You Are: A sector admiral of a strained imperium.

[fasquardon]

Of note.

Captain Somes loyalty is now enough to have him planning assassinations for you.

Now we can be secret pirates to weaken the houses one by one.

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I am totally down with the idea of buying a ship to make Somes captain of with a crack crew that is steadfastly loyal to us.

The fact that 'average' members of the dissolute, corrupt and nepotistic nobility still generally overshadow commoners in the navy (not just because they are super tall) is a testament to just how good the genetic engineering of nobles is. But Imperial ship crews are by any reasonable standard an elite and being told they need to serve another 10 years to get debt absolution is probably not going to go down well once it is announced.

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Eeee. That's... Interesting.

So mentioning the crew specially in our speech could really bind the crews to Reinhard, as he recognizes their efforts where the empire itself does not?

fasquardon

 

[Gunman]

@Packrat how successful was the invasion of Imhotep? First they lost four Strike Cruisers, of which three were captured. Only a handful were captured in the war so that has to be significant. Three of those strike cruisers had officers with above average tactics. They lost their fifth Strike Cruiser, which had an average officer and two cutters. They then lost their sector admiral who had Strategy 15 and her battlecruiser was captured. They lost 380 Wealth worth of ships and we don't know the amount of Wealth needed for Imhotep to recover.

 

[Packrat]

@Gunman Well, strategically they managed to fuck up the planet and fixing it is going to take a long time and a lot of resources.

But you have basically torn the heart out of the NASP sector fleet facing you over the border. In total there are enough ships to outweigh yours about five times over but they are mostly various random independent signatory worlds with their own mini-navies. The 'premium' ships with professional officers and a skilled admiral sent by the core NASP worlds to form the cadre for a sector fleet were annihilated over the course of a few weeks.

The Valinor Regency does have a fair sized fleet lead by zealot 'War Bishops' but they are of dubious competency.

 

[tokero6294]

Are we gonna be able to look into ways to begin to "tread water" in terms of starbases/shipyards/actual usable ships?

 

[Snowfire]

@Gunman we need to find a way to eat a 20% upkeep increase. Even if we're focusing on our crews in the speech. We need those people bound to us. Or hell, a 10% one could be enough if that would cut the extra period in half. I just really don't want to get hit with that rollout and not have a response ready that will keep crew morale rock solid. I know our budget stability is hanging by a thread, but this is important.

 

[cast2007]

Dang the Empire's either really that hard up on funds to extend the tour of service ten years or they're really tone deaf by creating a stop-loss to keep the Imperial fleet's numbers up.

 

[san]

@Gunman we need to find a way to eat a 20% upkeep increase. Even if we're focusing on our crews in the speech. We need those people bound to us. Or hell, a 10% one could be enough if that would cut the extra period in half. I just really don't want to get hit with that rollout and not have a response ready that will keep crew morale rock solid. I know our budget stability is hanging by a thread, but this is important.

Click to shrink...

I dig that, though I believe they won't lose loyalty and will understand that as a fellow commoner we have no part in this travesty.

 

[Gunman]

@Snowfire Once this 'goes live' there will absolutely be the option to pay to offset the issue for your crews. It would probably be a case of 20% increased ship maintenance or something - serf debts are inherited with high interest rates and in some instances grow preposterously large but are not even in the one percent of a Wealth point range normally.

Click to shrink...

@Gunman we need to find a way to eat a 20% upkeep increase. Even if we're focusing on our crews in the speech. We need those people bound to us. Or hell, a 10% one could be enough if that would cut the extra period in half. I just really don't want to get hit with that rollout and not have a response ready that will keep crew morale rock solid. I know our budget stability is hanging by a thread, but this is important.

Click to shrink...

We can't afford this yet. We have +5 Loyalty to all noble officers thanks to our high PC score. We first need to make the speech to secure the loyalty of our crew. We should first commit to erasing our sector deficit before we consider the extra 20% upkeep because it increases our sector budget expenses by over 6 points.

Adding 20% maintenance to our ships is going to increase our deficit from 3.3 to 9.56. Almost triple. Do not think not praising our crew and then raising the income of our crew is easy or desirable.

 

[Taut_Templar]

[X] Your Crews. Praise the sacrifices and courage of your enlisted crews and marines, who fought the battle and won.
[X] Your Officers. Mingle with your officers and celebrate with them without showing favouritism.

 

[fasquardon]

@Gunman we need to find a way to eat a 20% upkeep increase. Even if we're focusing on our crews in the speech. We need those people bound to us. Or hell, a 10% one could be enough if that would cut the extra period in half. I just really don't want to get hit with that rollout and not have a response ready that will keep crew morale rock solid. I know our budget stability is hanging by a thread, but this is important.

Click to shrink...

On the other hand, this is about getting enough naval manpower.

As a naval commander of the empire, we need naval manpower.

If we can use this to move crew who are coming up on their 10th year from Imperial service to personally serving Reinhard, a 20% upkeep increase could be worthwhile. However, if this just means these men and women retire to various worlds across the empire... That's a bit pointless.

Do not think not praising our crew and then raising the income of our crew is easy or desirable.

Click to shrink...

Or we can focus on our officers and our officers will work harder to improve their ships and crews because they are so loyal to Reinhard.

fasquardon

 

[Gunman]

Or we can focus on our officers and our officers will work harder to improve their ships and crews because they are so loyal to Reinhard.

Click to shrink...

Their crews? You can't say that will happen and it is ridiculous to argue we're going to get a better benefit to our crew with the Officer option instead of the Crew option. All of our enlisted personnel are going to be livid when they hear they now have to spend twice as much time to lose their debt. We're going to see more Army, Marine and Navy personnel choosing piracy or serving under a ducal house. If we don't want to take the same hit, we have to choose Crew. The loyalty of our officers is fine and are the easiest to increase loyalty for.

 

[Random Paul]

[X] Your Officers. Laud the conduct of your officers and captains, who spearheaded the boarding action even at great personal risk, with half of them hospitalised or killed even as they triumphed.
[X] Hobnob. Mix with the rich and powerful, the titled nobility, the Governor General, find out what they might want from you and make yourself known to them.

 

[Artificial Girl]

[X] Your Crews. Praise the sacrifices and courage of your enlisted crews and marines, who fought the battle and won.
[X] Find Ranca. Baroness Ranca Arril is here and you have not had a chance to speak with her at length socially since she arrived. She is almost certainly at the duel.

 

[fasquardon]

Their crews? You can't say that will happen and it is ridiculous to argue we're going to get a better benefit to our crew with the Officer option instead of the Crew option.

Click to shrink...

But look at what our officers did out of loyalty this turn.

Likely praising crews would be better. But praising officers could well result in benefits for the crew that are almost as good.

We're going to see more Army, Marine and Navy personnel choosing piracy or serving under a ducal house. If we don't want to take the same hit, we have to choose Crew. The loyalty of our officers is fine and are the easiest to increase loyalty for.

Click to shrink...

I think you are making a whole bunch of assumptions here.

@Packrat: Could you tell us what Reinhard (in character) would think would happen due to this extension in service terms? And what effects might he expect to see from praising his crew?

fasquardon

 

[Taut_Templar]

Or we can focus on our officers and our officers will work harder to improve their ships and crews because they are so loyal to Reinhard.

Click to shrink...

... this isn't gonna happen. Loyalty to us doesn't translate into increased competence, social awareness, and decency towards their lessers. Doubling down on officer loyalty is a mistake, I believe - we should use this opertunity to secure the loyalty of the real bones and meat of the imperial navy.

 

[Gunman]

But look at what our officers did out of loyalty this turn.

Likely praising crews would be better. But praising officers could well result in benefits for the crew that are almost as good.

Click to shrink...

It is because we maintain an above average loyalty through our political capital. We"ll get enough out of mingling with them instead of doubling down on officers. We can't buy the loyalty of our crew so cheaply or easily as the Officers. Their loyalty is as easy as increasing our lifestyle, giving them prize money and other actions. Out of 18 updates this our first chance to increase the loyalty of our crew.

I think you are making a whole bunch of assumptions here.

Click to shrink...

They are entirely reasonable. They're ruining the easiest and fastest way to get out of debt for themselves and their families. What do you think will happen if they double the length? Shrug their shoulders? Complain about it and do nothing? Service in the military is going to lose a lot of appeal for the serfs. The most intelligent will spend 20 years safe as a doctor instead of risking their neck as a marine or rating. The rest will consider the more generous ducal houses and piracy. The same ducal houses who as a whole were not hit as badly as the Imperial dynasty and want to take over the Imperium.

To put things into perspective there, service aboard a warship as an enlisted crewperson or as a marine is a highly sought after, elite profession with hundreds or even thousands of applicants to each vacancy. The Imperial Navy has only about twice as many warships as planets.

People apply aged fifteen then out of the select few, over half fail to pass all of the tests to graduate at eighteen after two years of intensive training, followed by six months of surgery and recovery for military grade implants. Starship crew are then paid rather well and after ten years of service have all of their debts absolved (Something that might take say, a frugal doctor, 20+ years). After twenty years of service you get a pension and non commissioned officers get significant improvements to the standard of living for their entire family.

Imperial Marines are culled out of the highest achieving members of the Imperial Army after at least three years service then put through another year of high intensity training before being assigned to a ship. They are very much special forces because military starships have limited carrying capacity and are horribly expensive.

The fact that 'average' members of the dissolute, corrupt and nepotistic nobility still generally overshadow commoners in the navy (not just because they are super tall) is a testament to just how good the genetic engineering of nobles is. But Imperial ship crews are by any reasonable standard an elite and being told they need to serve another 10 years to get debt absolution is probably not going to go down well once it is announced.

@Snowfire Once this 'goes live' there will absolutely be the option to pay to offset the issue for your crews. It would probably be a case of 20% increased ship maintenance or something - serf debts are inherited with high interest rates and in some instances grow preposterously large but are not even in the one percent of a Wealth point range normally.

Edit: For anyone wondering how pirates even sometimes match this - it is because pirates can potentially make a lot of money indeed. A lot of the pirate raider crews you have encountered have been heavy on lightly transhuman mercenaries with outrageous degrees of cybernetic augmentation or are rogue military veterans. This was not the case when it came to the idiots with the converted freighters that one of your corvettes murdered last session though.

Click to shrink...

 

[fasquardon]

... this isn't gonna happen. Loyalty to us doesn't translate into increased competence, social awareness, and decency towards their lessers. Doubling down on officer loyalty is a mistake, I believe - we should use this opertunity to secure the loyalty of the real bones and meat of the imperial navy.

Click to shrink...

But loyalty to Reinhard DOES translate into action taken to improve the sector fleet - like hiring experienced crew to boost the rating of crew on a ship, as one of our captains did this turn.

We can't buy the loyalty of our crew so cheaply or easily as the Officers.

Click to shrink...

On the other hand, this means it is harder to build a strategy around pushing crew loyalty to the max.

Also, I get the feeling that praising the crew for this great victory is really going to piss off the people in the admiralty who are extending the service terms. We already have enough enemies in the admiralty as it is.

Also, praising the crew is going to make it harder to score a propaganda victory for Wison. We've already been told before that her winning smaller victories lowers the threshold for how big her final victory has to be.

The more I think about it, the more I think that praising the crews is just a bad option at this juncture.

[X] Your Officers. Laud the conduct of your officers and captains, who spearheaded the boarding action even at great personal risk, with half of them hospitalised or killed even as they triumphed.

[X] Hobnob. Mix with the rich and powerful, the titled nobility, the Governor General, find out what they might want from you and make yourself known to them.

And the more I think about hobnob, the more I think it is a good option here. Yes, it has risk, but we are in serious need of building bridges with the power-players in the sector so we at least have intel, and maybe even have friends. And right now Reinhard is riding high after a smashing victory and is fat with political capital AND is accompanied by all of his officers, most of whom are now very loyal to him. So I am voting to take a risk and maybe get ahead of the rising political problems.

And heck, we have a good chance of levelling up diplomacy.

@Packrat: Also, could I ask you for a detailed explanation of the ship combat system? Or a link to a post where you've explained it before? It's still a bit mysterious to me...

fasquardon

 

[Gunman]

Also, I get the feeling that praising the crew for this great victory is really going to piss off the people in the admiralty who are extending the service terms. We already have enough enemies in the admiralty as it is.

Click to shrink...

Now you're making baseless assumptions and I already pointed out we're about to get rid of the malus we suffer when we buy a share.

On the other hand, this means it is harder to build a strategy around pushing crew loyalty to the max.

Click to shrink...

Nobody made the argument of "pushing crew loyalty to the max" and because it is difficult means we shouldn't bother at all?

And heck, we have a good chance of levelling up diplomacy.

Click to shrink...

Which we can do by mingling with our officers. Both are social situations.

 

[san]

Which we can do by mingling with our officers. Both are social situations.

Click to shrink...

I said it before and I will say it again, as good as boosting officer loyalty may be, I feel it is better to get more political capital faster.

Besides, and here is an argument you all may not have thought of, if we get more political capital we can get more sector budget, if we get more sector budget we can increase the officers loyalty by keeping them in the field earning prize money, and if we keep them in the feild earning prize money we continue getting more prize money AND political capital.

Hence more political capital now=more ships in the field=more prize money and PC=more loyalty from officers. It is an endless cycle where here if we instead mingle with the officers we will just be boosting the loyalty a bit and even then it is not guaranteed. At the very minimum the other options gives us an idea on who dislikes us and who wants to get on our good side.

 

[giodan]

[X] Your Crews. Praise the sacrifices and courage of your enlisted crews and marines, who fought the battle and won.
[X] Your Officers. Mingle with your officers and celebrate with them without showing favouritism.

 

[Forgothrax]

[X] Your Crews. Praise the sacrifices and courage of your enlisted crews and marines, who fought the battle and won.
[X] Your Officers. Mingle with your officers and celebrate with them without showing favouritism.

 

[ThatGuyWithIdeas]

[X] Your Crews. Praise the sacrifices and courage of your enlisted crews and marines, who fought the battle and won.
[X] Your Officers. Mingle with your officers and celebrate with them without showing favouritism.

 

[Gunman]

Besides, and here is an argument you all may not have thought of, if we get more political capital we can get more sector budget, if we get more sector budget we can increase the officers loyalty by keeping them in the field earning prize money, and if we keep them in the feild earning prize money we continue getting more prize money AND political capital.

Hence more political capital now=more ships in the field=more prize money and PC=more loyalty from officers. It is an endless cycle where here if we instead mingle with the officers we will just be boosting the loyalty a bit and even then it is not guaranteed. At the very minimum the other options gives us an idea on who dislikes us and who wants to get on our good side.

Click to shrink...

Oh, I want PC as fast as possible too. It is why I'm going to argue for us to increase our lifestyle. We're going to have to spend hundreds of points of Political Capital if we choose to increase the pay of our crew and expand our fleet at the same time. But I want to craft a certain image to the people watching us as a military officer and it will marginalize any concerns at us praising the crew. The opportunities with the nobles will come again after we're ennobled. The ennoblement of ourselves is an event to make a social occasion for ourselves if the Governor General or Fleet Command fails to see the propaganda utility of it.

[X] Your Officers. Laud the conduct of your officers and captains, who spearheaded the boarding action even at great personal risk, with half of them hospitalised or killed even as they triumphed.

Click to shrink...

Are you sure? This has been our only chance out of 18 updates to secure the loyalty of our crew. Compare that to all of the mechanical and narrative opportunities we've had for officers. My below quote has more arguments and a quote of packrat. Note how large a number of pirates are "rogue military veterans". Choosing to praise officers is not going to give us the same benefit we get from praising the crew.

It is because we maintain an above average loyalty through our political capital. We"ll get enough out of mingling with them instead of doubling down on officers. We can't buy the loyalty of our crew so cheaply or easily as the Officers. Their loyalty is as easy as increasing our lifestyle, giving them prize money and other actions. Out of 18 updates this our first chance to increase the loyalty of our crew.



They are entirely reasonable. They're ruining the easiest and fastest way to get out of debt for themselves and their families. What do you think will happen if they double the length? Shrug their shoulders? Complain about it and do nothing? Service in the military is going to lose a lot of appeal for the serfs. The most intelligent will spend 20 years safe as a doctor instead of risking their neck as a marine or rating. The rest will consider the more generous ducal houses and piracy. The same ducal houses who as a whole were not hit as badly as the Imperial dynasty and want to take over the Imperium.

Click to shrink...

In the quote of packrat below, note how large a number of them are "rogue military veterans".

 

[Yeangst]

Praising the crew seems morally right but could backfire. We're trying as hard as we can to seem like we're trying to play the noble's game. To publicly praise commoners could really set this back.

 

[Gunman]

Praising the crew seems morally right but could backfire. We're trying as hard as we can to seem like we're trying to play the noble's game. To publicly praise commoners could really set this back.

Click to shrink...

Which is why we're going to then mingle with the officers so they don't get the wrong message and not all of the crew is made up of commoners. The possibility of a hypothetical backfire will be minimized and the benefits of praising the crew are worth it.