[X] OPLAN: 2deep5me
-[X] Stations and Orbital Infrastructure, as a first priority
-[X] Major populated planets and gas giants, as secondary priorities
-[X] Minefields around stations should have low density, but have a large quantity of mines by dispersing the mines in a voluminous "shell" surrounding the station at long range
-[X] Minefields around planets should have just enough to let an enemy know we don't like them.
-[X] Fields should be a mix of torpedo launch platforms (whatever gets us the most torpedoes per ton, using a mix of conventional, multi-warhead, and bomb-pumped torpedoes), tripwire probes with sensors to detect passing vessels, and inflatable decoys to frustrate demining/evasion.
-[X] Stations should have upgrades made to let them trigger the launching of torpedoes.
So minefields work pretty well, and we should keep cranking out minelayers in civilian yards. Also, wow using Aslan facilities was expensive—it turns out that "exorbitant" means "2x the cost of the actual ship". Definitely suggests that we should focus on higher MCr cost, lower tonnage ships in the future.
EDIT: I like 2deep5me, but I think we should make a few tweaks. First, providing a gas giant with even minimal coverage would take 10+ times the mines required for a terrestrial planet, and we don't even know that the northern enemy has refueling scoops yet. I also think we're missing a possible target: jump points. Jump points are somewhat predictable, and it's possible to lie in wait near them and ambush enemy ships, as we learned when the Junta downed the Heimdall. That also makes them a great place to put static defenses.
[X] OPLAN: 3deep6me
-[X] Stations and Orbital Infrastructure, as a first priority
-[X] Major populated planets and likely jump points (outer planets, especially if they are small and easy to cover) as secondary priorities
-[X] Minefields around stations should have low density, but have a large quantity of mines by dispersing the mines in a voluminous "shell" surrounding the station at long range
-[X] Minefields around planets and jump points should have just enough to let an enemy know we don't like them.
-[X] Since jump points will also see frequent friendly and civilian traffic, mines there should only activate if an unknown craft does not respond to automated warnings.
-[X] Fields should be a mix of torpedo launch platforms (whatever mix gets us the most torpedoes per ton without violating the treaty prohibition on nuclear weapons), tripwire probes with sensors to detect passing vessels, and inflatable decoys to frustrate demining/evasion.
-[X] Stations should have upgrades made to let them trigger the launching of torpedoes.
So minefields work pretty well, and we should keep cranking out minelayers in civilian yards. Also, wow using Aslan facilities was expensive—it turns out that "exorbitant" means "2x the cost of the actual ship". Definitely suggests that we should focus on higher MCr cost, lower tonnage ships in the future.
EDIT: I like 2deep5me, but I think we should make a few tweaks. First, providing a gas giant with even minimal coverage would take 10+ times the mines required for a terrestrial planet, and we don't even know that the northern enemy has refueling scoops yet. I also think we're missing a possible target: jump points. Jump points are somewhat predictable, and it's possible to lie in wait near them and ambush enemy ships, as we learned when the Junta downed the Heimdall. That also makes them a great place to put static defenses.
[X] OPLAN: 3deep6me
-[X] Stations and Orbital Infrastructure, as a first priority
-[X] Major populated planets and likely jump points (outer planets, especially if they are small and easy to cover) as secondary priorities
-[X] Minefields around stations should have low density, but have a large quantity of mines by dispersing the mines in a voluminous "shell" surrounding the station at long range
-[X] Minefields around planets and jump points should have just enough to let an enemy know we don't like them.
-[X] Since jump points will also see frequent friendly and civilian traffic, mines there should only activate if an unknown craft does not respond to automated warnings.
-[X] Fields should be a mix of torpedo launch platforms (whatever mix gets us the most torpedoes per ton without violating the treaty prohibition on nuclear weapons), tripwire probes with sensors to detect passing vessels, and inflatable decoys to frustrate demining/evasion.
-[X] Stations should have upgrades made to let them trigger the launching of torpedoes.
I was thinking that the "just enough to let the enemy know we don't like them" for a gas giant is probably a few dozen mines in low polar orbits. They're not going to be a HUGE risk, unless you happen to be hovering in place for hours in the upper atmosphere conducting refuelling ops, in which case the mine will fly by overhead and take a shot at you.
That said, those would be best handled by bomb-pumped mines that don't fire a torpedo, and are a completely different "style" of minefield, so I'm fine with postponing it instead of rewriting 2deep5me.
I also think we're missing a possible target: jump points. Jump points are somewhat predictable, and it's possible to lie in wait near them and ambush enemy ships, as we learned when the Junta downed the Heimdall. That also makes them a great place to put static defenses.
What is it that you think jump points are? Because my understanding of them is that there isn't any requirement to jump at certain locatons in a system, only jump limits where you cannot get within a certain distance of a body. We've seen Hermosa's ships jumping into our systems extremely far away from anything important. Heimdall would be an example of a strongly defended orbit where the Junta's was based out of.
They do make for convenient places to target a jump relative to, but you don't actually need to jump next to them. You can just as easily decide to jump a million kilometers away from the sun as you could jump right next to the limit of a moon.
Is it better to fire all at once or in a time in target barrage? Obviously ToT is more likely to pierce defences but would a simultaneous launch be more likely to get hits if the target evades?
I think around planets and stations mines are better as... less as mines per se, but extended torpedo launchers and sensor nets, allowing the station to have heavier throw-weight and longer sensor range and to hit a close intruder from multiple angles.
Having them command-linked also greatly reduces the risk of a whoopsie.
Around gas giants I did wonder "what if we have a first contact where some explorer tries to top up and gets blown to hell by automated batteries" but it looks like all our systems with gas giants are populated so they could just ask permission.
As for types.
Contact nukes are probably useless. You'd need a huge density as well as expensive warheads.
Torpedoes can get extremely heavy barrages by any metric, but could be intercepted. But they're relatively cheap and have very long range so a low-density field can trap people fairly well.
Bomb-pumped lasers I assume would be costly and sort of a middle ground; shorter ranged than torpedoes, less destructive, but lightspeed beams are much harder to evade and nearly impossible to block; hard to sandcast when you're being riddled with lasers from dozens of angles at once, and the target would have very little warning.
How accurate they'd be, though? Worth testing maybe.
[x] Plan mission-based defence
-[x] Doctrine is that 1) very valuable locations should either be able to defend themselves or be able to hold out with few losses for 2 weeks; 2) raids on valuable locations should cost an attacker significantly more than their replacement costs us.
--[x] All populations of greater than 1 million people and critical military infrastructure (drydocks) are to be defended at all times by a combination of mines, defence stations and garrison ships such that they can fight any of these forces to at least a stalemate for 2 weeks with minimal population loss (preferably by destroying the attacker): 1) a lone ship of similar capacity to any of our patrol cruiser; monitor; or the deep-hope attacker jumping in at minimum distance and attacking; 2) a fleet of similar capacity to the expeditionary fleet or 8 Hermosan Broadsword-class vessels plus mothership jumping in at either minimum distance or at sufficient distance to regroup and then advance
--[x] Very high-value military and economic infrastructure, such as critical food, mining, and fuel operations; etc are to be defended at all times from from a lone ship jumping in at minimum distance of similar capacity to any of the deep-hope attacker; our current best cruiser; the best cruiser known to be used by the Hermosans
--[x] Lower value infrastructure is to be defended sporadically against such attacks such that an attacker cannot know if they will be opposed if they were to jump at short range.
--[x] Refuelling from gas giants in our territory is to be made risky for raiders or other unauthorised ships.
-[x] If this is not economically feasible then the strategy office is instructed to explain why and issue a counter-offer.
[X] OPLAN: 3deep6me
-[X] Stations and Orbital Infrastructure, as a first priority
-[X] Major populated planets and likely jump points (outer planets, especially if they are small and easy to cover) as secondary priorities
-[X] Minefields around stations should have low density, but have a large quantity of mines by dispersing the mines in a voluminous "shell" surrounding the station at long range
-[X] Minefields around planets and jump points should have just enough to let an enemy know we don't like them.
-[X] Since jump points will also see frequent friendly and civilian traffic, mines there should only activate if an unknown craft does not respond to automated warnings.
-[X] Fields should be a mix of torpedo launch platforms (whatever mix gets us the most torpedoes per ton without violating the treaty prohibition on nuclear weapons), tripwire probes with sensors to detect passing vessels, and inflatable decoys to frustrate demining/evasion.
-[X] Stations should have upgrades made to let them trigger the launching of torpedoes.
What should be protected by mine fields? Stations and Orbital Infrastructure, as a first priority, Major populated planets and gas giants, as secondary priorities. What should the density of our mine fields be? Minefields around stations should have low density, but have a large quantity of mines by dispersing the mines in a voluminous "shell" surrounding the station at long range. Minefields around planets should have just enough to let an enemy know we don't like them. What sort of mines would we prefer to deploy? Fields should be a mix of torpedo launch platforms (whatever gets us the most torpedoes per ton, using a mix of conventional, multi-warhead, and bomb-pumped torpedoes), tripwire probes with sensors to detect passing vessels, and inflatable decoys to frustrate demining/evasion.
Available Budget: 1,299.53MCr Current Dockyard Usage: 21,400/21,500Dtons Current Pilot Usage: 85/100
Mine Warfare
The establishment of a mine-warfare doctrine allows for the first steps to be taken in order to protect Homes yards, stations and planetary bodies. With a mine-layer expected to be able to lay and maintain up to around 4,500 mines and mine equivalent platforms (including sensors and decoys) per year, the following decisions are made.
- Home herself will receive a field of 600 mines and MEP's protecting not just the planet but also her dense field of ship yards, freight stations and other orbital infrastructure.
- Home-2, the icy rock ball with a single sad little moon, will receive half of Homes field, with just 300 mines and MEP's covering the smaller world in case an enemy decides to try to establish infrastructure or attack mining efforts on the surface.
- Home-3, the gas giant which is also the source of so much of the fuel required by the HSWS, will receive 1,000 mines and MEP's to protect not just the giant herself but also the fuelling and refining infrastructure in low orbit and the upper atmosphere.
Just protecting Home will thus require almost 2,000 platforms deployed from the HSLS Alakshmi. This will, however, ensure that the system will not be vulnerable to the kind of attack that Deep Hope suffered, even on the fringes of our deployments.
With that planned, the mine warfare division (three lieutenants and one office of logistics petty officer), begin drafting plans for protecting other systems with the current mine-layer. However, therein lies an issue:
- Cassalon is home to two massive gas giants and a secondary shipyard location which would thus likely require around 10,000 mines just to defend the principal objectives in the system.
- Xyri, meanwhile, has four small gas giants and the main world, which would again require around 5,000 mines and MEP's to protect and defend.
We are fortunate, then, that Home is a remarkably small system compared to her neighbours. It would be more useful, so says the Mine Warfare Division, to utilise the jump-capable merchant ship to mine distant targets such as Heimdall or Deep Hope, places that require only a relatively small number of Mines and MEP's and would benefit from a ship that can travel to those places when needed to maintain or re-lay the fields. For example:
- Deep Hope would require maybe 60-100 mines and MEP's in order to qualify as 'protected'.
- Heimdall, with her two undeveloped gas giants, would require perhaps 1,200 mines and MEP's - a greater number but not an insurmountable one.
- Staging point could also be mined, but it would likely have to be a thin field around what is considered the rendezvous point for HSWS ships. It might not be particularly useful for stopping enemy ships transiting through the local volume but it could potentially ward off attacks on assembling HSWS Task Forces.
What is the HSWS position? Select all that apply:
[ ] We should build a series of mine warfare ships that are limited to their system to protect the major inhabited volumes.
[ ] We should revisit our doctrine to reduce the mines needed in major systems.
[ ] We should mine [Deep Hope/Heimdall/Staging Point] (delete as appropriate)
[ ] We should switch to the smallest possible CAPTOR mines in order to extend our capability.
[ ] Other - write in
Fornice and all its merits
The return of the HSLS Bá Kim from Fornice - eighteen light years from home - is a feted moment even with the ongoing reactions to aggression from the North. They return with half their complement of officers and diplomats, the rest choosing willingly to stay on Fornice in order to establish an embassy and develop greater links with the local population. They expect that the HSWS will be back eventually, and if they have to spend two years on such a delightful planet then honestly they wouldn't complain.
What have they learned, however? Well, for a start, the rebels oppressed by the government are fascists who see the wealth of art and theatre on Fornice as the wasteful efforts of a degenerate peoples. They are not a minority group - in fact they hold significant power in several spheres of daily life - but the governing Council of Engineers has no interest in allowing them to flourish any further. Fornice is, in a word, a place of free thought and free association so long as the citizens continue to provide their labour to the state when required. It is hardly a post-scarcity world, but it is a healthy one.
Another notable piece of information; while the system maintains a small defensive and mining fleet, they have the yards and technology to produce a great deal more than they currently maintain. It is suspected that they might be able to produce ships of a similar size to those that could be built in the Home yards. They certainly have the population to support such an effort.
When the HSWS inevitably returns, what should be the focus of our efforts?
[ ] We should be angling for a military alliance
[ ] We should be pushing for access to their yards for construction
[ ] We should be asking them to sign the Articles of War
[ ] We should be pushing something else - what?
Scouting Around
The Scout Flotilla - still waiting for their new ships - have gone North and come back again. They had to go the long way, tanking at Keoiri and paying extortionate prices for the pleasure before heading into deep space. They spend several months scanning dark skies before returning with news of a system that is suspected to be the origin point of the attacker (based mostly on hope) as well as detection of several systems further out that may or may not be disconnected from the others. The scouts are running into the limits of their range, even when extended with tankers and drop tanks.
Any further investigation of these systems would have to be done in force, as the scouts are concerned about running into enemy forces if they attempt to penetrate unknown systems. No one wants a repeat of the Heimdall incident.
We should definitely look into selling military supplies and weapons to the government of Fornice, since it looks like action will be going down. We can be ethical, and make a profit!
Could I get some friendly feedback from other voters about why they do not vote for my plans or about where discussion of plans is happening? I feel like I'm writing decent plans that are then completely ignored. And that's okay, but it would be nice to have some info about why.
Regarding mining the "staging point" deep space sector, is there much point to this? It has previously been established that two uncoordinated groups jumping into the same deep space sector will likely arrive so distant from each other that they cannot detect each other.
If that is true, could we not prevent other groups from attacking the part of staging-point that HSWS uses by meeting in a different part each time? If that is not true, could we get some clarity on what the rules are here? Obviously it's totally okay if you want to change the rules at any time, but the current situation is quite confusing to me.
We are fortunate, then, that Home is a remarkably small system compared to her neighbours. It would be more useful, so says the Mine Warfare Division, to utilise the jump-capable merchant ship to mine distant targets such as Heimdall or Deep Hope, places that require only a relatively small number of Mines and MEP's and would benefit from a ship that can travel to those places when needed to maintain or re-lay the fields. For example:
I think the proposal here is that we mine the smaller border worlds instead of the core because it is easier. Is there some reason why our opponents could not bypass these well-defended borders to raid our core worlds?
As I understand it, a raider from the north that could reach deep hope could jump into that sector or an adjacent one far from likely occupation to avoid detection or attack before approaching Home, Xyri or Cassalon for a raid. Similarly, what would prevent an invasion fleet from Hermosa jumping to deep space or to great distance from Heimdall before heading to Cassalon? If I were a military planner in Hermosa I would much prefer to raid my opponent's economic and military heartland rather than a well-defended and economically insignificant system.
If there is some reason why our opponents are compelled to attack our border worlds first then that would be really useful to know.
What have they learned, however? Well, for a start, the rebels oppressed by the government are fascists who see the wealth of art and theatre on Fornice as the wasteful efforts of a degenerate peoples.
Could I get some friendly feedback from other voters about why they do not vote for my plans or about where discussion of plans is happening? I feel like I'm writing decent plans that are then completely ignored. And that's okay, but it would be nice to have some info about why.
Can't tell about every one, in my case it's mostly timezones and work. I mostly work evening shifts, and either shitpost on company time (as now), or late at night (and sleep in the morning). And if there is enough work load to keep me from posting, I can't engage much.
think the proposal here is that we mine the smaller border worlds instead of the core because it is easier. Is there some reason why our opponents could not bypass these well-defended borders to raid our core worlds?
Nothing prevents them from going in. It's probably more about an opportunity - we regularly keep significant forces at our populated systems, and fringe places like Deep Hope are more neglected.
Also, "border worlds" are closer to "outside", so they are closer to potential visitors
Regarding mining the "staging point" deep space sector, is there much point to this? It has previously been established that two uncoordinated groups jumping into the same deep space sector will likely arrive so distant from each other that they cannot detect each other.
If that is true, could we not prevent other groups from attacking the part of staging-point that HSWS uses by meeting in a different part each time? If that is not true, could we get some clarity on what the rules are here? Obviously it's totally okay if you want to change the rules at any time, but the current situation is quite confusing to me.
You absolutely can do that! Currently, the HSWS has been using a small trojan rock in the sector as a 'meeting point'; a point in space to aim at and the set as a navigational buoy. That could be defended in order to maintain it as an assembly point, or you could not do that, and that would be fine. As noted in the update, mining it would be a case of protecting logs ships and the like.
I think the proposal here is that we mine the smaller border worlds instead of the core because it is easier. Is there some reason why our opponents could not bypass these well-defended borders to raid our core worlds?
If there is some reason why our opponents are compelled to attack our border worlds first then that would be really useful to know.
Fuel, mostly. If a fleet has the range (with logistics vessels and the like) to reach your core then, uhhhh, good luck stopping them! But most people you've met have J-1 drives and that limits range both in time and fuel.
Nothing prevents them from going in. It's probably more about an opportunity - we regularly keep significant forces at our populated systems, and fringe places like Deep Hope are more neglected.
I'm not sure that we keep enough to cover all the different locations in these systems? Which was kinda the point of my plan, to make determining what an adequate defence would be the GM's job because it's her system we're playing with
Home Fleet is one cruiser and 6 escorts (which mostly do point-defence rather than attacking, right?) it would need to defend quite a large area, so a lone attacker or a fleet jumping in at short distance might be able to complete their mission before the garrison fleet can meet them in force.
Cassalon fleet is one cruiser and two escorts, though presumably their war asteroids are still around. Those few ships and the defence stations are supposed to defend two populations and a whole bunch of infrastructure across two worlds quite distant from each other.
Fuel, mostly. If a fleet has the range (with logistics vessels and the like) to reach your core then, uhhhh, good luck stopping them! But most people you've met have J-1 drives and that limits range both in time and fuel.
You're the GM, so obviously it's your call! If you say that we should not worry about it then we can just not worry about it, but crossing the one-sector gap between Cassalon and Heimdall has become routine for us, and we even send cruisers further to Hexos and Fornice, so I don't see why the same one-sector distance from Equus to Cassalon (admittedly to a hostile welcome) would be infeasible for a peer-level opponent, or why an attacker who can reach deep-hope from an origin far-ish North or North East could be counted on to not reach one sector further to Home.
You're the GM, so obviously it's your call! If you say that we should not worry about it then we can just not worry about it, but crossing the one-sector gap between Cassalon and Heimdall has become routine for us, and we even send cruisers further to Hexos and Fornice, so I don't see why the same one-sector distance from Equus to Cassalon (admittedly to a hostile welcome) would be infeasible for a peer-level opponent, or why an attacker who can reach deep-hope from an origin far-ish North or North East could be counted on to not reach one sector further to Home.
I don't see why the same one-sector distance from Equus to Cassalon (admittedly to a hostile welcome) would be infeasible for a peer-level opponent, or why an attacker who can reach deep-hope from an origin far-ish North or North East could be counted on to not reach one sector further to Home.
Other powers are more likely to stumble on the "border systems", like this new ship probably did, and like Hermosa did with Heimdall. It's just less likely that they would by accident miss heimdall/deep hope and instead step in home/cassalon directly.
However, if they want to make a determined push to our inner system (like, when they know where to go, and assembled a fleet with sufficient logistics), they totally can.
I think, for Cassalon, Xyri, and Home, we should build jump-less minelayers to handle their system defenses. They'll be cheaper and stripping out the j-drives will mean more tonnage for mines. We can keep building auxiliary ships (like our current 4k tonner) to handle stuff like Deep Hope, Heimdall, and other "colonial" systems.
I agree. The highest priority for minelaying is in places like Deep Hope and Heimdall where we've got a defensive station and need to increase its firepower so that it can deal with being 2-3 jumps away from the fleet. A single, cheap minelayer with no jump drive in Cassalon, Xyri, and Home means we can make it much cheaper.
Hell, if we're purpose-building this to be as cheap as possible, how low can we go? Dispersed, lightweight hull, no armour, no jump drive, give it only a minimum of fuel for the m-drive, give it no artificial gravity, and run it on a skeleton crew that's packed in like sardines. Sure, it'll be a miserable trip, but if they're above habitable worlds the crew can get plenty of shore leave between minelaying trips.
Could I get some friendly feedback from other voters about why they do not vote for my plans or about where discussion of plans is happening? I feel like I'm writing decent plans that are then completely ignored. And that's okay, but it would be nice to have some info about why.
Regarding mining the "staging point" deep space sector, is there much point to this? It has previously been established that two uncoordinated groups jumping into the same deep space sector will likely arrive so distant from each other that they cannot detect each other.
If that is true, could we not prevent other groups from attacking the part of staging-point that HSWS uses by meeting in a different part each time? If that is not true, could we get some clarity on what the rules are here? Obviously it's totally okay if you want to change the rules at any time, but the current situation is quite confusing to me.
I think the proposal here is that we mine the smaller border worlds instead of the core because it is easier. Is there some reason why our opponents could not bypass these well-defended borders to raid our core worlds?
As I understand it, a raider from the north that could reach deep hope could jump into that sector or an adjacent one far from likely occupation to avoid detection or attack before approaching Home, Xyri or Cassalon for a raid. Similarly, what would prevent an invasion fleet from Hermosa jumping to deep space or to great distance from Heimdall before heading to Cassalon? If I were a military planner in Hermosa I would much prefer to raid my opponent's economic and military heartland rather than a well-defended and economically insignificant system.
If there is some reason why our opponents are compelled to attack our border worlds first then that would be really useful to know.
Personally, minelaying has been my "pet project" for a while, so I really wanted to push my own plan. As for everyone else, I suspect your plan just got buried and overlooked.
As for why, these minefields act as a cheap and very cost-effective upgrade to a defence station. While right now there isn't much in those sectors, we'll likely want to.establish things like fuel dumps so that we can extend our power projection capability further - they're the base camps for our climb up Everest, or islands in an island hopping campaign. They can also serve as a way of staking a claim to an unpopulated star system in a more economical manner than keeping a fleet there 24/7. They can be bypassed, but doing so means that the enemy needs to carry much larger fuel tanks than we do, which means their ships cost more.
[X] OPLAN: Caltrop
-[X] We should build a series of mine warfare ships that are limited to their system to protect the major inhabited volumes and continue building auxiliary mine ships for use in more distant systems such as Heimdall or Deep Hope.
-[X] We should mine Deep Hope, Heimdall, and Staging Point as our auxiliary craft come online. Prioritize Deep Hope once the mining station is rebuilt and a defensive station established.
-[X] For our inhabited systems (Xyri, Cassalon, Home), the focus should be on orbitals, infrastructure, and other important targets first, then the inhabited planets. Gas giants should receive a small, cursory number of mines to dissuade unauthorized use when needed. These can be increased in wartime, if needed, to deny easy refueling.
-[X] We should seek out an alliance and trade partner, with an eye towards securing our southern frontier. Inquire about the Articles of War.
What is it that you think jump points are? Because my understanding of them is that there isn't any requirement to jump at certain locatons in a system, only jump limits where you cannot get within a certain distance of a body. We've seen Hermosa's ships jumping into our systems extremely far away from anything important. Heimdall would be an example of a strongly defended orbit where the Junta's was based out of.
I might have overestimated how difficult it is to jump without a planet or star to aim at. Looks like we will need to revise our doctrine on gas giants, though.
[X] OPLAN: Caltrop
-[X] We should build a series of mine warfare ships that are limited to their system to protect the major inhabited volumes and continue building auxiliary mine ships for use in more distant systems such as Heimdall or Deep Hope.
-[X] We should mine Deep Hope, Heimdall, and Staging Point as our auxiliary craft come online. Prioritize Deep Hope once the mining station is rebuilt and a defensive station established.
-[X] We should seek out an alliance and trade partner, with an eye towards securing our southern frontier. Inquire about the Articles of War.
Would you mind editing in instructions to mine Cassalon's shipyard and other infrastructure first, then its inhabited planets, and ignore gas giants? I'm guessing that would significantly reduce the number of mines required.
