For House & Dominion: Civil War [spoiler]Quest[/spoiler]

FOR HOUSE AND DOMINION

>split off the units best suited for raids and fast attacks.
All of the mixed and attack cruiser units fit that bill with their more powerful alpha strike.
That's about 10 squadrons.

You can also equip some of the assault corvettes with afterburners if you wanted to increase those numbers.

>Would our allies be okay with that?
They would be, but they'd want to send a fleet from the colony closest to you.

The rest of the Run Alliance are planning to send their Heavy Cruier (with escort) to the nav station as soon as they've finished mopping up the site of their recent battle. They don't know how long that will take.

>Disregard anything but the enemy colony now.
>Focus all of them on the colony right now.

>However we should move perhaps two or three wings to raiding/counter raiding duty.

Split off Drake for raiding with the attack and mixed in addition to 2 assault corvette wings.
Everyone else proceeds to link up with a friendly fleet, either for colony or fleet raiding. Since the nearest fleet available to move out with you is near that colony you can meet up there.

Is this adequate?

>raiders
I think sending a carrier group along for prolongued sieges or station attacks might be a good idea.

Because the sooner it falls the sooner we can free up fleets from it and focus them on the last enemy colony. Freeing up ships to anti piracy duty as well. Also not all the ships are under the shield yet if I have gotten it right?

Acceptable. Time to make this colony burn.

Sounds good to me.
Also, FOR HOUSE AND DOMINION!

Carrier group added. Drake will try to put them to good use.

You fleets jumps to the nearest enemy colony informing the RH Fleets that you'll arrive soon to attack the remainder of the enemy fleet. With the promise of reinforcements to the RH Fleet's move in, careful that they have enough ships even without you. They're positioning for micro jumps in system by the time you arrive.

Most system traffic has fled or retreated to smaller civilian outposts through the system. Aground the colony itself traffic remains a flurry of activity. Civilian ships are hurridly either seeking shelter or trying to get far enough out of the gravity well to jump.

Enemy Corvettes and Frigates make up most of the traffic between the stations and the surface, evacuating personnel and supplies.

It looks like two squadrons of battleships and battlecruisers are still in orbit. Tugs are attaching additional repulsors to allow a more safely controlled descent into the atmosphere. One that wouldn't require lighting off the fusion drives.

"Three Medium cruisers from their fleet are already on the surface, along with at least two carriers and a number of ships from Bonrah's allies."

>Your orders?

User our attack corvettes and assault cruisers to engage the remaining military ships.

Are the bases in orbit modular? What other defences are there?

We attack the southern base with the full force of our ships. We approach aggressively since we do not want more ships to make landfall. Big ships focus on big ships. Fighters deploy right away and prepare to intercept enemy fighters from the surface and possibly the station. Do not fear ship wreaks falling into the planet. It will only help to drain their shields.

Stations in orbit are semi-permanent models expanded with modular sections. They're not much stronger than a modular station of the same size.
Armament consists mainly of heavy phase cannon turrets, though the south one does have a torpedo battery upgrade.

Surface based missile silos make up part of the planetary defenses along with a number of heavier than normal particle beam and laser turrets.

Thanks. I'd suggest to engage the remaining hostile ships with fast attack ships, and to secure the stations with our heavier elements before they can be destroyed (so we can relocate them away from the planet).

After that we move on.

Focus J-D assets on the southern station while bulk of RH attacks North. Rest of theirs will assist your group.

>Big ships focus on big ships.
Do you want some of your faster elements to go after the battleships in lower orbit? Or play it safe with sending larger ones against them?

Also, use the Helios AM or keep it from launching torpedoes near the planet?

>Also, use the Helios AM or keep it from launching torpedoes near the planet?
Keep it away from this engagement.

What's the specks near the stations and the strikes?

Send both big and fast elements of the fleet after them. They are the price here since the Mediums are already on the surface.

No using the AM torpedoes near the planet. You all heard Kim.

Scattered individual ships. Mostly the older corvettes and frigates conducting evacuation efforts.

Roll 3d20 for going fast.

News updates.

Investigators have determined that the recovered name of the one of the station attacker terrorists is an anagram for Marson Edect. Interestingly enough it was a woman's name. They believe he may have killed another person and assumed their identity before faking his death. The Alliance is continuing to look into the matter.

Company news:
RSS has finished refits for a dozen Lance class cruisers for Ber'helum who immediately sent them to the DRH 2 relay. Bonrah forces there have launched a full offensive and appear to be using large amounts of of their SP Torpedo reserves to swing things in their favour.

Your House is going to be selling more of the advanced cloaked ships to a few of the Major Houses.
Because of this I'm looking for a class name to use for them since "Advanced Cloaked Ship" doesn't lend itself well to repetition. I was thinking something owl related due to their stealthiness.
youtube.com/watch?v=-WigEGNnuTE

Rolled 5, 15, 13 = 33 (3d20)

Rolled 5 (1d20)

>RSS has finished refits for a dozen Lance class cruisers for Ber'helum who immediately sent them to the DRH 2 relay.
To that new modification we saw Ber'helum use?

> I was thinking something owl related due to their stealthiness.
Considering the Republic seems to have cornered the market for bird of prey inspired ship classifications, why not deep sea predators?

>Roll 3d20 for going fast.
1

Rolled 12 (1d20)

2

Rolled 19 (1d20)

3

Rolled 2, 20, 1 = 23 (3d20)

God dammit. Third time.... action!

For the name how about Surnia?

Strigidae, or a part of that. Its the Latin name for the True Owl family.

Always thought Nocturn and Penumbra would be good for it too.

Both interesting. Adding them to the list.

The combined fleets jump in system, using the gravity well to drag you back to real space. Station defenses open fire on the fleet immediately, though with so many ships even you cant tell if they're doing much damage.

Frigates moving in to dock with the station are caught by surprise, their crews obviously trying to decide if they should run for the surface or count on the station for protection. That indecision costs them and many are crippled in the opening of the engagement.

Corvettes on the other hand must have started pulling back just as the fleet was accelerating to jump. It will be difficult to catch them.

Your command ship and another fast medium from the Ruling House burn hard towards the Battleships and fleeing corvettes. Your battlecruisers and some of the assault corvettes also head in from different angles.

A torpedo and phase cannon barrage from the station is thrown in the direction of your Medium. Along with other fire focusing on you it's enough to drop the main shield and spook the helmsman into breaking off. It's just as well he did, as five SP Torpedoes blast craters in the port side armor.

Tama vectors in starfighters to target the launchers in response.

Your fleet's much smaller and faster ships have little such difficulty, rocketing in towards their targets. Those equipped with afterburners are actually able to overtake the corvettes, disabling two squadrons of them.

The Great Devourer leads the charge among your battlecruisers, the main gun scoring a critical hit on drives of an old Apollo class. Others soon take crippling levels of damage as well, though that doesn't stop them from trying to return the favour. A few of your ships are forced to break off but that matters little. The enemy battlecruisers are now falling out of orbit.

>Cont.

A hole opens in the planetary shield large enough to allow the crippled ships. Not your first choice had you been PDF commander. Given their low speed an altitude to begin with their rentry isn't going to be a firey death for the ship hulls but instead rain deadly debris onto the surface.

Starfighters don't seem to be pouring out of the hole in the shield. The few you can detect staying well back in safe areas.

Do you want your closest ships to try to exploit the gap in the shield? While not officially rated for atmosphere some of your BC's and fast battleships could maintain altitude. A few of them have LST's with Marines aboard.

>Your orders?

Can we drag the damaged hostile ships out into space using tractor beams?

Keep up the fire through the hole in the shield. Try to hit those ships making it trough for more damage to the surface. If we are lucky they might hit a shield generator or cause a hole in the shield that we can more easily abuse when more ship arrive here.

Striga, or Witch Weed is a parasitic weed that destroys crops. So we can officially call them Striga, refer to them as Witch Ships and have a nice theme of them sneaking and and wreaking havoc on the enemy.

They're also a woman that suddenly transforms into a monster in the Witcher series.

Also sounds like Striker somewhat and is less cumbersome than Strigadae.

Could we fire regular torpedoes through the hole and make the debris fallout . . . Worse somehow? I imagine ships exploding in the atmosphere are bad. Also not technically from our weapons, so technically not a war crime.

I just think that our bigger ship guns will still be useless below the shields, so if we are to rush it we should use whatever ships have the best point defense and . . . Do we have any fighters in positon?

Otherwise yeah as much firepower as we can get away with to make a mess of those remaining ships to try and cause a technically not a war crime event.

Or make the crash worse!

Continuing, depending on how much of a mess we make we should try a marine drop on the shield generators afterwards. I just can't help but be wary of why they would do this though so that's my second plan.

Not many due to the need for you ships to not crash into the shield. None would be much safer for them attaining a safe orbit.

>Keep up the fire through the hole in the shield.
Any missed shots through the open shield has a good chance of surface impact.
>Try to hit those ships making it trough for more damage to the surface.

>Could we fire regular torpedoes through the hole and make the debris fallout . . . Worse somehow?
Your House does still use older nuclear warheads. They're way cleaner than 20th century nukes but still produce some fallout.
I guess if you were going for war crimes you could strap uranium to them but that would take a few minutes more than you probably have.

>Do we have any fighters in positon?
They're closer to the station.

>as much firepower as we can get away with
Nearly any starship grade weapons fire striking the surface is more than you can get away with.

>try a marine drop on the shield generators afterwards.
There are starships parked near most planetary shield generators protecting them with secondary shielding. They could attempt to reach ground level and push through the shields.

>There are starships parked near most planetary shield generators protecting them with secondary shielding. They could attempt to reach ground level and push through the shields.

How much of a garrison would be there? Worst case scenario.

>war crimes
No. We follow the factions treaty.

>How much of a garrison would be there? Worst case scenario.
500-1000 from each Frigate sized ship on the surface? All planetary shields have a small PDF Garrison, though the size of them can vary from a basic security detachment up to a division.
Medium cruisers normally start at 1500 troops and go up from there.

Okay, let's not put any ships under the shield in that case, just doesn't seem worth it right now, especially with other ships putting up smaller separate shields to cover the installation.

This looks like most of the options.

[ ] Pull BC's back to safe distance
[ ] Attempt to drag crippled ship(s) into low orbit
[ ] Continu firing on crippled ships
[ ] Send LSTs from your BC Squadrons through the gap
[ ] Send your BC squadrons through the gap
[ ] Bombard generator facilities with starship grade weapons
[ ] SP Torpedo generator facilities

Would it be possible and effective to mostly evacuate one of our bigger ships nearby, and carefully crash it into on of these shield generators?

>SP Torpedo generator facilities
Wait what?

>[X] Pull BC's back to safe distance
Instead of wasting our time here at this planet, let's just do what our allies decided would be best. Let's grab all the stuff that's not already hidding or protected by multiple layers of planetary shielding.

>With scorched earth tactics intensifying the Ruling House and Ber'helum agree that the fleets should move with all speed to secure remaining locations.

>[x] SP Torpedo generator facilities
Don't forget to mix in a bunch of decoys too.

[x] Anti-matter.

>bigger ships
>carefully crash it into on of these shield generators?
I'm going to say no. The biggest ships you have that are actually rated for atmosphere are your assault transports.

>SP Torpedo (the) generator facilities
>Wait what?
I wanted to make sure there was a 10/10 on the war crimes scale for comparison.

This will require confirmation.

>[X] SP Torpedo generator facilities

Wait, torpedoes violate the convention? Damn it. What about our Mass Driver point defense systems. Didn't we skirt the convention by using those last time?

Alternatively, can we use tractor beans to push the crippled ships into the shield generators or other ships? I mean, it's one thing to carfully land a ship. It's another to prevent a ship land on it from fucking it up.

And here I was thinking it was an actual SP Torp producing factory on the planet.
[ ] Pull BC's back to safe distance

>Wait, torpedoes violate the convention?
Torpedoes start at about 3-5 times the explosive yield of your ship-to-ship nuclear warheads.

>What about our Mass Driver point defense systems. Didn't we skirt the convention by using those last time?
Their kinetic impact is rated below that of nuclear grade weapons. Which means that while they okay as far as the treaty is concerned, they won't penetrate starship grade shields.

>can we use tractor beans to push the crippled ships into the shield generators or other ships?
If nothing else happens along to divert their course, possibly.

So we may or may not be split between actions.

Grabbing some food. Voting is open for 15 more minutes.

[ ] Pull BC's back to safe distance
[ ] SP Torpedo the generator facilities*

>[ ] Pull BC's back to safe distance
No war crimes. I can't believe we even need a vote about this.

>[ ] Pull BC's back to safe distance
We should keep a stock of SP Torpedo's modified for kinetic strikes from now on.

>[ ] Pull BC's back to safe distance

>[ ] Pull BC's back to a safe distance

> [ ] Pull BC's back to safe distance

> Tractor crippled ships to where they will do the most damage

Might as well, costs us nothing. Tractor and retreat.

>(Mass Driver system) won't penetrate starship grade shields.

...out of curiosity, how much average mass would a continuous, focused stream of projectiles need to slowly overwhelm a particular section of shields? Not necessarily trying to apply it here, but the idea of setting up a long-gunning artillery facility on a local moon or (carefully) redirecting an asteroid belt might be aesthetically pleasing to me...

> Mass Driver targets of opportunity while pulling back.

Or is every military installation shielded? If so, take out transportation corridors and factories.

Or is that a war crime? Like, bombing cities?

Actually, as a follow up, how far out from the planet's gravity well are the shields set up? Does debris effectively end up piling up on top of them? Is it ejected into low orbit or is there a filtering mechanism where inert mass slowly drifts through the shields as they cycle?

IIRC slow projectiles pass through them, like REALLY slow stuff. High energy objects are what get repelled.

Remind me, how effective are concentrated solar emission strikes (massive arrays of reflective microsatilites) at penetrating or overwhelming solar shields and what do they rate on the war crimes scale? Because that kind of seems like the go to prolonged passive attack for a long turn siege, turn the lights off or turn them ALL the way up.

*overwhelming planetary shields

Typo...

[X] Pull BC's back to safe distance

>They believe he may have killed another person and assumed their identity before faking his death.
Maybe some cloning or digitalization shenanigens?

[x] Antimatter

>looking for a class name
Nighthawk, Vulture, Raven...

Sonia has long struggled with the Factions treaty, doubting it's value at times.

That would require me to no longer have a nebulous unknown about of damage a shield could take. Plot wise it'd be a pain in the ass.

Faction built shields will polarize to block out radiation to some degree. This increases if levels of a particular wavelength are harmful. If planetary shields stay up long enough it can impact weather and growing seasons, though some light will still get through.
Surakeh had it's shields up for an extended period before its capture which caused plenty of problems in the short to mid term. If so many people hadn't died from the virus attacks it would have been difficult to feed them all.

All of the friendly battlecruisers pull up from their attack and boost back in into low orbit. Ground based installations begin to launch missiles while lasers and other weapons that can get through the atmosphere more easily begin to paint the ships with fire.

Before long your people are returning to the edge of the gravity well, their point defense warding off the missile attacks.

The rest of the fleets storm the stations, capturing anyone still aboard and securing equipment and supplies. The corvettes are kept busy recovering escape pods from the station as some try to find other ways to the surface. It wouldn't have done them much good. The hole in the shield was quickly closed and there are no signs they'll be allowing anyone in.

Several of the crippled enemy warships were intercepted by HLV's, tugs and other ships already beneath the shield before they could strike major population centers. Anything that couldn't be safely snagged was directed towards the nearest bodies of water.

Orbit looks to be secure and locked down. No signs of additional ships trying to get on or off the planet.

Sensors are able to give a good indication of the damage suffered from the hail of smaller debris that gets through. Thanks to strudy Dominion civil engineering it's actually not that bad.

"It's a good thing most Houses have regular drills for the emergency shelters." observes Maybourne.

After a quick reorganization the fleet should be ready to move on minus a few ships that need repairs.

Before moving to other targets there was some discussion about changing the orbit of the two stations. What did you have in mind?

>What did you have in mind?
Pull one away from the planet to serve as a supply base for the siege fleet in safe distance from the planet.

Have the other one disassembled and moved somewhere it will be more useful than here.

>Sonia has long struggled with the Factions treaty, doubting it's value at times.
My reading was that we'll follow it until our enemies stop doing so. Then we remind them why everyone signed the damned thing.

>What did you have in mind?
Lower the orbit until one crashed into the planet unless they decide to surrender. A station the size of it landing in the ocean should be able to cause quite the tsunami

Does it violate the treaty to do a colony drop with the stations?

>Sonia has long struggled with the Factions treaty, doubting it's value at times.
What does the treaty actually stipulate?

When was the last time we broke it? I remember that thing in Shallan space.

>Sonia has long struggled with the Factions treaty, doubting it's value at times.
It's times like this that I realise, yes, when we go on the Neeran offensive, we will most definitely not give them any quarter.

I rather like suggestion. Might want to talk to the siege fleet on if they want both stations or if we could try to move one.

Can't damage all the nice planets, the Neeran don't seem to care about them, and we'll have to take them for the Dominion to alleviate all this useless internal pressure.

Probably.

>What does the treaty actually stipulate?
Nuclear SCALE weaponry are banned from use on planets that can support life. (Preferably Faction life) Pretty much anything over 5 kilotons is pushing it.
Terrans and Rovinar liked this for ethical reasons while the Dominion and Iratar liked it for economic reasons.
The Kavarian Union was not an official signatory to the Factions treaty and violated it on several occasions. The Republic did so likewise until the end of the Faction Wars.

There were agreements to ban small fission weapons and dirty bombs though specifics regarding these were not entirely elaborated upon and didn't make it into the official treaty.

Biological and chemical weapons were banned outright or heavily restricted. That hasn't stopped people from finding ways around it.

Yes colony drops / large asteroid impacts against habitable worlds were also banned.
What are you some kind of dirty zeek?
That doesn't stop people from using smaller rocks to damage planetary shields.

We technically haven't broke it.

I want to find the Neeran Prime city ship and use a super-veckron on it. I want to AM a Neeran planet. I want to drop an asteroid on a Neeran planet. I want to Veckron a planet.

This user is correct. You technically haven't broken it. Damn close a bunch of times though.

The RH Fleet wouldn't be against moving one of the stations out of the system. Hell, you could ask that it be used to build up those stations that were part of your agreement with them. It'd be in their best interests to part with one then.

Moving one into a higher orbit could make it more vulnerable to attack in some ways, but in others it would be harder to micro jump close to it without the edge of the gravity well there to assist.

You could still break it down and use sections of it to bombard the shields.

Any other suggestions?

Sure glad the Neeran teleport beacon ships are not on that list. Sending that blood covered AM torp home via the emergency teleport system would of been a problem.

We will never know what happened with that will we?

>You could still break it down and use sections of it to bombard the shields.
I love edging the lines of War Crimes but I think we will want to salvage useable stations to keep our foothold strong.

Station relocation it is.

Did you guys want to follow this plan to quickly go after other bases?
More allies would try to link up with you closer to the enemy fleet near the navigator station.

Or would you prefer to split up or deploy your forces a different way?

I have to be up early so I'll stop here for tonight. Will resume hopefully around 1PM EST. Other days this week I'll be running from morning through to 4PM.

Tomorrow: hopefully finishing up main combat operations in this theater of operations.

Sure lets keep following that plan.

TSTG, have you considered putting your twitter feed up on the wiki frontpage?

Safety bump.

I would like to do a slow advance that minimizes opportunity for raiding, while co-ordination a rapid reaction force with our allies to intercept and corner any raiding activity with extreme prejudice to begin with.

Honestly they can't react quickly with their landed assets. The best way to deal with a difficult fort is to contain it and avoid it, so we lay into propaganda that Bonrah can but aren't willing to meet their obligation to defend their assets and vassals.

The concern is the cost of asymmetrical warfare. We have to be sure that they a) don't have significant mobile assets to alpha strike us and b) we don't overextended our supply lines. So building local support will go a long way to providing key early warning and tracking data.

bump

>They can't react quickly to anything we do, so let's go as slowly as possible to give them at least a chance.
Is what I'm reading.

This is a good idea and should have been done sooner.
I've added the link. Haven't quite figured out what scripting needs to be adjusted to put the button on.

In the process of searching through admin features I've discovered and enabled a maps feature. Not sure what's involved with that but once I've finished research into the newer exporting options for AutoCAD 2015 I'll put up a much bigger map.

>Sure glad the Neeran teleport beacon ships are not on that list.
The Factions may discuss amendments regarding emergency teleport receiver systems after the Dominion's civil war. A few of the Major Houses have begun to install such facilities on or near planets.

You make some of your salvage craft available to assist in moving the stations if needed then prep the fleet to move out again.

[ ] Hit Yard, split up to go after 2nd yard and fleet [ ] Split off separate fleets to start blockades [ ] Split off separate fleets large enough to hit yards and other targets. Main force goes for fleet ASAP.

>This is a good idea and should have been done sooner.
I would have tried to do it myself but it seems only the account owner can access the necessary details to link the account.
community.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Social_media_integration

How much of Bonrah's force is account for as being either disabled/destroyed, or parked on their colonized planets?

>disabled/destroyed, or parked on their colonized planets?
Around 1/3.

>Around 1/3 destroyed.
That's means they have around 6 mediums, 6 BCR/BB squads, 6 elite wings, 10 mixed wings, 20 corvette wings, and 6 carrier groups left.

I think we need a fleet that does at least stand a chance to retreat if Bonrah decides to focus their remaining forces at the nav station.

>[X] Hit Yard, split up to go after 2nd yard and fleet
Is probably the safer option because it will give people more time to catch up.

>That's means they have around 6 mediums [...]
All of their Mediums have gone to ground already. They only had 7 in this Relay at the time of the invasion. They'd sent a fleet to the DRH 2 relay before you declared war on them

Okay, that clears things up. Switching my vote from here to
>[x] Split off separate fleets large enough to hit yards and other targets. Main force goes for fleet ASAP.