Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If anything, we should be trying to sweep affiliates into the fold. With good rolls, we could easily pull in 2 new affiliates, maybe even 3 if the random roll lands right and rolls are excellent.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
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- star trek exploration fully automated luxury gay space communism top level canon (canon) #hashtagcontent all-encompassing space amoeba cardassian boy bands cardassian magical girls darkest bureaucracy debate makes the qm cackle like palpatine hoh is an empire quest it has to be foreign infiltrators more ships ship happens singers delenda est starfleet this is not an empire quest ur waifu is collective?
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- USA
That was in large part due to the ships pulled for the conflict in the LBZ and the heavy industry and Starfleet engineering ships we sent there. That should be a bit more lax this coming snakepit.
- Location
- Germany
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- He/Him
Delay == never, because the exact same arguments apply each year.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It is AKuz's intent to stand athwart the enshittening of the story and yell "STOP!" in a commanding voice. Honestly I think she's going to make it.
What really went wrong with the Honorverse was as follows:
1) Weber's urge to infodump in his novels to satisfy the narrow slice of his readers who post on the Internet forums he reads. Coupled with Weber shifting to dictation software instead of a keyboard, which made his prose longer and more rambling... Let's just say the actual quality of the text itself declined around 2000-05. Though Weber's infodumps were always a problem with the series literally from Book One.
2a) Weber has severe difficulty writing sympathetic antagonists. For some reason it's very hard for him to write antagonists who oppose Our Heroes out of principle or decent motives; they're usually either hateful political strawmen, or people with loathsome personal habits. This creates one side of the Mary Suism that begins to overtake the series once Honor's domestic political opponents are nullified.
2b) Conversely, Weber has severe difficulty writing flawed protagonists, or protagonist nations. Whereas other military SF writers like David Drake* may have little difficulty representing his characters existing within a disagreeable status quo and clearly portraying its flaws, Weber seems unable to recognize that there might be something bad about the society he depicts. This results in important details about that society going "down the memory hole," such as the part where Manticoran citizens that don't pay net taxes to the government can't vote. This creates the other side of the Mary Suism.
3a) Weber gifting his protagonist with too many contacts and resources, too quickly. This led to the beginning of the Great Derailing as early as the conclusion of Book Four, in which Honor sacrifices her career to avenge the death of a lover... but because of all the favors and respect she earned fair and square in previous books, she can effectively 'reboot' her career in Book Five in the service of an allied foreign power, and in effect get a promotion while she's at it.
3b) Weber neutralizing or downplaying his protagonist's faults and limitations too quickly. Honor being bad at math, for example, never comes up except when she reminisces about schoolwork. To be fair the math in question was advanced calculus and so on, but I can think of a LOT of ways to make "bad at math" a problematic or at least awkward problem for a character in a novel whose job relies on shuffling and keeping track of large groups and managing large organizations in a life or death situation.
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*who actually DID write a "Horatio Hornblower in space" series, or rather an "Aubrey/Maturin in space" series...
Warp travel is, on the whole, only vulnerable to messing-with by events that mess with space itself on a significant level. It is certainly not unusually vulnerable to interference by Star Trek standards.
Personally I much prefer 'only one' method of FTL travel, or a cluster of related ones, to a host of entirely un-related ones.
In a universe that runs on physics, there are generally only a limited number of ways to achieve the same desired result, and they generally run on related physical principles. When there are several, radically different ways to do the same thing, they usually differ greatly in efficiency. For instance, muscles and gas turbines are both ways to power ships but gas turbines are far more efficient and effective; abacuses and pocket calculators are both computing machines but calculators are more versatile and, on the whole, powerful.
If we were to introduce other methods of FTL propulsion, I'd want them to be based on technologies that have a widespread basis within the series (e.g. natural or artificial 'corridors' of space that permit unusually fast warp travel).
Looking at the description, the Bajoran lightsail system is utterly unsuited to fast or reliable FTL propulsion unless radically re-imagined; it only ever went FTL as an accident.
The EC drive likely is not necessary now with the loss of the Enterprise and recovery of her crew, but we'll need the resource infusion to start the double prototype.
We absolutely need the academy expansion, Indoria starbase, and one or more research teams. That's 40+27+20+40 for 127. Add to that Intel (25), heavy park (110), and Diplo (40-60) will total 302-322. We may be able to afford one other expense in the 20pp range like KBZ Starbase or a VA.
- Location
- USA
I can see the infodumps, however I think he managed to write some antagonists that you really want to root for. I think the biggest problem is he intended Honor to die followed by a timeskip before continuing the story. Instead one or more of his fellow authors talked him out of it, which kind of caused it to become a mess.
I also think it lost focus as she moved further from the Captains chair, to be honest we see that Kirk new the same thing (Never let them promote you!). Still it is a great setting and as long as you through out the dumb bits makes for a very different feel (lack of instant communication is one of the big draws for me).
Yeah, I did a breakdown earlier and we really have no free PP even with an anticipated 330 or so. Hopefully people will move away from spending PP on a war game.
never is okay if it's not useful for us
- Location
- USA
[X]WG A 2v2 with any Ships, including member world ships - 2 modern Catian Swarmers vs 2 Stingers
Don't forgot to vote! A vote for the 2v2 saves us PP we need for the upcoming snakepit
Don't forgot to vote! A vote for the 2v2 saves us PP we need for the upcoming snakepit
[X][WG] A Fleet Battle (Cost 2pp/Explorer, 1pp/Cruiser, 1pp/2 Escorts)
-[X] Goal: Improve coordination between Federation GBZ forces against Cardassians (some tactical bonus of some sort?)
-[X] "Union" side: Hebrinda [Hebrinda-A, Kaldar analog] + Republic [Connie-B, Jaldun analog] + Challorn [blooded Constellation, Combat Takaaki analog] + Yukikaze [blooded Centaur-A in neighboring Apinae sector, Combat Takaaki analog] - totals C18 H12 L16
-[X] "Confederation" side: Abhriec [Riala] + Telzziadriz [Little Queenship] + Gerzzi [Stinger] + Triada [Stinger] - totals C18 H9 L20
-[X] Cost: 1*2 explorer, 3*1 cruisers, 4/2 frigate (treating Challorn as a frigate since it's being used as one here) = 7pp
Add nacelles. Everything is better with nacelles.
That's awesome.
I donno. It sounds more like he's planing for the Ambassador-A refit already.
Nobody ever has the curtesy or sense to use the 'Search' function...
-[X] Goal: Improve coordination between Federation GBZ forces against Cardassians (some tactical bonus of some sort?)
-[X] "Union" side: Hebrinda [Hebrinda-A, Kaldar analog] + Republic [Connie-B, Jaldun analog] + Challorn [blooded Constellation, Combat Takaaki analog] + Yukikaze [blooded Centaur-A in neighboring Apinae sector, Combat Takaaki analog] - totals C18 H12 L16
-[X] "Confederation" side: Abhriec [Riala] + Telzziadriz [Little Queenship] + Gerzzi [Stinger] + Triada [Stinger] - totals C18 H9 L20
-[X] Cost: 1*2 explorer, 3*1 cruisers, 4/2 frigate (treating Challorn as a frigate since it's being used as one here) = 7pp
Add nacelles. Everything is better with nacelles.
That's awesome.
I donno. It sounds more like he's planing for the Ambassador-A refit already.
Nobody ever has the curtesy or sense to use the 'Search' function...
- Location
- Germany
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- He/Him
Phones? And intuitive GUI design.
Just to be fair, I'm not entirely certain these are balanced. They've been beyond the scope of our work on the sheet so far. I could easily see a +2C refit and some extra though.
High combat is one of the primary crew and weight hogs, so anything that gets us higher combat without layering on as many phasers and torpedoes will result in much leaner ships on the low end with a higher ceiling on the high end if we layer on those phasers and torpedoes anyway.
Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
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Yeah, I was just spitballing. Depending on how the refit rules work, we're going to end up with a very potent Amby-A into the future thanks to being on the cusp of a number of major improvements. Stuff like Isolinear, Arrays, and Burst Launchers apply multipliers to current parts instead of slightly increasing their value, which make them powerful landmark techs.
This is very true, though my spitball refit (C10 S10 H7 L11 P10 D9) was mostly predicated on using the additional space with a few total system upgrades. I'll bet that even with rebalancing burst launcher and arrays that the above is mostly doable. Maybe it'll be L10 D8 instead, but still. The Amby has a lot of room to grow in an early refit, and we'll probably get the OK to do one, as evidenced by Oneiros here. This is mostly due to the fact that Isolinear and Phaser Arrays will probably come online around the same time, which is going to cascade into a number of refits for just about everything. I suspect we'll be seeing refits for all current craft around 2330. Maybe even the Keplers, if we get Specialist Exploratory Sensors around that time.
Also, hmm, 40/80 on the first qtorp tech. Fun!
*squints* We're not even done the 2310 torpedo development, let alone started the 2320 torpedo development to unlock that slide.
Menant bullshit folks, right there. Good work T'Rinta?
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So, we get these tech advances, then BriefVoice has to redo his entire projected ship plan as we refit everything as fast as we can cycle them through the yards?
Miranda-B anyone?
Oberth-A perhaps?
Take the Pacifist Science Constellation and give it some real teeth?
Maybe our lonely Constitution-A will get it's own refit path? Though I figure it is more likely that the QM would either rule she is too old, or make a Constitution-C that both the -A and -B can refit to.
Might have to find some way to increase the Combat Cap ....
I think we acquired the additional resources last time.
An allocation for an Excelsior's worth of resources is mandatory for the Ambassadors.
Actually... we are starting to crest the need for further Academy Expansions.
- Location
- somewhere
Not if we want to have a buffer for a possible war, and we can increase berths and resource income a lot faster so even without a war making sure crew won't be the most limiting factor would be a good idea.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The 'problem' is simply that we haven't been in the mood to allocate berth space to the construction of engineering ships. No pressing need to do so has been identified.
A new design MIGHT help in that we'd have less reluctance to build new engineering ship hulls if they weren't being constructed to a 23rd century template. But it's not that we can't afford to build engineering ships, it's that there is honestly a preference (or seems to be) for more frigates and cruisers. Especially since, as noted, we don't really have an option for "build more engineering ships."
While given how frames work this may not be possible, I can easily imagine us deciding to reduce the overall space for weaponry in the new design so that we can emphasize stats other than Combat. If we were in the middle of a knock-down drag-out war we might want a "battleship Ambassador refit with such remarkable firepower, but that would be different.
I'm also not sure we can make a ship 200kt bigger during a refit...?
This sounds appealing, and arguably sounds like it's going to become our primary workhorse cruiser of the TNG era.
Bear in mind that our incentive to develop such a ship is decreased by two special factors.
One, berthing space. We have berths in three, 2.5, and one-megaton sizes. The first two sizes reward us for using our existing Excelsiors and promote a 'big is beautiful' concept. The latter size rewards us for building individually smaller, weaker ships to fill the escort roles. This is why it seems like nearly everyone EXCEPT us started the game with big solid cruiser designs, but relatively few people had explorers like ours. The turtleship, the Jaldun, the Kalindrax, and so on, they all reflect what is possible for a nation that designs its cruisers to fit in two-megaton berths instead of one-megaton berths.
We'd have to construct a whole new berthing infrastructure to sustain production of these heavy cruisers, or we'd have to accept that they compete for space directly with Ambassadors and Excelsior-A/B refit ships. Which brings me to my next point...
The other issue is the large number of Excelsiors we'll have fielded by this time. Your proposed ship is going to have to compete with the Excelsior-As we've already deployed, and (by 2325-30) the possibility of an Excelsior-B refit. In my honest opinion, we are fairly unlikely to design a 1.5-megaton 'heavy cruiser' until we can build one that is clearly superior to "just refit one of our existing Excelsiors with the latest tech." Or until we hit a crew crunch tight enough that mothballing manpower-intensive Excelsiors in favor of trimmer, leaner-manned cruisers becomes desirable. And while that's a problem we face right now, we may not still experience the same problem the same way by 2325 or 2330.
Bottom line: We should totally build this ship, BUT... I think it's going to have to wait until further into the future than the earliest point at which we could possibly design and build it. On the other hand, when we DO build it it's going to be even more impressive than we expect.
- Location
- somewhere
Oneiros already okayed it, but just think of the future Enterprise-D in All Good Things (?) as a clear example of a refit adding more tonnage.
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ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
[X]WG A 2v2 with any Ships, including member world ships - 2 modern Catian Swarmers vs 2 Stingers
We don't have any current needs for tactical information, and a small fight is easier to dig into for details about small effects of ship behavior.
We don't have any current needs for tactical information, and a small fight is easier to dig into for details about small effects of ship behavior.
Insofar as we aren't running on the ragged edge, but a crew buffer both enables losses and lets us fill our berths and expand them. It takes years to generate one ship's crew even from an expansion.
We may be able to skip 2317, I'd still order expansions in 2316 and one of 2317/2318 and then evaluate from there.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'm not even counting people like Theisman and Caslet as antagonists; they're just protagonists who happen to be working for the other side of the war. Almost invariably in Honorverse novels with a likeable antagonist (Giscard, Tourville, ARGUABLY Thurston in Book Five), the bulk of the action totally ignores that likeable antagonist's existence in favor of having Honor contending with un-likeable antagonists (Warnecke's pirates, Ransom's StateSec goons, and Burdette's terrorism), with the likeable antagonist showing up as an end-of-level boss battle.
Ultimately Weber turns Haven as a whole into a sympathetic antagonist for about two books by handing over control of Haven to the sympathetic bit-part protagonists he'd written working for Haven's antagonistic straw-politics government earlier. Then brings them officially over into the protagonist column, because good people can't be "the bad guys" for long even if they're being tricked into it.
I guess it's more accurate to say that Weber can write sympathetic antagonists, but only at the cost of greatly toning down their antagonism towards the main character(s).
Thing is, the series was going off the rails in terms of writing quality, content, and Mary Sue-ification well before the point at which Honor was 'supposed' to get blown up. Killing Honor off and 'starting over' after a timeskip would have solved at most one of several interlocking problems that afflicts the series.
It wouldn't have made Weber's writing any less prone to infodump-bloat. It wouldn't have made his intended future antagonists (the Mesans and the League) any more plausible. The only advantage is that it would sort of have pressed "reset" on the protagonists' accumulation of power and honors by switching protagonists.
Several of the options you list are no more mandatory than the wargames are.
We don't have to spend on a new set of intelligence assets. I don't think we need to spend 40pp (as opposed to 20pp) to fund the second Ambassador prototype for to be the Enterprise-C. We don't have to promote the Explorer Corps chief to a vice admiral. And while we definitely want new starbases on the Klingon border and at Indoria, having to settle for one of the two wouldn't be a disaster for this year.
Yeah. New colonies are such a good deal that we unambiguously spend the maximum possible on them every single year, with exceptions occuring like 10% of the time at most. And special resource mines are the most valuable of colonies, such that we would even more happily buy ten or twenty or thirty of the things in a single year if we could.
Almost everything else we could possibly do is less valuable to us, so it's kind of unfair to compare the pp costs of other actions to that of resource mines.
It's like saying "is this diplomatic push really worth three SR colonies?" The answer is no, it isn't, but since sacrificing the push wouldn't gain us the ability to buy three such colonies, it's a disingenuous question to ask.
Tarenda, the Tartresis mentat who was more or less singlehandedly running the project, had gotten as far as working, combat-ready prototypes that could potentially cripple an Excelsior with two or three hits, or entirely gut a frigate with one. But there was almost nothing of her efforts left to work with after she died and the prototypes were vaporized aboard Pride during the Battle of the Ixaria Approaches. it really does reflect rather well on T'Rinta that she was able to parse that much of her metaphysical sister torpedo-fairy's work into something semi-usable.
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Eh, I think given a choice I would always pass on BR colonies. The small RP and PP income isn't worth the cost when looking at a term that goes up to the predictable future for the quest's economy.
SR and research colonies are another matter entirely. Give me as many as possible.
SR and research colonies are another matter entirely. Give me as many as possible.