Oolite Bulletins

Smivs wrote:

the only OXP involvement so far of HIMSN. The OXP revives a character from one of the native missions

I think one of McLane's OXPs revives old Curruthers.

El Viejo wrote:

Smivs wrote:

the only OXP involvement so far of HIMSN. The OXP revives a character from one of the native missions

I think one of McLane's OXPs revives old Curruthers.

Good!

There may be other examples I am not aware of. Anyone know of any others?

Smivs wrote:

El Viejo wrote:

Smivs wrote:

the only OXP involvement so far of HIMSN. The OXP revives a character from one of the native missions

I think one of McLane's OXPs revives old Curruthers.

There may be other examples I am not aware of. Anyone know of any others?

Curruthers shows up very briefly at the start of LoveCats, though not in a HIMSN capacity.

El Viejo wrote:

I think one of McLane's OXPs revives old Curruthers.

Yes, it's  Cataclysm_OXP. Fortesque and Blake are also mentioned there.

El Viejo wrote:

El Viejo wrote:

I think one of McLane's OXPs revives old Curruthers.

Yes, it's  Cataclysm_OXP. Fortesque and Blake are also mentioned there.

Any idea when this is going to be upgraded to the 1.76/77 version? I am nearing the 5000 score mark ...

Smivs wrote:

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.

I am going to have to only partially agree with these assessments.

From the player's point-of-view:
Getting to inter-stellar space either near or between systems in a Galaxy Chart is easy, both to code and to do manually (using my Misjump Inducer OXP and possibly fuel tanks or wormhole-making OXPs.)
Getting to inter-galactic space may be easy to simulate using a "modified" (actually failed!) Galactic Hyperdrive jump.
But going back to regular space from either of those isn't as easy.
You may be too low on witchfuel to make a regular jump back.
The Galactic Hyperdrive available to the player is normally a 1-shot. Scripting a believable exit from inter-galactic space is worth some thought.

From the Navy's point-of-view, which is mostly outside the player's view:
Getting to inter-stellar space is very easy. Even non-jump-capable ships can hitchhike on other ships' wormholes without needing a carrier.
Getting to inter-galactic space is a bit of a problem. Unless there's a super-long-ranged wormhole left behind that other ships can use, every ship that wishes to go must also use galactic jump drives. Or you have to have carriers carry as many ships as possible. Even more exotic huge jump gates might work, but those are nearly immobile themselves.
Returning to regular space is going to be even harder.
While inter-stellar space to regular space may only require as little as 1 ship with enough fuel and everything else dog-piling its wormhole, such timing is actually rather hard and risks leaving ships stranded.
Returning from "nowhere in particular" inter-galactic rules out the use of exotic jump gates, since they wouldn't be everywhere. Galactic jump drives would have to be reusable and able to specify a destination. While this can be assumed to happen "behind the scenes" so we don't need to show it or script it, it's still an important plot/setting point. Even with Behemoth carriers, moving more than tiny handfuls of ships is extremely difficult. If Behemoths are doing this, they could spend almost all their time doing ONLY this. They would be going between bases and mostly staying clear of hot combat.

Smivs wrote:

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.

A good choice of locations are the numerous large "voids" in the various Galaxy Charts. These can represent dead zones of Thargoid overrun (and then later "neutralized"?) systems. Edge-of-the-map voids are even better, as they can be where Thargoids are heavily pushing into the region. They can also represent a good launching point for scripted navy ships to "simulate" wormhole-jumping to inter-galactic space or represent a "between" region that's still in the galaxy instead of inter-galactic space. My work on auto-jumping void-crossing OXPs makes this relatively easy to script and can sometimes result in destinations 3-6.8 Light-Years away from any regular systems.

Smivs wrote:

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.

I agree.
The OXP could even "examine" the player's ship-type to determine suitable roles/missions for it. If in a fast(er!) ship with some cargo capacity:
1.you could be called to rescue escape pods from an earlier battle zone that's still heavily overrun by Thargoids. Could even be relatively easy to create such missions and could also represent arriving "too late" for other types of battles.
2.recon/spying!
If the ship can carry multiple missiles, it may be tasked with heavy hitting but nearly unguided "torpedoes" to hit slow moving or fixed targets in an "otherwise-near-unwinable" battle. These need not be huge fights, just badly lopsided if your missiles/bombs miss!
If your ship is heavier/slower, (heh..."overpowered"?) this could mean the fleet you're working with has fewer capital and sub-capital ships and more fighters. You're the center of the fleet. Even freighter types like Pythons, Boas, Anacondas may fall into this category though sadly more due to size than ability.


Something simple ship-wise that came to mind that seems to fit:
A Rock Hermit station called "Navy Storage Depot", but could be renamed as needed...maybe even numbered.
Or for more variety, slightly modified Hacker asteroid or Salvage Gang asteroid from Anarchies OXP could make for "cool bases".
Put them wherever is needed.
It would combine a station, staging point for missions/mission briefings, mini-base, and supplies all in 1.
It would have about 5-10 non-jump-capable small fighters stored internally for self-defense and should probably have other defenders nearby.
Because it's a hollowed-out asteroid, it greatly reduces the amount of supplies needed (and hauled over long distances) to build a station.

To partially hide it, It could be in a "bulls-eye" pattern asteroid field.
9 Asteroids within scanner range.
30 within 50 km range.
100 within 200 km range.
These could be mined for additional building materials.
Using Asteroid Storm OXP would make the asteroid field more interesting and easier to spot from extreme ranges.


Back at the main fleet HQ base...
For a huge "dry dock" gantry-type heavy repair and maintenance facility, what seems suitable is something like either the tunnel-type Fuel Station (from OXP of same name) or Superhub Station (which dwarfs even a Behemoth). If these are made to NOT be true stations, a (random?) large ship could be parked in the middle of them to simulate work being done on it. I'd assume with a fleet of Behemoths, there'd probably always be one undergoing repair work.

Switeck wrote:

Even with Behemoth carriers, moving more than tiny handfuls of ships is extremely difficult. If Behemoths are doing this, they could spend almost all their time doing ONLY this. They would be going between bases and mostly staying clear of hot combat.

I'd agree. The existing OXP Behemoths are not actually armed for a fight, but since they're really big and military looking and have a scary name everyone expects them to be. (Which I guess suits the Navy just fine when it comes to not having pirates attack them!)

They're large, but not that large - it wouldn't surprise me if the Navy used them basically as impressive-looking bulk haulers and mobile behind-the-lines command centres and repair bases. In which case, they might well have quite a few more than 16 of them - where did that figure come from, anyway? If they were called "Military Bulk Hauler Type 1" or "Naval Forward Base" no-one would expect their numbers to be that harshly limited. (Conversely, if you are keeping the 16 limit, they need to be made considerably more fearsome so that a lone pilot in a Cobra III can't blow them up in 30 seconds by standing 25km away and hitting them with a full blast from all four lasers...)

Switeck, you make some good points and there are some good ideas there as well. The only part I take issue with is the section regarding galjumps, and specifically getting back.
The problem is that in the normal game we never see another ship doing a galjump. For all we know these could be much the same as a normal witchjump. In other words a wormhole is opened and the ship flies into it, possibly followed by others. If we accept this in principle there is no problem.
As for getting back, again I don't see a problem here. It would only take one ship to open a wormhole, and several others could use it. Galjumps are a bit different clearly, otherwise we wouldn't need a special galactic hyperdrive, but the handwavium is so vague we can exploit this. If we assume that the principle is the same as a witchjump but a lot more energy is required (hence the one-shot nature of galactic hyperdrives) then the solution is simple - The navy's Capital ship is big enough and powerful enough to be able to generate more than one galactic wormhole.
When a fleet is sent to inter-galactic space, they follow the Flagship using its wormhole. When the battle is over they can follow it back again. If all the ships in the fleet have a gal-hyperdrive on board anyway, they could use it to jump back early if they sustain damage, and can also get back in the unlikely event of the Flagship being lost.
It's worth mentioning also that a GalDrivePod will get you back from inter-galactic space. This may change if the methodology within the game is changed, and I'm not for a minute suggesting that reliance on them is built into this OXP - it shouldn't be. But I'm just saying it works.

A few comments, as I think we are getting ahead of ourselves.

First of all on war zones. No, I don't think we are going to define/identify any war zones just yet. The missions will do that, and I want to allow other OXP's to build upon this OXP, so they will be able to define their own war zones. The Navy wants to keep the locations classified anyway. When/if we get to version three of this OXP and start building missions, we can start discussing war zones.

Second, the role of capital ships (Behemoths). They are carriers. They carry the hardware. Weapons are for self defence only. Any other conclusion would, from a Military perspective, be ridiculous. This is the Role any aircraft carrier in RL plays. Their sole purpose is to bring the aircraft to the AOO and that is why they never go anywhere alone. A capital "combat ship" would not have a docking bay, that would be putting too many eggs in one basket. It would be analogous to RL Battle Ships or Cruisers.

Third, as a few here rightly point out, distance to any AOO and logistics will be an issue if you start to mix logic into your Ooniverse (Not recommended). That is why the Navy has carriers, so they can bring the combat ships to battle and support them without establishing bases in every system. So in my view the capitol ships in HIMSN will be mainly carriers that launch ships and hang back during battle. What we call them doesn't matter, but I have ideas for two types. One larger regular carrier with Asps, but capable of docking larger ship, and a smaller Special operations carrier with Sidewinders for self protection and Constrictors for missions. As for HIMS Thunder Child, I have a plan for her as well. I'll discuss that one with Smivs offline. (Have to keep some secrets.)

Off topic: mention of prominent naval commanders reminds me that the sandwich (purportedly named after John Montagu, First Lord of the Admiralty) is 250 years old!

El Viejo wrote:

Off topic: mention of prominent naval commanders reminds me that the sandwich (purportedly named after John Montagu, First Lord of the Admiralty) is 250 years old!

This is the kind of fun facts I would love to see weaved into HIMSN missions. I little stale British humor in the mission texts would be great.

Gimi wrote:

El Viejo wrote:

Off topic: mention of prominent naval commanders reminds me that the sandwich (purportedly named after John Montagu, First Lord of the Admiralty) is 250 years old!

This is the kind of fun facts I would love to see weaved into HIMSN missions. I little stale British humor in the mission texts would be great.

Stale British humour? Yeah, I can do that alright! A very competent and interesting man, was John Montagu!

Smivs wrote:

The only part I take issue with is the section regarding galjumps, and specifically getting back.
The problem is that in the normal game we never see another ship doing a galjump. For all we know these could be much the same as a normal witchjump. In other words a wormhole is opened and the ship flies into it, possibly followed by others. If we accept this in principle there is no problem.
As for getting back, again I don't see a problem here. It would only take one ship to open a wormhole, and several others could use it. Galjumps are a bit different clearly, otherwise we wouldn't need a special galactic hyperdrive, but the handwavium is so vague we can exploit this. If we assume that the principle is the same as a witchjump but a lot more energy is required (hence the one-shot nature of galactic hyperdrives) then the solution is simple - The navy's Capital ship is big enough and powerful enough to be able to generate more than one galactic wormhole.

Yes, if galjumps created wormholes that could be used by other ships...most of the problems would be solved.
However it is still worthy as a plot point and may merit missions on its own right.
If Behemoths and similar large capital ships can do multiple galjumps, this likewise reduces the problems further...though it would be nasty for it to jump, be at low energy afterwords, and get intercepted by a Thargoid attack.
Ultimately, whatever method the Navy uses must be reusable in some sense and targeted-on-demand to come and go as they please.

Also, and most importantly, the times involved for these likely 1000+ LY jumps (barely enough distance to get above or below the galaxy's spiral arms!) have to be rather quick. Even taking 1 hour per LY would make a 1000 LY jump take ~42 days. To go extra-galactic distances (over 1 million LYs)...could take centuries. So jump times have to be shorter than 1 hour per LY. The regular Gal.Hyperdrive takes effectively no time to make a jump, so whatever the Navy uses is likely similar time-wise.

Conveniently, galactic jumps take no time at all

Some thoughts on HIMSN and Elite/Oolite canon by a random player:

What always bothered me about Her Imperial Majesty, is how she relates to GalCop. What is her authority? How large is her empire? She cannot be the empress of all of GalCop (some anarchies, multi-government & communist states would not accept that), but on the other hand she is powerful enough to fight the Thargoid.

cim wrote:

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

Elite Manual wrote:

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

Switeck wrote:

I had quite a few preconceptions going into this thread that the Navyy 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?

Smivs wrote:

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.

In my mind, HIMSN is just a part of the Galactic Navy which like the UN consists of units of member states of GalCop. HIMSN is an important part of that, the navy of a rich feudal or dictatorship planet (or even several planets, including Lave?) which has a dynasty of rulers who have been watching too many Victorian drama holograms and who are prepared (or forced) to spend a lot of money on the war. But the Galactic Navy would consist of several parts, ranging from, say, the tiny Voluntarist Nestor Makhno Squad from Riedquat to the large HIMSN.

Actually: in my mind, HIMSN was a small and eccentric part of GN, but that might not help the discussion here since you seem to intend to replace the GN OXP by the HIMSN OXP.