so that capital ships that cost 4x-5x, take 2x as long to build, and have 3x the crew, don't facecheck minefields for you.

Also, they've just been fucking unlucky, I mean poor Thoughtful, or Signifier...
 
AKuz said:
I didn't read that.

I'm just speculating that a design that is constantly praised for how advanced and effective it is with a lot of interesting technological additions that we don't even use must run into issues with being crewed by conscripts instead of a professional force.
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Nah, why would an enemy power run into problems with their crews not being capable enough? That's silly, the Cardassian racial ability isn't "Bad Crews".
 
Simon_Jester said:
If we detach enough force to defeat Iron Hail, any force we leave behind in Ixaria Prime orbit will be vulnerable- because we don't have enough firepower left to be confident of defeating the Imperial fleet in battle if they sent a serious force, UNLESS we can oppose them with everything we have left.
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??? The auxiliaries are beyond range. Flying out to the aux and excorting them in will take - hours? If the imperial flee arrives after iron hail is taken out and the aux are just being escorted back - they would also have arrived while we try to land troops/secure key locations. What was our plan then?
 
Its better to take out the iron hail and the defensive station protecting it as that looks to be the last weapons platform in the system. After that we can sweep for mines before disabling the other research stations
 
MTB said:
??? The auxiliaries are beyond range. Flying out to the aux and excorting them in will take - hours? If the imperial flee arrives after iron hail is taken out and the aux are just being escorted back - they would also have arrived while we try to land troops/secure key locations. What was our plan then?
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There has never been any plan that has a good chance against Imperial reinforcements. Other than don't lose any ships in the initial stage.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
There has never been any plan that has a good chance against Imperial reinforcements. Other than don't lose any ships in the initial stage.
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If the time window is that tight, the only halfway realistic scenario was to directly attack Ixiria Prime, with the auxiliaries in the group, to have enough time to secure Ixiria before the Imperial fleet arrives.
 
Finagle007 said:
[X] Order Ixaria Prime to surrender.
- [X] If they refuse, execute General Order 24.
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Finagle?

Starfleet does not have free authority to perform GO 24, and needs some very strong justifications for it. 'The Biophage ate a planet' is a good justification. 'This world is inhabited by Arcadians with a culture supporting mentats' is not, especially with the millions of civilians you will also be killing.


Anyway, if we did move to invest Ixaria Prime I wouldn't order a general obliteration of the biosphere; I'd order a targeted bombardment of every source of neutrino radiation on planet, as neutrinos are, IIRC, signature markers of nuclear and antimatter reactors.

Without access to either of those, the only next option is fossil fuel burning power plants, which are larger for the same output, require a larger logistical network to function, have lower long term viability, and fuck up your planet by dumping large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which makes them traceable.
 
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Hazard said:
Finagle?

Starfleet does not have free authority to perform GO 24, and needs some very strong justifications for it. 'The Biophage ate a planet' is a good justification. 'This world is inhabited by Arcadians with a culture supporting mentats' is not, especially with the millions of civilians you will also be killing.
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We ARE in a State of Emergency right now, are we not?
 
That isn't at all helpful, and will not be done. Drop the matter, guys.

EDIT: Oneiros also just warned that the topic is one that'd net a 24 hour threadban.
 
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MTB said:
If the time window is that tight, the only halfway realistic scenario was to directly attack Ixiria Prime, with the auxiliaries in the group, to have enough time to secure Ixiria before the Imperial fleet arrives.
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A two-way split would have meant that the fourth KP explorer wouldn't have had to fight alone, greatly reducing the losses in the first stage of the attack. Then if we only take the same losses as we just did in the second stage (we'd have more ships so we'd take fewer losses), we would have about 10C more left in our fleet, making me confident that we'd be able to destroy the shields system and then fight Imperial reinforcements.

Regardless of the cause or the subsequent events though, once we had one explorer taken out we lost the 3:1 advantage in force necessary to assault a heavily fortified position. At that point every move we make is a gamble that we can regain the advantage through luck. Not a bad thing, but if luck is only average, then we aren't able to win outright.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
A two-way split would have meant that the fourth KP explorer wouldn't have had to fight alone, greatly reducing the losses in the first stage of the attack. Then if we only take the same losses as we just did in the second stage (we'd have more ships so we'd take fewer losses), we would have about 10C more left in our fleet, making me confident that we'd be able to destroy the shields system and then fight Imperial reinforcements.

Regardless of the cause or the subsequent events though, once we had one explorer taken out we lost the 3:1 advantage in force necessary to assault a heavily fortified position. At that point every move we make is a gamble that we can regain the advantage through luck. Not a bad thing, but if luck is only average, then we aren't able to win outright.
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So - leave?
 
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