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You Are: A sector admiral of a strained imperium.

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EternalStruggle said:
In fairness, while the tech is still important to get a look at due to different implementation, it's probably the same tech used in the captured Strike Cruisers. They have the same additional points over a standard LC, just different distribution. The Medium goes for 1 Speed, 1 Firepower, 1 Durability, and 1 Marines while the Strike has 3 Speed and 1 Marines.
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The Angel Class medium cruisers are not actually higher tech than a Light Cruiser. They are just bigger and slightly more engine, but cost almost as much as a heavy cruiser to make in consequence.

A Strike Cruiser is (to the people who can make them) actually the same cost as a light cruiser but outright superior. They cost 60 for you (both for the reward you get for killing/capturing them and cost to maintain) because they are advanced, foreign technology that cannot be fully replicated.
 
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Packrat said:
die.
@invictus1829 There would be no Tactics or Strategy upgrades after being rebuilt as a noble. That said you did just make a roll of 18 in Tactics in this engagement. You have a not impossible chance of getting a Tactics increase once it is done.
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Does that mean our junior officers have a chance at Tactics increases as well?
Because once Wisanch hits Tactics 11, in addition to her Strategy 14, we might kick her upstairs.
Or Rimward Fleet might attempt to steal her.

How long before we regularly have to deal with people attempting to poach our officers?
Or is the threat of Ranca enough to get them to desist?
EternalStruggle said:
In fairness, while the tech is still important to get a look at due to different implementation, it's probably the same tech used in the captured Strike Cruisers. They have the same additional points over a standard LC, just different distribution. The Medium goes for 1 Speed, 1 Firepower, 1 Durability, and 1 Marines while the Strike has 3 Speed and 1 Marines.
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Didn't notice that. Thank you for pointing that out.
It does make raiding and stripping one of their shipyards something to consider in the future, instead of simply burning it all down.
Ilam could probably use the upgrades.

EDIT
Ninja'd by GM.
New plan: Burn it all.
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Oct 6, 2018 at 8:19 PM, finished with 98 posts and 50 votes.
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[X] Coup de Main

I'm very much on the fence about this one. If the option allowed us to specify only trying to board the non-murder savant ship, I'd be a lot more comfortable.

I expect that, once the boarding hits a certain point, it will become a race to prevent them suiciding.

If we end up counter raiding Valinor, don't bother looting. Just blow anything that gets in range away.
 
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thamuzz said:
[X] Coup de Main

I'm very much on the fence about this one. If the option allowed us to specify only trying to board the non-murder savant ship, I'd be a lot more comfortable.

I expect that, once the boarding hits a certain point, it will become a race to prevent them suiciding.

If we end up counter raiding Valinor, don't bother looting. Just blow anything that gets in range away.
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Pretty much. They are someone to disarm and imprison on their planets. not capture.
 
The problem is that they'll self-detonate even if they can't take another ship with them, because anyone crazy enough to self-detonate a warship is going to do it at the first sign of losing, whether it's tactically relevant or not.
 
Alectai said:
The problem is that they'll self-detonate even if they can't take another ship with them, because anyone crazy enough to self-detonate a warship is going to do it at the first sign of losing, whether it's tactically relevant or not.
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Well, the QM mentioned that they are more reluctant to self-detonate when they can't take an enemy ship with them.

So if we can cripple them and launch marines at them, the marines have a better chance to secure vital ship functions prior to the Valinor officers deciding to pull the plug (so to speak).
 
[X] Coup de Main. Evade, blow one of them apart, then cripple the other before launching an assault using marine shuttles where you try to seize their ship before they are able to suicide. They will be much less eager to blow themselves up without a capital ship alongside to trade for. Almost nobody has actually captured a Valinor Regency warship before and these medium cruisers are extremely potent. Prestigious and valuable.

This works if we can command or give our bonus to the boarding effort. We have a combined Prowess/Tactics of 34, while our XO and Marine Officer have 22 and 20 respectively. The officers we'd face have 25 and 26 when you combine Tactics and Prowess. If we add half of our Tactics superiority like with strategy rolls, we add ~6 points, which leaves us at parity or ahead even before counting that we do double damage and they do half.
 
Valerian said:
Well, the QM mentioned that they are more reluctant to self-detonate when they can't take an enemy ship with them.

So if we can cripple them and launch marines at them, the marines have a better chance to secure vital ship functions prior to the Valinor officers deciding to pull the plug (so to speak).
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I'm aware of that. I suspect that translates into pushing the break point back, rather than eliminate it.
 
Packrat said:
The Angel Class medium cruisers are not actually higher tech than a Light Cruiser. They are just bigger and slightly more engine, but cost almost as much as a heavy cruiser to make in consequence.

A Strike Cruiser is (to the people who can make them) actually the same cost as a light cruiser but outright superior. They cost 60 for you (both for the reward you get for killing/capturing them and cost to maintain) because they are advanced, foreign technology that cannot be fully replicated.
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If we captured more strike cruisers would it speed up our own development of the technology? Also do any of the other neighboring powers have unique technologies or ship classes we can steal rip-off aquire through proper means.;)
 
Actually a little surprised the NASP persisted in raiding this turn.
One would have thought the thrashing of Chang Mu would have frightened most people into keeping their defenses close.
Unless the reinforcements were heavier than I thought.

me.me.here said:
This works if we can command or give our bonus to the boarding effort. We have a combined Prowess/Tactics of 34, while our XO and Marine Officer have 22 and 20 respectively. The officers we'd face have 25 and 26 when you combine Tactics and Prowess. If we add half of our Tactics superiority like with strategy rolls, we add ~6 points, which leaves us at parity or ahead even before counting that we do double damage and they do half.
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*looks at previous boarding actions of Sword of Democracy*
From what I can tell, when SoD boarded Qiqihar and Hohhot, Reinhard was running the boarding operation from his own ship, without stepping foot on either battleship, and it was his Prowess/Tactics that applied.
So I'll use it here

Boarding math
Marines x + [Prowess + (if Tactics > Prowess, 0.5<Tactics-Prowess>)] + Crew quality + Penalties/Buffs(multi-attack, crippled et cetera) + 3d6 roll

-For Sword of Democracy , Commodore Reinhard Strauss, Strategy 22 Tactics 21 Prowess 13
Marines 10 + [13 + 0.5(21-13)] + Veteran 2 + dice roll
=Marines 10 + 13 + 4 + 2 + 3d6 roll
= 3d6 + 29

-Cruiser Kerubiel, War Bishop Honorius, Strategy 10, Tactics 11, Prowess 15
=Marines 4 + Prowess/Tactics 15(Tactics is lower than Prowess, so no bonus) + Experienced 1 + 3d6 diceroll
= Marines 4 + 15 + 1 + 3d6 dice roll
= 3d6 + 20

-Cruiser Rabdos, War Bishop Marinus, Strategy 8, Tactics 14, Prowess 11
Marines 4 + [Prowess 11 + 0.5(Tactics 14 - Prowess 11, round down)]+ Veteran 2 + 3d6 diceroll
= Marines 4 + 11 + 1 + 2 + 3d6 dice roll
= 3d6 + 18


Add to this the fact that capital ships deal double damage even when boarding.
Assuming we commit our entire Marine force in a 1 v 1 boarding duel via shuttles, we should cut through either cruiser's Marine complement in an average of two turns, not counting Crippled penalty.

Unless they blow up their ship pretty much under two turns, we overrun them too quickly for any shenanigans to occur.
I was going by my gut and eyeball, but it's good to see the math seems to check out.
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Oct 6, 2018 at 11:49 PM, finished with 106 posts and 52 votes.
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uju32 said:
Add to this the fact that capital ships deal double damage even when boarding.
Assuming we commit our entire Marine force in a 1 v 1 boarding duel via shuttles, we should cut through either cruiser's Marine complement in an average of two turns, not counting Crippled penalty.

Unless they blow up their ship pretty much under two turns, we overrun them too quickly for any shenanigans to occur.
I was going by my gut and eyeball, but it's good to see the math seems to check out.
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Assuming approximately equal dice rolls, we'd take 3 turns. We'd expect to do just under 20 damage when they'd have 40 points of boarding durablility. Unfortunately, these guys are fanatics so they aren't likely to surrender at all, let alone at the 5 points or so remaining most would surrender at. Still, even a slightly better roll or two would let us take the ship in two turns and even in the worst case we only lose a few points of marines. That might sting, but they are ultimately expendable.
 
me.me.here said:
Assuming approximately equal dice rolls, we'd take 3 turns. We'd expect to do just under 20 damage when they'd have 40 points of boarding durablility. Unfortunately, these guys are fanatics so they aren't likely to surrender at all, let alone at the 5 points or so remaining most would surrender at. Still, even a slightly better roll or two would let us take the ship in two turns and even in the worst case we only lose a few points of marines. That might sting, but they are ultimately expendable.
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*checks*
Ah, I used the ship Durability instead of the Marines Durability.
Of course, if you count in the Crippling penalty that's a prereq before we attempt to board?
We'd still be looking at under two turns of boarding combat.

The question is how many turns it takes to set off a fusion warhead, and whether they'd even be willing to commit suicide without actually destroying an enemy ship.
Probably better to learn how the mechanics of it works now, rather than later during a fleet action.
 
uju32 said:
*checks*
Ah, I used the ship Durability instead of the Marines Durability.
Of course, if you count in the Crippling penalty that's a prereq before we attempt to board?
We'd still be looking at under two turns of boarding combat.

The question is how many turns it takes to set off a fusion warhead, and whether they'd even be willing to commit suicide without actually destroying an enemy ship.
Probably better to learn how the mechanics of it works now, rather than later during a fleet action.
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If they feel they can't win, they'll detonate the nuke.

And considering that nobody's pulled off an intact capture, chances are that it's on a hair trigger.
 
Satar said:
Too European. I've always pictured a lot of the people in this quest as being mixed race, or at least with different combinations of features existent today. I somewhat imagine Reinhard to be a cross between Zhuge Liang and Ludwig II of Bavaria.
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I agree that mixed is right, but there's a drought of mixed-race art online, from what an hour's searching is telling me. Let alone then making it fit to Reinhard.

In light of that, I'll post a few pictures that I think could fit.
That one could be co-opted as a more experienced Adald Clipaul Imperial, in my opinion.


Perhaps a darker-skinned Reinhard?

Personally, I don't want to risk the Sword's marines getting blown up. The Sword is a Battlecruiser, which seems like a ship that makes significant use of its marines. On the eve of the Arslan campaign, I'd like to not massively weaken our marine complement.
 
Alectai said:
If they feel they can't win, they'll detonate the nuke.
And considering that nobody's pulled off an intact capture, chances are that it's on a hair trigger.
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-Not actually true. The option says:
[] Coup de Main. Evade, blow one of them apart, then cripple the other before launching an assault using marine shuttles where you try to seize their ship before they are able to suicide. They will be much less eager to blow themselves up without a capital ship alongside to trade for. Almost nobody has actually captured a Valinor Regency warship before and these medium cruisers are extremely potent. Prestigious and valuable.
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It's happened before. It's just rare, because few people have the mix of skills required as well as the resources to pull it off..

-If it was on a literal hair trigger the ship would die mid-combat the first time it got hit by a railgun. Or by mistake.

Figurative? Do remember that they are not using custom backpack nukes ; they are apparently jury-rigging a standard fusion warhead torpedo.
They have to do this mid-combat, often through battle damage, and ensure that it kills not only their ship but that of the enemy as well, through their shields. That's a non-trivial problem in space.

Then there are the logistics problems, like ensuring communications in the middle of a boarding op between the ship commanders who give the orders, and the switchman elsewhere in the ship.Nuclear detonation charges aren't the kind of thing a navy leaves to autonomy.
Again, non-trivial after a ship has taken battle damage.

Especially when you are dealing with cruisers and lighter vessels, which are what the Valinor Regency can afford.

- Mechanically, it is presumably possible to pull off.
Even when the GM threw three battleships at our battlecruiser, or a battlecruiser at our heavy cruiser? It wasn't an autoloss scenario.
I suspect the same is true here.

-Finally, the Coup De Main option is functionally the same plan as Evasion.
The only difference being that after blowing up one ship, you stop just short of blowing up the second, and send soldiers into it's crippled remains to capture it. From a safe distance.

The only really safe option is Leave.


Still wondering why the Empire didn't make a point of burning every bit of industry in Valinor space after they started using nuclear suicide bombers.
Or frankly, why the NASP haven't stopped them for fear of retaliation. That's the sort of shit that ensures a lot of your PoWs are shot while trying to escape.
 
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Fezzes said:
I agree that mixed is right, but there's a drought of mixed-race art online, from what an hour's searching is telling me. Let alone then making it fit to Reinhard.

In light of that, I'll post a few pictures that I think could fit.
That one could be co-opted as a more experienced Adald Clipaul Imperial, in my opinion.


Perhaps a darker-skinned Reinhard?

Personally, I don't want to risk the Sword's marines getting blown up. The Sword is a Battlecruiser, which seems like a ship that makes significant use of its marines. On the eve of the Arslan campaign, I'd like to not massively weaken our marine complement.
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1 could work, but not for a Noble; such an individual has the genetics and the medicine to decline to retain any unfashionable scars... and the sort of person who would choose to retain a 'fashionable' scar is likely trying to boast about their Prowess. As a non-Noble, Reinhard has less choice about accumulating that sort of scarring (and maiming, for that matter), so it would work for him, but seems unfitting for Adald Clipaul Imperial.

2 could also work. It suggests an Imperial Navy look rather than a Noble look, but that fits Reinhard well.

3 is far too ragged for someone as rich as any named character in this quest; the frayed holes and generally unkempt appearance are more fitting to a serf.
 
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I like this one best, very Imperial, but with that whole "I earned every scar" vibe. It reads as mixed South Asian-White to me, but that's mostly cause I knew a guy irl who has a South Asian dad and a White mom and he kinda resembles this picture. OK, so maybe he didn't have a jaw that could cut steel beams or amazing cheekbones, and he was a lot younger than the picture, but something about the eyes/orbital rim area rings a bell.

I wish the weird eye thing in the middle was an emerald-encrusted cross instead, then we'd have a 1:1.
 
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I'm partial to number 2 myself.

It reminds me of a military minded David Xanatos. And given how brilliant Reinhard is combined with his looser moral stance, I feel that is a good comparison to make.
 
So, a quick mini vote thing.

The current plan has Captain Sones moved to be XO of the Sword of Democracy but does not give any consideration as to what to do with the current XO, Captain Dame Juley Mara Wisanch.

The only positions she can be moved into without considering it a demotion would be captaincy of a strike cruiser, battleship or battle cruiser. She could be given command of the Endeavour (which you will be leaving behind if you transfer out of the sector) at a moderate dip in Loyalty. Nobody is currently earmarked for this.

Does anyone have any issues with this?
 
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Packrat said:
So, a quick mini vote thing.

The current plan has Captain Sones moved to be XO of the Sword of Democracy but does not give any consideration as to what to do with the current XO, Captain Dame Juley Mara Wisanch.

The only positions she can be moved into without considering it a demotion would be captaincy of a strike cruiser, battleship or battle cruiser. She could be given command of the Endeavour (which you will be leaving behind if you transfer out of the sector) at a moderate dip in Loyalty. Nobody is currently earmarked for this.

Do anyone have any issues with this?
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Huh? I wrote that budget.
Maner is supposed to be moving over to CO Endeavor.
Wisanch is supposed to be XO of the Flagship. Sones is supposed to be 2nd Officer.

The XO is the First Officer/second in command after the captain. Second officer is THIRD in command. Third Officer is FOURTH in command.
Second officer (aeronautics) - Wikipedia
Second mate - Wikipedia

EDIT
To expand.

Maner used to be CO of the Huitzilopochtli.
But is currently injured, so got moved to CO Endeavor, which is staying behind. Then Hompsand took over as CO Huitzilopochtli.

Sones got moved from CO Endeavor to 2nd Officer of the Flagship, which translates to third in command. It would be a demotion in any other ship, but this is the flagship of the sector command, so it's not.
 
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Packrat said:
@uju32 Good point, my mistake. that will hurt Sone's loyalty a fair bit though given you are putting him into a job below his rank.
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The old officer ranking you put up made it clear that officer postings on the flagship were at least a step more prestigious than officer rankings elsewhere. As in, Flagship XO >> Flagship 2nd Officer = Heavy Cruiser CO or Capital Ship XO.
Which is why I put him there. EDIT It's Flagship 3rd Officer ranking that would be a demotion; that's corvette captain equivalent.

Unless you intend to retcon that.
 
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