To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
-
- Tags
- 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?
aledeth
The Flesh is Weak
- Pronouns
- He/Him
More in favor of Explorer1. The bonus from Explorer Combat doesn't look like it'll be enough to get any meaningful improvements on the current Ambassador designs floating around. Rather start the program a year earlier.
- Location
- Canada
[X][FLEET] Plan Sweep and Shield
[X][NEWS] Deny
[X][NEWS] Deny
- Location
- somewhere
It's not just Explorer Combat but also tech from other areas that would become available, like weapons, sensors and warp cores. When I get through all the categories I might write a list of techs that would be available for the Ambassador in each of the years.
I'd rather switch VSA in to finish Long Ranger Sensors after they finish Short Range Sensors, rather than pushing them straight to Anti-Cloaking. With the Cardassians likely getting out of the cloaking game after this (I have to imagine it's going to sour them on the whole idea), it no longer seems as high a priority.
I think the Prereq listing on Federation Datanet might be incorrect; a copy-and-paste error. According to this image, the prerequisite is supposed to be 2310's Message Networking. Which makes a lot more sense when you consider the bonuses involved.
I'm still of the mind that Escort technologies should be of low priority in general and that they should be a ship type we don't have much time for. I'd rather keep the 40EA team on Warp techs.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Purely speaking as to our priorities:
Remember, the Cardassians aren't our only potential opponent. The Romulans and the Klingons may be on good terms with us right now, but it is well within the realm of the possible that we'll get drawn into their war somehow in the next 5-15 years. Or that one side or the other in that rivalry will engage in shenanigans in an attempt to draw us in.
And both the Romulans and the Klingons use cloaking devices like they're going out of style, and they probably always will.
EDIT: For that matter, a Romulan-Klingon war would be a great source of crippled or wrecked Romulan/Klingon warships, from which third parties could salvage even more black market cloaking devices for reverse engineering! So who the heck even knows where we might see our next cloaked threat from?
I don't know.
Remember, the Cardassians aren't our only potential opponent. The Romulans and the Klingons may be on good terms with us right now, but it is well within the realm of the possible that we'll get drawn into their war somehow in the next 5-15 years. Or that one side or the other in that rivalry will engage in shenanigans in an attempt to draw us in.
And both the Romulans and the Klingons use cloaking devices like they're going out of style, and they probably always will.
EDIT: For that matter, a Romulan-Klingon war would be a great source of crippled or wrecked Romulan/Klingon warships, from which third parties could salvage even more black market cloaking devices for reverse engineering! So who the heck even knows where we might see our next cloaked threat from?
Low priority but not NO priority. We've got a pretty good escort in the Centaur-A, but we'll probably want to start working on a replacement escort design within 10-15 years. Also, better escort tech might help us design a decent science vessel, right?
Last edited:
- Location
- somewhere
Note that Long Range Sensors only has a single tech remaining, and that Generic Teams are much more efficient for researching projects with single techs due to how inspiration works. In general I have been trying to assign generic or low skilled teams to single tech projects unless the project was very high priority (like shield regeneration).
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
True, although that might lead to some counterintuitive results (e.g. having a bunch of random schlubs designing the first workable positronic computers, instead of having the Daystrom Institute doing it).
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
That would be hilarious actually.
Candidly, I have to find something to disagree with you about or it'll be a bunch of boring "Plan Nix" votes. Huh, maybe I'll do a plan where I advocate Sensors are more important than Xenopsychology and that we should pull Spock off Xeno for a while to do a Sensors technology. That might spark some debate!
If you believe the ship design thread, we can design a decent science vessel with the technologies we have right now.
- Location
- somewhere
At the very least we will have a vote on when to start the Ambassador, and there will probably some other cases with multiple sensible choices (like keeping 40EA on warp tech a bit longer, though that doesn't need to be decided this year).
- Location
- Australia
Good morning everyone - vote has closed. Could I get a tally, please?
- Location
- somewhere
Vote Tally : Sci-Fi - To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) | Page 583 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.4
Task: FLEET
[X][FLEET] Plan Sweep and Shield
-[X][FLEET] Fifth Fleet should link up with S'harien and Enterprise to try and locate the Kadak-Tor, with all ships taking guidance from Sarek when it reports in.
-[X][FLEET] Ask the Amarki to dispatch a flotilla (preferably 5-7 ships, headed up by a Riala) to Tales Har to reinforce Second Fleet.
-[X][FLEET] Ask the Betazoids to dispatch a squadron (say, 3-4 ships) to Vega to reinforce First Fleet.
-[X][FLEET] Fourth Fleet is to move to rimward towards 15 Themis, keeping its distance from Dawiar space.
No. of Votes: 14
[X][FLEET] Plan Sweep and Reinforce
-[X][FLEET] Movement: Have USS S'harien and USS Enterprise link up with USS Sarek to form the "Explorers" task force to help with the search for the Kadak-Tor.
-[X][FLEET] Movement: Have 5th fleet (15 Themis) link up with the Explorers task force at whatever location they're currently at.
-[X][FLEET] Rules of Engagement for 5th fleet and Explorers task force: Defensive posture (do not fire until fired upon). Retreat when outgunned. Prioritize linking up over retreating to outposts/bases.
-[X][FLEET] Movement: Have 4th fleet (Pygmalion) move rimward to reinforce 5th fleet, keeping at least 5ly away from Dawiar territory.
-[X][FLEET] Diplomacy: Ask the Amarki to dispatch a flotilla (preferably 5-7 ships, headed up by a Riala) to Tales Har to reinforce Second Fleet.
-[X][FLEET] Diplomacy: Ask the Betazoids to dispatch a squadron (say, 3-4 ships) to Vega to reinforce First Fleet.
No. of Votes: 8
[X][FLEET] Plan Shield
-[X][FLEET] Fifth Fleet should link up with the S'Harien and the Enterprise in -4d at the Federation border.
-[X][FLEET] Fourth Fleet to move towards 15 Themis
-[X][FLEET] Ask the Amarki to dispatch a flotilla (preferably 5-7 ships, headed up by a Riala) to Tales Har to reinforce Second Fleet.
-[X][FLEET] Ask the Betazoids to dispatch a squadron (say, 3-4 ships) to Vega to reinforce First Fleet.
No. of Votes: 1
[X][FLEET] Fifth Fleet should link up with the S'Harien and the Enterprise in -4d to try and locate the Kadak-Tor, taking guidance from the Sarek when it reports in.
No. of Votes: 1
[X][FLEET] Ask the Amarki to dispatch a flotilla (preferably 5-7 ships, headed up by a Riala) to Tales Har to reinforce Second Fleet.
No. of Votes: 1
[X][FLEET] Ask the Betazoids to dispatch a squadron (say, 3-4 ships) to Vega to reinforce First Fleet.
No. of Votes: 1
——————————————————————————————————————————————
Task: NEWS
[X][NEWS] Allow
No. of Votes: 15
[X][NEWS] Allow
-[X][NEWS] Privately, inform the council and our affiliate governments that we suspect this may be a trick.
No. of Votes: 7
[X][NEWS] Deny
No. of Votes: 4
[X][NEWS] Refuse
No. of Votes: 2
Total No. of Voters: 28
##### NetTally 1.7.4
Task: FLEET
[X][FLEET] Plan Sweep and Shield
-[X][FLEET] Fifth Fleet should link up with S'harien and Enterprise to try and locate the Kadak-Tor, with all ships taking guidance from Sarek when it reports in.
-[X][FLEET] Ask the Amarki to dispatch a flotilla (preferably 5-7 ships, headed up by a Riala) to Tales Har to reinforce Second Fleet.
-[X][FLEET] Ask the Betazoids to dispatch a squadron (say, 3-4 ships) to Vega to reinforce First Fleet.
-[X][FLEET] Fourth Fleet is to move to rimward towards 15 Themis, keeping its distance from Dawiar space.
No. of Votes: 14
[X][FLEET] Plan Sweep and Reinforce
-[X][FLEET] Movement: Have USS S'harien and USS Enterprise link up with USS Sarek to form the "Explorers" task force to help with the search for the Kadak-Tor.
-[X][FLEET] Movement: Have 5th fleet (15 Themis) link up with the Explorers task force at whatever location they're currently at.
-[X][FLEET] Rules of Engagement for 5th fleet and Explorers task force: Defensive posture (do not fire until fired upon). Retreat when outgunned. Prioritize linking up over retreating to outposts/bases.
-[X][FLEET] Movement: Have 4th fleet (Pygmalion) move rimward to reinforce 5th fleet, keeping at least 5ly away from Dawiar territory.
-[X][FLEET] Diplomacy: Ask the Amarki to dispatch a flotilla (preferably 5-7 ships, headed up by a Riala) to Tales Har to reinforce Second Fleet.
-[X][FLEET] Diplomacy: Ask the Betazoids to dispatch a squadron (say, 3-4 ships) to Vega to reinforce First Fleet.
No. of Votes: 8
[X][FLEET] Plan Shield
-[X][FLEET] Fifth Fleet should link up with the S'Harien and the Enterprise in -4d at the Federation border.
-[X][FLEET] Fourth Fleet to move towards 15 Themis
-[X][FLEET] Ask the Amarki to dispatch a flotilla (preferably 5-7 ships, headed up by a Riala) to Tales Har to reinforce Second Fleet.
-[X][FLEET] Ask the Betazoids to dispatch a squadron (say, 3-4 ships) to Vega to reinforce First Fleet.
No. of Votes: 1
[X][FLEET] Fifth Fleet should link up with the S'Harien and the Enterprise in -4d to try and locate the Kadak-Tor, taking guidance from the Sarek when it reports in.
No. of Votes: 1
[X][FLEET] Ask the Amarki to dispatch a flotilla (preferably 5-7 ships, headed up by a Riala) to Tales Har to reinforce Second Fleet.
No. of Votes: 1
[X][FLEET] Ask the Betazoids to dispatch a squadron (say, 3-4 ships) to Vega to reinforce First Fleet.
No. of Votes: 1
——————————————————————————————————————————————
Task: NEWS
[X][NEWS] Allow
No. of Votes: 15
[X][NEWS] Allow
-[X][NEWS] Privately, inform the council and our affiliate governments that we suspect this may be a trick.
No. of Votes: 7
[X][NEWS] Deny
No. of Votes: 4
[X][NEWS] Refuse
No. of Votes: 2
Total No. of Voters: 28
- Location
- Nova Scotia, Canada
For the talk about how to restructure fleet actions to be both easier for OneirosTheWriter to setup, and for us to plan/vote for while keeping meaningful but understandable choices I've got an idea.
OneirosTheWriter gives us a set of theaters of operation, theater commanders, available ships and ships released from garrison commitment, member world/affiliate ships we can request and optional ships we could buy into a plan (ie. ships we could get for pp or militarization points representing Starfleet begging/borrowing/stealing/etc.) and we then make plans to put what we want where we want.
An example of this based on the current crisis would be this:
Theaters of Operation:
Theater Commanders:
Available Ships:
Member World Ships Available:
Ships for Purchase:
The available ships will not include the ones left behind for garrison to make it easier to plan without thinking about what we can't move. The Member World ships would be the ones we could get just by asking for them and we can get more if we're willing to pay for them, either by political deals (pp) or council unhappiness (militarization from moving a homeworld fleet away from defense or out of it's sector).
Then we could plan like this:
Plan "Planning Planners who Planned this Plan"
We could include a ROE or prioritization choice, either overall or by theater if we want one. Alternatively the theater commander could be that choice if we have 2 fleet battle commanders, 2 science/sensor commanders, 1 defense commander and 1 jack-of-all-trades commander for example.
@OneirosTheWriter Would this work and/or be easier for you to setup?
@Briefvoice @Nix @Simon_Jester What do you think about making/voting for plans in this format?
OneirosTheWriter gives us a set of theaters of operation, theater commanders, available ships and ships released from garrison commitment, member world/affiliate ships we can request and optional ships we could buy into a plan (ie. ships we could get for pp or militarization points representing Starfleet begging/borrowing/stealing/etc.) and we then make plans to put what we want where we want.
An example of this based on the current crisis would be this:
Theaters of Operation:
Sydraxian Theater (Tales Har, Klivvar Proxima, Vega)
CBZ Defense Theater (Indoria, 15 Themis, Ord Grind Duk)
CBZ Forward Theater (Seyek, Q'loath, Dawiar, Lecarre area)
Federation Defense Theater (Tellar, Earth, Andor, Vulcan)
CBZ Defense Theater (Indoria, 15 Themis, Ord Grind Duk)
CBZ Forward Theater (Seyek, Q'loath, Dawiar, Lecarre area)
Federation Defense Theater (Tellar, Earth, Andor, Vulcan)
Theater Commanders:
Commodore A (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore B (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore C (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore D (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore E (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore F (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore B (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore C (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore D (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore E (flavour text/bonus..)
Commodore F (flavour text/bonus..)
Available Ships:
4 Excelsiors
1 Constitution
3 Centaur-As
2 Oberths
5 Mirandas
1 Constitution
3 Centaur-As
2 Oberths
5 Mirandas
Member World Ships Available:
Amarkia
1 Riala
2 Cruisers
2 Escorts
Betazoid2 Cruisers
2 Escorts
2 Cruisers
3 Escorts
...3 Escorts
Ships for Purchase:
1 Cruiser, 2 Escorts (Amarkia) - 5 pp
1 Fathership, 2 Modern Swarmers - 1 Militarization Point
...
1 Fathership, 2 Modern Swarmers - 1 Militarization Point
...
The available ships will not include the ones left behind for garrison to make it easier to plan without thinking about what we can't move. The Member World ships would be the ones we could get just by asking for them and we can get more if we're willing to pay for them, either by political deals (pp) or council unhappiness (militarization from moving a homeworld fleet away from defense or out of it's sector).
Then we could plan like this:
Plan "Planning Planners who Planned this Plan"
Sydraxian Theater
Commodore A
1 Excelsior
1 Centaur-A
1 Miranda
3 Betazoid Escorts
CBZ Defense Theater1 Excelsior
1 Centaur-A
1 Miranda
3 Betazoid Escorts
Commodore E
1 Excelsior
1 Constitution
1 Centaur-A
1 Oberth
CBZ Forward Theater1 Excelsior
1 Constitution
1 Centaur-A
1 Oberth
Commodore C
2 Excelsiors
1 Centaur-A
1 Oberth
4 Mirandas
1 Fathership, 2 Modern Swarmers - 1 Militarization Point
Federation Defense Theater2 Excelsiors
1 Centaur-A
1 Oberth
4 Mirandas
1 Fathership, 2 Modern Swarmers - 1 Militarization Point
Commodore F
1 Riala (Amarkia)
2 Cruisers (Amarkia)
2 Escorts (Amarkia)
2 Cruisers (Betazoid)
1 Riala (Amarkia)
2 Cruisers (Amarkia)
2 Escorts (Amarkia)
2 Cruisers (Betazoid)
We could include a ROE or prioritization choice, either overall or by theater if we want one. Alternatively the theater commander could be that choice if we have 2 fleet battle commanders, 2 science/sensor commanders, 1 defense commander and 1 jack-of-all-trades commander for example.
@OneirosTheWriter Would this work and/or be easier for you to setup?
@Briefvoice @Nix @Simon_Jester What do you think about making/voting for plans in this format?
- Location
- somewhere
It's mixing in the Commodore vote for no good reason because usually there won't be any interdependencies, which ships are left behind for garrison matters a whole lot and I don't particularly see any advantage over (or differences to, other than the mentioned) assigning ships to theatres instead of moving fleets around as already suggested.
Last edited:
Nix, I notice that you didn't actually vote. Didn't see an option you liked, or felt like there was no point since both options were basically identical? Consider the question in the general spirit of "how should this vote be conducted in the future" since this way didn't entice an active player like yourself to cast a vote.
- Location
- somewhere
I thought about making my own plan and asked Oneiros a question that I felt was relevant, but ended up not being answered. In absence of that I didn't particularly see any options better than the others but that has more to do with the situation than the plans responding to it. I don't like how we basically have to pick between letting the Kadak-Tor get away or making the narratively appropriate choice of trusting that the Cardassians don't feel like destroying basically all our veteran ships. This is not a problem with the system or even with the plot (which is very Star Trek), but voting to take what would be a stupid risk outside of a story because inside the story it's the right choice is not something I feel particularly comfortable with.
In general I only vote when I think it's going to improve the quality of decision making.
Last edited:
- Location
- Australia
I don't mind that system, actually.
I'd probably split parts of the vote up into stages to stop it from being too much in one hit, like handle the commanders later.
Oh, sorry about that, must have missed it.
Hmmm. One disconnect I've noticed is that we've been told that the majority of battles should not end in the destruction of one side or the other; that the usual outcome is one side realizes it's losing and flees the field. Yet virtually every example battle we're given grinds down to a total defeat on one side or the other.
So if we take the statement that running isn't too difficult as true then our ships shouldn't be at such a big risk. But if we take the actual examples we're given, then as you say "trusting that the Cardassians don't feel like destroying basically all our veteran ships".
Those mechanics are still really unclear. In the famous "Enterprise gets ambushed by two ships" incident, why didn't the Enterprise just run for it? Was it constrained from doing so because the combat was the result of a failed Event roll, so it wasn't "allowed" to run? Will matters be different in a wartime situation?
- Location
- somewhere
It was about roughly how far away the sensor readings the Sarek picked up were, pretty plausibly something we wouldn't have known about in character so I didn't mind.
- Location
- Australia
In sum, each round of combat has one side attack. That side is determined by RNG chance, with the odds determined by the combat values of the two sides. The higher your combat value, the more likely it is that you will be able to make the attack.
That part I think is clear. Every "turn" of combat is a roll-off between the combined Combat score of each side. The side that wins inflicts damage on its opponent (on a randomly determined target if multiple ships on a side). So if one side keeps winning the roll-off, then it will damage the other side multiple times in a row.
What's not clear is:
1. How/when one side will attempt to flee if it's losing the battle. There appear to be 'breaks' in the action when the automated roller program stops to let @OneirosTheWriter assess how things stand. I assume that a judgement would be made at that point if one side appears to be losing and they get to roll something to attempt to break away and flee if the QM judges that's what they would do.
2. Shield burn-through, which we're told is a thing but appears to have a very, very low chance of happening since we've never seen it.
I did manage to find one example where we see the "fleeing" mechanic in action. It appears that it takes a ship a certain amount of time to flee once it declares its intention to do so.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah. @Briefvoice, @OneirosTheWriter, it looks like that must have been under an earlier version of the combat engine. That version doesn't seem to have random target selection- the entire fleet is focusing its fire on a single target on each side at once. In large battles, this means that you have a ship exploding every few turns, once the action gets intense enough. It also REALLY favors big ships over small ones, because the big ships can absorb several hits with no loss of fighting power, while the smaller ships start taking losses almost immediately.
By the time we fought the biophage at Kadesh, Oneiros had modified this to random target selection. This meant that individual ships were no longer under the concentrated fire of entire fleets, which made fleet battles less of a game of rocket tag. Aside from ships with literally one hit point, almost nobody got blown up quickly in the two battles at Kadesh, because it took a lot of time for one side to start whittling down the other when hits were being distributed randomly among ten, twenty, or even thirty ships.
However, we have never seen the escape mechanic, as far as I can remember, in a battle since the change to random targeting.
I can sort of understand why, because the original mechanic ('ship has five turns to escape' or whatever) would virtually guarantee escape under the new random-targeting rules. A ship with multiple hit points will, on average, spend an amount of time "with one hit point left" equal roughly to the number of ships in its own fleet, divided by the (smaller than one) probability of the enemy landing a hit. This is, for example, why USS T'Mir didn't die over Kadesh. It was targeted and hit- twice- but not the third time, because the biophage never got around to rolling "hit T'Mir" on its target list.
The problem is that, as noted, this makes no provision for the losing side to escape a battle. For one of their Jalduns to look at an explorer, say "nuh-uh!" and run for its life. Or for one of our ships to "warp out when its shields fail" as our rules of engagement specify.
So yeah, @OneirosTheWriter, we could REALLY use some information on how that works, because of the huge effect it has on our decision-making process.
Like a system where we can barter political will or militarization for assets and advantages, that is a really good idea if the pricing and balancing is done properly.
Other parts I don't like so much. One issue is that we can't just divvy up our ships at will among our available sectors. Ships that we put over in Sol Sector for garrison reasons simply can't reach the Cardassian border in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. there could be one or two rounds of fleet battles before they even arrive). Something like the system we actually wound up with, where most ships stay in or near the sectors they started in, at least at first, is more or less inevitable.
For another, if you have to mobilize your fleet, defining the theaters of operation is a big part of the starting decision-making for any given crisis. Much of our actual debate in the starting phase of this mobilization was "how many fleets should we have, and where?" If Oneiros makes that decision for us, he's greatly reducing our agency in setting up the terms on which we intend to fight.
Also, the "choose your commodores" votes seem like they should be done in peacetime for most things. Especially since our theaters of operation, and the numbered fleets we have operating in them, are generally based around one of our existing sector fleets. We didn't get to decide that T'Lorel would be commodore of Fifth Fleet, nor should we have gotten to make that decision, because Fifth Fleet is literally identical to the "Cardassian Border Fleet" that we put her in control of years ago.
That reminds me. @OneirosTheWriter, I think you send Excelsior to join Third Fleet at Ord Grind Duk. If so, does that put Harriman in command like I suggested? Or did he have to stay behind at Indi Beta and watch his flagship leave without him?
I can't think of a single case where we've seen a ship successfully warp out of battle. We've seen ships successfully hide from attackers during the course of an event, but we've never seen one escape attack outright as far as I can remember. Now, against the biophage that usually made sense, because the biophage's ships are the equivalent of zombies that attack until destroyed, and for our ships, it was a do-or-die maximum effort where suicide was preferable to letting the biophage win.
But if it's us against, say, the Cardassians... that's a more 'normal' kind of battle, and you'd expect retreat to be an accepted and acceptable maneuver on both sides. So what are the odds of a ship successfully retreating from battle if it feels outmatched?
By the time we fought the biophage at Kadesh, Oneiros had modified this to random target selection. This meant that individual ships were no longer under the concentrated fire of entire fleets, which made fleet battles less of a game of rocket tag. Aside from ships with literally one hit point, almost nobody got blown up quickly in the two battles at Kadesh, because it took a lot of time for one side to start whittling down the other when hits were being distributed randomly among ten, twenty, or even thirty ships.
However, we have never seen the escape mechanic, as far as I can remember, in a battle since the change to random targeting.
I can sort of understand why, because the original mechanic ('ship has five turns to escape' or whatever) would virtually guarantee escape under the new random-targeting rules. A ship with multiple hit points will, on average, spend an amount of time "with one hit point left" equal roughly to the number of ships in its own fleet, divided by the (smaller than one) probability of the enemy landing a hit. This is, for example, why USS T'Mir didn't die over Kadesh. It was targeted and hit- twice- but not the third time, because the biophage never got around to rolling "hit T'Mir" on its target list.
The problem is that, as noted, this makes no provision for the losing side to escape a battle. For one of their Jalduns to look at an explorer, say "nuh-uh!" and run for its life. Or for one of our ships to "warp out when its shields fail" as our rules of engagement specify.
So yeah, @OneirosTheWriter, we could REALLY use some information on how that works, because of the huge effect it has on our decision-making process.
Hmm yeah, you could say that the Daystrom Institute would be the galaxy's leading experts in NOT inventing positronic computers, after all the brilliant duotronic/whatever work they've done.
Okay... but we could have, um... a better one!
It's interesting and I hope Oneiros adopts SOME parts of it for crisis management.
Like a system where we can barter political will or militarization for assets and advantages, that is a really good idea if the pricing and balancing is done properly.
Other parts I don't like so much. One issue is that we can't just divvy up our ships at will among our available sectors. Ships that we put over in Sol Sector for garrison reasons simply can't reach the Cardassian border in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. there could be one or two rounds of fleet battles before they even arrive). Something like the system we actually wound up with, where most ships stay in or near the sectors they started in, at least at first, is more or less inevitable.
For another, if you have to mobilize your fleet, defining the theaters of operation is a big part of the starting decision-making for any given crisis. Much of our actual debate in the starting phase of this mobilization was "how many fleets should we have, and where?" If Oneiros makes that decision for us, he's greatly reducing our agency in setting up the terms on which we intend to fight.
Also, the "choose your commodores" votes seem like they should be done in peacetime for most things. Especially since our theaters of operation, and the numbered fleets we have operating in them, are generally based around one of our existing sector fleets. We didn't get to decide that T'Lorel would be commodore of Fifth Fleet, nor should we have gotten to make that decision, because Fifth Fleet is literally identical to the "Cardassian Border Fleet" that we put her in control of years ago.
That reminds me. @OneirosTheWriter, I think you send Excelsior to join Third Fleet at Ord Grind Duk. If so, does that put Harriman in command like I suggested? Or did he have to stay behind at Indi Beta and watch his flagship leave without him?
That... is an extremely good point.
I can't think of a single case where we've seen a ship successfully warp out of battle. We've seen ships successfully hide from attackers during the course of an event, but we've never seen one escape attack outright as far as I can remember. Now, against the biophage that usually made sense, because the biophage's ships are the equivalent of zombies that attack until destroyed, and for our ships, it was a do-or-die maximum effort where suicide was preferable to letting the biophage win.
But if it's us against, say, the Cardassians... that's a more 'normal' kind of battle, and you'd expect retreat to be an accepted and acceptable maneuver on both sides. So what are the odds of a ship successfully retreating from battle if it feels outmatched?
We can make a fuckmazing Science Ship right now.