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Delta Green posted:As a British officer, I must support the Officers centred organization. After all, the Royal Navy was the finest in the world and its officers had no equals.  : I like your style. You remind me of a young me. Not much younger, mind you. Perhaps even a couple of years older. You're a fine officer, son. But when I'm in command every mission's a meat grinder.
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Aug 7, 2014 18:12
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That being the case, I would like to lobby for all ships and fighters to be stocked with budweiser so we may be able to forget that we are expendable
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Aug 7, 2014 18:17
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We need to play to our strengths - we have an anime's worth of oddly-named and occasionally extremely talented people. To quote George Patton-sama, wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. Officer focus
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Aug 7, 2014 23:20
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Officers wins battles, Logistics Wins wars. Incidentally I'd like to sign up Sam Starfall as a captain of whatever nationality (whoever failed at throwing him out). He swears he's not a space squid in a humanoid exoskeleton with a tendency towards petty crime.
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Aug 7, 2014 23:44
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occipitallobe posted:
Oh God drat it. Guess I need to invest even more in my "Survival at ANY cost" planning. To quote a certain game, "there's only one rule on the battlefield. Survive." And I will live through this, Zapp Brannigan! I swear it! For Crown, Country and Empire! Incidentally, I am eager to command the most modern of the heavier ship classes we field. I'm a battleship kind of man. Delta Green fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Aug 8, 2014 |
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Aug 8, 2014 01:28
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Delta Green posted:And I will live through this, Zapp Brannigan! I swear it! For Crown, Country and Empire! This is X-com in space. If you're in a corvette, then you're the rookie whos about to open the UFO door.
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Aug 8, 2014 01:56
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I'd like to throw another vote onto the pile for Logistics.
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Aug 8, 2014 04:19
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Comrades, having weighed our options, I must suggest we focus on training our Officers. Combating these imperialists will require, as you say, "the right stuff".
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Aug 8, 2014 04:35
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Officers are needed to command this fleet. And you better vote for it or I'm sending you all to the chaplain 3 times a week! 
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Aug 8, 2014 04:47
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We need Logistics You don't win a nuke fight without the nukes. And whoever's got the man advantage on the pitch is probably going to win.
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Aug 8, 2014 04:49
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Also, occipitallobe - do the traits "Ruthless" "Experinced: Sea" and "Groundsider" have any effect? Or are they just flavor?
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Aug 8, 2014 04:54
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A note. I'm doing really short updates and whatnot early so everyone can get used to the game mechanics - every time we experience something new I'll generally end an update or ask for a decision on what we should do. As long as we're building a fuckton of missile corvettes we're not going to lose Earth early game, so this just gives everyone a chance to figure out each new mechanic or game concept as it's introduced. Updates will get longer (probably much longer) later on.Friar John posted:Also, occipitallobe - do the traits "Ruthless" "Experinced: Sea" and "Groundsider" have any effect? Or are they just flavor? Groundsider makes you a worse captain and slows your experience rate for awhile. After some time in space it disappears. Experienced: Sea makes you better at command, boarding, and navigation. Not sure what Ruthless does. - - - - The Committee for Logistical Affairs was split on the question of doctrine for some time, but in the end a firm Logistics Focus was undertaken. Two-third of the twenty-four member committee (fifteen members) supported the Logistics Focus. This made a great deal of sense, though. It increased their own personal power - a fleet more focused on logistics was one they had more power to influence. It made no immediate impact, but on Earth supply lines capable of reaching out into space found themselves being planned out. Researchers and designers found themselves tapped to look at the logistical impact of new colonies and how various interplanetary travel speeds might change how defensible they were. - - - -  Immediately after the decision to focus on logistics, the United States sent over a bevy of officers who had in some capacity worked with BuShips, citing the need for experienced officers to help develop the fleet.  Not to be outdone, the Brazilians also sent more officers. The Order also finished its research on Closed Environmental Systems, Space-Based Construction and Shielded Exhaust Ports. The first monthly report on the Logistical Advisory Committee's work came in. By-and-large, the nations of Earth were pleased. Despite the near-ruinuous costs of the Order Fleet, they offered a 2% increase to the budget of the fleet.  Ok, so monthly reports work like so. Every nation we're allied with gives us a report. Council nation reports are worth 1 full report. The reports of other nations are worth 0.15 reports. The eleven non-council nations as such are worth 1.65 Council nations in term of how much funding we get. The average of all those weighted reports is how happy Earth is with us. If they're happy enough, they'll cash us up. There are eight categories in the report, each of which matters a different amount to each nation. Offensive Performance: How much poo poo we're kicking out of the aliens. The more ships blown up, the better. Taking alien outposts is even better! The United States cannot get enough of this. Japan, conversely, doesn't care all that much. Political Influence: Not entirely sure how this one works. I think it's like Command Representation but more to do with admirals than captains. Council nations tend to give a huge poo poo, non-Council nations kinda realise they're never gonna be influental and don't care that much. I think it takes a hit if you refuse to send an officer back to a nation, though. Command Representation: How well-represented the nation is among your commanders. Having a lot officers from one nation is a disadvantage - if all your Japanese officers die, the Japanese will get pissed off. Public Approval: Basically how much the public approve of you. This is very important to the United States. China doesn't give a single gently caress about it, though. Budget Discipline: How much you spend? Except when you spend all of your budget it's popular. So maybe it's when you don't spend your budget or use your planets producing stuff people get pissed off? This isn't entirely clear. I think it's making sure all your planets spend time producing stuff, though. Defensive Performance: How much poo poo you lost. Lost some ships? Bad. Lost a planet? Worse. Personnel Management: Just... don't put incompetents in command and we'll be good. Put the guy with 0 navigation in as a navigator? Someone's gonna get pissed off. Research and Development: I think this relies on how far behind we are (and were) from the aliens. Honestly, a lot of these metrics are very fuzzy. As a general rule though as long as you're winning battles and not losing too many ships you don't have a whole lot to worry about. If people are happy enough they'll give us more resources. If they're not too unhappy they'll give us an equal amount.  However, only the Supervisory Council (by majority vote) can reduce our funding. If we have Unilateral Control, only the lead nation can reduce funding. If we have an alliance, nobody can. Funding can only increase or stay constant. Lastly, Mexico has accidentally sent one of their finest fleet officers to us.  Nations will occasionally ask for officers back and trade you new ones. You never get the old officers back. - - - - - There are two main things here. Firstly, goons will never be sent back. We need you fine soldiers to die on the front lines! However, should we send other officers back unconditionally to their home nations when requested? Saying yes will deprive us of better officers (occasionally you get one back of equal quality, but never one better), but saying no could hurt our industrial capability. Alternatively, we could send officers back to Council nations. They're the only ones who can cut our funding, so maybe we just keep the best officers and tell the smaller nations to suck it. Lastly, we could never send officers back. If the Council really has the stones to cut our funding they can drat well try! (They will succeed if they do try, though). It's boring to vote on this sort of choice all the time, so I'm offering a general choice instead. It doesn't really make a huge difference to what happens in-game, though. - - - - Secondly, there are two reasonable research priorities right now. Firstly, focus on frigates. Spend our time building up to frigates and the technologies we need to get them running. Secondly, focus on space infrastructure. Research a starbase and hydroponic farms for Earth, that sort of thing. - - - - These are pretty minor choices, so I'll just take the first few votes or so to see which direction the Logistics Advisory Committee is leaning.
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Aug 8, 2014 12:46
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Australian officer Clint Spidercroc reporting for duty, and normally while I'm all for helping out the little guy in this case there is simply too much on the line; send officers back to Council nations. We can't risk losing funding but we also can't risk losing high quality officers if the country does not contribute significantly to funding. Finally focus on frigates; we need ships that can get to the moon. Once we are capable of securing and defending the moon it'll be time to infrastructure up.
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Aug 8, 2014 13:04
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send officers to council nations, and send bad/useless ones back to all nations. Focus on Frigates and heavy nukes since starbases can't attack or defend multiple locations and cost upkeep.
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Aug 8, 2014 13:07
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Send officers back to Council nations, focus on Frigates for a while.
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Aug 8, 2014 13:15
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Council nations only, and ill go against the grain here and request space farms first.
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Aug 8, 2014 14:31
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Captain Commander Rex Manstrong needs a bigger boat, and is indifferent to political matters.
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Aug 8, 2014 15:07
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Return unconditionally. and Frigates
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Aug 8, 2014 16:19
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frigates and council nations
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Aug 8, 2014 17:47
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Officer Wong Station (from China if possible) reporting for duty. I always vote for the people, so we should Send Officers Back and focus on Frigates.
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Aug 8, 2014 19:44
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occipitallobe posted:Groundsider makes you a worse captain and slows your experience rate for awhile. After some time in space it disappears. Experienced: Sea makes you better at command, boarding, and navigation. Not sure what Ruthless does.
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Aug 8, 2014 23:25
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Al Lein Reporting for duty.
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Aug 9, 2014 02:40
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Return unconditionally, and Frigates.
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Aug 9, 2014 05:58
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Never return and space infrastructure. We can just strap engines onto our space stations and use those as frigates.
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Aug 9, 2014 07:04
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Council only and Infrastructure.
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Aug 9, 2014 07:09
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Always return and uh. Friggin whats because Moonbase guys. MOON. BASE.
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Aug 9, 2014 12:11
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John "Snugglecakes" Johnson reporting for duty.  Also, Return unconditionally and Frigates
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Aug 9, 2014 13:31
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Return unconditionally (Homesickness is a terrible scourge) and Get me a bigger boat, damnit!
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Aug 9, 2014 15:38
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occipitallobe posted:Lastly, Mexico has accidentally sent one of their finest fleet officers to us. Man, that quote and those numbers together are hilarious. "One of our finest coughcoughthirtypointsworseineverywaycough* officers."
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Aug 10, 2014 04:19
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Focus on frigates because while I'm a survivor, it's better if my ships aren't made of papier maché. As for the officers… we'll return them. Unless they are vital to our fleets.
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Aug 10, 2014 06:15
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No returns, if you coddle them when they bungle so badly at deployment they send guys outside their national military BY ACCIDENT, they will never learn any better! Also, why the hell are they recalling officers anyway, do they have more pressing military concerns than defending against the GENOCIDE of the human race?! And Frigates, I like big ships, I cannot lie.
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Aug 10, 2014 07:23
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The general consensus seems to be on returning Council nation officers only. Likewise, humanity will be focusing on the development of frigates. Neruz posted:Australian officer Clint Spidercroc reporting for duty, and normally while I'm all for helping out the little guy in this case there is simply too much on the line; send officers back to Council nations. We can't risk losing funding but we also can't risk losing high quality officers if the country does not contribute significantly to funding. Finally focus on frigates; we need ships that can get to the moon. Once we are capable of securing and defending the moon it'll be time to infrastructure up.  Clint Spidercroc, a traditional Australian man with a traditional Australian name. As part of the conspiracy that became the Council, he fought in the Battle of First Light. Notable for his tendency to ask rhetorical questions when facing down enemy ships, stating "That's not a ship, this is a ship". His ship was later-on destroyed in the battle. Mwip57 posted:Officer Wong Station (from China if possible) reporting for duty. I always vote for the people, so we should Send Officers Back and focus on Frigates.  I learned that when renaming East Asian officers (Chinese or Japanese) the game reorders the name. So you are now 'Station Wong'. Congratulations. imajumberjack posted:Al Lein Reporting for duty.  Al Lein, one of the hardest working officers in the entire navy. Snugglecakes posted:John "Snugglecakes" Johnson reporting for duty.  Lt. Commander "Snugglecakes" Johnson, one of the most ruthless and vicious men in the United Kingdom Navy. Is reputed to have built a cannon to fire himself onto enemy ships. Permission to use it was denied as a likely violation of the Geneva Convention. - - - - - Update from April 5 to May 9 (I feel like perhaps I've remembered the game wrong - I seem to recall attacks coming much more quickly than they have in this game. I recall clinging to Earth desperately before I could even get a decent frigate fleet in the sky. Maybe I'm better, or maybe the AI is pretty variable as to how it works early game. I'm not sure.) No alien attacks have yet come to Earth. The hammer has yet to fall. Some analysts think that the alien attack took a great deal out of their capabilities, others point to the likelihood of an alien base on Mars given recent spectrographic results from that direction mean that they're just gearing up for an all-out siege on Earth. Either way, humanity doesn't have nearly as much time as we'd like. Early in the month Japan sends more officers.  For some reason the Fleet Admiral's attitude on casualties have made senior officers from most national forces somewhat hesitant to join the Order fleet.  Indeed, the admirals who get sent up to serve seem to see it more as punishment duty. Fan Qiang had been sleeping with the Party Chairman's son and his daughter. A little while later, space warship design documents are completed, with a full design for a modern spaceborne shipyard.  The Council immediately orders that one be built. (Choices like these that are no-brainers I'll just continue to make)  On the 22nd of April the shipyard is finished. Multiple slipways, and hundreds of staff going up every day to help work on it. The death toll at first is astronomical, but so is the pay. Men are earning ten thousand dollars a day or better to go into space to make habitats for all the workers that will be needed, and while the slipshod nature of the construction costs lives, it makes up those lives in speed.  The logistical model developed by the Council has paid off already. It is estimated that the planned supply lines have made keeping a functioning shipyard in the skies of Earth significantly less costly, and millions of dollars a day are being conserved.  Germany sends officers as well. (Once we get into battles these will become less noted.)  Finally, a complete Frigate Hull is researched. A ship capable of hosting a crew prepared to fight for over a month. Unlike corvettes and fighters, which must be launched from the Earth, frigates will be able to stay in orbit indefinitely - indeed, they are too large to land properly. Soon after, EMP Warheads and Bomb-Pumped Laser Warheads were developed as well. The month ends, and an Earth still grateful for its survival grants a 2% increase to the military budget.  Just as importantly, all Council nations still perceived the Committee for Logistical Affairs to be doing a good job.  At the end of the month we have almost fifty assorted ships, mostly corvettes, almost all with missile loadouts. - - - - - - Frigate Time: Here are the two basic designs I've laid out.  This is the Missile Frigate. It's a pretty basic design. Nine missile launchers (the max) all loaded to the brim with Bomb-Pumped Laser Warheads. It also has an ECM Emitter to try and keep it alive. Missile ships are pretty basic and boring to my mind, but utterly crucial at this point. These bad boys are designed to be used en masse, overwhelming the enemy through sheer weight of fire. Keep in mind that missiles keep flying after all ships on one side are down. Even if you lose a battle you can do catastrophic damage to the enemy fleet with your missiles, and vice versa. However, they also take a really long time to hit. As a general rule missiles are the weapon of the weaker side, because even if you lose your ships you can do a hell of a lot of damage. You'll note these ships overheat in nine rounds. They can however fire one missile a round - they empty their weapons in four. Since frigates can't run away and overheating only disables a ship in battle, overheating really isn't an issue here - if our frigates don't win a battle, they die. These cost 3853 hammers, 503 titanium, and 109 uranium. One would take us twenty-four days to construct at present rates, however.  This is the Blaster Frigate. It works in tandem with the Missile Frigate to cripple selected enemy ships and get in close to destroy smaller vessels. It's the more dangerous, sexier frigate. It moves almost twice as fast, and has nine fusion plasma blasters. Once it gets in closer it will tear enemy ships apart, regardless of size. You know, assuming it survives that long, which is one hell of an assumption. Massing these against smaller alien fleets will be hellishly effective. The problem with Missile Frigates is that they take casualties every battle. Since missiles take so long to reach the enemy, they'll invariably lose a few of their number. However, once their firepower is unloaded, they generally clean up. Blaster Frigates have the opposite problem. If there's enough of them they'll crush the enemy with ease, and quickly. If there's not enough though, they'll get slaughtered without a chance to properly hurt the enemy. Once you hit a certain critical mass of beam ships they become amazing. The effectiveness of beam ships is exponential, the effectiveness of missile ships is logarithmic (after a certain point having more of them doesn't help you win any more, but the missiles don't go any faster so you lose the same amount). However, the time it takes for that exponentiality to kick in is the problem. These will take nineteen days to construct at present rates. - - - - - Lastly, here's a list of the current missiles we have access to.  The Conventional Warhead. Ahahahaha, no. Any commanders requesting these on their ships will be reassigned to glorious fighter duty.  The Nuclear Warhead, workhorse of the fleet. Far more accuracy than the Bomb-Pumped Laser, so much cheaper, far lighter, but can be stopped by shields. Consequently will be obsolete in a year or two at best.  The EMP warhead, first warhead we researched. Bypasses armor and shields most of the time, making it an incredible asset against any ship that's simply too tough to take down otherwise. However, if ships are too tough for our missiles to take down (antimissile tech notwithstanding), we have probably lost the war.  Ah, BPL warheads. Less likely to hit, which is bad. Bypasses shields, which is amazing. Does a fuckton of damage. Expensive, but oh so worth it right now. If anyone wants to submit other designs at any point, feel free to do so (I'll whip them up and post them) - if you're willing to put in the effort to design a ship I will definitely put your commander in that ship. Likewise, if at any point you feel a particular ship would serve our purposes better, whip something up (doesn't necessarily have to be precise), though this will come after battles. - - - - I'm thinking about how to record upcoming battles. I can either take screenshots of enemy vessels and record in text format how our weapons and strategy do against them, or use video-capture software. This isn't so much a vote as it is "does anyone have strong opinions on this". I'm fine just screenshotting through important battles with all the details of the enemy ships, but if there's a strong belief that videos would really improve the LP I can try that as well. If you have no opinion on this, the default option is screenshots. Two more things. Right now the plan is to produce 3/4s Missile Frigates until I have 10-15 or so, then go full Blaster Frigate. This isn't as important as our initial choice of ship though - I can get by with several sorts of fleets, and if we want to get a shitload of blasters I imagine we'll even that out later with missile destroyers or something along those lines. If anyone has an opinion (all missiles! more blasters early!) feel free to put it forward. If something gets a solid number of votes I'll change my plans accordingly. Secondly, research direction. We could research more weapons, such as Fusion Lasers, Mass Drivers, Point-Defense and Heavy Weapons. This will allow us to use better long-range lasers and mass drivers (right now our current chemical lasers and railguns aren't available for frigates), as well as larger and smaller versions of most of our current weapons. Alternatively, we could research space infrastructure and ECM systems, this includes Computer Mk II, Permanent Orbital Presence, Orbital Fortifications, Orbital Hydroponics, and Fire Control RADAR. Lastly, we can spend twice as long as any other tech researching Auxiliary Thrusters (there are other higher-level techs we can research, but they're useless to us right now). This will allow us to equip our ships with Afterburners, which increases their speed by 50 percent. This option is separate from the others - we need a research direction and a yes/no on afterburners. They're useless for missile frigates, but incredible for our closer-range blaster frigates. They will, however, take up time we could use to research real orbital infrastructure and fortifications.
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Aug 11, 2014 15:17
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occipitallobe posted:I learned that when renaming East Asian officers (Chinese or Japanese) the game reorders the name. So you are now 'Station Wong'. Congratulations. That would be because the East Asian name order convention is Family Name - First Name. Anyway, go for more infrastructure and ignore afterburners. Faster ships can wait for better other stuff.
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Aug 11, 2014 15:30
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senrath posted:Anyway, go for more infrastructure and ignore afterburners. Faster ships can wait for better other stuff. What he said.
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Aug 11, 2014 17:22
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senrath posted:That would be because the East Asian name order convention is Family Name - First Name. I was just going to say what a fine level of detail this was. I've never seen this game so it might be nice to Film at least one battle just to get a sense for what battle look like. Aside from that the currently selected Mixed Missile and Blaster Frigate plan looks acceptable until Beam's become available. Research should focus on Fusion Lasers because the greater good demands lasers. We can focus on infrastructure once lasers are available. Although I don't particularly care for them I vote Yes on Afterburners.
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Aug 11, 2014 17:26
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I say Weapons and Yes on afterburners
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Aug 11, 2014 17:48
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Wait, so are Bomb Pumped Laser warheads missiles that shoot lasers when they go off? That is probably the most Sci-Fi weapon i've ever heard of. vvv Oh okay, so its only a nuclear bomb that also shoots lasers thats perfectly reasonable. Agean90 fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Aug 11, 2014 |
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Aug 11, 2014 20:03
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Agean90 posted:Wait, so are Bomb Pumped Laser warheads missiles that shoot lasers when they go off? That is probably the most Sci-Fi weapon i've ever heard of. It's more like a giant laser emitter that's powered by detonating a nuclear bomb.
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Aug 11, 2014 20:10
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Space infrastructure and No afterburners
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Aug 11, 2014 20:25
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I say we get a permanent orbital presence, and afterburners.
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Aug 11, 2014 20:30
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