Regarding the ships in building - can you please tell us the current "Stardate"? In last few updates there weren't any dates, and I am a bit lost (I know that currently is year 16, but have no idea which month/week...)
[X] OPLAN: Open Hand
-[X] Heimdall Sector Command is authorized to take initiative and autonomy to defend themselves and gather intelligence, but should not start a war. They have permission to call on the Staging Point reserve if needed.
-[X] Return the crew.
-[X] Indicate we are open to returning the vessel, provided their government meet with us to discuss how to solve the ongoing border tensions. Remind them that we asked them to stop intruding into our space and that the Glaive was repeatedly warned and hailed. If they want assurances that we are not going to attack them (and their ship back), we also want assurances that they are not building up to attack us. Were the situations reversed, we have doubts they would readily return our ship. Continue examination and recording of internals through images, scans, etc., to put together a picture of the Broadsword's capabilities until such a time as it is returned. --[X] Allow them to send personnel to examine the ship and their crew, but watch them carefully to ensure no scuttling charges etc. are set.
-[X] Refuse compensation for damage to the ship, but offer compensation for the dead, provided the Hermosans pay for the dead on our side. The deaths are a tragedy, but they were in our system, after all and we should not pay to repair their vessel after it intruded into protected space.
Regarding the ships in building - can you please tell us the current "Stardate"? In last few updates there weren't any dates, and I am a bit lost (I know that currently is year 16, but have no idea which month/week...)
Looking at what we have currently and based on pilots, some random thoughts on the future and what I think might be a good idea to explore.
I'd like to slowly replace the existing Flight I frigates with Flight II; they're a straight upgrade and I think we're about at our 14-15 desired small fleet escorts so we can start some churn to get them replaced.
I would also like to add another of the A, C, and D variants of the CFA to get us up to at least 8 cruisers (potentially Flight II of those, considering the advancements available), but we will need to retire some ships for that.
To help that along, I think a larger PD escort to replace the IC-III on a 1:2 or 1:3 basis would help to free up pilots. And of course we want to get at least one more patrol carrier, ideally three, and probably a second MAT. And potentially a heavy cruiser based on the patrol carrier hull (we can fit about ten large bays on it once we strip out all the hangars and storage, or potentially something like 8 large missile / torpedo bays and four LMD turrets when we can get those).
Tonnage-wise, we'll need about ~6k to replace all of Flight I frigates, ~14k to get replacements for the IC (a 2k ton PD escort would let us free up 14 pilots; alternatively we develop a Flight II CFA that uses weight savings etc to mount a larger PD array and hope that that's enough along with the frigates and phase out the ICs entirely on a 1-1 basis for CFAs, in which case required tonnage balloons to 42k but gives us a LOT of cruisers).
Each patrol carrier will need 5.5k tons, so a total of 11k overall. And if we develop the "heavy cruiser" concept, that will need about ~16k.
Plus an additional MDS for each system, maybe a second minelayer/auxiliary hauler, and some additional fleet sustainment vessels.
And we will probably want to build the scouting flotilla new vessels, too.
So overall... looking at a minimum of 47k~ tonnage for the yards (for combat craft). In theory, that's doable in about 3 years, but given construction times on the larger frames, probably more like six or nine.
But when completed, we could in theory have:
14-16 fleet frigates (flight II) - 7-8k tons - 14-16 pilots
7-8 large escorts - 14k - 16k tons - 14-16 pilots
8-12 CFAs (mixed types or standardized, depending) - 24k - 36k tons - 16-24 pilots
3 patrol carriers - 16.5k tons - 6 pilots
3 heavy cruisers/command cruisers - 16.5k tons - 6 pilots
3+ MDS - 7.5k tons
1+ Auxiliary Minelayer - 4k tons
1+ MAT - 8k tons - 2 pilots
2+ Fleet Sustainment Vessels - 4k tons?
54 pilots, leaves us room for more ships of course. Although about 16 of those are probably spoken for by the scouting flotillas.
YES. They are horribly outdated, especially Interstellar Surveyors. And we also could have two flotillas worth of them, if we manage to add one (two?) more Flotilla Support Ships. Maybe even ones that could produce the fuel from gas on board (these could be beneficial for scouting missions).
YES. They are horribly outdated, especially Interstellar Surveyors. And we also could have two flotillas worth of them, if we manage to add one (two?) more Flotilla Support Ships. Maybe even ones that could produce the fuel from gas on board (these could be beneficial for scouting missions).
Yeah; new hulls, new engines, more of the fancy sensor arrays. Probably with more internal fuel space now that we're not crunched for yard space and can build bigger stuff.
Yeah; new hulls, new engines, more of the fancy sensor arrays. Probably with more internal fuel space now that we're not crunched for yard space and can build bigger stuff.
Fiddling around with it, I can get a 1200 ton surveyor with streamlining, 5 jumps internal, 1 jump on a drop tank. 7 armor, M-5. Six turrets. Includes a lab and an observatory so it can do the DSS and ISS jobs in one package.
Would anyone be onboard with developing a commerce raider? Something to force Opfor to keep ships occupied protecting their supply instead of fighting us.
Would anyone be onboard with developing a commerce raider? Something to force Opfor to keep ships occupied protecting their supply instead of fighting us.
Maybe when we develop better lasers it might be something to look into. It doesn't need to be able to fight a peer opponent, as ideally it does damage and jumps out before being engaged by comparable force
-[x] Write-in: Give Heimdall Command more autonomy. The fleets in Heimdall and Staging point will report to them. Their missions are: 1 to prevent or deter an invasion of HSWS-controlled space; 2 to bloody the enemy if they invade and retreat in good order if overwhelmed; 3 to gather intelligence on the Hermosan Spacy. They are not authorised to start the war on their own initiative, but they may invade or raid any of Hermosan space on their own initiative if they have beeen attacked.
--[x] OOC: it could be cool and thematic if we had a few character descriptions to pick between for the commander.
--[x] Order the Staging Point reserve to Heimdall, they report to Heimdall Command now
-[x] Heimdall command is responsible for negotiations. These are our suggestions.
--[x] Return the crew, unless any seek asylum
--[x] We want and offer joint compensation to the families of the dead crew from both services, the Hermosan Spacy bears primary responsibility for their unsafe jump practice and unauthorised close approaches to HSWS facilities.
--[x] Try to keep and study the HCP Glaive, but you can pretend to negotiate over that and argue salvage rights, etc. to stall them while removing samples, etc.
[X] OPLAN: Open Hand
-[X] Heimdall Sector Command is authorized to take initiative and autonomy to defend themselves and gather intelligence, but should not start a war. They have permission to call on the Staging Point reserve if needed.
-[X] Return the crew.
-[X] Indicate we are open to returning the vessel, provided their government meet with us to discuss how to solve the ongoing border tensions. Remind them that we asked them to stop intruding into our space and that the Glaive was repeatedly warned and hailed. If they want assurances that we are not going to attack them (and their ship back), we also want assurances that they are not building up to attack us. Were the situations reversed, we have doubts they would readily return our ship. Continue examination and recording of internals through images, scans, etc., to put together a picture of the Broadsword's capabilities until such a time as it is returned. --[X] Allow them to send personnel to examine the ship and their crew, but watch them carefully to ensure no scuttling charges etc. are set.
-[X] Refuse compensation for damage to the ship, but offer compensation for the dead, provided the Hermosans pay for the dead on our side. The deaths are a tragedy, but they were in our system, after all and we should not pay to repair their vessel after it intruded into protected space.
Available Budget: 288.435MCr Current Dockyard Usage: 18,000Dtons
Six Weeks
It takes a month and a half, six weeks or forty-two days (give or take a couple) for a courier to make the run to Home and back from Heimdall. Add another week for the discussions of how to respond and it's 16y03m02w before the messages can be expected to make it back to How much can happen in almost two months? How many shots can be fired, how many emergencies can be experienced before the order to take the initiative can be received? It's a recipe for disaster...
16y01m03w - Hermosan response force arrives in Heimdall, prompting the sending of messages to Home.
Two shuttles make their way across the void from Home forces to Hermosan, carrying the crew of the Glaive back to their compatriots. Both shuttles dock with the 'Mothership' vessel, allowing them a close view of seried ranks of missile tubes, point defence batteries and docking infrastructure. It does not, at first glance, look like a combat warship like the Broadsword-type but it is also very clearly not defenceless either.
Negotiations begin regarding the return - or lack of return - of the Glaive. There is tension between the two fleets, a kind of hanging cloud in the thousands of kilometres between them, one that isn't assisted by the limited contact. The commander of the Heimdall fleet group - Flight Commodore Talat Chaudari - passes down standing orders that no ship with the most modern sensor set is allowed to radiate in order to reduce the risk of compromising our systems by exposing them to ships that are clearly intended to draw as much information as possible from the void.
16y02m00w - Negotiations continue with a face to face meeting between the two force commanders
Divisional Admiral Javier McNeal meets with Commodore Chaudari aboard the HSWS Rongo. A long and impassioned discussion is shared between the two men, while elsewhere other, junior officers are given a tour of the Glaive in order to demonstrate the lack of hostile action. The tour group is watched incredibly carefully, ensuring nobody is able to split off of become isolated from their minders.
The meeting goes well, all things considered. The two men discuss a range of pre-approved topics, including comparisons regarding their time as junior officers in their respective branches and what it was like growing up on Home and Hermosa. Before leaving, Admiral McNeal requests the Glaive be sealed as a war grave and not further interfered with until the situation in Heimdall is resolved. Given that the MIC has already scrambled across, through and under it in excrutiating detail, Commodore Chaudari sees no reason not to agree, and Hermosan and Home officers cooperate in sealing the ship off from outside interference.
16y02m01w - A Hermosan Combat Platform and one of the Electronic Warfare Vessels jump out of the system, presumably heading for Sinone or Equus.
16y02m03w - Another, different, Hermosan Combat platform arrives in system alongside a second Mothership. All Home forces go to action stations, preparing for an attack. When the first mothership moves to depart, taking the crew of the Glaive back to their space, all crews stand down.
In a further meeting between the two commanding officers, it is revealed that Hermosa are concerned that we are hiding a significant fleet strength behind Hexos, or Staging Point or another system out in the black. They are of the firm belief that 'Home' could easily be code for an entire cluster of star systems and that they are just seeing the forward scouts of an extended fleet. They - the Hermosans - are essentially as in the dark as we are, and while yes they took Equus under their control, they are doing so to shore up potential ingresses against us.
16y03m00w - A joint service for the dead is held aboard the HCP Spatha, another Broadsword-type vessel. While the bodies have long since been shipped home, senior officers from across the two task forces as a pair of services are read in front of a ceremonial representation of the nineteen Home and Hermosan dead.
16y03m01w - The courier ship arrives in Heimdall, bringing the message from Home with it. Heimdall is not only released on its own recognisance, but the Glaive can also be released to the Hermosans assuming it comes with a guarantee of diplomatic contact. Such a thing is given and over the course of a day and a half, the Glaive is manoeuvred away from the Heimdall Anchorage and painstakingly taken inboard of the mothership under tow from a set of small shuttles with oversized engines. Shortly afterwards, all but two of the Hermosan Combat Platforms leave the Heimdall system.
What did you learn from the Glaive? (Choose two)
[ ] Production quality military sensors
[ ] Sensor Extension Net
[ ] Shallow Penetration Suite
[ ] Production quality beam laser barbettes
[ ] Repair Drones
[ ] Missile Command Software
[ ] EWAR Software
[ ] Advanced Fire Control Software Are you standing down the forces at Heimdall and Staging point?
[ ] Not until we have a diplomatic link.
[ ] Stand down the staging point reserve but maintain the Heimdall force.
[ ] Reduce the Heimdall force to include - write in
[ ] Other option - write in
Please present votes as plans. Voting opens at
Tomorrow: Operation Spyglass finally comes home.
I'd recommend we form a flotilla for this region of space. That way we don't fully withdraw but we can finally pull out some ships to do other useful activities.
Production quality military sensors seem like on every obvious choice, since it's something we can retrofit in and apply across new construction going forward.
Everything else seems like it's be useful. Beam laser barbettes would allow addition retrofit of the existing CFA and further weapons tech. Missile control software is handy. EWAR tech is useful. Advanced fire control also seems like it would be useful, as would th extended sensor net and shallow penetration suite (let's you get decent sensor reading son internal.ship systems to a certain extent).
So some years ago there was this Star Trek quest I participated in called "To Boldly Go" on this forum. It wasn't exactly the same format, but it was similar in a lot of ways. We the players played as the Commander of Starfleet and we'd make decisions on which ships to build and where to send them and in a crisis situation like this how to order our ships to respond. It was a pretty popular quest and to this day lots of people remember it.
One thing that really differentiated TBG from this quest, though, is that in the Star Trekquest we were playing a specific character. The Commander of Starfleet was a person, with a name, a background, a species, an age, a gender, and at least the vague outlines of a personality. We didn't play the same Commander through the whole quest either. As the in-game years went on the commander would retire or resign and would be replaced by a new one, generally selected by player vote (but in-character by the President of the Federation Council), with the choices having different descriptions and mechanical bonuses.
There were other characters too. Captains of ships would be specific people, at first referenced by mere names in a log and gradually developing as people as they reoccured in the narrative. But that's stretch goal stuff.
So, I guess you can see where I'm going with this. I don't know if it's too late in the quest to try to do something like this, but I think it would be interesting if there was an actual "Player Character" here as the chief military officer of the Home Space Warfare Service. Someone who is actually being referred to when the narrative asks "you" for a decision. I recognize that for a quest like this with daily updates anything that slows down the writing process is a big ask, so if it wouldn't work I totally accept that. But it would give maybe more of a sense of personality to the narrative, something to hang omakes off, and provide another way to mark big milestones when the commander retires with honors or resigns in disgrace (on a big failure).
