We Do Not Come in Peace [Closed][OOC/Planning]

[Excidium Planetis]

Float Forest
Massive mats of vegetation on the Seas provide shelter for life and function as floating islands. The Float Forests are home to most of the Birrin, who dwell in cities built upon these living platforms. The nation of Tenzeni, now administrated by the Industrial Coalition, consists of several Float Forests on the largest southern sea. The Southern Chey nations also host many Float Forest territories, and in the northern hemisphere Kaybor does as well.

How much weight do you think those Platforms can hold?
I ask because I want to know if a Grand Praetor would Sink if I tried to deploy one on it.

Given that they can hold entire cities, I'm pretty sure they can support a tank. Then again, how much do your tanks weigh? The weight distribution might be such that they sink into the "ground".

Arctic
The pole regions are cold, tundra and ice caps. The Northern nation of Kendi inhabits much of the Northern tundra regions, but the southern pole is desolate wasteland.

I get the feeling there is going to be something seriously going down at the Southern Pole.

[Tinfect]

Given that they can hold entire cities, I'm pretty sure they can support a tank. Then again, how much do your tanks weigh? The weight distribution might be such that they sink into the "ground".

Well, the Grand Praetor is 300 Tons.
So, uh. Yeah.

[Singaporean Transhumans]

was i accepted

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Well, the Cossacks will arrive in some ungodly number of various shuttles, company-sized transports and personal craft. I'll say the ataman's got his hands on a light cruiser from somewhere to give them a little covering fire. We'll call it the Potop. If it ever had a class, it forgot about it a long time ago.

The two regular mercenary groups will be arriving in the Merciless Macdonwald (a retired heavy transport cruiser) for Gordon's men and the Grom (a commerce raider) for Kulik's crowd.

The Cossack host is divided as such:
40,000 Cossacks in total
-Four divisions of 10,000 divided into 400 Sotnias of 1,000 Cossacks each
--Three combat divisions, one logistical division
--Effective combat strength divided as such:
-17,000 infantrymen of various equippage (including field artillery)
-10,000 cavalrymen of various equippage (primarily light cavalry)
-3,000 artillerymen
The remaining 10,000 Cossacks can act as infantry as required, but generally fill support roles.

Gordon's Brigade:
7,500 men:
250 Heavy Cavalry
500 Dragoons
1,000 Artillerymen
1,250 Grenadiers
4,500 Infantrymen

Kulik's Bombardiers:
2,500 men operating an armored brigade divided as such:
400 tanks (50 heavy tanks, 250 cruiser tanks, 100 battle tanks)
100 cavalrymen, primarily dragoons

[Excidium Planetis]

Well, Singapore's proxy is deploying 103,400 troops and 1698 Tanks.

There goes my hope for an easy ground victory.

Given that they can hold entire cities, I'm pretty sure they can support a tank. Then again, how much do your tanks weigh? The weight distribution might be such that they sink into the "ground".

Well, the Grand Praetor is 300 Tons.
So, uh. Yeah.

As long as they stick to urban areas, they should be fine. Not sure how useful they'll be in the cities though.

Most likely most of their use will be on the plains of Kaybor and/or the Southern Chey Confederation.

[Excidium Planetis]

Alright, we come to the issue of size...
As already stated, the largest ships we have deployed are two 3 kilometer cruise ships. The largest military vessel we have deployed is 2050 meters. Unless I am mistaken, everyone should be okay with those.

Tinfect has deployed ships roughly the same size as mine, with his capital ships coming in at 1.6 and 2 kilometers, and most of the rest being between 400 and 1200 meters.

Apophan's Clan Xaphaii is deploying a 2925 meter flagship, with smaller 2 kilometer-ish vessels. These are reasonable and within normal range.

The Usea Federation (which is really an Aeiouian puppet) is apparently deploying a 7 kilometer flagship with smaller 1 kilometer ships, but given their decoy status I am not sure if they actually have that ship. Anyways, 7 kilometers is large, but not ridiculously so for a flagship.

I am either unable or too lazy to find data on the length of other vessels. Now, here is the problems:

Aeiouia has deployed a single Turing Class vessel, which is 80 kilometers long. This is obviously much larger than anyone else's ships so far. However, Aeiouia has rather pitiful offensive weapons on their ships, and loathes taking sapient lives, so I don't see the vessel's size as an issue except that they are stupidly hard to destroy. However, I would like your input on this... I don't want anyone upset about ridiculously large ships.

Which brings me to Estruia, who wants to join. Estruia plans to deploy only two vessels, but they are 440 kilometer long combat vessels. I don't have a real issue with this (they would make a good match up for Aeiouia's vessel, I think). But since these 440 kilometer ships probably each have a volume greater than the combined total of all other ships in the RP, I feel that most if not all of the RPers here should have to approve of these vessels before I can allow Estruia to use them.

[Tinfect]

Which brings me to Estruia, who wants to join. Estruia plans to deploy only two vessels, but they are 440 kilometer long combat vessels. I don't have a real issue with this (they would make a good match up for Aeiouia's vessel, I think). But since these 440 kilometer ships probably each have a volume greater than the combined total of all other ships in the RP, I feel that most if not all of the RPers here should have to approve of these vessels before I can allow Estruia to use them.

That, is a bit much. I don't mind Supercaps in small numbers, but at that scale nothing short of a Plametcracker will be able to actually damage it. I suggest keeping it under 100 Kilometers, if you must deploy ships of such impossible scale.

[The Second Brotherhood of Planets]

To clarify (because I leave this vague on purpose), the only Bro whale present is the Osiris at 3.5 km. Triumph class star destroyers are not quite whales at 1.1 km. All other ships are classified as 'small' capital ships ranging from 600 to 200 meters.

[Menelmacar]

The Nirnaeth Arnoediad is about eight kilometers long. She's one of a class that currently numbers two (2) ships. Eventually there will be more, but not now. That's a big as my warships will get for the foreseeable future.

Now when you're talking about a 440 km ship, let's put things into perspective. You're basically talking about starlifting the entire state of Iowa, and flying it around as a combat vessel. What do you even do with that much volume? Why do you need it? How does it maneuver? How does it keep from collapsing into a sphere under its own mass? What kind of crew does it require? And good god the logistics, the engineer responsible for internal communications alone has a job comparable to maintaining the entire Internet.

But beyond all that the main question for me is why? Why build a warship that big? What mission profile could conceivably require it?

I feel similarly about 80 km ships, but they're not quite as bad. The Reckoner I actually rather like, it's well thought out and isn't a warship anyway so much as a mobile O'Neill cylinder. It's got a legitimate reason for its size, housing basically the whole Excidian population.

[The Second Brotherhood of Planets]

In Estruia's defense, part of our "alliance" involves containing a third party that regularly fields large numbers of ships that are hundreds of miles long. One needs a sizable stick to bat away hundreds of those things.

[Tinfect]

I feel similarly about 80 km ships, but they're not quite as bad.

I'll jump in here to try and explain, Aeiouia is a Transcendent Civilization of Sapient, and Post-Sapience Artificial Intelligence. The Turing, is, for the most part, Armour, and Redundant Systems. It's hardly armed at all, even if it does not seem like it. While it does have a properly insane number of weapons, they are all incredibly weak Point Defense systems. Barely capable of shooting down a Fighter, or Missile, they'll be next to worthless against any actual combat vessels.

As for the 440 Kilometer ship, we are in full agreement.

[The Ctan]

Eh, Aeiouia won't be the the only nation containing 'hah umpteen-singularities have passed since the first' AIs littered with OA references around here, there's me! Reading the description it looks like something I'll enjoy shooting at ICly. I'm just presuming their generators' energy density is an order of magnitude worse than mine. I'd not have built it so big (or given its function maybe I would, but I'd make it spindlier) but it'll hardly matter I think.

Stellar Component

The largest of the vessels described is eight kilometers and shaped approximately as a slim crescent shaped disc. Other warships are between one and six kilometers keel length, typically. They're covered in some places on the documents linked in the sign-up but tend to be similarly quality-over-numbers; this expedition consists of 10% of the C'tani navy as it was prior to the ongoing tranche of large scale expansion.

Commander, Stellar: Fleetmind using personality sub-entity of the Meravaid

Primary Craft:

• 1 Barrow-pattern Tomb Ship.
• 8 Arnstoan Rhien-pattern harvest ships
• 1 Khopesh-pattern light cruisers
• 4 Cloak-pattern light cruisers
• 10 Hound-pattern raiders
• 10 Lament-pattern raiders

Secondary Independent Craft:

• 32 light troop transports
• 16 heavy troop transports
• 8 decoy heavy troop transports
• 16 decoy light troop transports
• 20 superlifters, various types.

Trans-atmospheric Component

Trans-atmospheric forces (forces designed primarily to operate in atmospheric conditions) are generally deployed using portals to landing craft and vessels, and are deployed from military installations via these. Therefore the craft described as troop transports are more beach-head vessels, containing battalion-scale or thereabouts units. The transports are disposable, and intended to land and contain theater shield generators and similar useful things for ground combat, and to serve as beach-heads for large vehicles.

The overall force, under the command of Nemesor Anatirakh ita Aravakh, consists of approximately fourteen divisions of conventional ground units, fully mechanized and with relevant aerospace, self-replication and combined arms support.

[Aeiouia]

I feel similarly about 80 km ships, but they're not quite as bad. The Reckoner I actually rather like, it's well thought out and isn't a warship anyway so much as a mobile O'Neill cylinder. It's got a legitimate reason for its size, housing basically the whole Excidian population.

To note, the 80km Turing actually has a bit more mass than even what you would expect. Aeiouian vessels are usually roughly the same size on all axis. The reason for this size is due to the fact that we cram a ridiculous amount of armor into their designs, and the actual internal workings of the ship are tiny. Though there are multiple redundant backups of them.

Logistics are handled in our ships easily due to the fact that they are un-crewed and completely automated. Hand-waved "Exotic Matter" materials that are lighter than air but stronger than pretty much anything else are used to explain why we do not have to worry about gravitational and tidal forces on our ships.

It should be noted that the Turing, along with most of our other ship classes, is actually completely harmless. Just incredibly difficult to actually damage, let alone destroy. It will take a lot of prolonged heavy fire from the enemy forces to even begin damaging it, but its attacks are so pathetic that it might as well not be there at all.

But, if that ship is a bit too godmoddy, I can swap it out for a 12km Dyson-Class, or a 5km Dark Dawn-Class. Though, the latter would not make too much sense. Since it is a civilian ship.

[Menelmacar]

Yeah, the Turing in particular I'm not concerned really. To use a WoW analogy, Aeiouia seems to be what happens when an entire civilization dumps every last talent point into a tank spec.

[Excidium Planetis]

It should be noted that the Turing, along with most of our other ship classes, is actually completely harmless.

I wouldn't say "completely harmless"... 700 kilowatt lasers add up, and if you fire enough at a target you can do damage... Like killing a few dozen of my starfighter "pilots".

But, if that ship is a bit too godmoddy, I can swap it out for a 12km Dyson-Class, or a 5km Dark Dawn-Class. Though, the latter would not make too much sense. Since it is a civilian ship.

Did your Dysons shrink? I could have sworn they were 15 kilometers...

Also, that is a badass name for a civilian vessel. Where can I buy some for Dawn Fleet? (Oddly enough, with Dawn Star captured, Dark Star is set to replace the Military Warp Ship in Dawn Fleet... Making it Dark Dawn Fleet.)

[Excidium Planetis]

In Estruia's defense, part of our "alliance" involves containing a third party that regularly fields large numbers of ships that are hundreds of miles long. One needs a sizable stick to bat away hundreds of those things.

Or you can just field one thousand 4 kilometer ships for the price of one USS literally Iowa. And I bet the one thousand 4 kilometer ships could wreck the one several hundred kilometer long vessel any day of the week.

[Estruia]

The Nirnaeth Arnoediad is about eight kilometers long. She's one of a class that currently numbers two (2) ships. Eventually there will be more, but not now. That's a big as my warships will get for the foreseeable future.

Now when you're talking about a 440 km ship, let's put things into perspective. You're basically talking about starlifting the entire state of Iowa, and flying it around as a combat vessel. What do you even do with that much volume? Why do you need it? How does it maneuver? How does it keep from collapsing into a sphere under its own mass? What kind of crew does it require? And good god the logistics, the engineer responsible for internal communications alone has a job comparable to maintaining the entire Internet.

But beyond all that the main question for me is why? Why build a warship that big? What mission profile could conceivably require it?

I feel similarly about 80 km ships, but they're not quite as bad. The Reckoner I actually rather like, it's well thought out and isn't a warship anyway so much as a mobile O'Neill cylinder. It's got a legitimate reason for its size, housing basically the whole Excidian population.

My apologies for the late response! I just got home from my final class of the day. I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability!

1. My Hyacinth-class Battlecruisers aren't so much Ships, as they are mobile Combat Stations.
2. What do I do with that kind of volume? I use them to establish a zone of control, from which I can deploy ground forces, smaller combat craft (think of a "Space" equivalent of fighters and bombers, etc) and act in support of my allies, as opposed to taking an aggressive, front-line position.
3. Why build a Warship of such size? Because of Estruia's history. As our friends, the Brotherhood, mentioned, we have had to deal with a third party who fields hundreds of vessels of similar size. We have fought several conflicts with the previously mentioned power, resulting in Estruia's current military doctrine. Additionally, we are not an active military power; we deploy a single (four at most) ship to a combat zone and use that as a bridgehead for other combat maneuvers.
4. How do we keep it from collapsing? Lots and lots of hull reinforcement and an internal structure that is akin to a Beehive, where the stress and strain is spread across hundreds of thousands of reinforced surfaces.
5. The Crew that the Hyacinth-class Battlecruiser is quite large. I have never put a defined number on its crew, as I have never needed to. It also depends on the mission that the vessel is being tasked with and the anticipated environment it will be in.
6. The logistics are outrageous. There's a reason why a single ship has a fleet of 30 vessels dedicated solely to keeping it adequately supplied. Logistics is also the Achilles heel of my ship. It is quite easy to disrupt its supply lines and render it useless under the right circumstances.
7. Maneuverability with the Hyacinth-class of ships isn't easy. It is a slow vessel when at sublight speeds. Combat maneuverability is different, as it has weapon systems placed so that they provided a covering field of fire, which allows it to spin or twirl (albeit it slowly) to meet incoming threats. It is also vulnerable when attacked from the rear or from the bottom, when it is fully deployed. For clarification purposes, the Hyacinth-class is deployed upright, with the bow pointed upward (if that can even really be called "upward" in space.)


I *think* I answered everything. However, if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask!

Edit: I should also note that the vast majority of the weaponry on the Hyacinth-class Battlecruiser is defensive weaponry. Only the Bow-mounted Railguns and the Missile systems have the range capable of being truly offensive weapons. The Coil Nodes are a dual-role system, which are considered short-range offensive/defensive systems. Again, the main killing power of the Hyacinth-class are its Railguns, which are mounted on the bow of the ship.

[Aeiouia]

I wouldn't say "completely harmless"... 700 kilowatt lasers add up, and if you fire enough at a target you can do damage... Like killing a few dozen of my starfighter "pilots".

That is true, and in fact, our point defenses have had a major update with all of the tech that we have captured (Mainly something that we got from Tinfect in another RP, however). Though, it is kept at bay by the fact that we do not intentionally take lethal shots at anything.

Did your Dysons shrink? I could have sworn they were 15 kilometers...

Actually, you are right. They are fifteen kilometres. I have no idea what made me say twelve. My apologies.

Also, that is a badass name for a civilian vessel. Where can I buy some for Dawn Fleet? (Oddly enough, with Dawn Star captured, Dark Star is set to replace the Military Warp Ship in Dawn Fleet... Making it Dark Dawn Fleet.)

Aeiouia does not sell ships as of right now. But, I have the idea of opening up a storefront at some point. Probably after this RP. Due to Aeiouia's pacifistic nature, do not expect to find anything military-related on it, however. Probably a lot of medical and construction stuff, along with some Rule of Funny things.

The name "Dark Dawn" is actually an inside joke amongst Tinfect, Orzic Nedbens and myself. Though, it works in-canon. Since the Dark Dawn-Class is heavily based off of the Morning Star-Class, the vessel of which we got the design from obviously being the Dawn Star.

Or you can just field one thousand 4 kilometer ships for the price of one USS literally Iowa. And I bet the one thousand 4 kilometer ships could wreck the one several hundred kilometer long vessel any day of the week.

Aeiouia is too oblivious (And intentionally coded not to) to realize this, and we go for utterly cripplingly extreme levels of Quality Over Quantity instead. Were we able to actually attack, our forces would probably consist of thousands of kinetic warheads with FTL drives attached to them.

[Estruia]

In Estruia's defense, part of our "alliance" involves containing a third party that regularly fields large numbers of ships that are hundreds of miles long. One needs a sizable stick to bat away hundreds of those things.

Or you can just field one thousand 4 kilometer ships for the price of one USS literally Iowa. And I bet the one thousand 4 kilometer ships could wreck the one several hundred kilometer long vessel any day of the week.

That was my initial response to the individual that the Bros mentioned. However, we found out rather quickly that such a tactic was pointless, when you were dealing with someone who was fielding hundreds, if not thousands of ships that were twice the size of the Hyacinth-class Battlecruiser. Yes, we were and are not dealing with someone who has placed their faith in scientific realism.

As I said in our TG, I can come up with alternatives if need be.

[Singaporean Transhumans]

Well, Singapore's proxy is deploying 103,400 troops and 1698 Tanks.

There goes my hope for an easy ground victory.

Well, most of the tanks are T-55s with some coating against energy weaponry (but still, they're pathetic), and the troops are severely outclassed compared to everyone else. We'll rely on numbers so we don't get outgunned that early.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

I feel like the scale of the response to this incident is out of proportion. The combined value of the ships that are going to be lost here will probably exceed the GDP of the planet they're fighting over, while the stray fire will cook whatever natives are left over anyway. We've gone beyond 'send some chaps to slap those slavers about a bit' into 'basically a full blown war.' I'd suggest that perhaps 'contributions' be limited to something more on scale with a conflict between corporate mercenaries and government enforcement agencies, rather than full-blown military responses to what is, ultimately, a very minor incident in a galaxy full of lovecraftian terrors that eat more populous planets than this on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

[Allanea]

My ships are a bit larger than Menelmacar's, but they're comparable to them in capability.

This is because Allaneans are not quite up to Menelmacar's tech level, and they require larger engines and larger ships to achieve the same sort of energy outputs as the Menelmacari.

[Excidium Planetis]

Or you can just field one thousand 4 kilometer ships for the price of one USS literally Iowa. And I bet the one thousand 4 kilometer ships could wreck the one several hundred kilometer long vessel any day of the week.

That was my initial response to the individual that the Bros mentioned. However, we found out rather quickly that such a tactic was pointless, when you were dealing with someone who was fielding hundreds, if not thousands of ships that were twice the size of the Hyacinth-class Battlecruiser. Yes, we were and are not dealing with someone who has placed their faith in scientific realism.

As I said in our TG, I can come up with alternatives if need be.

I fail to see how one 440 kilometer vessel can stand up to "hundreds, if not thousands" of similarly sized vessels. One ship versus hundreds or thousands of gigantic warships? It would die likely easier than 1000 much smaller warships.

And if you are fielding hundreds of your own 440 kilometer ships, why not instead field literally millions of 4 kilometer vessels, which would be significantly harder to hit than a few large targets, and could still bring the same amount of firepower to bear on the enemy?

1. My Hyacinth-class Battlecruisers aren't so much Ships, as they are mobile Combat Stations.

Why would you need a mobile combat station that large? You could fit the entire population of Earth on that thing, and cram every combat vehicles ever built by humans on it too.

2. What do I do with that kind of volume? I use them to establish a zone of control, from which I can deploy ground forces, smaller combat craft (think of a "Space" equivalent of fighters and bombers, etc) and act in support of my allies, as opposed to taking an aggressive, front-line position.

You need what is basically a reasonably sized country just to deploy ground forces and fighters? Our troops are taking over an entire planet with only a handful of vessels 3 kilometers and under.

3. Why build a Warship of such size? Because of Estruia's history. As our friends, the Brotherhood, mentioned, we have had to deal with a third party who fields hundreds of vessels of similar size. We have fought several conflicts with the previously mentioned power, resulting in Estruia's current military doctrine. Additionally, we are not an active military power; we deploy a single (four at most) ship to a combat zone and use that as a bridgehead for other combat maneuvers.

Again, that tactic is extremely inefficient. The reason we field starfighters is because even if we lose 100 starfighters taking out one capital ship, it is still cheaper than losing one capital ship to take out one capital ship. Of course, for ships with defenses heavy enough to defeat our starfighters, we need our cruisers and dreadnoughts for larger weapons systems, but I can't conceive of any weapon so large that it would need to be on a ship 440 kilometers long.

4. How do we keep it from collapsing? Lots and lots of hull reinforcement and an internal structure that is akin to a Beehive, where the stress and strain is spread across hundreds of thousands of reinforced surfaces.

Except that the hull reinforcement adds more mass, requiring more reinforcement, and... you get the picture.
Anyways, not even a high tech beehive could resist the gravitational forces involved in a ship 440 kilometers, as the materials used in construction would slowly warp over time until the structure collapsed.

6. The logistics are outrageous. There's a reason why a single ship has a fleet of 30 vessels dedicated solely to keeping it adequately supplied. Logistics is also the Achilles heel of my ship. It is quite easy to disrupt its supply lines and render it useless under the right circumstances.
7. Maneuverability with the Hyacinth-class of ships isn't easy. It is a slow vessel when at sublight speeds. Combat maneuverability is different, as it has weapon systems placed so that they provided a covering field of fire, which allows it to spin or twirl (albeit it slowly) to meet incoming threats. It is also vulnerable when attacked from the rear or from the bottom, when it is fully deployed. For clarification purposes, the Hyacinth-class is deployed upright, with the bow pointed upward (if that can even really be called "upward" in space.)

So if you acknowledge its weaknesses, why do you deploy it?

Anyways, as the poll has seemingly made clear, I am afraid to say that you'll need to find some other way to deploy your troops for this RP. Not many people like RPing with 440 kilometer ships.

[Excidium Planetis]

I feel like the scale of the response to this incident is out of proportion. The combined value of the ships that are going to be lost here will probably exceed the GDP of the planet they're fighting over, while the stray fire will cook whatever natives are left over anyway. We've gone beyond 'send some chaps to slap those slavers about a bit' into 'basically a full blown war.' I'd suggest that perhaps 'contributions' be limited to something more on scale with a conflict between corporate mercenaries and government enforcement agencies, rather than full-blown military responses to what is, ultimately, a very minor incident in a galaxy full of lovecraftian terrors that eat more populous planets than this on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

I'm just going to say that we have a reasonable (in fact, a quite small) force for conquering a planet.

The international response seems somewhat out of proportion (especially since we aren't even slavers anymore), but WWI was started because an Austrio-Hungarian man was assassinated, so...

[Apophan]

I feel like the scale of the response to this incident is out of proportion. The combined value of the ships that are going to be lost here will probably exceed the GDP of the planet they're fighting over, while the stray fire will cook whatever natives are left over anyway. We've gone beyond 'send some chaps to slap those slavers about a bit' into 'basically a full blown war.' I'd suggest that perhaps 'contributions' be limited to something more on scale with a conflict between corporate mercenaries and government enforcement agencies, rather than full-blown military responses to what is, ultimately, a very minor incident in a galaxy full of lovecraftian terrors that eat more populous planets than this on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

I'm just going to say that we have a reasonable (in fact, a quite small) force for conquering a planet.

The international response seems somewhat out of proportion (especially since we aren't even slavers anymore), but WWI was started because an Austrio-Hungarian man was assassinated, so...

And I have a relatively small force, compared to many of the other forces being deployed. Having only eight starships will make things difficult...