[LP CYOA] Epic

[treave]

A sector armada is about 100000 ships strong. Epsilon has about 13000.

Maybe you could try thinking from the enemy's point of view. If you were Epsilon's commander and you want to do something about the enemy at Bainur, would you recklessly throw your fleet against a force twenty times your number in an attack where you will not receive reinforcements?

I think if we were playing Epsilon commander, we'd be calling those who picked the choice to blindly attack as being retarded.

Don't expect your enemy to be stupid. Just because taking Bainur will attract their attention doesn't mean the Council can only resolve it by attacking immediately without any planning or strategy. Just because they're incensed doesn't mean they'll immediately act like drooling fools. If they did the Empire would have beat them a long time ago.

 

[TOME]

How are we going to conquer a planet or get the council down there? We are bound to take heavy losses on the ground due to guerilla warfare. And it is going to take one enemy ship out of slipspace to nuke Ean or who ever went down to the planet. Bad plan. How about we just make our way to the planet and hold it as hostige, sending down a nuke every now and then? If it really is full of VIPs, the League must send an armada to distract our fleet (which we want) while their spec-op try to get some of them out, or face possible mutiny.

Uh, how are we going to hold the planet hostage if we nuke the place? If I hold someone hostage, I can't exactly make a list of demands to the police after I shoot them in the head. Besides, Ean definitely won't nuke a planet full of innocent people, so it's not going to happen.

I think conquering the planet will actually be relatively easy. Once Ean is on the ground, he can probably take out most of the planet's defenses quickly, so this won't be a problem. And as for them nuking the planet, I find it extremely unlikely: the Council might not give a shit about the planet in the grand scheme of things, but they still need to keep their war machine running and their morale high. Destroying a planet that's full of their political leaders is definitely not conducive to that.

Good catch about Ean. I meant sending a nuke down every now and then, like executing a hostage in order to make the enemy act hasty. This could be coupled with making a demand, say Vajra piece, but it is a moot point if Ean is in command.

How powerful Ean is? The planet is full of VIPs, which most likely are immortals, so IMO we won't take the planet easily. I would prefer we keep our troops in orbit if we are not opening a base, otherwise what's the point of conquer?

 

[Esquilax]

A sector armada is about 100000 ships strong. Epsilon has about 13000.

... And 50,000 CF's, of course.

Okay, well, if I were the Epsilon commander, I would probably have at that point heard about the assault on Gelmark* and figured out the position of Senya's force, which my intel would tell me is significantly smaller than the massive one at Bainur. I'd also be aware of the black hole capabilities of Anhur-Shu as well. At this point, I'd have a couple of viable options, most of them involving attacking the group at Gelmark:

1. Lie in ambush for them at Tejat A (it's only one jump away) in anticipation of their group linking up with the larger force at Bainur.
2. Wait for Beta and Gamma to arrive, link up with them, then attempt (1). The risk here is that we could already be gone at that point, but nevertheless it's quite possible for them to track our movements after Gelmark and coordinate with Beta and Gamma once they arrive. We could get hit while moving between systems.
3. Wait for Beta and Gamma to arrive, then attempt to retake Bainur that way. It's quite possible that this might involve coordinating with Alpha as well. This is unlikely, they probably don't want to be drawn into a massive battle like this right off the bat.

Of these, (2) is probably most likely. The battle will have taken quite a toll on Senya's force after we depart from Gelmark even if it's very successful, so the most likely scenario is Epsilon linking up with Beta and Gamma and trying to intercept us as we jump between systems. We'd be worn down from the previous battle, so this would be a smart move from them.

As a countermove, I suppose Senya could avoid linking up with Ean's group for a while in order to avoid running into them, or alternatively we can try taking longer routes through uninhabited systems to avoid our enemies.

* Be realistic guys, we aren't going to wipe out every living thing in the system. The Star League is going to find out our capabilities, likely sooner rather than later.

 

[treave]

A sector armada is about 100000 ships strong. Epsilon has about 13000.

... And 50,000 CF's, of course.

Taking the lessons of chapter 2 to heart... Smash the carriers and the fighters have no place to go. The numerical disparity is too big even if its just a single Legion. Any commander brilliant enough that he can outmanoeuvre entire Legions with one fleet, playing keep away safely yet still supporting the CFs effectively enough to be a threat to your task force...

Well, if such a genius commander existed, splitting up might be a bad idea.

 

[Baltika9]

Esquilax, you forgot option number four: hit Senya's forces from the rear while they are too occupied with fighting Delta.

Of course, I'z gotz me a kunnin' plan: we can underplay Senya's presence in the first days of the assault, making Epsilon think we're an easy target: after all, it's only a hundred thousand ships versus one armada, a fortress system and his fifty thousand CFs. He can surprise us and take us out before Beta and Gamma arrive.

Then, when they drop out of slipspace and commit to battle, we send in Senya.

Baltika9, our cannon is already upgraded, it's a planet-buster ffs! It's already at fortress-busting levels. We've got plenty of options, either with the Slave Familiars, or Lambchop's Gravity Wings suggestion to get ourselves into position. MOAR POWER!! on the cannon is cool and all, but the black hole gun is plenty powerful as is.

Then we'll be standing around on the battlefield for ten seconds every time we want to take out a fortress, assuming the enemy lets us. Why do that when the upgraded cannon can pop off black holes of the same strength within only a fraction of that time? Dude, we're heading into a siege without sige weapons.

Also, if Marduk had countermeasures against this cannon, then the Masters definitely will too. We'll need the firepower for them as well (and if there really will be tier-3 upgrades in the future, I want to max out our firepower).

 

[treave]

The Annihilation Cannon does just what it says in the description. It doesn't say anything about rapid firing planet buster black holes.

It would really be best if everyone just stuck to what is in the description of the choices for now. Makes things simpler.

 

[Baltika9]

Didn't say they're "rapid firing" (black hole machinegun, if only), but with a more powerful cannon we'll have less of a charge time to achieve the same power as with the current one, no?

 

[Baltika9]

By the way, if Epsilon wants to ambush us, then they can't let us win at Gelmark

Finally, Tejat A is an uninhabited system and the most remote. However, it allows us to reach one of the League’s prize-worlds, Bainur, within two jumps. From there, we can reach Gelmark and Dormungan with just one jump each, or reach Carneus Beta with five.”

It's just one jump away from Belmark and Battlefleet Ean. I think we can use that to our advantage to make Epsilon rush.

 

[treave]

Didn't say they're "rapid firing" (black hole machinegun, if only), but with a more powerful cannon we'll have less of a charge time to achieve the same power as with the current one, no?

If the cannon had an increased black hole output or something, sure. But that's not what the description says at all. The black holes aren't more powerful, you're just using them in different ways.

 

[TOME]

VII. Reactive Energy Armour. Uses the immense generator output to constantly create a layer of ablative energy. It can be supercharged and ejected outwards to burn the enemy, or contained and used for a ramming attack.

Upgrade: Reactive Energy Conversion - The frame's armour has now been installed with energy absorbers. This allows the absorption of heat and kinetic energy from nearby explosions or beam attacks into the reactive energy layer.

Standing around on a battlefield for ten seconds with supercharged energy armour?

 

[Baltika9]

I may be a little dense here, but here goes.

Upgrade: Annihilation Cannon - Collides a mirror pair of matter and anti-matter black holes with the target to create a burst of destructive energy that is strong enough to annihilate a star system if left uncontrolled.

What this says is that combining these black holes at maximum yield and letting them sit uncontrolled will be enough to annihilate an entire system. Doesn't that mean we'll need lower yields (and hence lower charges) to achieve planetary annihilation?

Or does the yield not matter and we basically have to sit there and control how big of a bang it makes after we fire it? And the only thing the charge controls is the distance?

 

[treave]

Manipulating the black hole engine to eject sufficient amounts of antimatter isn't exactly easy or fast, not to mention the calculation must be precise enough that they are the same mass. To simplify things the dial-a-yield function does not work with the Annihilation Cannon so that you don't take an hour to adjust for one single attack. It's always set to medium.

 

[ScubaV]

I'm not really sure what's treave's getting at with all his hint dropping regarding Epsilon. I think the way our forces are split, they are actually fairly close in overall power. Senya (& Rei) single-handedly demolished ~10% of the Empire's original invasion force AND disabled the Emperor. If Epsilon would be reluctant to engage a single Legion, I feel comfortable with two + Senya or four + Ean/Bel-Air who can easily match any possible genius commander. Not to mention that while the Star League knows about our wormhole tech, they obviously don't know where we're heading with Alpha guarding the final jump point just in case. Epsilon isn't going to be stupid enough to fight either group solo, but if we act fast enough they shouldn't be able to reinforce any defenses at Gelmark or Bainur either. Perhaps treave is just trying to troll us into overthinking things? Stick with the plan Jones.

In any case, I'm not too concerned about luring out Epsilon. If it happens, great. If not, no big deal. We can still smash Delta, gaining an overall numbers advantage and raze Bainur, gaining a morale advantage. After that, I would be content with a big showdown, any other divide and conquer trickery would be gravy.

I guess I can formalize my vote for the Baltikan revision of ScubaV's addendum to the Esquilaxian interpretation of Lambchop's Vision (B).

As for upgrades, I still like II and VI for new systems, but III and VII isn't bad either. As for the current tie between IV and VIII to upgrade, consider that we only made a Jupiter bomb, not a Sun bomb. Now the star system destroying power of IV isn't nearly as good as the Jupiter bomb, let alone a Sun bomb, but I still think having more firepower isn't a bad idea especially if we get a chance to upgrade again. We may not destroy the Masters' entire realm with a black hole cannon, but being able to realistically threaten an individual or small group of Masters without revealing or relying on our big load (Jupiter) could definitely pay dividends.

 

[treave]

From now on it's sink or swim, boys.

 

[Baltika9]

I remember the last time you said that.

From my reading TOME and Omicron were going for a straight B, so when the update comes out today it'll be using B, unless any of you feel like flopping. I'll keep voting open for another 5 hours. As for setting the world right, in the end that will be up to you guys, I suppose. There'll be... choices.

If you get that far. I'm removing the kid gloves for this chapter.

Let's rock out.

 

[Baltika9]

Consider the fleet we're bringing with us:

Raven’s Lance (Berith [also tried to get everyone to calm down and work together])
500 super heavy battleships
10500 battleships
68500 cruisers

Serpent’s Wing (Jheverg [fanatic; threatened probable traitor/traitor's lover])
700 super heavy battleships
13500 battleships
55000 cruisers

Our legions have the least amount of firepower. Since the contest is between upgrading the wings and the cannon, the logical choice in our situation is the cannon: we don't need more maneuvrability, our current loadout is more than enough to handle Delta's Imperial style, with the cruisers and our shield's AoE providing more than enough firepower to deal with the small fry.

Anhur-Shu is the heavy artillery in this scenario, and that's why it needs the biggest gun.

 

[treave]

Voting and discussion closes in six hours. I will pick whichever choice with actual votes regardless of whether it is an outdated plan or not. That will be all.

 

[ScubaV]

Voting and discussion closes in six hours. I will pick whichever choice with actual votes regardless of whether it is an outdated plan or not. That will be all.

Hmmmm. Esquilax, Lambchop19, Baltika9, TOME, Storyfag, Kayerts, The Brazilian Slaughter, Smashing Axe, Azira, Anabanana and anyone else I forgot that might be following this, you might want to formalize your votes with bold lettering lest the infinitely wise and benevolent treave decides to rules lawyer us.

 

[Esquilax]

Okay, I've tallied things up for convenience. I'm keeping it with the post where the poster explicity outlines which plan they picked.

Esquilax, Baltika9, ScubaV, Storyfag: Using the following roster, Senya's force will strike at Gelmark to attack the fortress system while Ean's team moves to take Bainur. I've slightly edited it for easier readability:

Battlefleet Ean- Tejat A:
Emperor's Sword- 1st Fleet, the heavy hitters.
Dragon's Guard- 2nd Fleet, the command team. Place Ean with this group so he can keep his mind on Kadowaki and coordinate with Adrahasis.
Devourer's Hammer- 5th Fleet, let these two do their gung-ho stuff. (I'd love to put Ean on the same ship as Richardson, though).
Wolf's Shield- 4th Fleet, since all legions need a fleet with them.

Battlefleet Hoshikawa, Gelmark:
Raven's Lance- 7th Fleet, Berith is the Empire's calmer commander to Hasting's firebrand, this pair should be fine.
Serpent's Wing- 6th Fleet, and pair the devout one with the Federation's diplomat for minimum conflict.

Jester: B: tl;dr Assault Gelmark in a surprise attack before Delta and Gamma fleet arrive. While this is going on, situate another large force at Tejat A to threaten the Star League's planet and to draw out Epsilon. As a bonus, our forces will only be one jump away from each other, allowing the possibility of sending reinforcements in short order if we feel that one of them is threatened.

TOME: Troops to Tejat A under Adrahasis:

Dragon’s Guard
Emperor’s Sword

1st fleet
4th Fleet
6th Fleet

Troops to Gelmark under Senya and Ean:

Devourer’s Hammer
Raven’s Lance
Serpent’s Wing
Wolf’s Shield Legion

3rd fleet
2nd fleet
5th Fleet
7th fleet

Kipeci, The Brazilian Slaughter, Lambchop19: A2

 

[Baltika9]

I vote B with the Baltikan plan quoted above

Storyfag flopped.

 

[treave]

This should be fine. If there are no changes in another few hours I will commence writing the update.

As for the upgrades, the tally appears to be:

New systems:
II - 3
III - 8
V - 0
VI - 2
VII - 7
IX - 2

Upgrade:
I - 0
II - 1
III - 2
IV - 4
V - 0
VI - 0
VII - 0
VIII - 4
IX - 0

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Treave's hints put the fear of treave into my vote. Unless treave will confess to his hints being bs designed to make us mess our pants or E and Baltika can mindtrick me into picking an option treave has repeatedly hinted might be bad, I'm flopping to A2.

 

[Baltika9]

Wuss.

 

[treave]

Roll.

1 - 3: IV wins

4 - 6: VIII wins

edit: The Annihilation Cannon wins. System votes are locked in.

By the way, I hope you guys realize that without taking the upgrade to III, you won't be able to use it to magnify fire power or dogfight a zillion drones just with your own. Ditto for VII, without the energy-absorbing upgrade, it won't allow you to tank as well as basic II.

As far as basic systems go, the drills, the lasers and the degen field would definitely be the most useful against drone swarm tactics.

 

[Esquilax]

By the way, I hope you guys realize that without taking the upgrade to III, you won't be able to use it to magnify fire power or dogfight a zillion drones just with your own. Ditto for VII, without the energy-absorbing upgrade, it won't allow you to tank as well as basic II.

Design-by-committee reigns supreme. But hey, on the plus side we have a big fucking white elephant cannon!

Wait, but didn't you say that VII gives the best direct tanking ability? Or did you mean the upgrade to VII?