Oolite Bulletins

Staer9 wrote:

Heh

Sure, but if you need a modeller I'd be happy to help (And I like working with Smivs because I get away with not having to make any textures )

You are already on my list. Didn't you know.
Happens automagicaly when you post in this thread.

'Press ganging' or 'impressment' they used to call it in the Navy!

Gimi wrote:

Switeck wrote:

Modifying Anacondas into a fast and heavier "Cruiser" type should/would reduce its cargo bay considerably...and still might not justify giving them >0.3 LM speeds. The Galactic Navy Anaconda Transport could could even be renamed "Flak Cruiser" due to its turrets...then its military-quality power plant can run the engines and the turrets, something a smaller ship should couldn't feasibly do.

Military combat ships won't have any cargo space. All taken up by extra fuel, sensors and weapon systems. The Military Anaconda supply ship however, will have it's full cargo space, and will have to rely on a small escort for protection. If destroyed, it should drop ONLY food, arms and medical supplies (narcotics). So not a very profitable ship to attack for a clean trader. I don't foresee putting turrets on the Anaconda at all, I want to reserve turrets for the very large ships.

With the concept of a more budget-restricted, smaller navy...Anaconda Flak Cruisers (and the rare Behemoths) *ARE* the very large ships. It's either they get turrets or nothing in the navy has them besides stations. They should be fearsome enough that it makes about as much sense for pirates to attack them...as it would for pirates to attack stations. They're sacrificing almost all of their cargo space for power/engines/turrets.

Gimi wrote:

My idea for the assault ship comes from RL Amphibious Assault Ships. Basically a ship that is more support and logistics than combat, but with command facilities on board and designed for "special" operations. It carries the hardware to battle, so I would want it to have a smaller docking bay, able to launch Sidewinders and, if they are small enough, Constrictors only. 6 Sidewinders and 2 Constrictors pr ship. This might not work though. I foresee the navy having maybe 2 or 4 of these.

Switeck wrote:

the overspecialized docking bays would pretty much doom the design to obscurity. ...the whole idea of multiple "carrier" types gets away from the idea of a small overall navy.

Having 2-4 of them may be possible because some previous space power built them, and much like 300 year old Pythons...they're never thrown away on account of age. But this also means they had to be "modernized" possibly a few times to avoid being slow, poorly armed, weak shields, and low max energy for its size.

The whole setting needs to be examined.
These aren't mighty star empires...they're barely Greek City-State systems! Trading is dangerous and even the safest systems typically have a couple pirates.
There's little signs of even 3 neighboring systems being part of the same government/military.
Even if there's large empires off-the-edge of the maps we see, they either exert little (overt!) influence, or they are "non-militarized" types with either almost no unique ships of their own or don't patrol their special ships outside their borders. And if that's the case, why aren't Thargoids messing with them?

cim wrote:

Gimi wrote:

Synchronised missile launches, is it possible.

Yes, but a better tactic is to stagger the launches out. Missiles will sometimes detonate when ECMd, which will take out any other missiles in the blast radius. Similarly, when the first missile hits, the blast from it may destroy the second and third missiles if they're too close. You should probably leave about a km (2 seconds or so) between launches for optimal effect.

My Switeck's Shipping OXP already has multi-second delays between each missile fired...but that's mostly for civilian strategies where they're only up against a handful of ships and at worst "barely" outnumbered. So they have some sense to save missiles. The navy should fire faster because their lifespan in close combat may be 15 seconds total.

Gimi wrote:

Cobra 3's will not feature in HIMSN.

Which is why the Cobra 3's are so desperately needed, since they can carry 4 missiles, readily available, and considerably cheaper and probably faster than uprated "freighter" designs such as the Anaconda or Boa 2.

Gimi wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

Sort of... And he's the one not really interested in the development of all this (oh, the irony!).

I was hoping this would turn into something more to your liking McLane, so I would value your input very much. I have scaled things down considerably compared to where I started (which was a way smaller presence than GN in the first place). Ships larger than your standard ship-set are now down to 20 in total (16 behemoths and 4 smaller spec ops assault ships). As for stations, I'm not sure yet, but probably no more than 2-4 in each galaxy + 2 or 3 in interstellar space.

Keep in mind that the navy (only?) stations in each galaxy chart is their public presence, which they intentionally want to play down to avoid "angering the locals" by looking too militarized and ready to invade+conquor nearby systems. Reusing existing ships likewise will scare them a lot less than exotic navy-only designs like the Constrictor. (Which might explain why some faction tried to capture it?)

It is their interstellar bases/stations that they may need more of, just to avoid having to go many months (due to VAST distances) without resupply, refit, and repairs.

I can easily simulate HUGE distance via multiple wormholes, especially if you can't see the short or long ranged Galaxy Chart while doing it.
In a few rare cases, I can even put the destinations in void areas on the edges of a Galaxy Chart and be 3-6.8 LY away from the nearest systems.

Re Naval stations: would/should they have a commodity market (F8), or should they follow the Avernus example?

El Viejo wrote:

Re Naval stations: would/should they have a commodity market (F8), or should they follow the Avernus example?

I think they should buy some goods. I can't think of anything they would sell.

Elite Manual wrote:

The [...] Navy are developing their own deep- space RemCraft, and pay a large bounty for any thargon craft that are brought to them.

65Cr/TC would let them outbid almost all system stations. I wouldn't find it surprising if they paid more than that, since they're worth 50Cr/TC in tiny bits...

Maybe let them buy Food, Liquor/Wines, and Alloys too? Provides some insurance in case the supply vessel is ambushed, and doesn't take up too much storage space. (I'd use the standard commodities.plist prices for these - they can make their own shopping trips to the local station if need be, so there's not going to be much of a profit in it)

Hmm... I can't disagree with you there, cim. Very sensible.

El Viejo wrote:

Re Naval stations: would/should they have a commodity market (F8), or should they follow the Avernus example?

What cim said, and in addition, any stations not positioned in a regular system might be interested in buying a wider product range as they are further away from the trade routes.

Gimi wrote:

El Viejo wrote:

Re Naval stations: would/should they have a commodity market (F8), or should they follow the Avernus example?

What cim said, and in addition, any stations not positioned in a regular system might be interested in buying a wider product range as they are further away from the trade routes.

And they may pay better for their most "needful things" than regular stations too, to encourage regular traders to keep them supplied...or at reduce their own logistics. The profit margin should suit the extra distances regular traders have to travel to get to them, within sensible limits...even 20 credits/TC for food is crazy.
But that only works if they are located somewhere where they might get regular traders. The stations in interstellar space certainly won't.

Even paying 100 credits per thargon won't really cause a problem. It's not like you can go somewhere with an Anaconda and fill your bay full of them.

Switeck, I think we might have a misunderstanding here. My intention was to design a Navy for Oolite based on the sparse information available to us in the original Elite. Apart from that, there are no rules or preconceptions apart from those we make ourselves as we go along.

Switeck wrote:

With the concept of a more budget-restricted, smaller navy...Anaconda Flak Cruisers (and the rare Behemoths) *ARE* the very large ships. It's either they get turrets or nothing in the navy has them besides stations. They should be fearsome enough that it makes about as much sense for pirates to attack them...as it would for pirates to attack stations. They're sacrificing almost all of their cargo space for power/engines/turrets.

Not the way I see it. By very large ships I mean the Behemoth and my proposed assault ship. The anaconda will not have turrets. Also, as I have stated elsewhere in this thread, I don’t foresee the navy versions of the Sidewinder, Asp, Boa and Anaconda having the same stats as the civilian versions. They will have access to navy equipment and have navy stats (classified).

Switeck wrote:

Having 2-4 of them may be possible because some previous space power built them, and much like 300 year old Pythons...they're never thrown away on account of age. But this also means they had to be "modernized" possibly a few times to avoid being slow, poorly armed, weak shields, and low max energy for its size.

No, I consider the assault ships to be the latest addition to the navy. Behemoths became too costly to build, and realising that they were losing the war of attrition, the Navy started looking at alternative modes of operation. The constrictor and assault ship/carrier, optimised for special operations is the result.

Switeck wrote:

The whole setting needs to be examined.
These aren't mighty star empires...they're barely Greek City-State systems! Trading is dangerous and even the safest systems typically have a couple pirates.
There's little signs of even 3 neighboring systems being part of the same government/military.
Even if there's large empires off-the-edge of the maps we see, they either exert little (overt!) influence, or they are "non-militarized" types with either almost no unique ships of their own or don't patrol their special ships outside their borders. And if that's the case, why aren't Thargoids messing with them?

Not sure I understand what you mean, but systems as such are not part of the same government or military the way I see it. They are a bunch of unfriendly planets, that out of common interest and desperation have joined Galcop to ensure some stability, trade and survival. The Navy has been formed out of necessity when they were confronted by a common foe. It would then make sense to ask the system with the strongest Navy out there, but still one everybody feels they can trust, to form a Navy to confront the Thargoids. Of course, every system wants to pay as little as possible, so it’s not going to be a huge all singing and dancing navy. The system that got the task just happened to be a Constitutional Monarchy with an Empress on the throne.
I just made that up, and it conforms to Elite “canon” (I think). My point is, there is no truth, just our imaginations. We are making HIMSN.oxp the way we think it should be to fit within the game and how we see it.

Switeck wrote:

Which is why the Cobra 3's are so desperately needed, since they can carry 4 missiles, readily available, and considerably cheaper and probably faster than uprated "freighter" designs such as the Anaconda or Boa 2.

Sorry, as I said, we are aiming for Elite canon. The cobra III is not a Navy ship and in my view does not fit into a Navy setting. Rather than buying a Cobra III, the Navy would aim to build another Constrictor.

Switeck wrote:

Keep in mind that the navy (only?) stations in each galaxy chart is their public presence, which they intentionally want to play down to avoid "angering the locals" by looking too militarized and ready to invade+conquor nearby systems. Reusing existing ships likewise will scare them a lot less than exotic navy-only designs like the Constrictor. (Which might explain why some faction tried to capture it?) It is their interstellar bases/stations that they may need more of, just to avoid having to go many months (due to VAST distances) without resupply, refit, and repairs.

This works both ways. The military in a democracy is totally dependant on the good will of politicians who are again dependent on the votes from their constituents. Spending lots of money on the Navy means that the military has to show that they make good use of that money. So there will be a need to interact with society, show the flag and the fleet every now and then. Anyway, I feel I have a good take on where to position bases. In addition, the Navy would also want to ensure stability within Galcop. Showing a credible force goes a long way to do that, but is not their first priority. I have a plan for this.

Edit: Part above about a constitutional monarchy and HIMSN should be credited to El Viejo. He developed that idea in his novella Kaxgar. Does not change my point though.

Gimi wrote:

Switeck, I think we might have a misunderstanding here. My intention was to design a Navy for Oolite based on the sparse information available to us in the original Elite. Apart from that, there are no rules or preconceptions apart from those we make ourselves as we go along.

I had quite a few preconceptions going into this thread that the Navy is small in both ship size and numbers relative what they have to accomplish.
A real-world equivalent would be the United Nations. They don't build U.N. ships, planes, and tanks -- these come from member-states.
Another real-world equivalent would be smaller nations' navies. If they have anything larger than small patrol craft, chances are it was bought from a larger nation. But what "larger nation" would the Galactic Navy buy from?

If they build their own ships, there's a long delay between initial production and finally deploying these ships. Infrastructure limits abilities. Building a ship that's twice as large as existing designs tends to increase costs by over 10 times and only tends to happen in arms races or wartime. The Bismark class battleships in WW2 were limited to a couple ports for building and repairs. The US's Iowa class battleships in WW2 were limited in size so they could pass through the locks of the Panama Canal. In Elite/Oolite, the limiting factor is docking ports on stations. Larger ships may exist (Generation ships?), but any stations to accommodate them would have to be specially built at stupendous costs. They may act as stations themselves and load/unload via smaller cargo/shuttle ships...but if they don't, their replenishment times might be measured in months or even years. That won't do for high-demand navy ships.

Switeck wrote:

These aren't mighty star empires...they're barely Greek City-State systems! Trading is dangerous and even the safest systems typically have a couple pirates.
There's little signs of even 3 neighboring systems being part of the same government/military.

Gimi wrote:

Not sure I understand what you mean, but systems as such are not part of the same government or military the way I see it. They are a bunch of unfriendly planets, that out of common interest and desperation have joined Galcop to ensure some stability, trade and survival. The Navy has been formed out of necessity when they were confronted by a common foe. It would then make sense to ask the system with the strongest Navy out there, but still one everybody feels they can trust, to form a Navy to confront the Thargoids. Of course, every system wants to pay as little as possible, so it’s not going to be a huge all singing and dancing navy.

I mean there's not a massive empire dedicated to the cause to fund a strong navy, despite the huge number of systems that are a part of GalCop. The member state with the strongest Navy would almost be forced to become the backbone of the Galactic Navy...but the only way for the Galactic Navy to grow quickly and significantly in size past that core is reuse of existing ships. Even assuming funds were initially available for a larger navy, it would quickly be both depleted and not resupplied by OTHER member states if the member state with the strongest Navy were investing solely in their own "backyard"...yet initially that is the only way to get ships built as soon as possible. ...Unless they buy more ships off the "civilian" ship market, which would mean whichever member-state's corporations makes those ships would "strongly encourage" such sales. (They would likewise discourage, delay, sabotage, or block new ship development by the member state with the strongest Navy just to increase their own ship sales.)

Assuming Behemoths are accepted as part of this Galactic Navy vision, they especially would be deal-breakers for member states to reduce their funding of the Galactic Navy. Behemoths might be viewed as "bomb-magnets", too powerful and expensive for their role, and worse too many eggs-in-1-basket. If even one gets destroyed, faith in them will be crippled. We can assume that's already happened, if the Galactic Navy is either defeated or disbanded (probably absorbed by various member states of GalCop) in less than 20 years time.

I might should include "Lost" (in the sense of missing, presumed destroyed) in the possible scenarios, since they're operating far away from their home bases. Ships with only 7 LY immediate jump range will be hard-pressed to travel 1000's of LY no matter what they do. Presumably, Galactic Navy makes and uses many special Galactic Hyperdrives to their own distant outposts. Keeping them supplied (and not sabotaged!) is worthy of a logistics campaign right there.

Gimi wrote:

Also, as I have stated elsewhere in this thread, I don’t foresee the navy versions of the Sidewinder, Asp, Boa and Anaconda having the same stats as the civilian versions. They will have access to navy equipment and have navy stats (classified).

This is a given. Being that these ships are part of the navy, I'd expect them to have military shield boosters (AKA naval shields), naval energy units, "regular" shield boosters (which stack with the other 2), and various other equipment not normally found on civilian ships. Even if these ships only had all the equipment available to the player, they would not have the same performance as the civilian versions. The only way to give them player-like performance currently is by large stats increases and/or scripting. Speed for at least the Anaconda would be higher. The Boa 2 though doesn't need much help, just all the usual goodies the player can get. If they're coupled with npc shields OXP, they will be rather strong.

They all should have escape pods, to encourage recruitment and help morale. The problem is...escape pod recovery can't be handled well with the typical ships. Asps don't even have cargo capacity for ONE escape pod. It would be bad for Boas or Anacondas to have to break away from the fight to rescue escape pods. Small fighter types like Sidewinders also don't have cargo capacity. Constrictors could recover escape pods and have the toughness and speed to get away, but using them as such probably also means they're doing little else.

Moray medical boats certainly can be dedicated recovery ships, but they lack the speed or toughness to do much. They'd have to inject almost all the time during a Thargoid fight.

The very few Constrictors having cloaking devices makes sense, because they're overpowered by design intent.

@Switeck.
Interesting read, and I don't disagree with any of that. The only comment I would like to make concerns the time line. For all we know the Thargoid conflict could have gone on for hundreds of years. So there is no need to explain the time it took to build capital ships. If this OXP is made, I will make no effort to shoe horn this into a particular time line with restrictions and limitations at both ends. The Behemoths could be from an attempt to build huge fleets with the intention of invading Thargoid space. Wasn't viable, but they kept the ships. But that is not important really.

Apart from that, I take from this that we pretty much have the same weltanschauung on this.

Gimi wrote:

@Switeck.
Interesting read, and I don't disagree with any of that. The only comment I would like to make concerns the time line. For all we know the Thargoid conflict could have gone on for hundreds of years. So there is no need to explain the time it took to build capital ships. If this OXP is made, I will make no effort to shoe horn this into a particular time line with restrictions and limitations at both ends. The Behemoths could be from an attempt to build huge fleets with the intention of invading Thargoid space. Wasn't viable, but they kept the ships. But that is not important really.

If you're building a setting, it doesn't hurt to make it interesting. Whether the Galactic Navy lasts for 50 years or 1000 years, from the player's point of view it should be their finest hour. If not, they need to be the backdrop to stage unrelated events -- such as political intrigue instead of Thargoid attacks that the player gets embroiled in. ...Except that's hard to do from the player's ship-centric point of view.

For logistics, then there needs to be a base or 2 to support Behemoths. Stands to reason that same base/s should support the smaller assault ships as well. Xeer could work for that, since it's practically the only "known" navy base we have to work with currently. Unfortunately, without an extreme method of travel for these ships, such as reusable "go anywhere" Galactic Hyperdrives...such a base would limit their combat radius, lest they get far away and end up unable to return due to constant jump failures from lack of maintenance.

Switeck wrote:

They all should have escape pods, to encourage recruitment and help morale. The problem is...escape pod recovery can't be handled well with the typical ships. Asps don't even have cargo capacity for ONE escape pod. It would be bad for Boas or Anacondas to have to break away from the fight to rescue escape pods. Small fighter types like Sidewinders also don't have cargo capacity. Constrictors could recover escape pods and have the toughness and speed to get away, but using them as such probably also means they're doing little else.

Moray medical boats certainly can be dedicated recovery ships, but they lack the speed or toughness to do much. They'd have to inject almost all the time during a Thargoid fight..

Might Naval Escape Pods have tiny oneshot witchspace engines? They could thus jump out of danger.. thereby avoiding capture/interrogation by the enemy as well. I'd imagine the wormhole they formed would be too small and short-lived for pursuing ships to follow them through.

Just a thought.

Diziet Sma wrote:

Might Naval Escape Pods have tiny oneshot witchspace engines? They could thus jump out of danger.. thereby avoiding capture/interrogation by the enemy as well. I'd imagine the wormhole they formed would be too small and short-lived for pursuing ships to follow them through.
Just a thought.

Hm, maybe. Noted on my off the wall ideas page.
One thing I want to try to get into this, is a feeling that other OXP's that want to use the HIMSN setting can expand on it. As such, the Navy , while small, is going for quality over quantity. This should allow for new technology within reason. Your idea for an escape pod would fit better in that context. Mission into interstellar space where the ship is the weapon or is to be deployed as a derelict satellite or something. Eject with this special witchspace capable escape pod to get out of there. For the mission planners to ponder with I think.

This discussion arose from a disatisfaction with the existing Galactic Navy OXP. Not that it's a bad OXP...it is well made and is very popular. The problem is that it doesn't sit comfortably in the Ooniverse as we see it. We aspire to something different which does fit in.

Before we go too far, I think we should look at what we have already and what we 'know'.
1)From canon (Elite and Oolite) we know there is an HIMSN. Two of the native missions involve them. In-game we meet repreentatives, but have no direct involvement in any naval conflicts and never see any of their hardware. The Navy's title, and the personnel we met suggest an organisation reminiscent of Victorian England.
2) The Elite manual mentions a 'Galactic Navy' and suggests that most of the major battles are fought in inter-galactic space.
3) The only Thargoids we meet (in the core game) are the Warships and Thargons, sometimes in normal space and often in witchspace after a misjump.

Oofic and OXPs have expanded upon this, and therefore one of our first tasks is to decide what we want to adopt from these additional sources and what we wish to ignore. In deciding what to ignore we must consider that much of this is as real to many players as the actual canon and 'facts'.
For example some quite popular OXPs add many more Thargoid vessels, including Capital ships such as Thargoid cruisers and carriers. Are these going to be 'acceptable' in any HIMSN OXP? In 'Kaxgar', El Viejo offers a rather nice if quaint and quirky 'history' for the formation of HIMSN. Are we going to adopt this as part of the back-story. In my own Xeptatl's Sword OXP, there are new Thargoid vessels, and also (as far as I know) the only OXP involvement so far of HIMSN. The OXP revives a character from one of the native missions and features the heavy cruiser Thunder Child. Are these elements going to be woven into our back story.

Considering these points, where does that point us?

Let us asume that most or all of the above aspects are taken into account within a new HIMSN OXP. All this taken together suggests that we are right in considering adapted 'core' ships for the HIMSN fleet. While the navy does have a capital ship (Thunder class cruiser - OXP) and is known to be conducting R and D on new ships (Constrictor - native mission) it is nonetheless a relatively small organisation working with limited funds. The exact relationship between GalCop and HIMSN is not clear and there is no suggestion that GalCop is funding the Navy, so I have to assume that the sytems that have co-opted into the Navy are the ones funding it.
It will be a relatively small organisation, probably inadequately funded, and stretched to the limit trying to control the Thargoid threat.

The main 'battlefield' would seem to be inter-galactic space, and to a lesser extent inter-stellar space. Both are easy enough to get to. Therefore the Navy will have little trouble mobilising forces where they are needed. As even non-jump-capable ships like Sidewinders can hitch a lift, getting a large force into intergalactic/interstellar space is relatively quick and easy.
To my mind this makes large vulnerable ships like carriers a bit pointless. They would serve no practical purpose and would be so vulnerable that they would have to stay well clear of the battlezone ...we would most probably not see them anyway.

Is this OXP even going to include battlezone elements. In some ways I would prefer a continuation of the 'feel' of the native missions. Small special ops missions (although much more demanding ones than the native missions), and perhaps an occassional active combat mission to interstellar/intergalactic space but avoiding the mass shoot-em-ups that characterise the GN OXP.

The Elite manual says

and throughout the 8 galaxies there are at least 50 war zones between humanity and Thargoid

Perhaps we should agree on where a few of these are (maybe one per galaxy, maybe less than that even) where we can give the player a chance to get their hands dirty with the Navy in a larger 'set-piece' battle, but mostly I would favour smaller, but more thought-provoking and challenging missions.

And finally, back to the ships that will actually appear in the OXP.
Asps and Sidewinders based on their civilian counterparts as fighters. A 'Destroyer' possibly based on the Boa2 as a counter to the Thargoid Warships. Possibly a S&R vessel based on the Moray. And really that is all that is needed unless a capital ship is wanted for a particular reason. To my mind that would only be wanted if the player gets involved in a major battle and would expect to see a large 'Flagship' heading the fleet, and this role would not sensibly be filled by a carrier.