It has been millennia since humanity became a star faring race. Enough time for stellar regimes to have risen and fallen, for technologies to be forgotten and relearned and for a diaspora of life; both human and alien to spread across the galaxy.The Raihan Empire is but one splinter of the human diaspora. At its height the Empire spanned eight star systems but eventually corruption and decay set in. The Empire collapsed, its great works crumbled, its worlds became isolated. For a thousand years it was so…Until a new warlord arose on Raiha, one that managed to quell the disparate factions fighting over the Throne world. When all his enemies were vanquished he marched upon the palace district where the remnants of the Imperial family cowered. However, instead of seizing the throne for himself Arcturus Garan pledged himself and his army to the service of the remaining Empress and took the title of Lord Commander.Together the Empress and Lord Commander began the process of rebuilding the Empire, first securing the home system, then bringing each of the wayward colonies back into the fold.Five out of the original eight colonies have been absorbed back into the resurgent Empire. Only the systems of Noto, Higg and Kornen actively resist annexation. Together they have formed the NKH Defence Pact, or simply the Pact.Now the Pact must guard its independence against the growing might of the New Raihan Empire. The odds are not in their favour, they are outnumbered and outgunned, but the Imperial Forces have not yet regained their full power and the war is not over yet…((This quest is an indirect sequel to Space shipyard quest, knowledge of previous threads is not required but it will do much to add context. Previous threads can be found here: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?searchall=space+shipyard))
>>6322850You are Harris Glasner; the best starship engineer that nobody’s ever heard of and you are in a liminal state on the edge of consciousness.“...entire R&D division!? How did the Imperials breach our defence cordon!?”You are vaguely aware of two people arguing in front of you… and pain, lots of pain, but it was all so far away.“...not the Imperials… last guy…old enemies…”The pain and the voices were starting to get closer now.“...what now?...HIM!?”“...only survivor…no one else qualified.”The pain was right next to you now, no it was coming from you, you were in pain, you were painfully conscious of your pain… and the fact you were in a medical capsule. Ow.Outside the capsule stood two people who you recognised as Lord Yarin, the ruler of Higg and High Admiral Ruhi; overall commander of the Pact fleet.“It seems he’s awake.”Ruhi pinched her nose in exasperation. “I supposed we should tell him.”Yarin nodded and turned to you.“Harris Glasner, the top echelon of our starship R&D division has been wiped out in a covert strike. You are the highest ranking survivor, as of now you are the acting Director of R&D.” Oh FUCK YES!>cont
>>6322853It had been a few days since you had been discharged from the medical station. Now you were on a shuttle returning to the Boson Halo Yard; a small ship yard recently constructed in one of the outer orbits of the Higg system.From the view port you could see a maze of scaffolding covering the side of the shipyard where a tactical nuclear strike had assassinated your predecessor, almost killed you and nearly destroyed the yard itself. For now it would be sometime until ship building capability was restored; an acceptable delay seeing as you didn’t really have any ships to build.Lord Yarin had charged you with developing new ship designs to aid the Pact war effort against the Imperials. Whatever you and your team came up with would be proto-typed here then sent to the Kornen system for mass production.After disembarking the shuttle you were ushered into a hastily renovated store room to meet with your new staff. Inside a well built man and a stiff looking woman waited for you.“Glasner,” the man said coldly while eying you with cool disdain.“Solei,” you answer, matching his dismissive attitude.Merik Solei was another engineer, only slightly more junior than you. The man was taciturn, and utterly devoid of imagination. In short; a total kill joy and now he was your deputy.“I’m surprised they didn’t make you the new head of R&D, your obsession with…” simplistic, boring, uninspired? “...rugged efficiency would have no doubt produced something agreeable to the Fleet.”Merik’s eyes narrowed at your damning praise but the woman interrupted him before he could reply.“Lord Yarin felt we needed someone with a more innovative mindset to build the weapons that will win us the war. Sub-Director Solei will serve to keep you grounded.”You turned to the woman, she was slightly shorter than you and dressed in a well fitted if unadorned uniform. She exuded the kind of no nonsense attitude that was typical of military types. If you weren’t terminally devoted to your craft you might have found her fetching.“Lieutenant Ferris Gale,” she bowed slightly, no salute for you; you weren’t military. “I will be your main liaison to the Pact fleet. I will relay the Fleets requirements and update you with any relevant intelligence as it becomes available. I look forward to working with you, Acting Director Glasner.”“Acting Director? Do the powers that be have such little faith in me?”“You were hardly anyone’s first choice,” her tone was free of judgement, as if she was just stating a fact, but fact or no it still stung. Why couldn’t anyone truly recognise your genius!? Well you’d show them! You’d show them ALL! -”although if we need to replace you, we will likely be on the verge of losing the war, so really it’s a moot point.”Gee thanks…>cont
>>6322858“Allow me to brief you on the current situation.” Gale summoned a map of the region on the AR display, small pop-ups detailing fleet dispositions appeared as she spoke.“Currently our fleet has engaged the main Imperial force in the Noto system. We have managed to keep them at bay for the time being, but if current trends continue we will eventually lose. High Command tried to draw away Imperial forces by hiring pirates and mercenaries to strike at Shima, but the attack failed. The local garrison proved more tenacious than anticipated.”The map shrunk and ship models started filling the display. “I’m sure you’re aware that the Old Empire could field some truly fearsome warships, but much of its capacity to build them was lost during the previous collapse. As such both sides have been reduced to using older human diaspora designs which are easier to build with a limited technology base. However recently the Imperials have started fielding more advanced designs.”A medium sized cruiser filled the display, it had a wide stern with three large drives and a bulbous prow sporting a prominent laser turret. “This is the Ryu class. The first of its kind is the flagship of the Imperial Fleet, subsequent ships are often assigned as command vessels for individual battlegroups. It has excellent long range capabilities, and enough maneuverability to avoid being flanked by our own capital ships. Its supporting fire has been a decisive factor at breaking stalemates.”Gale switched to an image of some kind of carrier vessel. It had a long rectangular hull and a prominent railgun turret mounted under its prow. The resolution of the image was too blurry to make out further details. “This is the Subjugator class, it was designed for planetary assault so the Imperials don’t really send them to major fleet actions. It is however, powerful enough to take on frigates. Supposedly a single one of these ships was responsible for a decapitation strike on Shima’s government just as they were about to side with us. Our planetary defences have been improved since then but even so Command constantly worries about one of these slipping through our pickets and raiding our planetary installations
>>6322861“High Command’s objectives are two fold: Push the Imperials out of Noto and gain a foothold in Shima. Right now they are open to new strategies so you are free to develop anything that you think would help achieve these objectives.”A Blank Slate? Brilliant! Now you could finally make… ah shit your mind was going blank; the eternal curse of creative folk everywhere.Seeing the look on your face Solei decided to step in. “Acting Director, may I suggest modifying an existing design? It would be the easiest and quickest way to improve the current fleet.”It would also be the most boring…“Speaking of existing designs, I can try digging up some Old Imperial schematics, alas we would likely be incapable of building it to the original spec but it could prove a useful starting point.”Reviving something from the Old Empire did have a certain allure, but there was a part of you that railed against merely creating a pale imitation, no matter how formidable it would be by contemporary standards.>Well, you had to start somewhere, and as much as you hated to admit it, Solei was right. (Modify an existing design.)>At its height the Empire had possessed ships that were more powerful than anything either side was fielding. Try and dig up an old Imperial design and adapt it for your use.>You don’t need “inspiration”, design your own ship from scratch! (Write-In)
>>6322863>Write-InThis but a spaceship
>>6322863>You don’t need “inspiration”, design your own ship from scratch! (Write-In)The key to victory is adaptability. The ability to confront the enemy ships with disadvantageous matchups. We can't build or refit ships on a moment's notice, but strike craft is a different matter. As such, we'll design a cheap light carrier and a complement of drones for different specializations.
>>6322885We already have a carrier, remember? If the idea is to make it repurposable, we'd be better off modifying it.
>>6322888Do we? I only see two basic drone schematics.
>>6322891The Subjugator is a carrier too.
>>6322893It's an imperial design though. Do we even have access to it?
>>6322888>>6322891>>6322893>>6322894Just to clarify: Imperial Designs are exclusive to the enemy. Right now neither side has a proper carrier. The basic drones are often deployed out of space stations and planetary bases.
>>6322895Seems weird to include designs you don't have on your design sheet...But if that's the case, then we know what must be done.>You don’t need “inspiration”, design your own ship from scratch! (Write-In)Carrier Time!
>>6322896>Seems weird to include designs you don't have on your design sheetIt's so you know what you're up against. As you create your own ships, Pact exclusive designs will appear on the other side of the sheet.If you find it confusing though, maybe I'll just post info on enemy ships in a separate image. Going forward you wouldn't have such detailed info on their new stuff anyway.
>>6322899No, I get it now.
>>6322863>You don’t need “inspiration”, design your own ship from scratch! (Write-In)The Raihans are a proud, despotic empire. What we need is a decapitation strike against the enemy flagships. Like a chicken, if we cut off the head and the rest will go scrambling off, directionless, as easy pickings. The Shimans and perhaps others conscripted to their empire may even defect.What we need is giant hot dogs, I mean, ballistic missile trucks but in space. We can save costs by having FTL-capable ships tow a bunch of them to battle. Neither of their command nor assault cruisers have much point defense so the ships will maneuver around the flagship and destroy it with giant missiles.The surviving trucks can take potshots or whatever.See the attached pic for a demonstration.>>6322899We're so back.Could you add a size scale onto future ship charts? I remember Imperial ships on the left being like 3 times the size of the generic ships.
>>6322850What happened to the previous protags?
>>6322912>The surviving trucks can take potshots or whatever.In addition, since the giant missile is like half the mass of the ship, once it's fired the leftover ship would become significantly faster and more maneuverable. If it mounted with some light weapons it can act in both a point defense and a flanking role for the rest of the battle. The ships should be bigger than a strike craft and smaller than frigate, so more like a gunboat.
>>6322912>>6322939This feels like an overly complicated way to make a carrier just because you want the epic meme hotdogs.
>>6322940I disagree. Carriers are the complicated ones. This is just a cheap gunboat with a missile strapped on.
>>6322932They're still around, selling ships and suffering through a constant stream of bad random events.
>>6322951FTL Tugs and cheap disposable gunboats with missiles are a lot more complicated and a lot less scalable than a carrier. Once they wise up it's over.A carrier, however, you can just upgrade the fighters and it's good as new.
>>6322955I recall that wake jumping already exists in-universe so FTL tugs should be easy. FTL tugs should be even more scalable than a carrier, where you are limited to the space inside the hull. Gunboats are also simpler than a carrier, we just need to mass-produce fast ships with a simple gun and a big missile. A carrier needs fancy radar and sensory arrays to coordinate all the fighters and drones as well as repair bays, and large ships are more complicated than small ones.You are proposing a straight carrier vs carrier fight, which I believe will go poorly for us. Look at the Raihan roster from the Battle of Shima. They already have a carrier, and I highly doubt our society is samurai-larping enough to have super-elite mechs, unlike the real Raihans. Also much of their fleet seems to be Raihan Patrol Frigates who can "easily dispatch low to mid level strike craft," so it wouldn't be that much trouble for their point defense to upgrade if we decide to go strike craft-heavy.The war is already going poorly for us, so what we need is a brief but significant advantage to turn the tide around, and my proposal is surely both faster to field and better poised for to give us that breathing room to work on fancier ships later on. In contrast, a carrier attrition duel right now will just let the Raihans bring their stronger economy (5 to 3 planets and access to Union and Saurian trade) to bear.
>>6322969If FTL Tugs were that easy to make, we would have seen it.
>>6322975Only the QM will know. >>6322954QM, tech check please? If FTL tugs are literally impossible instead, docking clamps in front of each gunboat so they clamp together into 1 long "ship", hauled into battle by a utility wake jumping ship should work too. If we prefect a tug or clamp or whatever, gunboats are even more scalable than carriers. You can replace the giant missile with different types of missiles or other weapon batteries, and they're not limited to the size of the carrier's hangar.
>>6323027>clampsAt that point, you might as well just take a fuckin' cargo tanker and have it ferry said gunships instead
>>6323035Yeah that's the point, any random ftl ship to haul a bunch of gunboats over.
>>6323027FTL tugs using advanced hyper drives are possible but don't scale well for large numbers of small craft. You currently do not have access to that technology.
>>6322896This guy was a prisoner temporarily made head of R&D at our yards from the previous threads, then got let go. Seems like he understandably went to go work for the guys our last character was fighting against, and took some info of what they'd been up to.>You don’t need “inspiration”, design your own ship from scratch! Remembering this character and his designs, assumption of his own genius to produce some magnificently niche boondoggle is the only fitting answer.>"A Ship... that is a Plasma-Knife! Forget all that mucking around with calibrating long-range weapon systems; let's just make a prow that's one gigantic plasma-cutter, and strap it to the fastest engine we can find and as much armour as it can take, then drive into enemy ships and through them in repeated mechanised stabbings."
The Pact Fleet didn’t need an incremental improvement and it didn’t need to restore past glory. No… what it needed was a corvette that carried an enormous torpedo like device tipped with a plasma cutter! After a day or two spent in the savant’s trance you present Project Hot Dog to a very skeptical Solei and Gale.“Glasner, before I even comment on the practicality of the design, how are we even going to get this thing to the AO without an FTL drive?”“That’s Director Glasner to you Solei and to answer your question: we will give it clamps that allow it to stick to our cruiser hulls, at least until a purpose built carrier is developed.”Gale frowned at the ship representation on the holo display.“Without carrier support, deployment will be very uncomfortable for the crew; they will be confined to the ship for the duration of the mission.”“We can make it a drone craft.”“That would require the parent ship to have a drone control system.”“The existing Glory class cruisers can be jury rigged with such a system, either that or we can use the craft exclusively for short missions and develop options for long term deployment later.”“All that aside, you’re proposing we build a corvette whose sole purpose is to carry an oversized torpedo. How is this better than the existing pike class frigates?”“Pike Frigates are fragile and their torpedoes are easily shot down by point defence systems. The W13N-3R super heavy torpedo is far more durable. The corvette hull itself will also be heavily armoured. As a bonus: while still connected to the main hull the torpedo can act as a source of supplementary power and propulsion. After launch the overall mass of the craft will be reduced, allowing it to maintain the same level of maneuverability with just the thruster arrays, it can then continue combat in an anti-strikecraft role!”Solei let out an exasperated sigh.“This seems needlessly convoluted. I advise creating two different specialised craft or even just upgrading our standard torpedoes with this plasma cutter warhead.”“And that is why you are only Sub-Director. I have already drawn up plans, begin prototyping immediately!”How should we handle the deployment issues?>Make it manned. (Easier to put into production, but can only be sent on short missions until a dedicated carrier is built.)>Make it unmanned. (Will require a refit of at least one cruiser with a drone control system. It will take longer to get it to the frontline, but will not suffer the drawbacks of being manned.)>Make a manned and unmanned model and perform comparative trials. (More likely to make a final product that will please Fleet Command, but will take even more precious time.)>Also roll me 6d10s, one anon can roll em all or you can take turns idk.
Rolled 10, 2 = 12 (2d10)>>6323321>Make it unmanned. (Will require a refit of at least one cruiser with a drone control system. It will take longer to get it to the frontline, but will not suffer the drawbacks of being manned.)Normally I'd be supportive of a carrier, but by the time we get it the enemy may already have a counter. Easier to just refit a ship with a drone control system so we can put it in good use while we do something more permanentI'll roll 2 out of those 6 dice, you anons do the rest.
>>6323332>10, 2Hmm, I'm assuming there's no such thing as crits here.
Rolled 6, 5 = 11 (2d10)>>6323321>Make it unmanned. (Will require a refit of at least one cruiser with a drone control system. It will take longer to get it to the frontline, but will not suffer the drawbacks of being manned.)Coming to a Cognis' quest with a lulz vote was not a good decision, anons.
Alright, we're finally back. Anyone else gonna roll?
Rolled 10, 5 = 15 (2d10)>>6323321>Make it unmanned. (Will require a refit of at least one cruiser with a drone control system. It will take longer to get it to the frontline, but will not suffer the drawbacks of being manned.)
>>6323332>>6323348>>6323421>10, 2, 6, 5, 10, 5I mean, that's pretty good, isn't it? Only one roll below 5. I should hope it's good.
>>6323321>Make it unmanned. (Will require a refit of at least one cruiser with a drone control system. It will take longer to get it to the frontline, but will not suffer the drawbacks of being manned.)It really is a strike craft strapped to an anti-capital ship torpedo, which might be crazy enough to work?
>>6323332>>6323348>>6323421>>6323433In the end you decided to make the Hot Dog corvette an unmanned model. Lt. Gale wasn’t happy as it meant the Pact fleet would have to take a cruiser off the battleline to be refitted with a drone control system. Fortunately there was a damaged vessel undergoing repairs at Kornen, it wouldn’t be too much of a drain to include the refit with its repairs but it would still be delayed from returning to combat in order to complete field tests with the prototype.As for the prototype itself, you had another flash of inspiration half way through construction: What if you added an additional plasma projector array to the corvettes hull that could shape the plasma emitted by the W13N-3R warhead into a protective shield? Then the corvette could have additional protection while closing with its target. Mounting the projector on the corvette hull instead of the torpedo itself would also mean the cost of the more expendable torpedo component would not increase!Tests in a lab environment proved promising, but the first time you mounted the projector on the new corvette hull the plasma cutter almost melted the front thruster array. Only a timely shutdown and swift response by emergency crews prevented a potentially disastrous chain reaction.>cont
>>6323924“What the hell went wrong!? All the lab tests went fine!”Solei was impassive as usual, but you swore he had the shadow of a smirk on his face. “After reviewing the way the test was conducted we surmise that it could either be improper calibration of the plasma projector or a slight error in the torpedo pylons which altered the expected refraction angles.”“Meaning what exactly?” asked Ferris.“Glasner’s design has multiple points of failure. Unless all components are properly mounted and precisely calibrated, activation of the forward plasma shield could cause the destruction of the vessel.”Ferris frowned. “That’s not good, a ship like this will be constantly reloaded and repaired. Under battlefield conditions, maintenance crews may not be able to guarantee a perfect job every single time.”You wave your hand dismissively. “An acceptable price for the advantages the new design offers. I’m sure you can simply tighten maintenance protocols, or rotate the ships out of battle for an overhaul once the wear and tear become too much.”“War will not always give us such a luxury Acting Director. With respect I think you are trying to accomplish too much. I would much prefer we stick to the original design. The dual power-grid connecting both the torpedo and main hull is going to be bad enough for the Fleet Engineering Corps to deal with.”“I believe the Directors idea has merit, but I agree with Lt. Gale: the separation of the torpedo and ship complicates the design immensely. This would be more workable if we committed to making a pure plasma ram ship rather than a dual purpose launch platform.”“So the design has some kinks, they always do. With just a bit more time I can fix these flaws.”Ferris glares at you.“How much time exactly? While I understand that you cannot conjure new ships for us overnight, time is an increasingly scare and valuable resource for our fleet. Is the advantage Project: Hot Dog will bring truly worth it?”Hrrm…((Since the dice rolls have three results of 6 or more something good happens, but since they also have three results which are 5 or less something bad also happens.))>Push the Hot Dog into production right now. (The enhanced design will grant greater combat performance but will be unreliable.)>Just go with the original design. (No benefits, no downsides)>Redesign it as a pure melee ship. (Minor time cost, capabilities will change but the final product will be reliable.)>Take the time to iron out the flaws. (Major time cost, no downsides to the final design.)
>>6323925Melee ship? That doesn't seem..particularly effective me, given the kind of thing we're facing.I guess the "ideal" way would be to push the original design into production while we iron out the flaws into the background for a "Mark II" version. This would also allow us to use field data to see what issues it has in action. Would that be possible?
>>6323928Yes.This would effectively be a vote for going with the original design. Working on a "Mark 2" design would be a future decision.While it would be much easier than developing a new technology or hull from scratch, it would still take a none trivial amount of time. Plus the enemy would have time to adjust their tactics and/or come up with a counter. (Although right now they would not know that the Mark 2 will be upgraded with a shield so their response could turn out to be ineffective.) Either way it is a future decision point.You're inspiration has also unlocked the potential for shielding technology that can be developed further for future designs so no matter what you have already gained something from this project.
>>6323925>Just go with the original designWe'll get the benefit of field performance data while developing Mark 2
>>6323930Well, we might have to add more than just the Shields, but field data is very valuable.>>6323925>Just go with the original design. (No benefits, no downsides)
>>6323925>Redesign it as a pure melee ship. (Minor time cost, capabilities will change but the final product will be reliable.)I'd call this a happy accident. The plasma shield turns the tough corvette into a powerhouse that can cut down a ship several times its size and asks for seconds. And it's reliable to boot!
