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[Unholy_Pariah]

((Not an overcompensator amp, an overcompensator sword.

He gave me a reiterpallasch with a blade thats 2 feet longer than normal.))

[Parisbre56]

((The best currently available semi-autonomous drone is the size of a softball. Largest thing it could properly terrorize is a large dog.

Also, I think you misunderstand the "point defense lasers" that will be used. These won't be like the modern "heat the missile till it explodes" lasers. If the anti-ship batteries of Mission 4 are any indication, these will be "blink-and-you'll-miss-the-missile-vaporizing" lasers. While the general idea might work, it's best utilized with larger robotic attack drones and specially-made suicide ships.))

Spoiler: Drone talk (click to show/hide)

((Laser drones do a perfectly good job against humans, which is what one would expect to find in ships. They don't even have to improvise or have any ability to make complex "thoughts", since the designs and equipment of the ships will be known beforehand and the drones will have little to improvise about. They'll just collectively pick from a list of scenarios each one will be programmed with that will fit together like pieces of a puzzle, so that one drone can do its job without caring that much about what the others are doing. Electronics can be bypassed and taken over. They can't use EMPs without destroying their own ship. The drones can't be jammed without an insanely powerful antenna, since they'll be near each other. And as evidenced by the infrared sensors, not even Steve can break humanity's current encryption methods in a reasonable time-frame. (Granted, they might be able to use some kind of statistical attack against them easier, since they will be broadcasting more data, but it's unlikely. If the UWM could hack things easily then we'd be worried about our suits shutting down in the middle of battle or our shock implants triggering.)

Larger robotic attack drones are NOT what we want. They're large targets, cause a lot of damage and are more easily disposed of. If we wanted to destroy the ship, we wouldn't even think about boarding it. A small drone can infest the ship like a parasite and disable it or even take it over with minimal damage, which should be our goal.

If we have missiles capable of acting as boarding pods, then we certainly have missiles that can deliver the drones. The debris trick is just a means to maximize the number of drones that make it on target. If even a couple of drones survive, they can do a lot of damage with the right tools.

And point defense lasers are more likely to work with efficiency in mind if they are overwhelmed by multiple targets. So they might opt to just quickly slice a missile in half instead of completely evaporating it. Of course, that depends on what kind of lasers they are, so I can't be sure about that.

I imagine it like this: A missile carrying 400 drones is launched against a small ship. The ship's (or maybe another ship's) point defense lasers get through its Samsonite or Flatground shielding (depending on what Steve uses) and destroys the missile. Only 30 drones survive and slowly float to target. A few of them are equipped with systems that will allow them to get through the ship's armor. Maybe it's a laser (maybe they have to combine smaller lasers into a larger one), maybe it's bomb, maybe it's a double kinetic amp combo. Either way, they get through the armor quick enough to not be hit by something on the outside. A couple of them stay back and establish a communications link to the ARM via laser, while the rest move inside the ship. The drones use hard to reach places like maintenance hallways and vents to make their way around, creating shortcuts via lasers and explosives where necessary. They kill any easy targets they find with lasers and with their appendages, release poisonous gases, open airlocks, cut important cables (or even unimportant ones. Fighting small spider-like drones that can slice you apart in seconds with no lights on should be terrifying), destroy important terminals, sabotage sensitive systems or weapons, take over electronics and link Steve with the ship's computer systems. During that time, other drones might get lucky enough to land on the ship and provide reinforcements. And if an entire missile hits its mark, then that ship is as good as gone (assuming we're talking about a small ship. Larger ships like the Sword would need multiple missile hits and maybe even some direct human intervention, since they're likely to be carrying stronger combatants like battlesuits that the drones can only use breaching machines like double kinetic amps against.) Even if we assume a success rate of one drone every missile, it's still better than resorting to destroying those ships.

I can't think of what advantage sending humans has besides "Humans can react better to unexpected situations" and "Humans can use amps". (I'm not saying that we shouldn't send humans. We SHOULD send some humans as well for the above reasons.)

Wow, I didn't intend to write that much when I started.))

[Sean Mirrsen]

((The best currently available semi-autonomous drone is the size of a softball. Largest thing it could properly terrorize is a large dog.

Also, I think you misunderstand the "point defense lasers" that will be used. These won't be like the modern "heat the missile till it explodes" lasers. If the anti-ship batteries of Mission 4 are any indication, these will be "blink-and-you'll-miss-the-missile-vaporizing" lasers. While the general idea might work, it's best utilized with larger robotic attack drones and specially-made suicide ships.))

Spoiler: Drone talk (click to show/hide)

((Laser drones do a perfectly good job against humans, which is what one would expect to find in ships. They don't even have to improvise or have any ability to make complex "thoughts", since the designs and equipment of the ships will be known beforehand and the drones will have little to improvise about. They'll just collectively pick from a list of scenarios each one will be programmed with that will fit together like pieces of a puzzle, so that one drone can do its job without caring that much about what the others are doing. Electronics can be bypassed and taken over. They can't use EMPs without destroying their own ship. The drones can't be jammed without an insanely powerful antenna, since they'll be near each other. And as evidenced by the infrared sensors, not even Steve can break humanity's current encryption methods in a reasonable time-frame. (Granted, they might be able to use some kind of statistical attack against them easier, since they will be broadcasting more data, but it's unlikely. If the UWM could hack things easily then we'd be worried about our suits shutting down in the middle of battle or our shock implants triggering.)

Larger robotic attack drones are NOT what we want. They're large targets, cause a lot of damage and are more easily disposed of. If we wanted to destroy the ship, we wouldn't even think about boarding it. A small drone can infest the ship like a parasite and disable it or even take it over with minimal damage, which should be our goal.

If we have missiles capable of acting as boarding pods, then we certainly have missiles that can deliver the drones. The debris trick is just a means to maximize the number of drones that make it on target. If even a couple of drones survive, they can do a lot of damage with the right tools.

And point defense lasers are more likely to work with efficiency in mind if they are overwhelmed by multiple targets. So they might opt to just quickly slice a missile in half instead of completely evaporating it. Of course, that depends on what kind of lasers they are, so I can't be sure about that.

I imagine it like this: A missile carrying 400 drones is launched against a small ship. The ship's (or maybe another ship's) point defense lasers get through its Samsonite or Flatground shielding (depending on what Steve uses) and destroys the missile. Only 30 drones survive and slowly float to target. A few of them are equipped with systems that will allow them to get through the ship's armor. Maybe it's a laser (maybe they have to combine smaller lasers into a larger one), maybe it's bomb, maybe it's a double kinetic amp combo. Either way, they get through the armor quick enough to not be hit by something on the outside. A couple of them stay back and establish a communications link to the ARM via laser, while the rest move inside the ship. The drones use hard to reach places like maintenance hallways and vents to make their way around, creating shortcuts via lasers and explosives where necessary. They kill any easy targets they find with lasers and with their appendages, release poisonous gases, open airlocks, cut important cables (or even unimportant ones. Fighting small spider-like drones that can slice you apart in seconds with no lights on should be terrifying), destroy important terminals, sabotage sensitive systems or weapons, take over electronics and link Steve with the ship's computer systems. During that time, other drones might get lucky enough to land on the ship and provide reinforcements. And if an entire missile hits its mark, then that ship is as good as gone (assuming we're talking about a small ship. Larger ships like the Sword would need multiple missile hits and maybe even some direct human intervention, since they're likely to be carrying stronger combatants like battlesuits that the drones can only use breaching machines like double kinetic amps against.) Even if we assume a success rate of one drone every missile, it's still better than resorting to destroying those ships.

I can't think of what advantage sending humans has besides "Humans can react better to unexpected situations" and "Humans can use amps". (I'm not saying that we shouldn't send humans. We SHOULD send some humans as well for the above reasons.)

Wow, I didn't intend to write that much when I started.))

Spoiler: Whee, drone talk! (click to show/hide)

((Now, see, the small drones carry lasers that are, at most, on par with a hand laser. And the hand laser is really only dangerous against an unarmored human - and a typical Sod is anything but. And considering the need for conventional reaction mass for flight, they likely don't have more than a minute of firing time on that, enough to maybe bore a single tiny hole through the outer layer of a ship's plating. So a single drone is really not much of a danger to ship, and three hundred of them are by and large also not a danger unless they clump together and fire as a single weapon, at which point there is the question, why not have merely a slightly larger drone that can, for instance, have a laser similar to a Laser Rifle?

See, the problem with tiny drones is that most weapons' power increases non-linearly with size, about the same how weapon cost is not linearly proportional to weapon power. It's easier to make a drone thrice as large that's going to be five times more powerful. Instead of 400, the missile will carry maybe 150 of them now. But since every one is five times the power of the small one, it's the equivalent of 750 smaller drones. And since their weapons are actually meaningful on their lonesome now, they can detach from the missile early and cut their losses, since 150 targets are harder to intercept than one.

This cycle of "larger drone for more power" can continue up to a given point where you're just launching mechanical boarders and/or suicide bombers.

Now, you may have something if you start working on a scale so small your drones are literally nothing but building blocks. I.e. Stanislaw Lem's "Invincible" novel, where a cloud of evolving micro-machines defeats everyone through simply being too adaptable and numerous to adequately destroy. When you have the design for a "drone" that is barely more than a tiny power cell, energy converter, and a neural logic node inside a hard shell, that can barely move alone but "knows" to link up to any nearby drones in order to start having an intelligence and start solving problems by literally building any kind of device out their simple components, and when you can produce them en masse, then that plan can work.

The whole problem here is that last bit, really. A drone cheap enough to be used and disposed of en masse just isn't powerful enough, and a drone powerful enough to be a danger to a ship in reasonable numbers is just too expensive. You can't have a missile carrying 400 drones that each have a double-kinamp sandwich device, because that's two kinamps per drone, and it'll be cheaper to build a fusion instigator machinegun.))

[Parisbre56]

Spoiler: Talk about drones and stuff (click to show/hide)

((Now, see, the small drones carry lasers that are, at most, on par with a hand laser. And the hand laser is really only dangerous against an unarmored human - and a typical Sod is anything but.

But we'll be going up against humans prepared for space combat. At most they'll have their spacesuits on, if that. Granted, military grade spacesuits might be armored (although, technically, MK2s ARE military grade spacesuits and aren't armored very much), but in that case we can just beef the lasers a bit above "red hand" and into "pulse laser rifle" territory.

And considering the need for conventional reaction mass for flight, they likely don't have more than a minute of firing time on that, enough to maybe bore a single tiny hole through the outer layer of a ship's plating.

Yes, but that can be solved by designing the drones to be spider-like with magnets, like I said and only use thrusters, if any, to slow down before landing and to keep themselves attached to the hull long enough to enter a ship. The energy problem is as simple as adding a small generator.

So a single drone is really not much of a danger to ship, and three hundred of them are by and large also not a danger unless they clump together and fire as a single weapon, at which point there is the question, why not have merely a slightly larger drone that can, for instance, have a laser similar to a Laser Rifle?

Because the goal here isn't to destroy the ship. It is to take it over. And it's much easier to take over a ship if you avoid direct confrontation and use guerrilla warfare tactics instead, sabotaging, taking enemies by surprise and then retreating to unreachable areas before they can retaliate.

See, the problem with tiny drones is that most weapons' power increases non-linearly with size, about the same how weapon cost is not linearly proportional to weapon power. It's easier to make a drone thrice as large that's going to be five times more powerful. Instead of 400, the missile will carry maybe 150 of them now. But since every one is five times the power of the small one, it's the equivalent of 750 smaller drones. And since their weapons are actually meaningful on their lonesome now, they can detach from the missile early and cut their losses, since 150 targets are harder to intercept than one.

Again, the goal is not to destroy the ship.
And 400 small debris-like drones will pose much less of a target then 150 drones dodging around with their rockets.
And I'm not so sure about power increasing non-linearly with size. If you give a laser twice the power it's not going to fire with thrice the strength. Unless you mean something else.

This cycle of "larger drone for more power" can continue up to a given point where you're just launching mechanical boarders and/or suicide bombers.

Once again, guerrilla tactics are more effective at fighting an enemy that has the advantage

Now, you may have something if you start working on a scale so small your drones are literally nothing but building blocks. I.e. Stanislaw Lem's "Invincible" novel, where a cloud of evolving micro-machines defeats everyone through simply being too adaptable and numerous to adequately destroy. When you have the design for a "drone" that is barely more than a tiny power cell, energy converter, and a neural logic node inside a hard shell, that can barely move alone but "knows" to link up to any nearby drones in order to start having an intelligence and start solving problems by literally building any kind of device out their simple components, and when you can produce them en masse, then that plan can work.

But then you have the problem that they're unpredictable, since their collective programming evolves much like that of a biological lifeform. Also, they'll be easy to damage since they have no shielding. And they would need a generator that could provide them with enough power if you want them to act faster than bacteria. Finally, I'm unsure if the technology that would be needed to have those "drones" reproduce and destroy, the technology to re-purpose materials on the fly with just a small addition of energy is available to us.

The whole problem here is that last bit, really. A drone cheap enough to be used and disposed of en masse just isn't powerful enough, and a drone powerful enough to be a danger to a ship in reasonable numbers is just too expensive. You can't have a missile carrying 400 drones that each have a double-kinamp sandwich device, because that's two kinamps per drone, and it'll be cheaper to build a fusion instigator machinegun.))

Each drone will have a specialized role. One would carry a laser, another would just carry a more powerful cpu, another would carry communication equipment, another would carry breaching equipment, etc. Although the laser ones would probably be the primary ones.
And again, the goal is to be a danger to the people inside the ship, not the ship itself. We want the ship as intact as it can be.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Spoiler: Drones gotta drone (click to show/hide)

But we'll be going up against humans prepared for space combat. At most they'll have their spacesuits on, if that. Granted, military grade spacesuits might be armored (although, technically, MK2s ARE military grade spacesuits and aren't armored very much), but in that case we can just beef the lasers a bit above "red hand" and into "pulse laser rifle" territory.

Mind, if they were Red Hand level, they could just storm through the ship. Electrolasers are hard to defend against if you aren't anticipating what you know only as melee weapons turned into ranged attacks.

Yes, but that can be solved by designing the drones to be spider-like with magnets, like I said and only use thrusters, if any, to slow down before landing and to keep themselves attached to the hull long enough to enter a ship. The energy problem is as simple as adding a small generator.

Spider-drones could work, but this turns them into an outright guerilla weapon. Which has a problem as outlined further.

Because the goal here isn't to destroy the ship. It is to take it over. And it's much easier to take over a ship if you avoid direct confrontation and use guerrilla warfare tactics instead, sabotaging, taking enemies by surprise and then retreating to unreachable areas before they can retaliate.

Guerilla tactics. Well... okay. This could even work if we were, say, attacking a ship that is drifting in space, or maybe even fleeing from us, or maybe imposing an embargo or something. We're likely going to face a situation where the only crew that matters is the pilots and the gunners, and every minute the drones waste on trying to guerilla their way into the ship means a whole lot more orbital bombardment for us. It's not a viable defense tactic, kinda like stopping an enraged bear with a poison dart. There is no poison fast-acting enough to kill the bear before it mauls you.

Again, the goal is not to destroy the ship.
And 400 small debris-like drones will pose much less of a target then 150 drones dodging around with their rockets.
And I'm not so sure about power increasing non-linearly with size. If you give a laser twice the power it's not going to fire with thrice the strength. Unless you mean something else.

Yes, 400 small drones that act like debris are going to pose a smaller target, insofar as they're not going to be detected as such. Not until they start to cling to ships at least, at which point... I don't know, deflector shields don't seem to be a thing, but I'm fairly certain interstellar ships have ways of dealing with both mines and micrometeorites. 150 drones actively dodging attacks, however, present themselves as a bigger target, while being a harder target. They are, if you will, acting as their own fighter screen - the same guns that would need to shoot at incoming missiles would need to be diverted to shoot at incoming drones - or ignore drones to keep shooting at missiles, in which case we still win.

Once again, guerrilla tactics are more effective at fighting an enemy that has the advantage

Advantage being? Numerical? Situational? Once the drones get into the ship, they will have the absolute advantage, since they are little more than mobile weapons. If a group of 20 laser drones flies into a room with 20 people, the 20 drones will be able to engage 20 people more efficiently than 20 people can engage 20 drones, because drones are smaller, more accurate, and can distribute their fire between available targets when acting as a group; and the superior firepower of the people would, in many cases, be irrelevant, as the drones won't be armored enough to withstand any direct hits anyway.

But then you have the problem that they're unpredictable, since their collective programming evolves much like that of a biological lifeform. Also, they'll be easy to damage since they have no shielding. And they would need a generator that could provide them with enough power if you want them to act faster than bacteria. Finally, I'm unsure if the technology that would be needed to have those "drones" reproduce and destroy, the technology to re-purpose materials on the fly with just a small addition of energy is available to us.

True enough, although they don't need to build more of themselves on the fly, they would just be obscenely cheap to mass-manufacture in hilarious quantities.

Each drone will have a specialized role. One would carry a laser, another would just carry a more powerful cpu, another would carry communication equipment, another would carry breaching equipment, etc. Although the laser ones would probably be the primary ones.
And again, the goal is to be a danger to the people inside the ship, not the ship itself. We want the ship as intact as it can be.

And the best way to do that is a coordinated takeover, not a guerilla invasion. A surgical strike via remote units, if you will. Even if it'd be more efficient to do it with guerilla tactics, the timeframe it'd need to be done it simply won't allow it. If we could afford to sit there while the enemy loiters around in orbit, we could just starve them out, because we're on a planet, and they're not.

As a supplement to a boarding party, as a "parting gift" to ships fleeing in the aftermath of the initial assault, guerilla drones can work. For defending the planet itself, I think we better literally stick to our guns.

[piecewise]

Private channel to Miyamoto:
Steve put you in charge of organizing the defense, Miyamoto? Good choice. I'll answer your specifics first and pose ideas after.

Sods as they are, not so much, I would prefer them upgraded, if you will, to cybernetic suits with Sod brains, and future production tailored to that, as well as tweaking a few variables in regards to their mental capacity in future production. We should have quite a few of our standard cybersuits on-hand already, and more can certainly be manufactured easily. This will give a boost to their endurance on the field in comparison to a regular sod, and will let them ignore most environmental hazards, including any fielded by the UWM and ourselves, chemical, some kinds of nuclear, or biological. Another option would be gene tweaking, like we have available on the Sword, but I find that to be a messier option compared to cybernetics.

Full robots would be even better than cybersods, but will take a lot of time to set up, and that's if the boys in the lab have finished sifting your data and can extract useful information. And if we can't get AI out of it, then the robots will need to be teleoperated, in which case, we would go for fewer, larger ones and they couldn't replace the sods or variants thereof. However, improvements to anything we currently have using that data will certainly be put into place as quickly as possible.

Drones are a certainty. Both scouting and attacking, though more toward scouting, since we have better options in terms of both surgical strikes and carpet bombing, if it comes to that, but I'm sure they'll have a use in that capacity as well, however limited.

In terms of ideas about defense, I have a few ideas, though I would like to know what you've got already.

Okay, Steve flies the shuttle. Bishop is released from duty unless Auron wants him. First job of my flight is to find where the anomalies end.

You don't get inside the ship, rather you grab hold of a railing around the edge and hang on as the ship does a low level flyby of the area around the base. The Debris field is thankfully small and fairly concentrated, though still as wide as the two admin buildings. The aurora on the other hand stretches out in a line for at least several miles and seems to encompass a large, ovoid area of distorted light and slow rippling.

Thats probably gonna need to be explored in some way.

Go ahead and learn how to fly a shuttle anyway. It's best to know and not need to do it, then not know when I need to. After I'm done training, begin coming up with a design for the repair of the walkway to the sword.

Well, the VR's are out for now, do you know another way  to practice and plan?

Thomas took a seat outside the pits. He wasn't a genius, but he was smart enough to know that radiation was bad.
"Radiation is getting to me. May I go to the ship?"
Await permission.

You take a seat outside the pit and wait, next to the bodies. Bleh. When you signed up for the Black Ops team you didn't expect to be digging bodies free of nuclear craters. Thats a bit more of a Dark Op then anything.

"Sounds like a plan, Steve. Give Mesk and Skylar the ships, and send them over once they're free to help out. Sooner the better, there's enough scrap and salvage here to build us a few Daggers to go with the Sword."

"Keep it up, people. Don't try dragging whole ships around, only haul the bits and pieces from the more damaged ones. Just free the intact ones from debris so we don't have to airlift extra rocks and girders. Keep to the salvage chart."

Thomas took a seat outside the pits. He wasn't a genius, but he was smart enough to know that radiation was bad.
"Radiation is getting to me. May I go to the ship?"
Await permission.

"Permission granted. No sense getting yourself in danger, especially when radiation's involved. Just leave any blankets you have left over there so we can keep working."

Accept the offer of skycranes, mark the location of the future scrap yard on me datapad, send Thomas back to the ship, and get back into the crater. If there are any bodies left to haul up, get to hauling. If not, go and pick the most intact-looking ship for the first airlift out of the crater.

(You should message Mesk and Skylar in character to ask for their help.)

You mark a rough area for the scrap yard and then head back into the crater to start marking out the promising looking craft. There are two personal craft and one that looks...well it looks like a space tugboat. It's an ugly, massive block of metal that seemed to only  be mildly annoyed by having a nuke dropped on it. You mark them as the first to go.

head over to anton, help if necessary.

You stick with anton and help him choose ships, all the while secretly longing to start tearing free bits of their control panels or engines.

(Honestly. This gives me an idea for another game. GOD DAMN IT IMAGINATION. WE ARE OVERBOOKED AS IT IS)

If I'm needed for salvage duty (to tie the cables we're gonna tow the salvage with for example or to lift heavy stuff or to smash stuff) go and help where I'm needed.
Else, go and respectfully recover the bodies others can't reach due to radiation.

((EDIT: Oh, another idea for rebuilding: Put some of the important, sensitive things under stuff destroying and sensor scrambling anomalies like the aurora or the mustard gas. That way you reduce the chances of someone finding and/or messing with your sensitive stuff.
ARM: Creating more layers of shielding through the destruction of reality.))

You Gather up the dead from the parts that are too hot for others and then stand by to do heavy lifting.

Continues hauling bodies out of the pit so long as it's safe in regards to radiation. inspect the lethal pistol closer, what are we talking about here.

We'll say you've got em all, at least any piece big enough to be worth getting.

The lethal pistol is a pistol. Looks gauss powered but civilian grade. Powerful enough to easily kill but not to punch fist sized holes in things or snap your wrist.

"Permission granted. No sense getting yourself in danger, especially when radiation's involved. Just leave any blankets you have left over there so we can keep working."

"Will do."
Abandon blankets. Go back to the ship.
((Which thread is that? I hate to ask, but I'm sort of lost with the changed titles.))

(Repair and rescue)

You head back to the ship.

[Unholy_Pariah]

You stick with antonand help him choose ships, all the while
secretly longing to start tearing free bits of their control
panels or engines.

(Honestly. This gives me an idea for another game. GOD
DAMN IT IMAGINATION. WE ARE OVERBOOKED AS IT IS)

Ooh spaceship "salvager" game. id so play that, especially if it involved salvaging occupied vessels.

wait for first ship to be airlifted then zerg rush it the second it lands and begin surveying it for damage and marking parts that need replacement.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Spoiler: Droning about Drones (click to show/hide)

((Wow, I didn't intend to write that much when I started.))

((Been there, wasted time like that.))

-snip-

((Your argument about the larger drones being more powerful for the same cost is potentially true*, but you're ignoring that the PDL make it better to have a large number of drones. We need to find a balance between number and power...which I, unlike you, think is possible. As long as they're only part of the "boarding party," which you'll find is what Pariah is suggesting.))

*((If risking violating the laws of thermodynamics once you take it far enough. Which I'm pretty dang sure you did.))

Guerilla tactics. Well... okay. This could even work if we were, say, attacking a ship that is drifting in space, or maybe even fleeing from us, or maybe imposing an embargo or something. We're likely going to face a situation where the only crew that matters is the pilots and the gunners, and every minute the drones waste on trying to guerilla their way into the ship means a whole lot more orbital bombardment for us. It's not a viable defense tactic, kinda like stopping an enraged bear with a poison dart. There is no poison fast-acting enough to kill the bear before it mauls you.

((On the other hand, poison darts aren't going to be systematically slicing apart the blood vessels and nerves and muscles across a swiftly-spreading area of bear. And they won't be accompanied by little molecules that can use amps or plan how to best organize the assault on the bear. And in your scenario, the maulee isn't being protected by a bunch of, um...other bears? And the ability to shoot lasers at the bear's...claws? No offense, but this analogy sucks.))

I don't know, deflector shields don't seem to be a thing, but I'm fairly certain interstellar ships have ways of dealing with both mines and micrometeorites.

((Probably the PDL. Point Defense Lasers, in case that wasn't clear.))

150 drones actively dodging attacks, however, present themselves as a bigger target, while being a harder target.

((Wait, if they're dodging...doesn't that require reaction mass as well? Doesn't that mean we encounter the exact same problem you were describing for the little drones' power?))

And the best way to do that is a coordinated takeover, not a guerilla invasion. A surgical strike via remote units, if you will. Even if it'd be more efficient to do it with guerilla tactics, the timeframe it'd need to be done it simply won't allow it. If we could afford to sit there while the enemy loiters around in orbit, we could just starve them out, because we're on a planet, and they're not.

((You're describing his plan pretty well.
And you're exaggerating. We can't survive weeks, but we can survive minutes, probably even a few hours.))


In short: While drones aren't great on their own, they're plenty terrifying, and make a great supplement to any boarding parties.

You stick with antonand help him choose ships, all the while
secretly longing to start tearing free bits of their control
panels or engines.

(Honestly. This gives me an idea for another game. GOD
DAMN IT IMAGINATION. WE ARE OVERBOOKED AS IT IS)

Ooh spaceship "salvager" game. id so play that, especially if it involved salvaging occupied vessels.

((I'd like that as well, but I'd like confirmation on what piecewise's idea was. Five bucks says it's even cooler than that.))

[kisame12794]

((Remember, they aren't going to be bombarding quite as much as you think. Most of it is going to be centered on the laser batteries, and other areas that pose a direct threat to the fleet. They want this place intact, or at least mostly so. And for the problem of delivery system, we know they have to use the jump point. Why not just spread the drones out there before they arrive in system, or on the most likely route to Haephestus? Have them power down until the fleet is in the middle, then suddenly drones in your grill?))

[Toaster]

You stick with antonand help him choose ships, all the while
secretly longing to start tearing free bits of their control
panels or engines.

(Honestly. This gives me an idea for another game. GOD
DAMN IT IMAGINATION. WE ARE OVERBOOKED AS IT IS)

Ooh spaceship "salvager" game. id so play that, especially if it involved salvaging occupied vessels.

((Somewhere between The Martian Way and Space Hulk?))

[Empiricist]

You stick with antonand help him choose ships, all the while
secretly longing to start tearing free bits of their control
panels or engines.

(Honestly. This gives me an idea for another game. GOD
DAMN IT IMAGINATION. WE ARE OVERBOOKED AS IT IS)

Ooh spaceship "salvager" game. id so play that, especially if it involved salvaging occupied vessels.

((If it's something like that, you could do it using a variation of Mainspring...))

[PyroDesu]

wait for first ship to be airlifted then zerg rush it the second it lands and begin stripping off its armor panels, with lasers if necessary.

((Yes, let's just carve up ships that are pretty much intact and usable. While completely ignoring orders. Even the ones that are only fit for parts, which I don't think you're getting out of the pit intact, aren't really yours to be doing such things to. I don't speak for Sean, but he did tell you, in character, and I quote:

Flint, and Auron, you're on primary salvage duty. I'll try to get you some help, and some heavy lifting, but for now your task is simple. Take my salvage chart, and prepare everything for being taken out. Ships marked for salvage are to be freed of debris and hauled out into an open area of the level, if you can, without further damage. Ships marked for parts are to be cut loose via any available means, tear them to pieces if need be, and I would prefer to see at least most of those pieces in the salvage yard first. We'll sort out the usable and valuable pieces once we're done decontaminating everything. If only for the safety of the unshielded people you might be walking past, hold off on the looting till then.

Simus might not be in direct command right now, but she's still the overall commander. If you do that and Auron comments on it, she'll hear. And she won't be pleased.))

[Unholy_Pariah]

Yeah i posted that action after not getting any sleep whatsoever, i think i might change it now that an awake person pointed out a flaw.

[Radio Controlled]

Massage message to Simus:
"Call it what you want really, though part of calling it that is because, apparently, the UWM doesn't know yet there's a rebellion going on, so that's another point in our favor. I'll mention your idea of neutron warheads to Steve, see what he has to say."
((Relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb#Questionable_effectiveness_in_modern_anti-tank_role

Seems to indicate that the radiation might not be sufficient to incapacitate the troopers dropping in. Don't have time to investigate more in-depth, but it seems the advantage of neutron warheads might not be that great if the dropships are decently shielded, never mind battlesuits.

Also, a bit of an OOC argument, but I'm pretty sure that whatever measurements we use or how many nukes we lob at them, PW is still gonna let enough enemies land to pose a threat to us. There isn't a mission otherwise, after all. Though we might make it easier on ourselves if we prepare the right defenses and get a few decent background rolls.))

((Are you guys open to other people commenting in on the military strategy?  If not, I apologize.
I think that before you write off organic stuff entirely, you should look at production times.  I mean, the UWM hasn't shown itself to be willfully stupid on a large scale before, so why would they use organic-only sods if robobody sods are entirely better?  Maybe you can vat grow a battalion of sod bodies faster than manufacture a battalion of robobodies.  Or maybe there's some other advantage.  But you can't know, and therefore can't make an informed decision, unless you look.))

((Of course we are! The more you tear apart my plans the more I like it, after all two people are smarter than one. And I basically agree on this point: before committing to anything, we should check what is most feasible, and why (if it's such an obvious thing as robobodies) the UWM doesn't employ them. As I said, there may be unexpected drawbacks to full robobodies we haven't really encountered yet.))

((I'm personally against sending in Xanlings as a means for taking over ships, for reasons already stated by other people. That said, if he wants a chance at joing the borders, that might be arranged (depending on how PW wants to do this).

about drones: remember, you don't need no special tricks to get drones on board, because if Steve has a way to get troopers on their ships alive the same technique could be used for drones or anything else really. But I think using full robot drones should only be an addition to our boarding parties, not all we use. Both for IC reasons stated earlier, and because there's no mission that way, only a few turns' worth of explanations.))

[Sean Mirrsen]

((Somewhat unrelated to the idea of boarding drones, I've been thinking of whether it's possible - or feasible, or beneficial - to create an "assault wharf". No, it's not a ship dock that flies out and grabs ships for boarding, although that would definitely be nice (as long as it's just one ship).

What I thought of was... er, basically a combination of a ship dock, a missile silo, and a gauss cannon. The Sword being a huge ship, I doubt it can take off all that quickly. If the assault catches it still in its cradle, it will be a sitting duck until it leaves atmosphere.

Now, it's been stated that we can make a ship of the Sword's size in a few months, if everything works right. We don't rightly need a ship of the Sword's size, but we could make a smaller "pocket battleship" class with its own dedicated dock that's hidden in the ground, and can quickly launch into orbit, vertically, with assistance of a gauss-like principle or vector manipulators.

If nothing else, it'd be surprising. ))