Beyond Alpha Centauri:: Discussion Thread 2

[Sovereign]

Hmm... I agree with the Fraal idea of colonizing a new homeworld.

As for Defiant, I'll use your ideas Mellian. But I have a idea for two variants of Defiant. One is your idea with several regular cannons and light missile launchers, and the second Defiant variant would be to have only two heavy cannons and a single heavy missile launcher.

Promethus... well, the main advatange in that in BAC would be that the enemy vessel will have to be faced with three seperate ships to target and fire at, rather than one. University tends to use splitting technology, HINT: Xaos Swordfish missiles... So use that concept, and that Promethus will be the first human multi-assault ship in BAC. The University's ideology is that multiple and smaller objects do more damage than one slow slobberknocker. The Promethus will be able to fire at enemy vessels from many angles from its 3 sections, doing damage all over the ship instead of just one side from one ship. But Promethus could also be a slobberknocker in one piece, with double the power of a battlecruiser.

As for the carriers... I'll reduce the size to 5.5 to 6 km. I'd like to tack on that 1 extra km, for engines, extra fuel for deep space, and a small repair bay for fighters or small frigates or destroyers like the Defiant, Galileo, and Darwin classes. But due to the size and expenses, only 5 are in service out of 50 carriers total. The rest are Protoss class normal carriers. The Enterprise class would be a Super-Carrier, with warship capability, and normal cargo of fighters. It will also be able to withstand tons of damage due to its size and impressive armor.

Mellian your idea for Neutronium armor will be okay. Your Gruser idea and energy weapons will damage it, but no asteroids, gauss, or missiles may damage it. If several ship buster missiles hit, it may do considerable damage, but not one or two hit kills like on most other ships.

I decided to use Sprayber's three systems that he set aside for the University to the galatic West of Sol, and in the bottom-left corner of the map, the systems of Zak, Nova, and Univeralis.

As for the carrier rescuing the Magellan... I have a Carrier and a couple of Einstein battleship escorts in a nearby system, doing some frontier training excerises. They recieve the distress signal from four Light Years away, and spend a hour to get there. A hour has passed between Magellan's transmission of the distress signal and the Procterate ships demand for surrender.

UCS policy is that there will always be a Carrier and Battleship escort a few Light Years from most any scout ships so to be able to jump in should trouble arise.



I have a couple of ideas how to proceed with the standoff.

First, a tense standoff between the Procterate battleship Cold Harbor, my crippled Darwin class scoutship the Magellan, and the newly arrived "Defense Group" of a Enterprise carrier and two Einstein Battleship escorts will ensure. The Hive ship Skipfire will transmit UCS frequencies to Yang, ensuring further communications between the two ships. The Procterate and UCS opens up dialogue, and try to resolve the situation. UCS agrees not to reveal the location of Roving to other factions, or even its own general populace. Roving would be falsely identified as a dead star system, with no inhabitable planets. Procterate will agree to let UCS and Hive go, as long as information about Roving isn't revealed.

Second idea: Magellan sends a warning to Skipfire to immediately transmit frequencies to Yang then Magellan self-destructs to prevent technology and information from falling into Procterate hands. UCS has self-destruct built in all ships to prevent technology falling in enemy or hostile hands.


Let me know what you guys think of either story idea.



By the way, I changed my idea of government of UCS from a democracy to a Technocracy (From Civilization, Call to Power)... It is a government based on automation, technology, and research.

[Silence]

if accelerating actual matter at the speed of light is impossible, then i guess FTL travel is impossible, no?

Simply they are not movign faster then light in realspace, they are going around the barrier into a universe where everything is more compact.

Grasers are listed as energy weapons, but the description of Grasers does say it fires 'matter' at the speed of light.... so visually, may look like another beam weapon, but with a high kinetic piercing damage. The Graser cannons in Honor Harrington were pretty big, and requires a lot of power, which a single Fusion generator can supply.

Grasers mean Gamma ray lasers. I would much like a qoute from the book that says that, becuase it sounds like you are getting the atriubites of a Hyper Velocity Missile confused with a graser.

another thing, i never read anything in the starfire series... never heard of it. Cult of Weber?

-LMP

At spacebattles.com's forums where we talk about this stuff all the time, there are certain groups that are formed around their favorte authors and sci-fi series, you have the fivers (B5) the warsises (Star Wars) trekies (duh) the battletechers, the Cult of Connie, the Cult of Tank, and one of the more bigger groups is the Cult of Weber, which I am the second in command of.

Starfire is another one of David Webers books series that covers the game universe where he used to work, with the Theban War, the 4th Interstellar War, and the Terran Federation Civil War. All of them are good.

[Mellian]

Originally posted by Sovereign
Hmm... I agree with the Fraal idea of colonizing a new homeworld.

Not a new homeworld, just percentage of Fraals who wants to colonize the a world.... the wanting to colonize started after observing humanity for century...and the wanting becoming stronger every century....... Fraals live very long so changes with them can take quite a while.

As for Defiant, I'll use your ideas Mellian. But I have a idea for two variants of Defiant. One is your idea with several regular cannons and light missile launchers, and the second Defiant variant would be to have only two heavy cannons and a single heavy missile launcher.

Small to Medium missiles are generally use to shoot down fighters and small ships.... Anti-Ship/Torpedoes are generally for ships. Ship-Busters are missiles that would be pointless for a Capital Ship to have do to space and limited ammunition..... ship-busters usually do instant kills or quite a lot of damage.

Promethus... well, the main advatange in that in BAC would be that the enemy vessel will have to be faced with three seperate ships to target and fire at, rather than one. University tends to use splitting technology, HINT: Xaos Swordfish missiles... So use that concept, and that Promethus will be the first human multi-assault ship in BAC. The University's ideology is that multiple and smaller objects do more damage than one slow slobberknocker. The Promethus will be able to fire at enemy vessels from many angles from its 3 sections, doing damage all over the ship instead of just one side from one ship. But Promethus could also be a slobberknocker in one piece, with double the power of a battlecruiser.

That advantage isn't a big deal in BAC, as a slow "slobberknocker" could be fighting a squadron of smaller and faster ships which wouldn't make much difference if the ship is fighting several multi vector ships. In Fleet vs Fleet combat, Prometheous will not have a better advantage then a Squadron of ships. BAC isn't startrek! there is a lot of ships in BAC where the federation in Startrek only have thousand or two ships for defending a territory of 1000 or more light years across. Can have your multi vector, but won't have higher advantage then a squadron of smaller ships against a single bigger ship. may have double the power, doesn't mean it will have double the weaponry of a similar size "slobberknocker". how would the ship look like, without using the startrek prometheus look?

As for the carriers... I'll reduce the size to 5.5 to 6 km. I'd like to tack on that 1 extra km, for engines, extra fuel for deep space, and a small repair bay for fighters or small frigates or destroyers like the Defiant, Galileo, and Darwin classes. But due to the size and expenses, only 5 are in service out of 50 carriers total. The rest are Protoss class normal carriers. The Enterprise class would be a Super-Carrier, with warship capability, and normal cargo of fighters. It will also be able to withstand tons of damage due to its size and impressive armor.

5.5km? with 1km engine? this Enteprise would end up being the biggest Human warship in Human Space.... suggest you call the Protoss carrier something else............. what will be Universty's general ship style be? federation like without the nacelles and their window ports littered across the hull,.... or a advance protoss looking style? talking about humans, not aliens. or maybe simply forget how they look like and to each his/her own to imagine how a university ship looks like?

Mellian your idea for Neutronium armor will be okay. Your Gruser idea and energy weapons will damage it, but no asteroids, gauss, or missiles may damage it. If several ship buster missiles hit, it may do considerable damage, but not one or two hit kills like on most other ships.

Can't simply say all projectiles and missiles won't do any damage. A Neutronium Armor may not get damaged, but a big astoroid smacking through a small Neutronium ship will do some physical brunt damage if not piercing the hull. Gauss/Impact Weaponry and Rail Guns may not be able to pierce the hull, but after awhile and concentrated fire, it will do some kind of damage....like weapons, engines, sensors, etc... Anti-Ship MSLs/Torpedoes (both are the same darn thing, just two ways of describing them) may not pierce the Armor, but will explode and cause damage to the armor, espcially when the warhead is Fusion or Antimatter or Plasma Shards or etc. they are ENERGY explosives.... one Fusion Torpedoe could easily and completly destroy a small city.

UCS policy is that there will always be a Carrier and Battleship escort a few Light Years from most any scout ships so to be able to jump in should trouble arise.

Four lightyears? whats the point of using scouts to explore when you may as well use your big ships to do it.

First, a tense standoff between the Procterate battleship Cold Harbor, my crippled Darwin class scoutship the Magellan, and the newly arrived "Defense Group" of a Enterprise carrier and two Einstein Battleship escorts will ensure. The Hive ship Skipfire will transmit UCS frequencies to Yang, ensuring further communications between the two ships. The Procterate and UCS opens up dialogue, and try to resolve the situation. UCS agrees not to reveal the location of Roving to other factions, or even its own general populace. Roving would be falsely identified as a dead star system, with no inhabitable planets. Procterate will agree to let UCS and Hive go, as long as information about Roving isn't revealed.

I don't think the Hive or Protectorate will honestly agree to that...especially if it is just a few ships being threatened by the "Enterprise" supercarrier (University people watches to much of old startrek reruns i tell you) and escorts.... you are dealing with the crazy Hive and Protectorate here who don't give much of a hoot if they loose a few people.

Why not Magellan detects the incoming Protectorate ships and starts running just when the Protectorate ships gets into weapons range and then play catch and mouse in the system... Magellan can't FTL because of a small grav well effect from the Protectorate ship.... and besides, would be risky to FTL from out from within the system without proper survey data......... FTL in bac is not as easy as warping in and out like startrek or starwars....... there is such thing as FTL limits in systems, which people seem to generally forget about... and that jumping straight into a system can be dangerous, like could hit a meteor or an asteroid which a ship cannot detect in FTL.... like another ship. FTLing blind is dangerous.....which Scouts do a lot, taking the risks for the sake of exploration. That is why buoys are use a lot by ships in Human space to lock on 5-10ly away. and that is why ships don't simply do 10ly-50ly year jumps at the time. I guess have to discuss the FTL concepts and limits in the Datalinks

Why not have the Enterprise carrier group receiving the distress and locks on to it, and FTL towards it....but getting out of FTL at the edge of the system for safety sake, as the system is still not properlly explored or does it have any buoys.... but not getting there in time to save the Magellan from whatever happened to her? Can have the cloak Hive ships that happens to be in the system, spying on the Protectorate....and receives the distress signal and later detects the Magellan and Protectorate ship playing catch and mouse. then whatever happens happens........ the Enterprise group won't be able to do anything about it, but investigate the system for what happened.

can't use the idea that the Enterprise group receiving the distress signal while FTLing.... because ships cannot receive tachyon comm messages while FTLing. and won't allow anything more advance then tachyon communication or what the cyborgs uses for their consciousness (and being the only humans having it). are we not trying to create the sense of possible dangers of FTL, the risks humanity takes while FTLing, and etc.... being one of the factors that Humanity simply doesn't wander into deep space along with the slowness of current FTL speeds.

[quoe]
Second idea: Magellan sends a warning to Skipfire to immediately transmit frequencies to Yang then Magellan self-destructs to prevent technology and information from falling into Procterate hands. UCS has self-destruct built in all ships to prevent technology falling in enemy or hostile hands.
[/quote]

hmm, Sovereign, all ships generally have self-destruct capabilities....and various human factions generally TRY to self-destruct before being captured or during capturing.

By the way, I changed my idea of government of UCS from a democracy to a Technocracy (From Civilization, Call to Power)... It is a government based on automation, technology, and research.

makes lot more sense

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Silence

At spacebattles.com's forums where we talk about this stuff all the time, there are certain groups that are formed around their favorte authors and sci-fi series, you have the fivers (B5) the warsises (Star Wars) trekies (duh) the battletechers, the Cult of Connie, the Cult of Tank, and one of the more bigger groups is the Cult of Weber, which I am the second in command of.

.

Dear Lord....you ain't a Diciple of Wong, are you?

Soveriegn

First, a tense standoff between the Procterate battleship Cold Harbor, my crippled Darwin class scoutship the Magellan, and the newly arrived "Defense Group" of a Enterprise carrier and two Einstein Battleship escorts will ensure. The Hive ship Skipfire will transmit UCS frequencies to Yang, ensuring further communications between the two ships. The Procterate and UCS opens up dialogue, and try to resolve the situation. UCS agrees not to reveal the location of Roving to other factions, or even its own general populace. Roving would be falsely identified as a dead star system, with no inhabitable planets. Procterate will agree to let UCS and Hive go, as long as information about Roving isn't revealed.

No offense but you didn't read my First story post about Roving very throughly, did ya? There's a squadron of Battleships there, and two dozen or so smaller vessels. If this is all less than 2 ly from Roving, the University-force is in deep Poo-doo.

But I think I can agree to that...in principle.

Frankychan! Have ya read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress?

[Silence]

Not but I am Weberite, DOW I think get beat down. Say Lonestar is that your posting name over SB to?

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Silence
Not but I am Weberite, DOW I think get beat down. Say Lonestar is that your posting name over SB to?

Ja.

[Mr. President]

I just signed up over there. My Space Battles name is Windgrace.

[Kassiopeia]

Edit: Oh, and not to stray too far from topic, I am thinking of killing off InEn as a faction, since, well, they have lost most of their holdings, and have the net value of a tool shed. Of course, that would instigate the dilemma of whether the Morgan - TA war should be continued? Discuss.

Originally posted by Mellian
that...especially if it is just a few ships being threatened by the "Enterprise" supercarrier (University people watches to much of old startrek reruns i tell you)

What is wrong with the name? The Uni could of named the ship after the shuttle Enterprise.
Wait a second - wasn't the shuttle named after Star Trek's USS Enterprise? I have heard that the fans insisted on the name, is it true?

[Mellian]

Originally posted by Silence
Simply they are not movign faster then light in realspace, they are going around the barrier into a universe where everything is more compact.

I like b5tech.com's explaination of Hyperspace.... anyway, I am not talking about Honor harrington universe.....but about FTL travel in general.

Grasers mean Gamma ray lasers. I would much like a qoute from the book that says that, becuase it sounds like you are getting the atriubites of a Hyper Velocity Missile confused with a graser.

fine you win, but that was the impression i was given reading the books.... they seperated Grasers and X-Ray Lasers seperately. But i say firing projectile at light speed is possible

At spacebattles.com's forums where we talk about this stuff all the time, there are certain groups that are formed around their favorte authors and sci-fi series, you have the fivers (B5) the warsises (Star Wars) trekies (duh) the battletechers, the Cult of Connie, the Cult of Tank, and one of the more bigger groups is the Cult of Weber, which I am the second in command of.

I went to check the site out and it scares me geeks galore and debates like, who will win... Romulan Warbird vs Mon Calamari Cruiser 80..... and the majority says MC-80 will win, like my arse. trekie shields lot stronger, phasers way better both in strength and range then starwars lasers, photon/plasma/quantum torps way more powerful and better range then proton torps and concussion missiles, trekie STL drives hoot lot faster, trekie ships way more maneuverable, and then there is the Warbird's 'Quantum Singulirity' reactor vs the mon cal's fusion reactors, hmmmm the only thing the Mon Cal have for advantages is size, carries fighters, and hoot lot faster FTL drive. spacebattles will drive my realist mind nuts babylon 5 is hoot more realistic then trek and starwars anyway, i shall stop.

Starfire is another one of David Webers books series that covers the game universe where he used to work, with the Theban War, the 4th Interstellar War, and the Terran Federation Civil War. All of them are good.

used to work? okay.... i guess i never read any of those books

-LMP

[Mellian]

Originally posted by kassiopeia
Edit: Oh, and not to stray too far from topic, I am thinking of killing off InEn as a faction, since, well, they have lost most of their holdings, and have the net value of a tool shed. Of course, that would instigate the dilemma of whether the Morgan - TA war should be continued? Discuss.

If they are going bankrupt, they would probably be better to the Terran Alliance then the Coalition....

What is wrong with the name? The Uni could of named the ship after the shuttle Enterprise.
Wait a second - wasn't the shuttle named after Star Trek's USS Enterprise? I have heard that the fans insisted on the name, is it true?

whats wrong? it is not unique and almost everything in startrek is absolutly not compatible with BAC

-LMP

[Mellian]

Originally posted by Mr. President
I just signed up over there. My Space Battles name is Windgrace.

i will sign up there to for the fun of it.... and there, i wil be Mellian

-LMP

[Sovereign]

hmm... Mellian, I think I may use the self-destruct sequence.

I was trying to say that my warships don't have extensive survey capabilities, and that they were training in a system several LY away from Magellan's location. They are usually the "base of operations" from where the scouts refuel and repaired from minor damage. The scouts act as advanced mobile sensors for the warships.

Okay, I'll go with your idea for Neutronium armor. I wasn't too sure of its can's and can'ts... thank you for clarifying that for me.

The carrier sizes... well, some militaries build only a select few super-superships. Like the Empire built these 8 kilometer Super Star Destroyers. They would need a 1 km engine system to move all that mass. Besides my carriers have extra fuel for small scoutships and the like.

My ships would mostly follow an altered version of the levithian oval shape that I sent you a link for a pic of it. I've settled on an overall ship design based on that levithian shape, some protoss shapes and designs, and several designs that I have to upload to the site, but I do not know how to paste bmp or JPG here in the discussion thread. Then you'll get the general idea of an elongated oval-oid shape for UCS ships.

For the Promethus... what would you suggest for an alternative ship that is comparable to the potential and lethality of Promethus in Star Trek? I'd like to have a new fearsome ship that has many new features and technologies, like a test-bed of the latest in UCS technology, and has some unexpected surprises for the enemy expecting an easy kill or something.

*********************

Lonestar, I did read your post... I was just throwing around ideas how to proceed from there. Nothing is written in stone yet.

I have an idea for a procterate pyhrric victory. Your small ship approaches my crippled ship, ready for boarding to take prisoners. Then my ship self destructs, either destroying the Moosebrugger or severely crippling it. Then the Hive ship wheels around and flees. The Procterate achieves their objective of destroying the intruder, but leaves empty handed without slaves, POW's, or technology and information from the Magellan. I won't bring in my carrier and stuff, until later when UCS invesgiates the self-destruct spot.

I'd like to know what FC would think of this situation. The self-destruct sequence is the "Omega-1" that I put in in my first post. In addition, I will use Mellian's idea of luckily finding out a relay station, hacking into it and gather a few tranmissions, and transmit the files to Randius during the hail to him informing him of what happened, so that UCS scientists can dechipher the Proc. encrypted stuff at UCS home planet.

**************************

Whew, a lot of debate stuff... I sure hope we can resolve the communication fiasco. I also hope that I cleared up the ship designs and stuff. Thanks Mellian for pointing out flaws. I will use your concept of Neutronium armor, with a single clarification. Asteroids may minor damage Neutronium hulled ships, from impact shock-waves traveling inside the ship, but won't destroy or crush the ship. That was what I had in mind the whole time.

Guys, I'll await your next round of feedbacks

[Silence]

You guys would be intrested in checking out the Story Debate forums, where they do stuff like this all the time there. The one that I am in, Sea of Steel has been going on nonstop about for a year now and its on its 18th or 17th thread.

[Frankychan]

Apologies,

Lately I've been constructing a webpage for my psychology class and have ben researching on the web, that's why I haven't posted in a while....if you guys want, I'll post the address later. Its about the "Emotional Spin Cycle" and how changing your thought patterns can influence your internal feelings.

Anyway,

Lonestar: Sorry, no, I haven't read that novel.

As for the incident w/the University/Hive/Protectorate engagement, so long as the Hive has the frequency to the University...that's good enough. So long as the Hive or the University has the comm channel for the other faction, that's good enough...whatever happens to the ships is up to you guys.

For the potential Hive/Protectorate war (Sovereign you might wanna do a spell check dude!).....we should REALLY collaborate on this. As in when the Hive discovers the Protectorate is involved in attacking them, space battles and so forth.


I'm sorry that I will be "on-again, off-again" here at Apolyton, but my psychology class is very demanding and constructing my website takes top priority. And just a reminder, just because I haven't posted doesn't mean I'm not watching here!

[Mellian]

I was trying to say that my warships don't have extensive survey capabilities, and that they were training in a system several LY away from Magellan's location. They are usually the "base of operations" from where the scouts refuel and repaired from minor damage. The scouts act as advanced mobile sensors for the warships.

Okay, as long as they have Peackeeper permission to be in their territory

The carrier sizes... well, some militaries build only a select few super-superships. Like the Empire built these 8 kilometer Super Star Destroyers. They would need a 1 km engine system to move all that mass. Besides my carriers have extra fuel for small scoutships and the like.

Yes, but this isn't Starwars i understand th need for big engines for big ships.... i guess we know why University has a small space force, they spent a lot of resources on those supercarriers

My ships would mostly follow an altered version of the levithian oval shape that I sent you a link for a pic of it. I've settled on an overall ship design based on that levithian shape, some protoss shapes and designs, and several designs that I have to upload to the site, but I do not know how to paste bmp or JPG here in the discussion thread. Then you'll get the general idea of an elongated oval-oid shape for UCS ships.

ever went to check the forum's FAQ? another idea is find a post that someone posted the pic on, and press edit on it.... brings you to the edit page, but won't allow you to submit changes.... go find the forum code to post the pic. makesure the pic isn't too big either. if the click edit doesn't work, Apolyton must of done something about that

For the Promethus... what would you suggest for an alternative ship that is comparable to the potential and lethality of Promethus in Star Trek? I'd like to have a new fearsome ship that has many new features and technologies, like a test-bed of the latest in UCS technology, and has some unexpected surprises for the enemy expecting an easy kill or something.

have a ship that has the Yamato Cannon on it (which won't have good rate of fire) A carrier that has Drone Fighters, or simply a heavily automated ship, which doesn't a lot of people to operate.... so more room for weapons and so on but i won't allow super ships thought.

A automated ship, heavy Neutronium Armor, Reinforced Hull, as a slow charging Yamato Cannon, various heavy fusion beam cannons, allong with your Tachyon Bolts for secondaries and point defence, cloaking capabilities and good ecm jammers. This ship could be around a Heavy Cruiser to Battlecruiser size.

Whew, a lot of debate stuff... I sure hope we can resolve the communication fiasco. I also hope that I cleared up the ship designs and stuff. Thanks Mellian for pointing out flaws. I will use your concept of Neutronium armor, with a single clarification. Asteroids may minor damage Neutronium hulled ships, from impact shock-waves traveling inside the ship, but won't destroy or crush the ship. That was what I had in mind the whole time.

what about the parts that cannot be covered with Neutronium, like weapon ports, STL engines, sensor arrays, etc...

-LMP