Her Imperial Majesty's Space Navy

[Gimi]

Include some carefully crafted missions, I reckon. But get the bones of HIMSN done first?

I have some ideas for version 1 and 2. Missions would be from version 3. My approach would be that, unless the player actively tries to search out the Navy, he won't see much of it, if at all.
Missions should in my view be more of the reconnaissance/intelligence gathering type. Things that the Navy might find hard to do by themselves. Won't pay very well, but will get you some goodwill. I think I'll leave the missions to someone else to think through though.

[cim]

I reckon the existence of a Galactic Navy (which Thargoid Plans implies is the same as HIMSN, yes) is canon:

Though most of the Thargoid Space Fleet is currently engaged by the Galactic Navy in InterGalactic Space, a few of the smaller battle ships make occasional destructor-raids into human space. These ships are extremely fast for their size and invariably have anti-missile (ECM) Systems.

Additionally, most Thargoid battle ships carry several small, remote- controlled "thargons", killer-craft each equipped with a single, but highly advanced, pulse-laser. The Galactic Navy are developing their own deep- space RemCraft, and pay a large bounty for any thargon craft that are brought to them.

The idea that the Thargoid Warship is a "small raider" equivalent to a GalCop Sidewinder (or even an Asp, if you're being generous) should be enough to scare anyone... and I think implies a fairly large standing Navy (most of which a regular pilot will never see) or the Thargoids would just walk right over them and the eight galaxies, in pretty short order.

Why the organisation has a different name in the missions to the manual, I don't know...

Small surveillance stations or Navy outposts placed strategically in choke points. Max 8 pr Galaxy.

Quite a lot of the obvious chokepoints are fairly "unsafe" systems - Dictatorship, Feudal or Anarchy. That actually makes sense for a Navy base: somewhere the locals won't have the organisation for NIMBYism or can be effectively placated by some bribery of one ruler. It also, if they largely stay out of fights on the space lane, gives a chance to distinguish them from the police a bit more - it's not their job to enforce civil law, and pirates have neither motive nor stupidity to attack them.

The navy could potentially be pretty large in total. Total population is about 900 billion people per galaxy, which on Earth levels suggests around 4.5 billion military personnel (around half of whom are reserves) per galaxy. Obviously a lot of these will be planet-based, army or marines rather than navy, support staff, on leave, in witchspace transit, or fighting in intergalactic space at any one time, and the vast majority will belong to system rather than galactic militaries anyway, but even so I think from that you will run into the limitations of the Oolite engine before being unable to canonically justify the number of ships.
(I do agree that in terms of game ambience, GN puts too many spacelane patrols in, by the way)

I would suggest Navy Anacondas (Corvettes) with a 2-ship Asp escort to be the main bulk of the Navy, but still a pretty rear sight, even if there is a Navy station there.

As regards ships, I would expect Sidewinders to feature quite heavily as a multi-purpose light fighter. There's no canonical price for them, but I would expect you could get at least ten well-equipped Sidewinders for the price of a military-spec Asp. Tactically, they'd be very useful for taking out or at least distracting Thargons while the Asps go for the Warships with their military lasers.

The Navy's rather lacking any sort of bomber role. Now that they have hardheads, I'd expect them to also have some torpedoes for attacking Thargoids - especially the bigger ones. Cobra IIIs would make nice fighter/bombers {1}, or Anacondas for heavy bombers.

{1} Yes, it's a civilian design, but it's a good one, and I think it's justifiable if the development of the hardhead was recent enough that proper naval fighter/bombers aren't yet in service (or are having their prototypes stolen!) as they're only just adapting to being able to use missiles again. And a lot of their reservists will be flying one anyway, of course.

Maybe a ship a few times the external size of an Anaconda to act as a light carrier and maintenance ship for the Sidewinders? Small internal docking port for the Sidewinders, and a couple of external attachment points for Asps, if you want to keep the size down.

[Cody]

Though most of the Thargoid Space Fleet is currently engaged by the Galactic Navy in InterGalactic Space

This is the key word though... intergalactic space, which doesn't exist in-game.

[SandJ]

Would you please consider creating a new, different, OXP from the current Galactic Navy one, rather than changing the existing one?

[Gimi]

Thanks for the thread split, a_c!

Another successful derailment comes of age

As this seems to be moving forward, we could think about where it is going. Is the idea just to add a proportionate Naval presence around the Eight, or would this go further to include missions etc with HIMSN?

My approach would be:
Version 1: Add Navy presence for those who look for it. Main HQ, 8 Sector HQ's, X outposts. Very rear Fleet Encounters.
Version 2: Add a little more mission related presence.
Version 3: Add missions.

I think we can reuse some of the stuff in GN.
I think I need some offline means of communications though.

[Cody]

Would you please consider creating a new, different, OXP from the current Galactic Navy one, rather than changing the existing one?

That would be my preference as well... definitely! I thought that was the idea!

[Gimi]

I reckon the existence of a Galactic Navy (which Thargoid Plans implies is the same as HIMSN, yes) is canon:

Though most of the Thargoid Space Fleet is currently engaged by the Galactic Navy in InterGalactic Space, a few of the smaller battle ships make occasional destructor-raids into human space. These ships are extremely fast for their size and invariably have anti-missile (ECM) Systems.

Additionally, most Thargoid battle ships carry several small, remote- controlled "thargons", killer-craft each equipped with a single, but highly advanced, pulse-laser. The Galactic Navy are developing their own deep- space RemCraft, and pay a large bounty for any thargon craft that are brought to them.

The idea that the Thargoid Warship is a "small raider" equivalent to a GalCop Sidewinder (or even an Asp, if you're being generous) should be enough to scare anyone... and I think implies a fairly large standing Navy (most of which a regular pilot will never see) or the Thargoids would just walk right over them and the eight galaxies, in pretty short order.

Why the organisation has a different name in the missions to the manual, I don't know...

Small surveillance stations or Navy outposts placed strategically in choke points. Max 8 pr Galaxy.

Quite a lot of the obvious chokepoints are fairly "unsafe" systems - Dictatorship, Feudal or Anarchy. That actually makes sense for a Navy base: somewhere the locals won't have the organisation for NIMBYism or can be effectively placated by some bribery of one ruler. It also, if they largely stay out of fights on the space lane, gives a chance to distinguish them from the police a bit more - it's not their job to enforce civil law, and pirates have neither motive nor stupidity to attack them.

The navy could potentially be pretty large in total. Total population is about 900 billion people per galaxy, which on Earth levels suggests around 4.5 billion military personnel (around half of whom are reserves) per galaxy. Obviously a lot of these will be planet-based, army or marines rather than navy, support staff, on leave, in witchspace transit, or fighting in intergalactic space at any one time, and the vast majority will belong to system rather than galactic militaries anyway, but even so I think from that you will run into the limitations of the Oolite engine before being unable to canonically justify the number of ships.
(I do agree that in terms of game ambience, GN puts too many spacelane patrols in, by the way)

I would suggest Navy Anacondas (Corvettes) with a 2-ship Asp escort to be the main bulk of the Navy, but still a pretty rear sight, even if there is a Navy station there.

As regards ships, I would expect Sidewinders to feature quite heavily as a multi-purpose light fighter. There's no canonical price for them, but I would expect you could get at least ten well-equipped Sidewinders for the price of a military-spec Asp. Tactically, they'd be very useful for taking out or at least distracting Thargons while the Asps go for the Warships with their military lasers.

The Navy's rather lacking any sort of bomber role. Now that they have hardheads, I'd expect them to also have some torpedoes for attacking Thargoids - especially the bigger ones. Cobra IIIs would make nice fighter/bombers {1}, or Anacondas for heavy bombers.

{1} Yes, it's a civilian design, but it's a good one, and I think it's justifiable if the development of the hardhead was recent enough that proper naval fighter/bombers aren't yet in service (or are having their prototypes stolen!) as they're only just adapting to being able to use missiles again. And a lot of their reservists will be flying one anyway, of course.

Maybe a ship a few times the external size of an Anaconda to act as a light carrier and maintenance ship for the Sidewinders? Small internal docking port for the Sidewinders, and a couple of external attachment points for Asps, if you want to keep the size down.

A lot of nice inputs cim.

I disagree with your calculations on the size of the Navy. Those numbers would be correct if you included all and any dedicated system forces. To me the Navy does not bother with civil wars within a system or smaller inter system conflicts. So the Military won't have any ground troops, and marines would only be for boarding parties. The Navy looks at the big picture.

As for the Sidewinder, I see them as a swarm weapon, much like the Thargons, only manned. So in ordinary space, the player wouldn't see much of them unless he attacks a carrier. Combat Space Patrols (CSP) around military stations and installations would mainly consist of Asps. Likewise, Asps would be the main escort of any force. You need to have a ready force when coming out of Witch-space and the Asp is Witch-space capable. For offensive actions the Sidewinder could be the ship of choice using swarm tactics.

I agree that using the stock ship designs is a good idea. Cost saving for the Navy. I would like to see modified models and textures though. Would be nice if they were set apart from the standard models. Also, I would want the Navy ships to be strictly NPC, no player versions available.

[Gimi]

Would you please consider creating a new, different, OXP from the current Galactic Navy one, rather than changing the existing one?

Since I am useless at coding, I'm not taking the lead on this, but my idea was that this would be a new OXP. That does not exclude modifying and reusing some of the things in GN.

[cim]

Though most of the Thargoid Space Fleet is currently engaged by the Galactic Navy in InterGalactic Space

This is the key word though... intergalactic space

Yes, agreed. Still, they may be doing most of the fighting out there where it's not really seen, but the shipyards, manufacturing, training and so on are probably much closer to home. Given that the Thargoids are much better with witchspace than anything Galcop has, they're presumably also heavily defended in case anything bigger than a light raider breaks through Galcop lines.

In addition to galactic commands and bottleneck outposts, I'd expect to see a fairly big defensive presence in a few high-tech industrial worlds per galaxy (like Birera, for instance, though given the events of Thargoid Plans that might be the Chart 3 command) - I can't see even a small navy (and given the sheer size of the Ooniverse, "small" can still mean "several million people") wanting to trust defence of its manufacturing base to the local police and some soft traders, and they must be getting through a lot of ships out on the front lines planes.

which doesn't exist in-game.

I can't help feeling that full pitch on galactic hyperspace entry should let you reach it, though...

I disagree with your calculations on the size of the Navy.

I'm not sure I'd made any yet other than to set a very wide range on what canon might support

But okay, say 4.5 billion military personnel per galaxy, of which 99.9% is system defence forces (both planetside and orbital) to leave 4.5 million HIMSN forces per galaxy (half of which are reserves). Given that the reserves bring their own ships and weapons, you probably can have most of the HIMSN regulars deployed to the intergalactic fronts or on leave without compromising home defence - but even 10% (which I'm pretty sure is implausibly low) of the regulars kept back for administration, R&D, manufacturing, shipyards, defence of things too important to leave to ad hoc reserves, etc. is still around 225,000 personnel per galaxy. Most of them won't be pilots, of course.

Combat Space Patrols (CSP) around military stations and installations would mainly consist of Asps.

For local patrols I think mixed Sidewinder/Asp groups is still plausible - the Sidewinder is almost as fast, considerably cheaper, and in that context the lack of hyperspace capability isn't a big problem. Or, perhaps, given the full name "Sidewinder Scout Ship", mostly Sidewinder patrols for local space, with the Asps on standby to come in on injectors if they find anything.

I see your point on exiting witchspace - on the other hand, anyone exiting witchspace is incredibly vulnerable for a few seconds anyway while they get their bearings, power up their drive to combat speeds, and so on.

Ah, now there's an idea. Get a cheap witchspace drive on a long narrow frame, and fit six mounting points around it. Final result probably looks a bit like a mug tree, and probably has similar external dimensions to an Anaconda. Stick a Sidewinder to each point. Send that in to witchspace first to create the tunnel - as soon as it exits, the Sidewinders detach themselves, fly in separate directions, and start shooting up any opposition. A few seconds later your Asps exit the tunnel and start doing serious shooting, followed by any heavier ships in the convoy.

If there was any opposition, you'll probably lose the mug tree {1} and most of the Sidewinders, but that's still cheaper than losing an Asp. If there wasn't, stuff the mug tree into your carrier vessel, and use the Sidewinders to do advance scouting. If you're expecting opposition, send a few mug trees through different wormholes, and hopefully it's enough, but I expect most of the military guidance on "taking a guarded witchpoint" is along the lines of "are you sure you need to?".

{1} Needs a better name.

[Cody]

which doesn't exist in-game.

I can't help feeling that full pitch on galactic hyperspace entry should let you reach it, though

Ah, now that is a very interesting thought indeed!

[SandJ]

I expect most of the military guidance on "taking a guarded witchpoint" is ...

... attach a Q-Bomb to a witch-drive and send it through first.

[cim]

I expect most of the military guidance on "taking a guarded witchpoint" is ...

... attach a Q-Bomb to a witch-drive and send it through first.

Heh, true. Conversely the guidance for guarding a witchpoint is probably "tie a Q-Bomb to the nav buoy and stand well back"

[Commander McLane]

So we're starting with basically the same reasoning that led to GalNav.oxp in the first place. Oh well.

Hence in the end all militarists among the Oolite players will be able to install both OXPs alongside each other, and over-militarize the Ooniverse even further. That's progress!

The only point I want to make is that all calculations for the size of the galactic navy are fundamentally flawed, because they're based on false analogies with RealLife™ current Earth. In my understanding, GalCop is nothing like any current Earth country. It's more like the United Nations, only weaker by orders of magnitude. It's a (by and large) friendly and non-militaristic utopia: It's about trade and commerce in the charts, and the very basic services that enable this trade and commerce: a common currency, a system of trade stations, and a small police force to patrol the space lanes. Co-operation between planets throughout GalCop happens voluntarily and is not enforced by violent force. There was no need for any navy until the Thargoids arrived. And when a navy was created it was as weak and odd as the player encounters it during the built-in missions. After all, there's a reason why the Thargoids are winning the war, and it's not that GalCop has a strong standing army and navy which are kicking their chitin back midsections.

It's this navy for which the player works again in Cataclysm.oxp, not an armed-to-the-teeth powerful force. Hidden research facilities somewhere in the backwaters, not heavily protected sector commands. Secret ops, not displays of power. Hit and run, not shock and awe. Individual acts of bravery, not crunching the enemy with numbers.

Of course I can't prevent you from going ahead and script what you like. It's just going to be one more on the long list of OXPs that I don't install (and don't base my own OXPs upon).

[Cody]

So we're starting with basically the same reasoning that led to GalNav.oxp in the first place.

I would hope that isn't the case. A minimal, background presence for HIMSN is what I'd like to see... but a visible presence, nevertheless.
Fleet actions with any navy for the player do not interest me at all, nor do the 'benefits' of navy stations for the player.

It's this navy for which the player works again in Cataclysm.oxp, not an armed-to-the-teeth powerful force. Hidden research facilities somewhere in the backwaters, not heavily protected sector commands. Secret ops, not displays of power. Hit and run, not shock and awe. Individual acts of bravery, not crunching the enemy with numbers.

I have to agree with that!

[SandJ]

Hence in the end all militarists among the Oolite players will be able to install both OXPs alongside each other, and over-militarize the Ooniverse even further.

I want the original one left intact because I like the missions.

In my understanding, GalCop is nothing like any current Earth country. It's more like the United Nations, only weaker by orders of magnitude. It's a (by and large) friendly

Friendly? With a life expectancy of a few hours at best? The Ooniverse is a lawless, corrupt, dangerous shambles! It's like the old frontiers of the Wild West. God helps those with the biggest laser and fastest reactions.

Co-operation between planets throughout GalCop happens voluntarily and is not enforced by violent force.

The Vipers in your Ooniverse are fluffier and cuddlier than the ones in mine!

Of course I can't prevent you from going ahead and script what you like. It's just going to be one more on the long list of OXPs that I don't install (and don't base my own OXPs upon).

Instead of walking away, make suggestions. And there's always OXPConfig if you want to specify a "Extra Big Navy with stations On/Off" parameter.