[OOC] Million Exploding Suns Spectacle - Space Battle RPG

[WilsonTurner]

The Hocklyn Slaver Empire

The Hocklyn Slaver Empire

Stellar Dominion

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Faction Overview
The Slaver Empire is that of what it says- in simpler terms, the Slaver Empire is exactly what the name says, and that is an empire of slavers. The Hocklyns take over worlds with primitive, modern, or advanced civilizations, and are absolutely ruthless in quelling rebellion, going from dueling their leaders and then stringing up their spines for their people to see, to nuking city after city for as long as they rebel.

Technology Overview
They have focus on: primarily: energy weapons, reactors, batteries, and energy devices, as well as drones. They might be lesser known for: efficiency with war machines, scanning technologies, and cryo-type weaponry. They are best described as "Sneaky bastards," due to their habits of enslaving all but the advanced civilizations, where they watch, wait, and study the technology to efficiently counter them, and take advantage of their weaknesses. It's likely that the first time you meet a Lightship, it will be the only and last time as well.

Spacecraft Overview
Ugh this is going to take forever

Cirrus Class - Lightship - Espoinage/Hit'n'run Attack Corvette

Name: Commonly known as the "Sneaky Bastard," but officially known as the Cirrus-class Lightship.
Dimensions: 250m length, 100m from center of mass to farthest reach point [width]
Crew: 13
Battle Points: Unassigned

Spacecraft Attributes

• Hull: 15 (most of it structural, very little to no armor at all, besides the stuff used against micrometeors and the like)
• Powerplant: 95
• Shields: 60/30/10 (Not firing and no stealth/ while steathy/ while firing)
• Speed: 90
• Maneuverability: 90
• Sensors: 70

Weapons

Main Gun {Crippler ALS}
Count: 1
Power: 85
Description: Very high energy weapon, which uses any and all energy within whatever powers it to fire a devastating beam for a moment against any shield or hull- heavy damage to either, and is usually capable of taking down any shield save for the most powerful, and is likely to be the death of any ship out there.

Point-Defenses {Shield Pulsar}
Count: ~
Power: 11
Description: Boosts the shield of the ship to both protect the ship, and pulse waves of energy off of it, enough to scramble missiles, or disrupt energy bursts like plasma. Does not work with stealth enabled.

Other/Special
Two FTL drives are present- one is an emergency escape drive that is at the very rear of the central body, and it has its own separate batteries that allow it a short three-lightyear jump into Deep Space, in which it takes multiple hours for it to cool down and allow the ship to enter hyperspace again. The second is your regular, standard 15-lightyear average FTL jumper drive.

It's a lightship- the ship is primarily equipment and devices, most of it relating to electronic warfare, surveillance, or stealth. The majority of that equipment is dedicated to making the ship invisible- both on radar, sensors, everything. You can't even look out your window and see it, it's so sneaky.

Take a HALO Spartan, give him a Spartan Laser with infinite shots but a three-hour cooldown, and instead of armor he's just covered in sensors and cloaking devices and batteries and small reactors and all that, and you get the equivalent of a Cirrus-class Lightship.

The Crippler ALS is likely to tear a hole in anything more than a light or medium cruiser. But then again, just about anything could kill a Cirrus- even fighters. Fighters are likely to be the big anti-lightship, since if they have sufficient sensors, they could detect the small residue left from a Cirrus engine/reactor, and then hunt them down like a bunch of beagles on the scent of a sentient, two-legged doughnut in a cluttered, messy warehouse.

General Description
Light glistens dully against its sleek, shiny titanium-alloy half-hull, small spots marring the perfect plane of reflection, as a light blue glow shines lightly from the three hose-covered, unprotected, dirty engines that sit on the ends of gleaming, slender wings, that seem like even a small jerk would break them, while-
OknothisisridiculouslolXD
YOU HAVE A PICTURE. Imagine it buzzing about a big ship and blasting holes into it, and when you fire it disappears and appears outside the solarsystem!

Monarch Class - Dreadnought - War Command Heavy Cruiser

Name: Monarch-class Dreadnought
Dimensions: 1500m length, 400m width, 250m height
Crew: 5,600
Battle Points: Unassigned

Spacecraft Attributes

• Hull: 95
• Powerplant: 80
• Shields: 60
• Speed: 20
• Maneuverability: 20
• Sensors: 50

Weapons

Main Gun {Plasma Charge}
Count: 1
Power: 65/45/25/5 (based on range, with the power being danger close/ really close/ somewhat close/ medium ish range, a bit under medium.)
Description: A containment field in the very front of the ship begins receiving large amounts of plasma. When within a close enough range to an enemy ship that's within a certain cone in front of the Dreadnought, the Dreadnought can release the burst of plasma as a very powerful blast that decays very quickly. It's used more of a ship-to-ship plasma shotgun, and can be worked against them because an EMP can disrupt the field and destroy the forward hull.

Secondary Gun {HG Turrets}
Count: 80
Power: 10
Description: HG, or Heavy Gun, was the next step up from railgun turrets. While railgun turrets are still used, HG are the bigger brother for them and are easily more powerful. Using a single large barrel on a large base, they fire meter-in-diameter shells at velocities rivaling a railgun, to deliver a powerful blast with every hit. Compared to any high-power missile or gun, it's still weak, but it's much more powerful than your basic railguns or MACs, when taking size into proportion.

Tertiary {Missiles of Variety}
Count: (Devastator 2) 16
Count: (Devastator 1) 32
Count: (Nuclear- Tactical) 64
Count: (Nuclear- WMD) 64
Count: (Shrike- S2S) 256
Count: (Missile Silo) 128

Power: (Devastator 2) 57
Power: (Devastator 1) 52
Power: (Nuclear- Tactical) 45
Power: (Nuclear- WMD) 50
Power: (Shrike- S2S) 35

Description: Tactical Nuclear missiles are the kind that are used against precise targets, such as a town, army, or military base, while WMDs are used on cities, warships, etc. Devastators are sublight-capable missiles.

Point-Defenses {Railgun Turret}
Count: 160
Power: 5
Description: Simple double-barreled rail turrets, firing 100mm HEBC (High-explosive Ballistic-capped) rounds to intercept fighters, missiles, or mines. Works best against soft-medium targets. (Meaning, something small with some amount of armor)

Point-Defenses {Missile Turret}
Count: 100
Power: 10
Description: Simple missile turrets that fire bursts of Swarmer missiles that work on a hivemind network to intercept and destroy incoming fighters, missiles, or mines. Works best against soft-light targets. (Meaning, something small without much armor)

Other/Special
Center of communications and command- Dreadnoughts are the flagships of the fleet and is at the top of the command chain. Disrespecting a Dreadnought's Admiral is likely to receive "The Command Chain is the chain I'm going to beat you with" line.

Each Dreadnought is in command of a fleet, or if there are multiple Dreadnoughts, are likely in command of multiple Battle Groups within the fleet. Dreadnoughts are one thing that are not set-in-stone for each fleet- there can be no Dreadnought, or half a dozen.

Oftentimes, a Dreadnought is usually the sign that the battle is being taken very seriously.

They also have weapons specifically for ground bombardment, including their missiles.

General Description
It's big, it's flat, and it's hard to kill.

Striker Class - Light Cruiser - Electronic Warfare/Orbital Support Ship

Name: Striker-class Light Cruiser
Dimensions: 700m length, 300m width, 150m height
Crew: 5,600
Battle Points: Unassigned

Spacecraft Attributes

• Hull: 30
• Powerplant: 30
• Shields: 30
• Speed: 40
• Maneuverability: 30
• Sensors: 60

Weapons

Main Gun {HG Turrets}
Count: 20
Power: 10
Description: HG, or Heavy Gun, was the next step up from railgun turrets. While railgun turrets are still used, HG are the bigger brother for them and are easily more powerful. Using a single large barrel on a large base, they fire meter-in-diameter shells at velocities rivaling a railgun, to deliver a powerful blast with every hit. Compared to any high-power missile or gun, it's still weak, but it's much more powerful than your basic railguns or MACs, when taking size into proportion.

Tertiary {Missiles of Variety}
Count: (Devastator 1) 16
Count: (Nuclear- Tactical) 64
Count: (Shrike- S2S) 128
Count: (Missile Silo) 32

Power: (Devastator 1) 52
Power: (Nuclear- Tactical) 45
Power: (Shrike- S2S) 35

Description: They're missiles. Devastators are the only sublight missiles.

Point-Defenses {Railgun Turret}
Count: 60
Power: 5
Description: Simple double-barreled rail turrets, firing 100mm HEBC (High-explosive Ballistic-capped) rounds to intercept fighters, missiles, or mines. Works best against soft-medium targets. (Meaning, something small with some amount of armor)

Point-Defenses {Missile Turret}
Count: 50
Power: 10
Description: Simple missile turrets that fire bursts of Swarmer missiles that work on a hivemind network to intercept and destroy incoming fighters, missiles, or mines. Works best against soft-light targets. (Meaning, something small without much armor)

Supportive Orbital Gun {SOG-MAC Type 36}
Count: 1
Power: 20
Description: A fairly straightforward, though complicated, design of a mass accelerator cannon. The MAC on this ship fires larger-than-normal slugs that burn up in the atmosphere- revealing a smaller slug that has a variety of advanced equipment inside to maximize damage output to the forefront of the warhead, and to minimize area-of-affect, or to maximize it, while in-flight, to automatically adjust to its target. It uses 'cilia' to change its course- strange advanced fibers that bristle down the sides of the shell, like thousands of tiny arms or legs. They act to shift the shape of the shell, so it can alter course against a moving target or to become more accurate. Devices inside the shell also give rough readings of the ground before impact, allowing the shell to be useful as both a bunker-buster, a [city] block-buster, at the same time giving better information on enemy and allied troop movements within a limited area. The weapon is not suited for space use- rather for medium/low orbit to surface.

Other/Special
Seeing this ship in an active battle is a pretty sure bet that the Hocklyns think they're going to win, and take whatever planet they're hoping for. It's armed with a MAC meant for extremely precise (bunker-buster kind of precise, where it can destroy a house in a neighborhood and prevent direct damage to any of the neighboring ones), but it's used only for orbital bombardment.

General Description
It's a logistics and support ship, meant to help keep ground units alive with a few fighters and bombers, and precise bombardment.

Known Fleets
TBA

this is taking forever and I'm suffering from a severe case of not-giving-a-shit-about-anything, so I think I'm going to put this here until I summon the interest.

[WilsonTurner]

*ahem*

Larger starships would have, in all reason, better speed than any fighter. That's simply because with advanced technology, it's less about the mass and the engines, and more about how you use it all. It may take a bit longer to get started up and everything, but a fighter is more dependent on engines and energy production constraints- they have RCS and actual engines. Most of my ships, if I were to ever get around to doing any of them, would not actually have any 'engines' as you would say, simply RCS pods and the like- for maneuvering. It'd simply be six sublight drives, each one set for a different direction. Up, down, forward, backward, to the left, to the right. The heat they produce forces them to be next to the hull, but they're still better hidden and less detectable than your great big shiny engines.

It's just that with more mass, the harder it is to change. When you're speeding up, it's like pulling on a rope that's frayed and not taken care of very well- gets easier as you go. The rope will eventually snap, and that's when I'd have my regular ships be able to use their FTL drives efficiently, with much less heat produced and the ability to cooldown faster and go again, when they exit. Simply put, I see speed more as acceleration, and it's hard at first, then gets easier. The smaller, the easier you start, and the faster you reach the easy-peasy zone. If it's a massive ship, it's harder to get started. Like rolling a boulder down a slight slope- hard at first, then gets easier. It's easier with a basketball sized rock, easier to slow down or change direction, and harder with a car-sized one.

That's my take anyways. I'm surprised I was interested enough to write it. Eh- writing's one of a few things I actually care about. I wouldn't say food is, but I really like... tasting. I like the flavors and the motion. I don't necessarily like food itself, just the properties and the like.

I'm stupid.

[Keyguyperson]

-snip-

@WilsonTurner

If we were being realistic, then the battles would look like something out of the Alliance-Union universe.

For those of you unfamiliar with Alliance-Union (So all of you), battles take place across seemingly insane distances at relativistic speeds. Battleships calculate where their enemy could be once their shot reaches them, and fires a volley in that area. You don't know if they've been hit until almost an hour after the fact, because of the time lag caused by the distance you're fighting at.

And that's why we're not being realistic. Instead, our ships stop when our engines are damaged and we fire broadsides without protecting the bottom half of our ship which is painted red. Our weapons look like giant WW2 battleship turrets even though they fire blue beams that really shouldn't work at all like they do, and our fighters bank because it looks cool.

Enemy ships firing red beams and wearing nazi uniforms is optional.

[Willy Vereb]

*ahem*

Larger starships would have, in all reason, better speed than any fighter. That's simply because with advanced technology, it's less about the mass and the engines, and more about how you use it all. It may take a bit longer to get started up and everything, but a fighter is more dependent on engines and energy production constraints- they have RCS and actual engines. Most of my ships, if I were to ever get around to doing any of them, would not actually have any 'engines' as you would say, simply RCS pods and the like- for maneuvering. It'd simply be six sublight drives, each one set for a different direction. Up, down, forward, backward, to the left, to the right. The heat they produce forces them to be next to the hull, but they're still better hidden and less detectable than your great big shiny engines.

@WilsonTurner

Speed in space is a bit complex thing.
The context it's used here is "how fast X moves in combat?".
It's the best to assume space fighters have overspecced engines which can give them the best possible acceleration while larger ships try for the more consistent performance and fuel-efficiency. Afterall, they're the ones spending weeks and months in space while fighters are serviced and refueled at least once per battle.
That being said, yes, realistically there's no point in space fighters but hey, I'm just giving you a reason here.

It's just that with more mass, the harder it is to change. When you're speeding up, it's like pulling on a rope that's frayed and not taken care of very well- gets easier as you go. The rope will eventually snap, and that's when I'd have my regular ships be able to use their FTL drives efficiently, with much less heat produced and the ability to cooldown faster and go again, when they exit. Simply put, I see speed more as acceleration, and it's hard at first, then gets easier. The smaller, the easier you start, and the faster you reach the easy-peasy zone. If it's a massive ship, it's harder to get started. Like rolling a boulder down a slight slope- hard at first, then gets easier. It's easier with a basketball sized rock, easier to slow down or change direction, and harder with a car-sized one.

Yeah, that's why I'm actually scratching my head with all these "super-maneuverable" ships.
I don't ban them or anything but it does worry me.
This eliminates many cliche space battle tactics, including the space fighters of course.
Exactly for this reason I wonder how some of these "strike warships" even got to the battlefield.
Some of these may require even larger "ship carriers" just by going how compact and overspec-d they are.
I'd imagine an average ship would have 50 speed and 25-30 maneuverability.
Generally maneuverability stat less than what speed they have is more pleasing to my eyes.

The Hocklyn Slaver Empire

Stellar Dominion

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Faction Overview
The Slaver Empire is that of what it says- in simpler terms, the Slaver Empire is exactly what the name says, and that is an empire of slavers. The Hocklyns take over worlds with primitive, modern, or advanced civilizations, and are absolutely ruthless in quelling rebellion, going from dueling their leaders and then stringing up their spines for their people to see, to nuking city after city for as long as they rebel.

@WilsonTurner

Your faction is looking good.
We need the evil sneaky kind.


Checking your ship now:

Name: Commonly known as the "Sneaky Bastard," but officially known as the Cirrus-class Lightship.
Dimensions: 250m length, 100m from center of mass to farthest reach point [width]
Crew: 13
Battle Points: Unassigned

Spacecraft Attributes

• Hull: 15 (most of it structural, very little to no armor at all, besides the stuff used against micrometeors and the like)
• Powerplant: 95
• Shields: 60/30/10 (Not firing and no stealth/ while steathy/ while firing)
• Speed: 90
• Maneuverability: 90
• Sensors: 70

Weapons

Main Gun {Crippler ALS}
Count: 1
Power: 85
Description: Very high energy weapon, which uses any and all energy within whatever powers it to fire a devastating beam for a moment against any shield or hull- heavy damage to either, and is usually capable of taking down any shield save for the most powerful, and is likely to be the death of any ship out there.

Point-Defenses {Shield Pulsar}
Count: ~
Power: 11
Description: Boosts the shield of the ship to both protect the ship, and pulse waves of energy off of it, enough to scramble missiles, or disrupt energy bursts like plasma. Does not work with stealth enabled.

Well, mostly I only have issues with the bolded.
First, why is your ship so ridiculously overpowered? Not in a meta sense, I mean literal sense.
By your admission it's a light vessel with little space for much.
Yet they can mount a powerplant which dwarfs all other ships in this game for now (and probably will).
Neither you really need this. At worst if you wish to fire your main weapon rapidly you'd need 85 power.
But it's described as a hypercharged energy weapon so most likely you only fire it once in a while.

Second is your ship's maneuverability. Your ship seems to be a rocket with a reactor in the middle and an energy cannon fixed on the front.
I of course haven't told this before but maneuverability stat matching the speed means the ship can perform tight maneuvers at its full combat speed.
To perform that I'd imagine your ship would need engines about the same size to all directions, not just behind.
Granted, I have no clear say in your own business. If you want the ships to be like that, they're like that.

Lastly your main cannon. It's ridiculously powerful for a ship of this size and along with the powerplant makes somebody question why would anybody build larger vessels? Or more like why not build larger vessels and completely dominate everything?
I know that energy weapons can get away with things with more ease but when your counterpart is huge cannon mounted through the entire length of a vessel nearly a hundred times your ship's volume and should have nothing to do with differences in tech level, things get problematic. My suggestion is toadd some technobabble or two to it.

Overall the problem, well not mine but possibly yours, is that this ship is essentially a stealth dreadnought disguised as a small ship. Sure, it has several drawbacks but it gets moot when you also add nearly top level speed and stealth to it. If abused the way like I could, anybody only have a chance against you if: 1.) they asspull something, 2.) If they out-write you.
so either they force you to commit a mistake while absorbing large loses or asspull some gadget which nullifies your advantages and technically would violate the spirit of the Battle Point system.
There's a third alternative and that if they create "anti-ligtships" with lower point cost but stealth detection technobabble, enough speed and firepower to catch up to you and damage your ship.
That's the kind of arms race I'd rather avoid.
Then again, I won't stop you. I give all players freedom to develop their civs and ships.
This ship is only OP in a meta sense, at best.
So excuse me for my above rant. Your ship will be allowed regardless.

On the other hand with the current stats it'd probably cost nearly as much as a dreadnought. Dreadnoughts are better protected, have more weapons and their performance is consistently high, yes. But your ship mixes heavy anti-warship power with speedy stealth ambushes. In combat the two ship types would have circa 50-50 chance to win, up to the writing skill of both.
So if you're fine with your tiny ships being as expensive as monstrous battleships, you can keep these.
Otherwise you may want to try a few "rationalizations" for this design.

Other/Special
Two FTL drives are present- one is an emergency escape drive that is at the very rear of the central body, and it has its own separate batteries that allow it a short three-lightyear jump into Deep Space, in which it takes multiple hours for it to cool down and allow the ship to enter hyperspace again. The second is your regular, standard 15-lightyear average FTL jumper drive.

It's a lightship- the ship is primarily equipment and devices, most of it relating to electronic warfare, surveillance, or stealth. The majority of that equipment is dedicated to making the ship invisible- both on radar, sensors, everything. You can't even look out your window and see it, it's so sneaky.

Take a HALO Spartan, give him a Spartan Laser with infinite shots but a three-hour cooldown, and instead of armor he's just covered in sensors and cloaking devices and batteries and small reactors and all that, and you get the equivalent of a Cirrus-class Lightship.

How often or how many times you can use your FTL in combat? How precise you can perform these jumps? Any drawbacks?
And wait! Your main cannon has 3-hour cooldown? Well, that'd change things around a ton.
In 3 hours many of the space battles we fight would conclude, for example.
I'm speaking from experience in other such RPs.

Do slaves and lots of slave worlds and slave soldiers and stuff mean faster point generation? I think it should. Everyone else has wages and stuff, and I've just got lots and lots of aliens working under toil, in exchange for not being obliterated. Oh, and spider work bots who do stuff.

I call them "battle points" exactly because this has nothing to do with industry or economy but RP balance.
Unless there's a plot reason for it, nobody wants that one player has greater power than the other.
Your lightships for example may be realistically even cheaper than a standard warship yet because it's so abusable it's going to cost in Battle Points much more.
BTW, Battle Points aren't generated but determined for each battle scenario.
Smallish battles have circa 10,000 while big battles may be 100,000 Battle Points or even above.
Although I'm thinking on the idea that you can give your unused Battle Points to other player.
Say, you spent 9600 points and have nothing else you really want. You can give the remaining 400 points to one of your teammates.
This may not mean much but for certain builds that tiny boost could be meaningful.
Similarly, if one team has more players then the other gets more points per player.
Both teams generally have matching amount of Battle Points total.

[WilsonTurner]

Slaves was a joke

Cirrus is supposed to be that ship that comes in with three or four other ships, who sit at the very edge of the solar system as the resupply & command/communications (beam coms are less detectable than broadcast or FTL transmitter)

Cirrus is exactly that- a really big powerplant with some crew quarters and stuff stuck around it, with big engines and a big gun pointing forward. Very expensive, and they're likely to be really rare. But when you see that same task force appear on the edge of the system, and that ship suddenly disappearing, you're likely to start panicking, because omgwtfwasthat. Then the task force will either disappear or something will suddenly explode with a beam of energy spearing through it- likely through a weakspot.

Hard to detect, but then again, if you've got a planet with defensive satellites and a fleet in orbit with a standing flight of fighters and bombers constantly patrolling, the Cirrus will have a hard time moving quickly without giving itself away.

That, and it's kind of like a superweapon. Really expensive, because of all the expense for building it, servicing it, and keeping it working. But hten again, it can spy on most people without being detected and even shut down a dreadnought, by, say, shooting the engines and possibly hitting the reactor, causing any warship to recognize the ship was just severely and irreparably disabled, and activate a self-destruct to keep technology and the ship itself from falling into enemy hands. Ta-da, but then everyone'll be chasing the new-revealed Cirrus, who'll be rushing out of the gravity well and to safety.

And Cirruses are more of a pre-battle scenario. Say, most people have it as a offense-vs-defense, but perhaps there's a pre-battle, where you can take your Battle Points and spend a few of them to use beforehand, or perhaps just a pre-battle amount of battlepoints. They may or may not show in the actual battle, but you'd be scouting so you'd know the defensive forces.

A Cirrus has really really advanced stealth systems, a really big powerful reactor, three rather large engines, somewhat weak shields, another shield that tries to trap and escaping residue from engines/laser/reactor/stealth devices, and a big gun that kills stuff by channeling an insane amount of energy in one shot, which leaves it too overheated and pretty fried, so it has to cool down and get a bit of engineers' attention before it can fire.

[Willy Vereb]

@WilsonTurnerWell, this is kinda new to see somebody who's actually aware of this.
Yes, your ship is effectively a superweapon of sorts.
Although if can only fire in every 3 hours its point cost would drop severely.
There's also that while I can see it mission killing medium sized ships, bigger and more durable vessels may survive the attack with only moderate damage.
DEWs aren't particularly the best when dealing large-scale destruction.
Once they penetrate the hull, the rest of their energy is wasted.
Unless you have some kind of idea to deal with this issue, of course. (I have several options in mind)

Anyways, I don't plan a "pre-fight phase" in battles. Neither I think ou need them.
Just think of these ships as "nukes" which if you use well they can be devastating during the battle.
Also "realistically" I think 3 hours maybe even a bit excessive for cooling the guns. How about them exchanging "barrels" instead?
The carrier of the Lightships would would carry spares while busy cooling the used ones.
This may allow you to do more than one shot during battle.
Of course the said carrier would also cost points but it won't be horrendous in that aspect.
You don't need to worry about keeping the carrier on the "battlefield", either. I just need to be a bit more flexible when describing the combat zone, including some details even outside of it.
On the other hand I won't allow players to launch hyperspace-capable torpedoes and such from outside the combat zone. That'd be too cheap.

[WilsonTurner]

Of no, of course not. The closest I'll be going with hyperspace missiles are Devastator 1/2s, the D1 being slightly more powerful than your standard nuclear WMD with a sublight drive attached, and the D2 being significantly more powerful with a sublight drive attached.

Obviously expensive, but they'd only be present on Dreadnoughts or Missile Cruisers. The majority of missiles will just be nuclear or Shrike (which are kind of like HEAT shells from a 76mm barreled tank as opposed to HE shells from a 150mm barreled tank- like HEAT from a Sherman tank as opposed to HE from a KV-2)

Cirrus-class ships are meant for espoinage and striking critical enemies- such as finding the weakness of the flagship, and then shooting that at an angle to try and hit where the reactors should be, because no reactors, equals no ship, really.

They'd be the one who finds out your fleet before I find out mine. Could there be like a special ability? Where if I send a Cirrus first, I can pick where I come out in relation to the enemy fleet, at a purposely advantageous position, because they can do that and still surprise them?

But multiple barrels would also be difficult. The barrel has to hold against extreme heat- like really extreme, from void-cold to vaporize-a-diamond in a couple seconds. The redundancy would obviously be useful, but that means the barrel isn't as firmly connected to the ship, which means there's more room of it messing up and malfunctioning, and tearing itself apart.

But the laser itself is really just a big hunk of electronics, lightly covered/armored with some really big cables connected to the reactor and batteries. Replacing the laser itself- perhaps each shot is so powerful that it actually fries the device- would be much more likely.

[Willy Vereb]

Of no, of course not. The closest I'll be going with hyperspace missiles are Devastator 1/2s, the D1 being slightly more powerful than your standard nuclear WMD with a sublight drive attached, and the D2 being significantly more powerful with a sublight drive attached.

Obviously expensive, but they'd only be present on Dreadnoughts or Missile Cruisers. The majority of missiles will just be nuclear or Shrike (which are kind of like HEAT shells from a 76mm barreled tank as opposed to HE shells from a 150mm barreled tank- like HEAT from a Sherman tank as opposed to HE from a KV-2)

@WilsonTurner

Standard nukes would be 50 in power as for significantly more powerful, that's rather vague here.
Stats don't mean anything but that X is stronger than Y.
If you really try to imagine what they mean try some exponential scale.
Like that 10 points difference means 10 times, 20 points equal 100 times and so on...
As I said it isn't set but I do use a similar scale to this in my mind when evaluating the ships' power.

And don't worry, my torpedoes are basically cruise missiles or ICBMS in size and effectively they have the same technology as starships.
Thus many torpedoes are Warp-capable to travel interplanetary distances fast till they get closer to the target.
Torpedoes with their own point-defenses aren't exactly out of question, either. Though these are generally considered redundant.

Cirrus-class ships are meant for espoinage and striking critical enemies- such as finding the weakness of the flagship, and then shooting that at an angle to try and hit where the reactors should be, because no reactors, equals no ship, really.

Well, ships can also have redundant reactors (especially the kind which doesn't blow the whole vessel up in the process).
Still, disabling the main reactor reduces the enemy ship's fighting power considerably.
Since this is the second war, your crew might have knowledge on the weak points of most enemy vessels already.
Even if your civ would be newcomer to the war, I can't see the Dominion not instructing you how to employ your weapons the best against the enemy.

They'd be the one who finds out your fleet before I find out mine. Could there be like a special ability? Where if I send a Cirrus first, I can pick where I come out in relation to the enemy fleet, at a purposely advantageous position, because they can do that and still surprise them?

Well, in most situations finding the enemy fleet won't be too difficult.
I'd wager that most radars and sensors in general will be superluminal in this RP.
But let's say that you need tospot your targets.
I think you don't need explicit pre-battle phase to do this.
Just mention the Lightships scouting the area or even spying on the enemy fleet right at the moment.
Narrative would work well enough here.

But multiple barrels would also be difficult. The barrel has to hold against extreme heat- like really extreme, from void-cold to vaporize-a-diamond in a couple seconds. The redundancy would obviously be useful, but that means the barrel isn't as firmly connected to the ship, which means there's more room of it messing up and malfunctioning, and tearing itself apart.

But the laser itself is really just a big hunk of electronics, lightly covered/armored with some really big cables connected to the reactor and batteries. Replacing the laser itself- perhaps each shot is so powerful that it actually fries the device- would be much more likely.

That was another alternative I was thinking about but wasn't sure if you take that venture.
So the carrier would literally give you spare guns after each use.
Downtime would be equal to what you need for the switch and other repairs.

[WilsonTurner]

I guess that would work.

Like anti-material rifle that needs the chamber to be replaced after each shot, because the amount of power inside the shell leads to the barrel itself being damaged.

Also added a Dreadnought and Orbital Support Cruiser.

[Willy Vereb]

I guess that would work.

Like anti-material rifle that needs the chamber to be replaced after each shot, because the amount of power inside the shell leads to the barrel itself being damaged.

Also added a Dreadnought and Orbital Support Cruiser.

@WilsonTurner

took a quick glance at them.
Even if it's too slow/inaccurate to be useful against ships you should include the mass accelerator for the light cruiser.
Speaking of which your light cruiser has the same stats as your Dreadnought.
I'd bet that was just a little oversight from you.

[WilsonTurner]

Yup, I copy/paste and edit from there

[Willy Vereb]

Speaking of which, I need to work on my ship profiles, too.
I at least want 2-3 fighters and 5-7 warships to my list.

On a different note we have 2 dominion, 2 FPA and one unaligned profiles.
If everybody made a decent number of ship profiles we can begin preparing for the first scenario.

[WilsonTurner]

Here are the basic Hocklyn designations for ships, from smallest to largest:

- Attack Corvette
< Yachts {Non-military}
- Frigate
- Destroyer
< Cruise Ships {Non-military}
- Light Cruiser
< Cargo ships {Non-military}
- Cruiser
< Heavy Freighter ships {Non-military}
- Dreadnought
- Carrier
- Superheavy Dreadnought

Unlikely I'll have a Superheavy any time soon. Looking for a good Carrier pic, though.

[Durandal]

@Willy Vereb

Shall I move my profile over to here now?

[Keyguyperson]

I finished my first ship!

I don't know why, because it's so insane that I'll never have enough battlepoints to use it.

Also, don't question my weapons classification system. It's something about lots of quarks. Or some BS like that. BIG NUMBERZ MEENZ BIG EXPLOSHUNZ.

United Federation of Terragen Species

United Federation of Terragen Species

Free Planets Alliance

Faction Overview
The United Federation of Terragen Species is a bureaucratic mess of God knows how many independent nation states, stretching across a vast area of space. There is technically a centralized government, a High Council meant to represent the interests of all the Federation. Each nation sends a delegate, and all delegates get a number of votes equal to the total population of their nation, mainly because there wasn't anyone willing to do the math to bring the number of votes down to a reasonable number. This system was meant to provide equal representation to all peoples in the Federation, however, things got complicated when the humans (whom founded the Federation) uplifted and created other Terran species, all of whom had wildly different mindsets.

The Dolphins, for instance, didn't consider anyone not part of their working population to be a person. Some other primate species ended up counting domesticated animals as part of their population, and the Elephants kept insisting that their dead still counted as people. Then there was the fact that countless intelligent bird species were split over whether or not eggs should count as part of their population, as were uplifted marsupials on the subject of babies developing in the pouch.

Eventually, these problems were solved over the course of a mere century, thanks to the absolute clusterfuck that is Federal politics. At this point, the humans had begun to field ships made to support multispecies crews, including aquatic and land species together. Human crew members were horrified to continually find murdered dolphin newborns floating in the water, and even more horrified when the fact that this was a perfectly normal dolphin mating ritual became common knowledge.

Then, of course, old human servant genetic constructs kept on being accused of being nothing more than human puppets. The problem of whether or not people who put their very consciousness into a planetary network should be counted as a person became a serious problem as well, along with the question of whether or not extinct species should be resurrected and brought into the Federation. Inevitably, they were, and now nobody knows what counts as human because all the hominids kept having sex.

Even worse, nobody has any idea how many nations there are in the Federation. Some delegates just don't show up at meetings, despite seats being reserved for them. Others walk in wearing an official-looking suit and claim to be a delegate. Generally, these claims are accepted and denied based off of how many votes their claim to have. This resulted in an awkward situation in which a new dolphin delegate showed up and said he had twice the number of votes of any other dolphin nation. Turns out it was completely correct, and no human knows why because they make it a point to not ask about dolphin reproduction. Ever.

Wars are generally only declared if a core nation is attacked, because otherwise, nobody will know anything happened unless they happened to know the delegate of some nation that hasn't shown up in a few months. An entire nation could be wiped off the map, and nobody would care because the humans were holding their something-or-otherth annual some-kind-of-spot tournament.

Despite being a giant mess, the Federation has generally noble intentions, and there is surprisingly little direct internal conflict (until we get to the sexual assault laws and the humans and dolphins almost go to war five times in one week). When the Council actually gets something done, it's usually something good. They usually try to help other nations, and they usually get nothing more than a gold "You tried" sticker, but at least they can wear that sticker knowing it's 100% true.

How many species are there in the Federation? Go and count, because nobody keeps records. Every nation is constantly genetically engineering new species to do stuff for them, and those genetically engineered species are constantly getting freed by all the other nations in competition with that nation. Even the original members are hard to count, since "Things with wings" and "Things with arms" don't exactly count as species.

Over the centuries (or maybe eons, or some amount of time, the council keeps terrible records), the core nations (Which form the majority of the military) have adopted similar ideologies, usually based off of the human one. They generally consider all members of all species equal, and will always step in to help other nations if they believe that they are being unjustly oppressed. In these core nations, the different species tend to accept their differences instead of hating each other for them.

These core nations also happen to have the highest population, highest GDP, highest population density, highest Sentient Development Index, etc. Being the most stable part of the Federation, other nations tend to view them as the Federation itself, ignoring the thousands of tiny states on the outskirts of Federal space. What we're trying to say is that they more or less own the Federation entirely in every conceivable way.

Technology Overview
The United Federation of Terragen Species has one main focus on their weaponry: beam weapons. Main spinal weapons? Beams. Large turrets? Beams. Point-defense? Beams. Infantry weapons? Beams. Fighter weapons? Beams. Vehicle weapons? Beams. The most common weapon is the Quantum-Level Gluon Disturber. Which, aside from sounding totally awesome, creates a totally awesome blue beam (or red if you happen to be an antagonist). It is one of the most versatile weapons known to the Terragen species, and can be adapted for nearly any size and role. Infantry weapons tend to be modular, with only the central firing unit being the same in all models. They can be adapted for nearly all species to hold, and quickly adapted for any role. Sniper rifles and be turned into assault weapons with a flick of a switch and a quick scope replacement. These weapons are extremely effective against armor and hull, but shielded ships tend to sigh in relief as the beams just bounce off. If the angle is right, you can get some pretty sick lightshows, with the beams bouncing off of shields until the energy dissipates.

For secondary weapons, the Terragens use missiles. Not big, deadly, fleet-killing nukes, mind you. More like small little warheads with engines. Thousands. Thousands of small little warheads with engines. Engines that happen to leave blue trails since they use argon plasma. These missiles carry payloads designed to tear down shields, since they already have enough "Breaking enemy ships into their elementary particles". However, sufficient flak defenses can take a toll on these insane and ridiculous missile swarms.

For defenses, the UFTS uses shields exclusively. They consider armor to be a massive waste of weight, and instead utilize superheavy shield devices. Capital ships have dozens of crisscrossing shield layers, grouped into different shield typed themselves. The first set of layers are the usual "Shoot enough and they go away until they can slowly regenerate". The second set of layers are the equally common "Shoot enough and they go away until they aren't shot for some amount of time, at which point they come back rapidly". Finally, we have the third set of layers, which is made up of "Conversion Shields", shields which convert incoming fire into usable energy for the shields itself. These are extremely durable shields, but when they're overloaded, that's it. If the overload is catastrophic, it may cause the shield units to explode, destroying the ship. Needless to say, if you happen to be able to bypass shields, then the Federal fleet is going to have to run. Not that they will. Terragens are either stupid, stubborn, or both (probably both).

Terragen military doctrine calls for giant capital ships designed to stomp all over enemy ships using extremely liberal doses of beam spam. Fighters are rarely used for offense, instead being used to defend the capital ships until they can fire their spinal beam weapons and vaporize, well, anything in the way.

Spacecraft Overview
this is where you post your Spaceship profiles. Fighters and other small craft also need their own profiles but you can cut a few corners on those.

"Pride of Terra" Mothership [+]

Name: "Pride of Terra" Mothership (Or, as it is known among drunk crewmen, the "Supahdupahdreadnought")
Dimensions: 9km Long (if it's the typical elongated design it's enough if you just write down the ship's length)
Crew: 40,540. (How many people operate this ship, ignore it for drones or one-man fighters)
Battle Points: (how many battle points this spacecraft costs? Leave it blank until the GMs decide this value)
(You can share many other info with us here but these are the basics, mass of the ship is a common info, for example)

Spacecraft Attributes
Hull: 70 (How tough is your ship?)
Powerplant: 100 (How much energy your ship has?)
Shields: 100 (How good are your shields?)
Speed: 20 (How fast your ships can go?)
Maneuverability: 5 (How agile is your ship?)
Sensors: 60 (How good are your sensors and how far they reach?)

(These stats range from 0 to 100 and their meaning are abstract. Somebody with 70 speed is faster than other ship with 50, that's all.)

Weapons
(You list the ship's weapons here, I'm giving you an example)

1,000.0e+100q Gluon Disturber/Antiproton Lance
Count: 1 (how many of these you have on the ship)
Power: 100 (how strong is the cannon, can be directly compared to Hull and Shields attributes)
Description: The 10.0e+100q Gluon Disturber/Antiproton Lance is the most powerful weapon ever designed by the Terragen Federation. It is a weapon designed to disintegrate entire enemy dreadnoughts with a single shot, and rumor has it that there is even a protocol to destroy a planet with it if needed. Thanks to the countless hours taken by Terragen scientists to devise a hybrid antiproton/gluon disturber beam weapon, it is fully effective against shielding as well.

100.0e+100q Gluon Disturber/Antiproton Rings
Count: 10
Power: 80
Description: These ten weapon rings are connected to the central lance itself, and thus utilize the same hybrid firing system. They are meant to destroy only the largest and slowest of targets, since the required time for the energy to buildup and fire is too long for it to target small and nimble vessels.

10.0e+1,000q Gluon Disturber/Antiproton Rings
Count: 40
Power: 50
Description: You know the drill, connected connected blah blah blah. These rings, however, are meant to take out relatively small vessels. Like battlecruisers.
(But no, seriously, these are the things that blow up frigates and destroyers and stuff)

Point-Defenses: 1.0e+100q Gluon Disturber/Antiproton Rings
Count: 250
Power: 15
Description: They're connected to the main system. You should know that already. Pulsed Gluon Disturber/Antiproton Rings used to destroy incoming fighters and missiles. These weapons are mounted on ring-like projectors all across the hull, with the ring itself being the weapon. Energy is sent to a specific area on the ring and fired in pulses using a complex system of shield projectors, all in less than a second. Thanks to this system, they essentially have a nearly 360 degree firing arc.

General Description
(Tell us about your ship. No need to write a novel but at least let us know how to imagine it.)
The Mothership is just that: The mothership of all Terragen forces. When not devastating enemy ships, it takes up a support role for the fleet. It refines fuel, grows food (The giant saucer isn't just dead weight, you know), and even builds warships to replenish the fleet (GMOS grow fast, so there's still plenty of extra space in that saucer). In battle, the ship shifts all power to its forward shields and charges straight towards the enemy fleet, firing it's lance all the way. If the shield were to fail, the saucer section (Still extra room) would act as ablative armor, taking the damage until the ship makes it into the range of the rest of its weapons (The shield has never failed, so nobody actually knows how effective this would be). At this point, the captain of the ship usually issues a "fire at will order" and the gunners have a field day. In order to protect its "spindly" (Actually pretty decent, the ship's just really huge), it uses, you guessed it: shields.

There is only one Pride of Terra class in the entire Terragen fleet, and it is thus almost never deployed in battle. Why hasn't anyone built more? They have. There are two more under construction in the Sol system. One of them is planned to launch in a year or so, and the other is halfway through the construction of its keel. It will also be complete in one year. The keel, I mean. Did I mention that these ships are big?

((I know exactly what I'm getting into here, and I know that this thing will cost literally over 9000 battle points, but maybe I'll bring it in if you see fit to make the biggest and most ridiculous battle in all of history. Or maybe, touched by the insanity of this ship, you make a separate thread dedicated to fighting it.))

((That last bit was a joke.))

((But would be totally hilarious.))

Known Fleets
The Federation is so disorganized that the only fleets the Council knows of are the ones that have done awesome, heroic things. Since the Federation hasn't done anything interesting in forever, nobody actually knows how many fleets the Federation has. Outlying nations don't even know if it has any.

[Durandal]

Meesa like.

[WilsonTurner]

lol

The Hocklyns would see it and jury-rig half a dozen Cirruses together so they can blast a hole through it.

The resulting beam would probably kill all the shields and then overload the third layer. Especially if the third layer was the only one up, and the ship wasn't expecting a battle, and the ship was using the conversion shield as solar panels.

It'd just be "whadafuckwadat" and then "whadafuckwadatshakin'" and then "whadafuckwhaiwe'splodin'?"

Or maybe one can just board the ship.

Or use a really powerful EMP

[Keyguyperson]

Or maybe one can just board the ship.

@WilsonTurner

"Report?"

"We teleported into a waste disposal tank. My head is currently underneath five mauled baby dolphin corpses."

"What the fu-"

"Don't question it."

Meesa like.

@Durandal

That lance is a bombad boomba.

[WilsonTurner]

When somebody makes the technology to take a person's consciousness and put it on a computer, I'm going to volunteer. Life is crap.

js.

[Keyguyperson]

When somebody makes the technology to take a person's consciousness and put it on a computer, I'm going to volunteer. Life is crap.

js.

@WilsonTurner

I'd upload myself into a robotic body. Live forever, all that jazz. I'd divvy up processing power between working on shizz like warp drive, and use the rest to play video games. That way I can be lazy and wait for interesting things to happen, while helping those interesting things actually happen!

Plus, I'd live forever. So I could wait forever for interesting things to happen!

Or just go into standby mode while waiting for them!

TECHNOLOGY IS AWESOME!