Beyond Alpha Centauri:: Discussion Thread 2

Sprayber · January 17, 2002, 11:43

The thread was approaching the 500 post limit so I thought I would start a new one. Just carry over all discusions here.

Quote:

Then there would be 3 instances, the one that I was refeering to was the one with Captin Garth of Izar. He was on a nutcase penal colony with a plantery shield and had Kirk caputred, on board the Enterprise they were trying to figure out how to brin the shield down, and it was stated they would have to fire at the weakest part of the shiled on the other side of the planet, but Spock replies, that the backlash from such firepower would destory the entire plantery surrface and the colony.

Ok I had forgot about that one.

Kassiopeia · January 17, 2002, 13:33

I have designated eight different fighters for the Coalition. The

Nordstrom-Astrodyne type 32 Starfury,
the NA-33 Thunderbolt,
the NA-41 Supernova,

the Toyota-Huyndai Designs model 9 Hurricane,
the T12 Cyclone,
the T86 Typhoon,

the Interplanetary Enterprises Shipbuilding Atmospheric Space fighter AS-5.
Just so that no-one uses these names (please).

Then I decided to remodify the capital ship classes. I scrubbed the Battle and Heavy Cruiser designations and replaced them with the Destroyer and Battleship ones. So the ship categories of ECN are:

Sub-capital ships: Fighter, Corvette,
Capital ships: Frigate, Cruiser, Destroyer, Carrier
Super-capital ships: Battleship, Dreadnaught, Supercarrier.

Sprayber · January 17, 2002, 14:08

Kass: Is your page down? I haven't beena able to reach it.

Kassiopeia · January 17, 2002, 14:14

It has been down for some time.

I aim to get it back up in the weekend. I'm doing a rather big refit there, with a detailed history of Coalition from the past 50 years, with election results from the past Parliament and Presidential elections, and the ship specs.

Btw, make that one InEn fighter, called Proteus.

Kassiopeia · January 17, 2002, 14:18

Oh, and it would not hurt if you could find some additional schematics of any star ships. I'm having hard time deciding whether to use existing pictures from the internet, to rely on my own pictures, or use no pics at all.

January 18, 2002, 02:40

*sighs*

so short amount of time and bit annoyed with somethings...which could be related to stubborness and the Virgo's do it her way or......

anyway, the thing with shields is that, you require big arse weapons to bring them down. Take a Startrek ships with its shields and weapons...... the kind of firepower they dish out against each other is enough to completly ruin the planet... You can dish several nukes/fusions on those ships and still barely damage the shields... those same amount of nukes/fusions would completly ruin Earth!!!!! so then you have this who has the biggest gun and shields mentallity....leading to unrealism. So in my opinion, better have staying with ship weaponry technology that cannot penetrate the atmosphere and wreck the surface of a planet so easily............... so for balance and realism sake, no shields which would lead to bad arse unrealistic weapons.

Now, what reason would a faction go off bombarding planets? to eliminate the enemy, yes.... but what lead to this barbarism? Take the cold war stand off with nukes.... if one fires nukes, the other will fire theirs in retaliation......they both know it will destroying themselves and the surface of Earth.
So if one faction goes off bombarding the entire colony after colony... then the victim will scream bloody marry and do the same in retaliation..... which will lead into crippling or simply destroy each other. At the moment, each faction have enough ships that, even if you eliminate bunch of them, there still will be some to retaliate. genocidal bombarment will make ground forces obsolete. So factions must have common sence....... I know the Hive wouldn't blink to wipe a entire colony with planetary bombarment......but they would know that the victim faction will scream bloody mary and become fanatical to hunt them down and blast them to kingdom come, along with anyother... and i a sure the Hive doesn't want that kind of attention, unless they are so high tech that i they don't care...... but then, what is the point of planetary bombarment when you can easily send in high tech supersoldiers to take control of the planet quite easily and mind control the whole world....only your simply lazy or quite sadistic/murdering b**tard. "UN Charter" may not be seriusly enforced and mostly not given a hoot... but they will listen to the major parts...... would the Spartans go planetary bombarding and risk ruining relations with the Drones and Morganites? there will be atrocity points given, which would sour relations................ of course, when you consider humans vs aliens it may be different case, especially when they are higher tech........ then, annihilate a world of theirs fro bombarment, you may end up pissing them off enough that they'll simply rush all of their ships on ya. Besides, you need to be in orbit to effectively bombard a planet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-LMP

January 18, 2002, 02:42

I thought the Starfuries and Thunderbolts will be a Terran Alliance Fleet thing, not Coalition thing which the TAF acquired from :/

-LMP

Sprayber · January 18, 2002, 03:54

Quote:

Hoth didn't had planetary shields.

Actually they had a small shield surrounding the base. Like the one that I have been trying to talk about. That's why their star destroyers didn't simply blast the base from orbit. And coinincdently Admiral Ozzel was "relieved" of his command by Vader

It went from being an bombing mission, to a costly ground invasion.

Let me say this again. I have said that shields that cover the Whole planet would require a tremoundous amounts of power and very large generating devices. That is why it has Not been put into use by any of the human factions. This is another reason why it has proved difficult to put on single ships and has not been done. But, a way could be found to produce local area shields, To place around Military or critical areas. if the threat of attack was immenate. This would then force the Space fleet above to land troops to take out those targets. Now a time factor would be involved here because the shield could only be maintained for a certain time.

Once again. Wouldn't it be kind of reasonable for say the drones and morgans and spartans to be interested in this technology since they are the ones near large alien societies that have absouluty no care in the universe about some paper signed by humans. where their is no concept of "humane" behavior. the Spartans may feel guilty about doing something like this and would in the end shy away from that, but the Bree or even the Gorn could not care one bit about what happens to civilians. And it doesn't take nuclear devices to kill people. You don't have to scour the whole planet just to kill the people. Your goal would be to render the planet un usuable by the enemy. You don't have to melt the crust to do that.

Sol doesn't have to worry about alien attacks. They have the benovalent Fraal. The Spartans have no such guarentees. Even the Hive would be subject to it if and when the Gorn deceide to take out those cooperating with their enemy. So far humanity has survived by being insignificant. It seems just about every time a species becomes powerful enough to be a threat they disapper. From the looks of the many ruins in the human part of the galaxy, they have disappered violently.

anyway, ill just drop the whole thing. The Spartans shall find some other way to defend against the Bree.

Frankychan · January 18, 2002, 04:19

For the record,

I understood what you were trying to say Sprayber. I also understood that you were talking about Planetary Shields exclusively. Also, I am aware that you are talking about a "region" on a planet that is covered by the shield, not the entire planet.

I think that some other authors may have misunderstood the whole "shields" discussion. Maybe I'll take a shot at it to make it as clear and easy as possible.

As Sprayber (correct me if I'm wrong!) is saying...and I support,

Planetary Shields do not fully engulf the planet. Rather there is the "bubble-wrap" shields, meaning certain parts of the planet are covered by shielding while other area's on the surface are not. These non-covered area's allow the attacker to land "ground-pounders" to try and destroy the shield array (sound familiar?)

As for the strength of the shielding, it doesn't have to be indestructable. It could instead be like a bullet-proof vest. One shot and it'll stop it from going through. Multiple shots orone really powerful and the vest fails. The shield can be the "bullet proof vest", stopping only a certain amount of weaponry before it fails. (i.e. burns out)

Ship-based shields

As Sprayber has said, to maintain shields, it must have an enormous power supply. Smaller ships would not have be able to have a power plant for its shields, engines, and weaponry...that would take a lot of room.

Therefore I propose that we do not have ship-based shields. Instead maybe have what I proposed, ablative armor or something else.

Referring to the Hive,

To make it rather fair I have decided that absolutely NO fighters will have any type of passive defense. Armor will be standard throughout all general fighters. Hive fighters depend more on the "swarm" tactic; numerous fighters engaging the enemy rather than an elite few.

Frankychan · January 18, 2002, 04:24

Sprayber,

Do we have authors for the Bree and Gorn, or are these two races being "supporting characters" in our collaborative work? I would rather have them as supporting characters with no real substance to them, instead using these races to enhance the plot of the story.

Sorry, I'm kinda getting worried about the Gorn

But that's o.k. 'cause the Hive has the Bree

Emperor Yang...........Salute!

Sprayber · January 18, 2002, 05:22

All aliens are just there for background filler. Each person can take a little slice of them and use them for their own. All while observing certain realities. Most posts about aliens seems to be based on the humans reactions to what the aliens do and not actually taking control of the aliens and doing something with them. I couldn't post something saying that the Gorn invades Hive space and destroys a planet. But as the Hive, you should kind of know that the Gorn would not look kindly on you supporting their bitter enemy. Who knows if the Gorn even know or not. But be aware of the fact that you would become a target if they did find out. I can't simply leave the new colonly undefended while i fly them all to sol or the Pk territories. The spartans have to consider that they border the Hive and unknow space that may contain Bree fleets of some size. They also border PK territory which while not at war, may not be friendly. They also border at least a few independent worlds that may or may not be friendly. Sparta doesn't border Terran territory but their allies the Morganites do.

Thankfully the Spartans have the drones and morganites as steady allies. If not then things would be indeed different.

Frankychan · January 18, 2002, 05:31

that sounds good. Gorn and Bree as fillers sounds good enough for me.

As for the Gorn opinion of us (the Hive), I concur that the Gorn would not like it at all if they found out about our relationship with the Bree. I believe they would do something if they found out....but thankfully they don't know yet!

Kassiopeia · January 18, 2002, 10:10

Quote:

Originally posted by [LordLMP]
I thought the Starfuries and Thunderbolts will be a Terran Alliance Fleet thing, not Coalition thing which the TAF acquired from :/

-LMP

Oh. How about if the Coalition acquired them from TAF and used by them? (And they are produced by an Earth corporation (not InEN))? Then their role within ECN has to be downsized, since I want a specific Coalition-originated kickass fighter.
But we can agree on the fact that it will have the same technical properties as in B5; length, weapons (pulse cannons, fusion missiles) and alike.

I guess I'm doing all my starships myself, from scratch...

Sprayber · January 18, 2002, 10:28

Kass: What kind of stuff are you looking for. Picts or more of the schematic type stuff. i have a little of both. But what style are you interested in.

Kassiopeia · January 18, 2002, 10:47

Well, schematics is mainly what I seek, and the style is... well, something in the line of Homeworld and Babylon 5.

But don't stress yourself with this matter; I already have some ships drawn, and the schematics are not that hard to draw, and there is always the possibility of simply describing what the entrails of the ship are like.

Coalition Emblem. The military branches and civilian offices have the same planet/star insignia, but with a variation in colour. The CSN (Coalition Space Navy) emblem, for instance, has a silver grey star, with the circle black and the halo around it light blue.

Cybergod · January 18, 2002, 16:59

Kass, as you seem busy, I'll take the liberty of posting the speech Nicholas gives - if you don't mind!

By the way, what are the impacts of Titan declaring independence? What will the EC exactly do?

Frankychan · January 18, 2002, 20:23

Hey everyone,

I really want to make a "New-Age" Hive symbol but don't know how. I don't know what software I can use but my comp is really old...like 1995 old. Is there some online graphics site that I can use or do I have to go through Windows Paintshop?

I kinda wanted to stretch the Hive symbol a bit and add a couple more designs to it.

Kass,

Initial contact procedures have been sent (see latest post). When do you think you'll be able to post next? That way I have an idea when the contact ship will arrive in your space.

January 18, 2002, 20:54

I thought i made it clear with the Fraal before? :P Fraal doesn't choose sides and they have interesting in humanity as a whole, not only the Terrans. The Proginators and rest would know that....... Proginators currently doesn't care about humanity... as long as they don't interfere or find some interest in something in human space, like Manifold Six if they ever found out.... because they notice Fraal as an interest in humanity....due to some past experiences, they rather not annoy the Fraal again, who the most advance compare to everyone else in this part of the galaxy.

Why would planetary bombarment be taboo: Fraal stories of past civilizations, other races and etc... basic general knowledge of the Proginators' history acquired by the chiron factions after fighting the proginators on Chiron........and confrmed by the Fraal.

anyway, currently falling asleep.......

-LMP

Silence · January 19, 2002, 00:47

Well for the shielding question we have several ways to go with space combat.

We could with the Wing Commander 2 method where you have capital ships (destroyers and above) have shields that would have to be beat down with ship guns or torpedoed by fighters.

We could go with the Starfire approach where the ships have shields, but the fighters carry enough firepower in the missiles to do some damage.

We could go with the Babylon 5 approach

I rather like the Stafire approach, we are talking about people who presumbly are using advance energy and advance equpiment, I think they could generate some sort of an Alpha Centuria Taychon field around their ship to help defend it,

Sprayber · January 19, 2002, 04:11

Quote:

Originally posted by [LordLMP]
I thought i made it clear with the Fraal before? :P Fraal doesn't choose sides and they have interesting in humanity as a whole, not only the Terrans. The Proginators and rest would know that....... Proginators currently doesn't care about humanity... as long as they don't interfere or find some interest in something in human space, like Manifold Six if they ever found out.... because they notice Fraal as an interest in humanity....due to some past experiences, they rather not annoy the Fraal again, who the most advance compare to everyone else in this part of the galaxy.

Why would planetary bombarment be taboo: Fraal stories of past civilizations, other races and etc... basic general knowledge of the Proginators' history acquired by the chiron factions after fighting the proginators on Chiron........and confrmed by the Fraal. -LMP

I don't think that planners in Sparta Command or much of anywhere else are going to put much faith in the Fraal as an effective detterent to the other aliens. In fact given the Fraals habit of interferring, some factions may consider them a bigger threat. In reality the Spartans have had zero contact with the Fraal. They only have a few reports from undercover sources about what the Terrans know about them.

Where were the Fraal when Sparta and the Drones fought the Bree for several years in which tens of thousands humans died? Aren't the Spartans and Drones special enough to save.

As far as planetary bombardment is concerned. It wouldn't be taboo unless all the aliens have exactly the same moral code. And exactly how could the Fraal know about events going on far away. Surely they aren't everywhere. Bottom line, the Spartans would not count on the Fraal for any help, and would most likely not want it.

Anyway it doesnt matter to me. Real life has taken a turn for the worse at the moment. Someone very important to me is sick and that puts a new life in jeopardy. I have to be with her a lot. I'll still be here though and post. This helps to take my mind off of things for awhile.

January 19, 2002, 09:33

awwww, i give my condolances....

the point i was trying to make before almost dozing off on the keyboard:

Proginators use to be a large empire that use to span a good portion of the galaxy. They also use to be very advance, way more then they are now... and they end up creating these manifolds at various places. Something happened which sparked a big arse civil war which cause the empire to seperate in different factions. So technically, the proginator civil war is still happening, even after so long... but they atleast learn to not good overboard and blast themselves back to the stone age, destroying stars, worlds, mass genocide, etc.... enough that cause in the lost of their wonder**** tech.... for technology level to go down, their civil war to be pretty big....

Another example, take a look in the Battletech universe... Look how bad the Succession States were after a couple destructive Succession Wars after the fall of the Star League.

Sure, humanity won't listen... maybe we do need a big fat arse disastrous war for Humanity to smart up... like the world wars smarted us up a bit :P like World War 3 will finally show the errors of humanity. We are such humans.... such greedy gods too :P

Tachyon Field? What about Photon Wall Fields? anyway, rather keep the ship base shields low tech.... so current weapons that cannot penetrate the atmosheres (except for large missiles and bombs) can still blast ships with primitive shields...... like Level 1 Shieds in Master of Orion 2.... no better!!!
Already use Reinforced Hull and Heavy Armor traits to the Terran Battlecruiser. Factions can also have Ablative Armor.

In Wing Commander 2, Fighters are able to carry firepower like torpedoes and heavy missiles to bring down ship shields.

I will get the BAC stuff i want to do after i finish homework tonite.... I may stay up all night too :P

-LMP

Frankychan · January 19, 2002, 17:28

Hey Sprayber,

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. All I have to say is that I hope things turn out for the better. Just remember to keep yer hopes up man.
Take care dude.

Kassiopeia · January 19, 2002, 18:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Cybergod
Kass, as you seem busy, I'll take the liberty of posting the speech Nicholas gives - if you don't mind!

By the way, what are the impacts of Titan declaring independence? What will the EC exactly do?

1. Do so, I was unwilling to post since I wanted the Magistrate's speech in - sort of a post from the Morgan fake attack all the way to the speech.

2. What would you expect? The dreadnaught C.N.S. Galaxy, under the command of Admiral Nrshimha Kamalakara, orbiting Moon, will depart to Saturn region, accompanied by the 21st and 28th Battle Squadrons and six Barge Carriers full of Marines.

Quote:

Initial contact procedures have been sent (see latest post). When do you think you'll be able to post next? That way I have an idea when the contact ship will arrive in your space.

Sometimes after my aforementioned post, I presume, so that it will feature in my next post after the coming post, which will be about the Titan case escalating (I think).

Btw, if you must then have shields, planetary preferred, ships if you must.
But the Earth ships will focus their energy resources on weaponry and speed, and add a few extra layers of ablative armour.

Cybergod · January 19, 2002, 19:14

Quote:

What would you expect? The dreadnaught C.N.S. Galaxy, under the command of Admiral Nrshimha Kamalakara, orbiting Moon, will depart to Saturn region, accompanied by the 21st and 28th Battle Squadrons and six Barge Carriers full of Marines.

Holy sh*t!

Oh well, lets hope our Belter clans and home made defences will hold against the onslaught. Or that TAF would interfiere on our side...

Expect the post within 18 hours... must... sleep...

Kassiopeia · January 19, 2002, 19:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Cybergod
Holy sh*t!

Oh well, lets hope our Belter clans and home made defences will hold against the onslaught. Or that TAF would interfiere on our side...

Oh, and make that pissed off Marines...

Remember, you have to be independently Terran Alliance members to get them to interfere, for now you share the membership with EC!
If you get a request pending, they'll slow the Coalition down. And I doubt they'll go for blood immediately after arriving; which will take some time since they won't be doing many superluminal jumps. Planets in the way 'n all.

Trust me, you'll be fine in the end.

Kassiopeia · January 19, 2002, 19:29

Oh, and I suggest doing some warning shots with the Orbital Cannon now reinitialised. Nice stir up. I can imagine the Admiral uttering: "What the hell?"

History Guy · January 20, 2002, 09:32

Oh man! Well, now I'm back, and I will get to work on that post. The internet server has been down for the past few days, and in the meantime I've been enjoying Civilization III (it's a great game, folks!).

Anyway, Morgan will be attempting to pull out the invasion force on Callisto, which has lost about 15,000 to 20,000 men, and he'll either send some transports, or some transports with reinforcements to help Marmion cut his way out if needs be. Anyway, I'm sure that the Morganites will not stay sedentary while the Terrans launched an attack on Callisto, and they may well even make an escape.

Franky, I don't mind bashing Morgan. Heck, when the Hive gets in all this there will be a lot of Sheng-ji bashing!

Cybergod · January 20, 2002, 10:18

Phew... finally posted!

Kass is it okay? And your site appears to be down whenever I click on it's link in my favourites

And the beam did not hit anyone!

January 20, 2002, 11:51

I'm gone, sorry not being able to do anything on the site....

-LMP

Kassiopeia · January 20, 2002, 12:30

Quote:

Originally posted by Cybergod
Phew... finally posted!

Kass is it okay? And your site appears to be down whenever I click on it's link in my favourites

And the beam did not hit anyone!

Good!
More enquiries.

Yes, well, I've had, to my great surprise, so much activity in Real-Life (TM) that I simply haven't had enough time to do anything to the page. I'm lucky to get my belated post written.
Oh, and the pulse test will show on Coalition scanners. Yikes. Deterrent or what. They will be suspicious of the capabilites of the cannon, however. Too bad for them.

Quote:

I'm gone, sorry not being able to do anything on the site....

What about the Battlecruiser? The Terran Alliance? More work to me I suppose, on the Alliance bureacracy at least. Must get school assingment finished...