Troperia Galactica - Intergalactic Discussion Forum

That would probably be a great hindrance to your diplomatic entrance, and we're just discussing how many ships we can jump in within a couple minutes should trouble arrive >.>

How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?

Very true; the Kin alone can have a dreadnought in-system within minutes, owing to the presence of a stable capillary corridor.

The Danse Macabre Codex

And the Molo'Qraaat'in have four Strike frigates plus a cruiser acting as a flagship. Lots of Dakka.

edited 13th Dec '11 11:17:53 AM by Colonial1.1

Eh, diplomatic entrance? Yeah, I'm gonna add some stuff to the Korper Hordes that should clear some things up about that...

Off Kla, Bah! Off Kla Bi'Guv'Fragfamek, Bah! Meh Klanen Bi'Guv'Fragfamek!

edited 13th Dec '11 1:45:54 PM by Eventua

Argh. Wifi's conked out. Working on that entry, though.

Sorry about the absence.

Which entry? :/

[EDIT] Ah, just found out, cool beans. As things are, I've still got to sort out some things on words and such, so please don't edit it for the next twenty minutes or so.

edited 13th Dec '11 1:49:10 PM by Eventua

Done some more editing

—Wonders whether or not the title "Apostalic Lord" is appropriate again.—

It occured to me that in giving these guys a proper language, I've perhaps taken away some of their charm from before. :/

Anyhow, they're nearly done: just got to go into their technology and military. And then important individuals?

Speaking of which, since they're so isolationist and have this bizarre language based so heavily on intuition and inflection, and since they've so far been very 'out of the way' on the galactic scene, I have to wonder if they'd show up at the Babel meeting with the other ambassadors.

I mean, last I checked I've never gone into a political debate with lunch. :/

Korper Ords?

Actually a lot of the nations currently present tended to stick to isolationsism, this is the first gathering of this kind in a century. The various nations tend to just drop in on the Cradle whenever. It was a coincidence that the ones present arrived on top of each other.

edited 13th Dec '11 4:26:02 PM by Parable

Yes, Ords. Yeah, don't ask.

Ah, cool, I'll make an ambassador, then. Please bear in mind, he will likely get easily confused. :/

[EDIT] Right then, I think that's about it, I may well still edit it. But, ladies and gentlemen, most esteemed leaders and ambassadors to the Babel Cradle, I present to you... the Korper Ords of the Karada and the Karnis! http://cradledatacore.wikia.com/wiki/Korper_Ords

Wait and see, as the ambassador of the Karada, is most esteemed, Bi'Iveguv Karada, journies to the Babel Cradle and is ready for a most excellent meeting! Let's just hope those fiendish Karnis, desperate to crush the Karada and stop their hated rivals getting allies of any sort, don't interrupt proceedings...

Also, got to ask: are their weapon systems overpowered? As it is, Digentymeks are fast, powerful and numerous, as well as being able to take some serious punishment (bearing in mind that these guys can survive in a vaccuum, and so don't need everything to be air-tight...)

That said, of course, hit them in the right spot and your job is done: the chain reaction will reduce them to scrap metal. You just gotta sit back and watch the fireworks.

edited 14th Dec '11 1:45:19 AM by Eventua

We're kinda aiming in the ballpark of 'physical probability', and life is a series of tradeoffs. One-shot weak points generally don't factor into this series of tradeoffs, being other, more silly things like armor densities, mass-to-power ratios, and weapon functionality.

Basically what you said was you have good acceleration both forward and turning, excellent weapons capabilities, and good armor. They are quick, cheap, and easy to produce. What you're telling me is these ships are either massive and the majority of the Korper's infrastructure is specifically designed around building ships, or your ships have ludicrously small powerplants and near-zero operational range.

Cant have everything. Doturi ships are generally rounded but trade direct firepower for greater carrier functionality, and are able to make huge amounts of the smaller craft to fill them because they're much cheaper than full-sized warships. Molo'Qraaat ships are stealthy and powerful, but they have horrible combat endurance and relatively thin protection, favoring a definite hit-and-fade style assault. NAH ships have excellent armor and weapons, but really terrible acceleration and, unless they can execute fairly clunky maneuvers, have horrible turning as well, protected by advanced technologies but limited in numbers fielded. All of these are grounded on each species' individual technological strengths and weaknesses, as well as cultural/historical tactics that have been adapted for stellar warfare.

Most of us reached our current ship design philosophy last, after first distinguishing our races' typical combat tactics and technological advancements and limitations, factoring them together into a cohesive military strategy, then designing ships specifically for that strategy.

Your ammunition is very troubling. Dense ablative armor laughs at surface explosions, and reactive armor pays back in kind. The whole point of explosive munitions is to penetrate the target and do as much internal damage as possible, and just blowing up on the surface does little. Basically only rockets get away with that, and they have a significant kinetic vector added. Even current-day air-to-air missiles are not contact-fused, they're proximity-fused to spray the target in high-speed shrapnel.

Also, if this stuff is your blood, and is as potent as described, specific chemical warfare directed at your race can pretty much turn one casualty in your army into one hundred. This would have an enormous impact on your race's military history and tactical approach.

edited 14th Dec '11 2:12:21 AM by SOCR

How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?

Ah, okay then... well, they go for functionality over form, but due to their 'do what you want' mentality...

Pros

• Most korpers are deft mechanics, and their ships (essentially being massive, non-sentient korpers) can repair themselves given time and if they're fed metal ore and other resources
• Due to not needing to be airtight, digentymeks can take a severe beating if the damage connects with well-armoured areas
• Cheap, but short-range, FTL 'jumps'
• Weapons are extremely powerful
• Good storage capacity due to korpers not needing much space or supplies to work with, as well as not needing air

Cons

• Poor structural integrity and numerous unarmoured segments means they can be torn apart with a few well placed shots
• Weapons are highly inaccurate due to being manually aimed (korpers haven't developed complicated AI for anything yet: most of their 'computers' are basically glorified calculators)
• FTL can be somewhat inaccurate, usually with several jumps being needed to get 'fairly close' to the destination's co-ordinates
• May occasionally explode due to miscalculations and incompetance (applies to all machines of theirs)

[EDIT] Ah, just read your edit, uh... hmm. Didn't really think about it as much as I should have, perhaps. Any suggestions?

edited 14th Dec '11 2:20:50 AM by Eventua

Kind of a long-winded, explanation-by-example, but TL;DR: Pick a few key points of your race and build entirely around them from a technical standpoint. Don't aim for performance benchmarks, let those form the more in-depth you go into their shipbuilding methods.

If you're being truly manually aimed you're not going to hit anything. Ever.

I'm not sure if the rebuilt feeling comes from extensive, unknowledgable reverse engineering, or actually just putting other weapons on your ships. With your unique power source you're probably never going to get a good direct adaptation. This ties back into your weapon power. Why are they powerful, what makes them that way? What gives your ships this good armor?

Some things you can explain fine, like the storage. Some are inherent in your designs, such as weak structural integrity. But everything needs a suitable explanation, even if it comes from just one or two points.

For the NAH, their entire military approach can be extrapolated from a single point:

• Humanity is very adapt at manipulating matter at the subatomic level.

Their FTL drives and reactors are fed by Neutronium, fairly easy to produce because of this ability. This makes their ships very dense. Using their own fuel source as a ballast allows them to use mass drivers to extraordinary effect. Supermassive ships means terrible acceleration, so they need to be able to fight on the enemies terms, this calls for heavier protection, even at a further sacrifice of acceleration. Their technology allows them to be one of the few races able to create energy shields, aiding in their defense. With their superior defense and crude but effective weaponry, they can afford to sit in one spot and let the enemy come to them. This military doctrine means they need to be able to respond to threats in any direction, giving broadside mass drivers to take advantage of structural ballast but every other weapon system is turret-mounted. They cant actually turn in any direction in combat status except down, taking advantage of the rotational effect of their own FTL drives (which also generates their artificial gravity, another point with their subatomic manipulation) to turn 'down' into whatever direction they need. The rotational adjustment to turn relative left is three times as fast as relative right, so fleet formations will generally orient themselves a specific way before combat if possible.

With the initial limitations, supermassive ships mean poor flight characteristics, a basic combat doctrine is formed (Defensive endurance preferable to offensive performance, always. Protection and survivability more important than further combat ability) which influences ship designs. With the advantages and disadvantages of your technology base, a ship design is hammered out. The specifics of this ship design then feed back into your combat doctrine in specific manners ('lock-dive' maneuvers, fleet orientation pre-combat, etc) and in some cases may turn weaknesses (supermassive means bad acceleration) into strengths (supermassive means superior handling of mass drivers), and you find your technology can be re-purposed for interesting uses (this specific antigrav tech can combat close-proximity spatial anomalies, neutronium drive ring core is decent impromptu armor)

You can approach it from the other angle, though, by first establishing a cultural tactic.

• Molo'Qraaat are assassins, prefer stealthy attacks over decisive battles

Stealth in space is very hard to do. Heat bottling, special armor layers, many design elements are required. This will have a significant impact on the way a ship works. Molo' ships run very hot when in combat, leading to increased fuel consumption for very short operational endurance. They're most effective in their initial assault, which needs to be done at very long ranges so they run power-devouring stealth systems as short as possible. Most of their weapons are mounted fixed-forward, and consist of large arrays of fairly low-powered lasers, relying on the sheer number of them and the surprise of their sudden assault to do more damage than larger, more power-hungry weapons systems would do against an alert and prepared enemy. After expending this initial salvo, having lost the element of surprise, they would retreat and set up for another ambush, which alleviates their endurance problems. With such a short engagement window, armor is secondary to acceleration concerns. In general they'd get shot at less, but definitely need to have the maneuvering advantage, to engage and disengage at will. As with the NAH, this leads to particular operational quirks about ship design.

You have your basic premises,

• Abundant cheap, but volatile power
• Quick-built fixjobs prevalent

but you need to look at that and take it all the way to it's conclusion.

edited 14th Dec '11 2:46:09 AM by SOCR

How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?

One way to look at weapon designs I picked up from Battletech is to fit a sort of 'mass budget'

Higher mass means slower speed and greater size, meaning a larger target. With this in mind, you can spend your mass on stuff like power, armor, weapons, engines.

Once you set a portion of your mass aside for power, this then sets up a secondary budget. You need enough power (and a percentage of your mass dedicated to hosting it) to power your weapons and engines.

This creates a balancing act between what you want to use. NAH ships have incredibly high mass, but not a lot of it is dedicated to power, in fact most of it going to defensive systems. Their preferred weapon system is low-power, high-mass Railguns. (A couple mid-mass, mid-energy weapons- particle weapons- for close-range work). The high-energy but low-mass weapons- Lasers- that don't fit their 'budget template' are limited to small point-defense roles. Because of this they have hardly any energy or space left to amend the poor acceleration their high mass threshold left them with, so they're definitely on the sluggish end.

It's more complicated than that, since it's not addressing how NAH ships have a large portion of their mass invested in fuel, normally inert, that can be consumed quicker for combat power for the already-budgeted defensive systems like their shields, but it is good for general address and the details will fill themselves in as you analyze the conclusions you drew from my previous post.

edited 14th Dec '11 3:11:43 AM by SOCR

How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?

So, from there, some things can be assumed...

Their rapid breeding cycles and ease of collecting food (just start digging and chow down) give them vast numbers: a strong focus on 'do what you want' until trouble arises, in which case you (and your many hundreds, thousands, millions etc. of relatives) band together and swamp the enemy. From this, traditional tactics would've been a sort of highly mobile Zerg Rush: victory is dependant on swamping the enemy, but focusing the majority of your forces at their weakpoints.

An adaptive genecode and organic components which interact effectively with mechanical systems, and an innate ability to utilize machinery hardwired into their genecode. From there, machinery and tools are easily adapted and mass-produced quickly. Further adds to the Zerg Rush tactic, but with the idea of soldiers operating in specific, specialized. To summarise, pin-point focused Zerg Rush using a variety of specialized troops.

Fabluh as ammunition is of minimal effectiveness against armour, but is devestating when used to penetrate: shells and ballistic projectiles are thus designed to be fired at extremely high speeds and designed to penetrate armour before detonating inside with all the fleshy components and fabluh, creating a potent chain reaction. Use of it as fuel for what are essentially 'heavily augmented non-sentient korpers' leads to the development of heavier but temporary armour that can be worn or, in the case of things focused entirely on combat, permenantly grafted on.

This in tandem with aforementioned high-tech, pinpoint focused Zerg Rush tactic (alongside the naturally 'front heavy' body type of korpers) results in a system where most meks and korper soldiers have extremely thick, tough armour at the front: by operating as a group this creates something akin to the ancient greek phalanx.

AI hasn't been developed due to their meks all basically being augmented and specialized non-sentient korpers, but specialized meks designed purely to calculate things rapid and provide tactical data become wide-spread, mainly to assist pilots with aiming.

Short jumping capabilities of digenty FTL system as well as heavy 'forward armour' results in space-combat relying heavily on outflanking the enemy and striking from many angles.

Thus, the advantages and disadvantages of their ships:

• Ships and other machines are extremely cheap and quickly produced, allowing them to vastly outnumber the enemy (save possibly the Doturi). However, due to a cultural focus on 'handle yourself', many of these ships are hammered together somewhat roughly, and thus lack the same level of consistancy as other groups.
• Extremely thick armour on the front half of korper ships can shrug off all but the most focused and drawn out of barrages, but poorer rear armour leaves them vulnerable to outflanking.
• Weapons can puncture armour and cause horrific internal damage (with the exception of Fragdigenty weapon systems, which utilize wormholes as a form of offence), but are highly inaccurate, relying on More Dakka to attack
• Due to essentially being massive, non-sentient and specialized korpers, they will automatically repair themselves (assuming they are fed regularly) over time, which in tandem with the hardwired skill for machinery that most korpers possess, allows their ships to be repaired quickly, even in the midst of a battle
• On the flip side, points of structural integrity (particularly in the rear, but sometimes on the sides, top and bottom depending on the specific ship) can be exploited to tear the ship apart with ease, rendering repairs moot because the ship is in several parts
• FTL jumps are quick and cheap to pull off, but short and relatively inaccurate, only achieving a rough 'approximate' of the desired destination
• Ramshackle designs are more customized to the needs of the specific crew, but may possess noticable design flaws as a result

From here, their strategy would rely on swamping the enemy with a Zerg Rush of mid-sized, foward focused ships, all with More Dakka, as a way to blast apart the enemy in a direct, sledgehammer like assault. Meanwhile, a smaller number of smaller, less well protected but agile ships are warped in from other angles and used to strike from various angles.

AKA, a traditional pincer movement using a mixture of a massive, direct frontal assault and surrounding the foe with weaker, but smaller and more agile, ships to exploit poorer side and rear defences.

So then... how's that?

edited 14th Dec '11 3:46:15 AM by Eventua

This reminds me, I think it's high time I finished filling in those technology sections for the Kin so that people will understand how their phase technology works—along with their weapons and space combat doctrine, for that matter. I'll get on that once I've eaten something and rested a bit, seeing as I just got back from a four hour exam.

The Danse Macabre Codex

Been editing the page about the ords, and now I'm just kind-a waiting for someone else to post in the main thread... :/

Also, reading up on the Doturi, if they and the Korpers fight, it will be epic, but in all honesty the ords are in for a world of pain. Seriously.

Lots and lots of small, agile, accurate fighter craft > Inaccurate, massive front focused brute force assault.

Though of course, it depends if the carriers would be able to last all of ten seconds under the barrage from a full fleet of Bi'Fragdigentymeks, cause I don't care if korper weapons are (relatively) inaccurate: a billions strong wave of high-yield penetrative explosive charges is gonna leave a mark...

edited 14th Dec '11 1:04:25 PM by Eventua

Worthless fucking wiki system...always crashing on you when it's least opportune...

Right, the only thing you really need to know is that Kin ships are monstrously large, have multiple power plants, are not particularly fast but are extremely manoevrable thanks to their dynamic and flexible drive nacelles, and their primary ship armaments are a mixture of torpedos and plasma weaponry—which, in this case, is a volatile substance that is not particularly effective against shields but which eats through hull plating like hydrochloric acid through linoleum.

edited 14th Dec '11 1:07:33 PM by SullenFrog

The Danse Macabre Codex

I'm still trying to get the history for my people down. I'm nowhere near the tech.

torpedos and plasma weaponry — which, in this case, is a volatile substance that is not particularly effective against shields but which eats through hull plating like hydrochloric acid through linoleum

Well, so much for 'shrugging off direct forward blows with ease'. D:

@Parable: That is one advantage of a race with the species-wide equivalent of long term memory loss.

Out of curiosity, are you guys all planning stuff via Skype right now? :/

edited 14th Dec '11 3:02:30 PM by Eventua

The only safe prediction I can say about any combat between the two is that the casualties will be beyond astronomical in scope.

Your legacy shall drift away, blown into eternity, like the sands of the desert.

Yeah, that tends to be the result when you've got two factions with Zerg Rush and 'everybody is a soldier' as their primary strategies. :/

I'm still just waiting for someone to post in the main thread. :/

I'm not using Skype, at any rate; don't intend to either. Anyways, one thing I forgot to mention before is that while their ships are damned dangerous, Kin starcraft suffer from a few drawbacks—namely that they are expensive as all hell, especially the dreadnoughts, and the stuff they use for shields (called phasing technology, which is what I was working on before that fershliggina wiki crashed on me) aren't the most reliable things in known space, if you know what I mean. There's also manpower, but given that the Kin are a race of gestalt minds made up of swarms of eusocial insects, that really isn't an issue for them.

Also, I would have posted something in the main thread before now, but I was a bit preoccupied over the last few days with studying for the four-hour-long exam I just had this morning, and I'm still trying to decompress from that; I'll have something up either later tonight or tomorrow morning.

edited 14th Dec '11 3:55:23 PM by SullenFrog

The Danse Macabre Codex

You people and your four hour exams. In my day we - wait, no, I didn't take any exams this semester since I took it off!