AnotherDilbert
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Just as inconsequential as they are in MT. And if you cheap out on armour nukes are not so inconsequential...
Why would we consider them supertech Wunderwaffen when they are not in MT?
Darrian TL16 fleet
- Thread starter McPerth
- Start date
As for TL16 advangaes, I already sumarized my view (also MT based) in the post 6 this same thread (in fact, I quoted my own sumary in another thread):
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And, according to Mike, T5 and MgT Darrian book also talk about it. DOes ony of them give more details about it (sorry to ask again)?
About the fact of them being told Starships (one of the main points at the starting of theis thread), I keep stating that any BR/BT combo is quite likely to be refered as "Starship".
Of course, it may also be read as "less than two dozen Starships" properly, but no one denies any other spaceships exist too, and we could have several tenders, each of them with their BR/Monitors. In this way, the 154th IN squadron would be 8 starships (the tender and the escorts), the BRs not being listed on them...
Not that I defend this view, jsut claiming that if we come to the letter of what's written, this could also be a valid reading of it...
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And, according to Mike, T5 and MgT Darrian book also talk about it. DOes ony of them give more details about it (sorry to ask again)?
About the fact of them being told Starships (one of the main points at the starting of theis thread), I keep stating that any BR/BT combo is quite likely to be refered as "Starship".
Of course, it may also be read as "less than two dozen Starships" properly, but no one denies any other spaceships exist too, and we could have several tenders, each of them with their BR/Monitors. In this way, the 154th IN squadron would be 8 starships (the tender and the escorts), the BRs not being listed on them...
Not that I defend this view, jsut claiming that if we come to the letter of what's written, this could also be a valid reading of it...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Because they are...
they are TL16 therefore more effective than TL15 Imperial stuff
laser progression is visible/UV -> X-ray so the next step change logically is the gamma laser
AM is part of TL16 since CT TL chart times.
Just as the meson spinal is a game changer when first introduced, and then nuclear damper screens render nukes all but useless making gamma lasers and AM warheads at TL16 game changers makes TL16 stuff different rather than just a boring progression.
AnotherDilbert
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Don't forget screens, factor-A dampers and meson screens are a nice upgrade.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
True, but TL15 screens have already made nukes an meson bays almost useless against screened ships. The A dampers and meson screens will put a TL15 fleet at disadvantage since the computer/electronic warfare difference makes T spinal require a 6 to penetrate (the progression of the HG80 tables indicates a type A meson screen will still be penetrated on a 5 by a spinal T meson).
Using an extrapolation of the pattern in the HG80 charts to screen A shows that the screen improvement is not that big a deal for capital ships.
AnotherDilbert
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LBB3: Anti-matter at TL17:
MT: Anti-matter missiles at TL17:
Agreed.
If by "useless" you means slightly less devastating, yes. Nuclear missiles are still the secondary weapon of choice, forcing the enemy to use lots of expensive armour.
That might be exciting, but in MT the factor-A weapons are just boring incremental progress.
AnotherDilbert
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Nukes are almost useless against small, screened, and heavily armoured ships. The threat of them forces the enemy to up-armour their ships, making them much more expensive, making them fewer flying against you in space, which is highly significant.
Against Meson-J and Meson-N it pushes the difficulty by one, which is significant.
E.g. A Mes-J penetrates an MS-9 on 9+ (28%), or 10+ (17%) if the target has a superior computer. An MS-A pushes that to 11+ (8%), halving the chance of penetration.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I meant to say 16+, for some reason my keyboard missed the +. The AM for TL17 is for power plant use, stands to reason AM warheads could be made at much lower TLs - the technology required is actually well understood. AT TL9+ it should be trivial to build a solar powered AM production facility close to a star and store the AM for weapon use in magnetic or gravitic traps.
A mistake IMHO - the Imperium of the early days has had research stations trying to achieve the wonders of TL16+ for centuries, and then along comes MT with a boring progression. Then again, a lot of CT technology is boring progression and refinement instead of paradigm changing.
Consider:
TL8 spacefaring prior to grav modules and fusion power making lifting stuff to orbit orders of magnitude cheaper
TL8 post grav module and fusion power - space industry, moon and asteroid bases, O'Neill stations
TL9 maneuver drives and artificial gravity opens up the whole system to exploitation and then jump drive (if discovered) allows access to other worlds
between these two TLs you get a a significant paradigm shift
TL10 hmm
TL11 jump gets a bit better
TL12 nuclear damper technology, meson technology, the ability to manipulate nuclear forces - significant tech paradigm shift
etc
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Agreed.
My thinking behind allowing #A graser turrets and missile bays to ignore the +6 means your TL16 fleet will consist of small, heavily armoured, screened ships armed with graser batteries and missile bays - a shift in paradigm again (although it could be argued it is a return to an earlier paradigm of ship to ship combat)
Agreed, TL15 cruisers will suffer, but spinal T riders and BBs will not be affected by the screen difference, they will be affected by the computer difference.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Agreed, we can make anti-matter now.
But a small, cheap, stable, and energy-efficient containment field needed for field use is another matter entirely? MT seems to specify that as TL17.
Agreed, some TLs are much bigger jumps than others.
By MT TL-16 is incremental. Global terraforming, matter transport, and brain transplants are still noticeable progress.
TL 17 is the next big jump with anti-matter and disintegrators.
AnotherDilbert
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If you want that just say you want that, you don't have to blame MT. I vaguely recall experimenting with TL-16 factor-A computers, screens, and possibly bays before MT, it is the obvious extension.
Missile boats have always been effective, but vulnerable to PAs.
Who builds Mes-T riders? If you are TL-15 fighting TL-15 then Mes-N is the sweet spot, if you fight TL-14 (like the Imperium) Mes-J is the sweet spot.
Mes-T battleships are just white elephants.
It doesn't matter what it's referred to because the idea that the pre-Maghiz Darrians would build such a combination is laughable.
When this thread first began I asked those waving pom-poms for spinal mounts, battleships, battleriders, and all the rest the Sixty Four Dollar question:
What kind of a navy did the pre-Maghiz Darrians need?
All I got for answers was frantic tap dancing, hand-waves, and special pleading.
Thanks to the Itzin Fleet, the Darrians know - or think they know - all about the threats around them. The Itzin surveyed the most of the Marches and more before choosing Darrian to settle on. They spotted the lost Vilani colony at Vanejen, they identified the blasted worlds of the Sindalians, and they may have noted the Solomani STL colony at Algine. Part of the reason Darrian was chosen was because of a lack of threats either nearby or in "middle" distance.
Coming from the Rule of Man, the Itzin Fleet would know about the Vilani, but Vland is more than two sectors away. Coming from the Rule of Man, they'd know about the Aslan, but they wouldn't know the Aslan are across the Rift. Coming from the Rule of Man, they'd know about the Vargr but wouldn't know the Vargr were expanding into Gvurrdon. Coming from the Rule of Man, they wouldn't know about the Zhodani.
The Itzin Fleet believed it had found a bolthole and they were right. When Darrian "returned" to space about 150 years after the Terrans arrived, they explored all around them to about 20 parsecs and found the same conditions the Itzin Fleet had found; no one and nothing to worry about. Darrian was so well chosen as a bolt hole that it wasn't contacted by any other jump-capable people until several centuries after the Maghiz.
Given what they knew and what they thought they knew prior to the Maghiz, what sort of navy would the Darrians build? It's not a question of what their technology would allow them to build. It's a question of what they believed they needed to build.
Would they build a battle fleet? Or a patrol fleet? Would they build single role battleriders? Or multi-role armed scout/surveyors?
We also need to ask how big a fleet would the pre-Maghiz Darrians believe they needed? According to AM:8, all the post-5th Frontier War Confederation can afford is a permanent fleet of twenty warships - more than half of which are allegedly pre-Maghiz relics. How many ships could the smaller, pre-Maghiz, population concentrated on Darrian itself afford? More importantly, how many warship would it choose to afford?
The question is far more complex than simply adding up credits and looking at the tables in HG2 or MT.
What types of warships did they believe they needed? How many warships did they choose to build?
AnotherDilbert
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Despite your frantic hand-waving there were threats not very far away and the Darrians were aware of them.
The Vilani, hence the Rule of Man, hence the Itzin fleet was well aware of the Zhodani in the Spinward Marches (20 Pc) and the Vargr in Gvurrdon sector (~30 Pc) well within the reach of jump fleets of the time.
The Itzin fleet surveyed the Spinward Marches and specifically noted the Zhodani.
With the information in the CT Darrian module neither you nor I or anyone else knows what ships the Darrians made. I find your pretence of knowledge laughable.
With their Solomani tech background the Darrians knew that spinals were the real battle-winning weapon of the time.
With large interstellar powers close by only an idiot would not at least experiment with real weapons. Riders are the cheapest way to do that. The Darrians might very well have built some.
Bullfeathers. There were no threats. That's why the Itzin Fleet chose Darrian. They were running away from the "frying pan" of the collapse of the Rule of Man and they weren't going to do so by jumping into the "fire".
Vilani traders encountered the Zhodani circa -2000 IE or ~500 years prior to the Itzin Fleet's operations. Where those encounters took place isn't exactly known, but the "Gvurrdon's Story" in the Vargr AM strongly suggests they took place in the Extents. We also know from canon that the Vilani were barely active in Corridor, even less active in Deneb, and that only a single colony of Vilani separatists existed in the Marches.
Those Vilani traders weren't in Marches because there was no one in the Marches to trade with. They were in the Extents where the markets were. When the Zhodani met those Vilani trader in the Extents, they weren't going to hand the Vilani a map showing them the Consulate's borders. As for the Zhodani being in the Marches, they weren't, they failed to note the Darrians presence in the Marches for several centuries, and they only went looking when the Maghiz indicated something strange had happened.
The Zhodani knew the Vargr were in Gvurrdon. Whether the Vilani did is unknown.
Bullfeathers again. The Zhodani had jump3 and the Vargr wouldn't have it until they stole it. Even if both knew about the Darrians no one is dispatching a battle fleet 20 or 30 parsecs to fight a war without bases and other logistical support.
The Zhodani weren't in the Marches. They wouldn't be in the Marches until the Frontier Wars. Look at the maps and read the history in SMC. The Consulate patrolled the Marches on a schedule which saw sweeps centuries apart. Once again, centuries passed between the Itzin Fleet's arrival and the Maghiz without the Zhodani even suspecting the jump capable Darrians existed.
We can either make plausible guesses based on their capabilities, industrial capacity, perceived needs, and other factors or we can make crap up because it sounds cool. Take your pick.
I'm making a plausible guess based on the few facts in canon. You're going with what sounds cool.
Yes, they would have known spinals are win battles and win wars. Whether they believed they needed to build spinals is the question. Whether the Terran Confederation, Ziru Sirka, and Rule of Man ever built rider/tender combination is another question.
Sixteen warships is not an experiment especially when we can make a rough estimate as to how few starships the Darrians had.
They didn't perceive the need. They could. Whether they would is the question. They also didn't build as many starships as you want to assume.
The Maghiz destroyed half their starships; military, exploratory, and commercial. The collapse was so far along after 20 years that the Darrian colonies gave up trying to stay in regular contact with each other. What ships there were that still worked were parceled out three a colony. Depending on how you want to read the maps, that only amounts to only ~40 to ~60 ships being left. Combining that with the earlier 50% losses and deliberately erring on the high side, that puts the entire Darrian starship inventory at the time of the Maghiz at around 200 ships.
That's two hundred ships out of which you'll need to support explorations within a 20 parsec radius, commercial shipping, government couriers, colony logistics, a navy, and all the other jobs starships are used for.
Which would the Darrians have built more of? Single role warships? Experimental warships? Or multi-role ships which happen to be armed?
What is plausible and what just sounds cool?
If it includes large ships, as I already said when this was discussed, I agree the pre-Maghiz Darrians would have been unlikely to have anything larger tan light cruisers (let's say a TL16 versión of the SEH imperial cruiser) or 15-20 kdton Monitors/BRs.
I asked because of Mike post:
If we acept it as the current primary canonical source, we should accept what is depicted there there, no matter how laudghble it might seem to us, and he says it rules out the possibility of them being BRs...
It also seems to me laughable (as already told many times) that some squdrons of state of the art (TL16) jump capable ships were mothballed in storage when they were desesperately trying to keep contanct among worlds (so needing each and every jump-capable ship), one of the reasons that made me reach the initial conclusión (those mothballed ships, or at least most of them, where not jump capable) so many of you have refuted.
It's not that they were desperate to keep in contact. It's that maintaining contact was no longer worth the effort, an effort solely shouldered by Darrian. Only Darrian had the technology, trained personnel, and infrastructure to keep the ships flying and Darrian had far more important uses for those assets.
Rather than diverting some of what little remained to it after the Maghiz into maintaining regular contact with the colonies, Darrian eventually decided to parcel out the ships and told the colonies to use their ships when and how they saw fit but don't ask for anything more.
Darrian made the effort for almost twenty years before finally admitting it was losing the battle. They'd tried to bring home who knows how many outposts, exploration teams, and research groups from who knows how many systems and yet still had to leave some behind. The planet was damaged and the climate gone haywire with those people left facing privation and disease. Every day they must of been faced with more cut backs, more failures, more repairs, and more demands on fewer parts, fewer technicians, and fewer assets.
It finally came down to triage on an interstellar scale, pure and simple.
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True, but the few jump capable ships that they still had opperational were divided among the colonies and mothballed on ground in hope of being able to repilicate them, not on a lost situation in the outer edge of their system, and so out of reach when they could duplicate them...
See also that when they decided so, their remaining ships were three per colony (AM8, page 12). Assuming they might have about 6-10 such colonies, that means they had in total about 18-30 jump caapble ships...
Do you still believe that a similar number of warships would have been forgotten (or mothballed in the outer system) in this situation?
Sorry, but I cannot, and I keep stating that this is as laughable as if you say me that MgT module says the Darrians built 200 kdton dreadnoughts in their pre-maghiz era.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Bullfeathers. You are simply inventing facts: "Of those with human populations, Darrian's was a perfect choice: an untouched human minor race that would genuinely appreciate and benefit from an influx of Solomani settlers."
Bullfeathers. Of course you can if you want to. It's just a month or two away.
Bullfeathers. You are inventing facts again: "Many worlds of the Spinward Marches had indigenous life forms; significantly fewer (Darrian, Algine, Vanejen, a few Zhodani worlds) had human populations. "
Yes, you make WAGs based on a few fact you have invented yourself. Other people make other guesses. That does not make them laughable or frantic tap dancing or whatever colourful idioms you use.
Bullfeathers. You are inventing facts again: I have not taken any position on what the surviving Darrian warships might be.
You simply ignore a major step here. The Maghiz destroyed half of the starships and their entire hi-tech industrial base. Then they used the starships they had for 20 years without the industrial base needed to maintain them. An unknowable amount of starships were lost or became unrepairable during that time. We don't have the information to make the calculation you attempted.
Not forgotten, just discounted. They were warships meaning they required even more "tender loving care" than merchantmen. If it was no longer worth the effort needed to keep merchantmen flying, why make a greater effort to keep warships flying?
It wasn't a lack of ships. It was a lack of returns from operating those ships. Darrian wasn't getting enough of a return from it's efforts at maintaining interstellar links with the colonies. It wouldn't even have mattered if brand new ships were on hand. Darrian couldn't spare the assets and resources needed to operate them.
It was time for triage. The colonies were given a few ships which they could use in whatever fashion they wanted for a long as they lasted. Darrian had to concentrate on problems closer to home and, as resources dwindled, Darrian retreated across it's system and then from orbit all the while circling in on it's self. Darrian fell back so far that Mire was the one who which restored interstellar contact.
Don't get me started on MgT's version. I don't want to cause Wil any trouble or get myself kicked.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
One minor point of order = in your quote:
you have to remember the Alien modules and much of CT material is written from a current Third Imperial perspective.
So when they describe worlds as 'a few Zhodani worlds' they mean the minor human races that inhabit what are now Zhodani worlds in 1105+, back then they were not Zhodani worlds since the Zhodani wouldn't expand into the Marches for centuries (500ish from the time the Terrans contacted the Darrians). Note they do not name these Zhodani worlds since they are not Imperial...
you have to remember the Alien modules and much of CT material is written from a current Third Imperial perspective.
So when they describe worlds as 'a few Zhodani worlds' they mean the minor human races that inhabit what are now Zhodani worlds in 1105+, back then they were not Zhodani worlds since the Zhodani wouldn't expand into the Marches for centuries (500ish from the time the Terrans contacted the Darrians). Note they do not name these Zhodani worlds since they are not Imperial...
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