Beyond Alpha Centauri:: Discussion Thread 2

[Mr. President]

Sure we're talking off-topic, but it's better to do it here than in the technically designated area, because it counts towards your post total here!

Anyway, Hive ships and people are welcome to visit Firaxis any time. Just remember that we are a neutral port, so you might have to leave the suitcase nukes at the door.

[Sprayber]

Mr President: Do you think that the Hive could respect Firixian neautrality like the Spartans so greciously have done

[Mellian]

Superweapons: Starcraft's Yamato Super-Cannon, Shinra's Makonic Cannon, or some equalivent that can only be installed on Battleships or Dreadnoughts. Capable of drilling a hole straight through a enemy ship or even a small asteroid. Leaves the ship at low power for a minute like the Excalibur ships in Babylon 5. Enemy ships could counterattack, that is, if they survive!

I don't know about Shinra's but will allow the Yamato Cannon, as an Squeeze Nuke blast. It does carve holes through ships, pretty much blows them up, or nearly destroy a ship.

Sub-superweapon: EMP shockwave, disables fighters and small vessels (destroyers and light cruisers) electronics. Capable of thwarting raids or cripples an faction that relies heavily on carrier battles. Idea from Starcraft.

the EMP thing i was consideering as a weapon for the Pirates, as they would use EMP Missiles to disable ships, so they can capture them. But university can use EMP Shockwave blasts from a Missile or Mine or Bomb.... but seriously only effective against smaller ships, and only partially disable bigger ships. Another about EMPs is that, not all ships still uses primitive "Electronics". There is such things as Bio Computers, Positronics (mainly use as droid/robot brains), Quantum Computers, and etc.... So not all forms of future "electronics" will be able to easily get disabled by EMPs.... maybe temporally for some, if not properlly protected. Then there is also the Hulls, Armors and so on which may partially to fully protect ships against EMP blasts.

Normal Space to Space weaponary: How does Tachyon beams sound? If I remember right they're medium weapons from SMAC, generally around the same time you get Neutronium armor. Tachyon beams were developed after serious research in defense and discovery of Tachyon Fields. Tachyon vary in color depending on the intensity and power of the beams. The beams are directly proportional to the amount of power the ship generates. As a rule of thumb, small ships fire weak Tachyon beams that are reddish in color and just blow off fighters or gun embankments on ships. Battleships and Dreadnoughts fire pure white tachyon beams that are capable of ionizing some alloys and slowing nanite regeneration of nanotech hulls.

The impression i got from SMAC about Tachyon Cannons is that they shoot Bolts of Tachyon energy, not Beams Don't have to make the weapon complicated with the Color thing. Can make Protectorate Nano Armor more vulnerable to Tachyon, but still protects against them. Eventually, Protectorate Nano Hulls will be able to adapt against tachyon bolts Tachyon Cannons could be the next generation from Chaos/Disruptor line of weaponry.

Ballistic Weaponary: Xaos Smart-Missiles that once reaching outside the enemy's firing range, accelerates rapidly to a sublight speed of 10% lightspeed, splits into ten seperate warheads, and slams into the enemy warship, delivering dense neutronium pellets causing "shotgun" wounds.

Ever watched Swordfish? If so, remember the beginning of the movie where that bomb strap to a woman blew up, blasting metal pellets in a sphere like blast, causing more damage. What are those kind of bombs called again? Anyway, is that what you mean? thats the impression that i getting. Each smaller missiles from the big ones penetrates the armor....if it does else not as much damage... and then the Warhead blows up, blasting Neutronium Pellets all about. Let University to think up odd and complicated weaponry

Two projects are under construction, under secrecy. Further details will be revealed as I write my story that could have important ramifications of the story. Don't worry, these two projects are well defined in the story's reality and isn't anything drastic like time travel or becoming gods.

Good because Time Travel and becoming Gods is beyond our scope to control without completly unbalancing the game

Armor: Neutronium hulls capable of withstanding more damage than bio-hulls or nanotech hulls, and almost impervious to collisions due to rigid molecular structure. Energy beams can damage Neutronium hulls. Missiles and bullets are generally almost ineffective due to the principle of near imperviousty to collision type damage. Think of an analogy to Bullet-proof glass, bulletproof cars, vests, etc. that cover the whole ship.

I should be careful when saying BioArmor and NanoArmor is weaker then Neutronium....... Bio and Nano Armor can "heal", regenerate and adapt. With BioMetal, if one has the molecular "code" of Neutronium armor, they can "program" Biometal to be as strong Trying to keep Biometal and Bio/Organic Armor seperate too just to say..... Organic and Nano also still have lot more room to improve then Neutronium

Military... I want to be fair to the other factions. I think my military should be 1/10th of any faction at any given time. That way, their superior numbers can equalize with my technology, creating a level playing field. If Hive has 5000 ships, then I'll make my military 500 ships... However, my military will never go below 200 ships in total.

I think Hive should rethink its total fleet size, especially if it is mainly comprise of smaller ships then Capitals Protectorate as a total of about 6000 ships or more and they control three systems? I say University better off with atleast 1000 ships, where only small percentage of those are Capital Ships? (Cruiser and up are capital ships)

Star-Gate... good point there LMP. Its just that the 3 star systems look extremely far from Chiron, almost at the edge of the map! So it would make sense for University to arrive there in a faster than regular FTL method. Think Voyager and Delta Quadrant from Star Trek. Maybe that's a little extreme but you get the idea. The other factions are relatively next-door neighbors to Chiron while University is like on the other side of the river And the travel through the star-gate damages University's databases and records, erasing all datalink frequencies for other factions and recent sensor information, namely the Star-gate itself. Maybe if Star-Gate doesn't work, could you offer a better realistic idea of a sudden, abrupt displacement?

Where is University located first of all... before you came, my impression that University would be in the Tau Ceti area. Also, don't need abrupt displacement.... look how far some of the other factions went with primitive FTL drives at the time of mass colonization from Chiron

Hmm... I think I shall head over and fix my timeline. I'll try my best to modify the 2300's to 2400's... sorry Sprayder, didn't realize the official timeline was there! I'm still new at this, but I'm enjoying this immensely. I'm trying to get a good picture of my faction, their capabilities and weaknesses, and potential old friends and enemies. Give me some time and feedback, and I'm sure I'll have my very first piece done by this weekend, hopefully when I get home from college

It isn't a big deal, but why did you killed off Zhakarov so soon
Why not have him die happy after the discovery of FTL in 2400s, where he got University to be the first faction back into space and first to discover FTL. I don't know, just saying and not a big deal.... that way, Zhakarov will be around longer to influence University more to his own vision before University society change slightly after leaving Chiron. That way, can have only one Rangius too which had pernament Longivity treatment. There is a difference to improving ones body and going to the extremes.
Just my thoughts and not ment to push around.


Sprayber

yes yes, i know about Beta Hydri and its axis..... but where would the Dosi be exactly? ABOVE Human space? As for the Bree and Gorn, i know Humanity wouldn't know their full size... but they would know the known borders facing to Human Space thought.... space with Proginator Space to the north... and i like the scattered idea. makes sense too the Ancient Proginator Empire use to span a good portion of the galaxy afterall.

[Silence]

Franky sure you can use those ship to attack that, just send me a PM

History Guy send me a PM about what you want the SoGs to do.

And Spraybear sure, the merchant ship Gold of the Lord can be used in your post.

[Mellian]

Could someone send me a Screenshot of the menu when you read up on information of a faction within the game? like where you find with whom they are at war with and so on? the intel menu?

or maybe simply write down the Fields? thank you

-LMP

...far away from the comp with SMAC...

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by History Guy
Kassiopeia--- Silence wants to know if he can attack Capella

I am sure that that can be arranged, since now the Terrans are rich with systems (Wolf, Ross 128). Capella is a double (or was it triple) star system, which has only one, Mars-like planet called Terra Nova which is going to be engulfed by one of the system's suns in some over hundred years.
The defences there are somewhat lacking in strength, and there have been attempts to conceal the true state of the military forces there, but it definately is relying on TAF Taskforces and elementary orbital platforms.
The colony's main task is to serve as a depot for long-distance flights and for research, some mining exists but not in large quantities.
And I recall the colony being eight day's travel away of Sol, so any thoughts of reinforcement troops there is impossible.
But for a bargain, I for the very least request that at the Capella assault, the Terrans find out that the Believer's are in it for Morgan.

[Silence]

Sure why not I will let you have a single destroyer (or what the miltary class a tin can) to escape saying that they were believers.

[Sovereign]

{ugh, double post, see below}

[Sovereign]

Good ideas Mellian. I'll modify my timeline to keep Zhakarov alive longer, and make it Randius, not Randois XVIII. Complex minds, complex devices

I'll go ahead with Tachyon weaponary and these multiple "shotgun" warhead missiles Swordfish style. I'll use the Yamato cannons, and EMP shockwaves. My intent for EMP shockwaves is to disable swarms of small fighters, not meant to paralyze capital ships. That would be like an advanced version of Anti-Aircraft weaponary. It is my understanding that fighters won't have enough room for all forms of protection, and they should be vulnerable to EMP shockwaves.

Neutronium armor could prevent sensor scans due to the extreme density of the material. Neutronium should be allowed an special advatange that Nano and Bio armors doesn't have. Bio and Nano armors have regenerative abilities, but not immune aganist collision and projectile damage. Neutronium armor should be immune to collision like suicidal kamikazes and ballistic weaponary. The lead based armor can prevent microwave waves and x-rays. I think this could balance out the advatanges and disadvatanges of the different armors.

Neutronium armor could be improved later on as better matter compression techinques are developed and applied. More dense compressed Neutronium armor that could resist more and more energy weapons. For example, now University uses compressed lead, but could be improved to compressed plantium or compressed solid hydrogen, etc in the future. This reflects more research in matter compression, finding ways to compress heavier metals or elements, etc. Later, in maybe 100 or 200 years, Neutronium can be upgraded to Antimatter Plate.

Sprayber agreed that I could use the three stars in the far southwest of the map, the ones arranged in a triangular shape (Nova Prime, Zak Prime, and Univeralis Prime). He set these aside for the University, and it is a good distance away from Chiron, I think about 2,000 light years, taking the realism of the 100,000 light year across galaxy into account. If we use the 10 light years per year FTL drive, it would take University until 2621 to arrive in the three star systems. 79 years isn't much time to build 1,000 spaceships, develop all that technology, etc. So I was thinking of Mr. President's idea... with something thrown in.

University engages their own experimental FTL drive to enable them to go even faster, but something happens. University accidentally finds Side-Space, the next level of FTL drive (like Star Trek's Transwarp) but lack the sufficient technology to operate it. So University is thrown through Side-Space and suffers some damage to their colony ship fleet. However, University keeps knowledge of Side-space, and Side-Warp (100 times as fast as FTL) propulsion a secret even though they lack the technology to utilize it. University could discover the technologies for Side-Warp just before the big Progenitor invasion or by M.Y. 2800 or 2900. FTL eventually will be improved on by other factions as the centuries go by right?

As for the ship-fleet. 1,000 ships it is then. How does 100 battleships / dreadnoughts, 300 heavy cruisers, and 600 destroyers, light cruisers, etc. sound? Transports aren't counted seeing that they aren't necessarily a part of the military.

Hope these ideas are O.K. so that I can finally start my piece!!

[Mr. President]

I think just about all of the Drone Republic and Firaxis stuff is in the datalinks thread now. I didn't quite realize how much of it I wrote until I started trying to copy, paste, and format it.

[Frankychan]

I'm putting eye-candy on my site--->specifically the "GHE relations" page.

Lonestar: Can you post that picture of Protector Ian or the seal of the Protectorate again?

Silence: Do you want to use the original Believers seal? Also, your ships in system LP 658-2 are not gonna be attacking anything yet, just making sure the Protectorate wont try anything funny...yet. Probably gonna see action later.

Sprayber: I posted where the Spartan ship was attacked...did you see it?

Sovereign: Did you want me to use the original University seal or Prokhor Zakharov? Or do you have something else in mind.


As for the other factions, I've put your leaders face up. So the Gaians have Deidre Skye for them and Morgan Interstellar has CEO Morgan. Terrans have Earth Coalition seal, Spartan's have Spartan Federation seal. I'm still trying to figure out how I can modify the Hive seal into something more...grand.

Just in case, here's the GHE site:Emperor Yang's Palace
Try to give me a break! I had to write all this in html format and I just learned how to do it recently

[Lonestar]

Alright, here's a pic of Lord Protector Ian in his suit he wears for affairs of state.


FrankyChan, you want us to drift closer and closer to war? (with a period of Peace first, of course.)

[Sovereign]

Hmm... I'll rummage around for a good face, remember Zhakarov died in the 2400's and Randius looks a little different. I have a pretty good idea of the new University symbol. Give me a couple of days to design it and then post it (if i figure out how to copy and paste the symbol and face onto this page )

One other thing... how would you like Hive-University relations to start up again? Perhaps two ships meeting? Or what?

HistoryGuy, how would you like to start our relations? I mean, how shall we write up the history? Should we have already had our relations since 2699, or should I push back "Exploration" to 2650 or what?

I'd like to get started, with meeting Hive and Morganites, reestablishing relationships, and introduce University into the story.

Any ideas how to intergrate?

(readies his story finger)

[Sprayber]

Sovereign: The University should already be in contact with

Drones
Morgans
Spartans
PK
Various independents
Believers
Terrans

The level of contact is up to you and the person running the faction

As I said before the Spartans have no problems with the University. What happened on Chiron has been laid to rest. I dont think that we would have a lot of day to day contact. But there are no hostilities. We get your stuff through the Morganites. at cost

Franky: thanks for the heads up. You will most definitly see a response. That is what brought on my request from Silence for the lone of a ship to write about. Its time to move on the source of all those ships being lost. I'm sure all the factions will be interested in the fate of some of their ships.

Silence: Thanks for the lone. Any input you want to give is welcome. I just need the ship and circumstance.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Sprayber


Franky: thanks for the heads up. You will most definitly see a response. That is what brought on my request from Silence for the lone of a ship to write about. Its time to move on the source of all those ships being lost. I'm sure all the factions will be interested in the fate of some of their ships.

Hey, just because we destroy ships, capture their crews, take them to compounds where we practice fight on them, doesn't make us bad people.

It' makes us Evil Bastards.