FOR HOUSE AND DOMINION!

>>26471166
FOR HOUSE AND DOMINION!

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What was to be the final battle against the Warlords turned out to be a trap intended to destroy not just the Faction Expeditionary Fleets but any survivors from the Pirates as well. More than half of the active duty warships in known space very nearly avoided destruction.

Once the Warlords realised that their means of escape was a carefully disguised lie, they removed the Neeran "advisors" that had been assisting them. Twenty hours into a ceasefire between the Pirates and other Factions to negotiate a long term solution the situation changed once again.

Neeran starships have begun an invasion of Shallan Space, more than a month's travel away. Thought by many to be a break away group from the isolationist Neeran living within Republic Space this has turned out to be false. The Isolationists are in fact the rogue element, having fled the Neeran Empire more than four thousand year ago. Their kin have come in search of them and not for the first time. The two Neeran incursions in the decades after the Faction Wars were little more than reconnaissance in force. Now the Factions face an invasion.

Negotiations with the Pirates have been rushed so that more ships can be sent to Shallan space as quickly as possible. Still, it will be 24 days travel for most ships just to reach the Pandora Cluster.

The Warlords will maintain control of one of the Galaxies in the South Reach Cluster along with their starfleets. All slaves will be released and the various pirates crews and lesser fleets will accept contracts as mercenaries under the banner of the South Reach League.


>Waiting a month to resume quest
>Waiting a week for insurance people to phone
>Call comes in 5 minutes before start of quest
This has not been a good week.

Shoehorning "Quest" into the title doesn't seem to fit that well but we'll just have to give it a try. There were only a few suggestions for alternate titles and few fit well for this upcoming section.

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With the extra time on ship you've been training hard. Keeping up with marksmenship, doing the occasional flight simulation and one of the things you've put extra emphasis on; hand to hand combat training.

You've been facing off against Cpl. Ella Rufaro, your body double and the only other person on the ship your power armor reliably fits. While you're a strong fighter the other woman has the advantage of not having been shot as many times as you. Each time you've been wounded has meant physiotherapy to build up the wounded muscle again and having to get some of your muscle memory back. Machines can heal you but there's some things they just can't put back.

You haven't exactly been getting your ass kicked the pastcouple weeks but most of your hand to hand training had been with power armor, boxing gloves or a sharp object to stab people. You've now had plenty of time to pick up a thing or two from Rufaro and the other marines so you could likely hold your own.

Roll 1d20 for weapon disarm practice. Best out of two.

Rolled 16

>>26472439

Rolled 3

>>26472439
Rolling.

>>26472439
Incidentally, dont ever try the technique in this image. You are going to get your dumb ass shanked.

>>26471166
Shit I forgot it was Tuesday.

>>26472946
It is the return of the best day of the week.

>>26472678
Something about that pic did seem a bit off now that you mention it.

>>26472550
"Not bad sir. The extra memory imprinting must have really helped, that was a lot better than the other day." says Rufaro.

"Thanks."
You think you've got the hang of weapon disarms enough that you could take the initiative if you were ambushed in a bad situation. It wasn't perfect though.

One of the older Marines on seeing that you've finished walks over.
"Sir, you're getting pretty good in hand to hand now. With most soldiers and officers we try to make sure we keep a standardised system of training. It's important that everybody fights as part of the larger unit you know? The downside is that it can be predictable against more experienced opponents. As a Knight and someone who sneaks around in power armor you tend to end up playing lone wolf more than others. You might also find yourself fighting other Knights who are experienced as well. This war can't last forever right?"

You both chuckle about that but inwardly that laughter is a bit more nervous.

"You might want to look into adopting elements from more advanced hand to hand techniques to create something that better fits you personally. It should give you more of an edge against the best people if you do something they don't necessarily expect. The downside is that if you haven't worked everything out it could backfire, leaving openings against attacks you cant block, that sort of thing. Give it some thought."

[ ] Spend time to research more advanced techniques*
[ ] Try to improve your disarms
[ ] Other


*This will consist of you guys looking up what stuff you want Sonia to train on and it will be retroactive added.

>>26471851
Fuck the 'Quest'!

For House and Dominion! served us well for over a year and a half!

Long live The House and Dominion!

>>26472993
Other: rig claymore style explosives to our powered armor. If there is one that fires AP stuff, even better.

"Front toward victims"

>>26472993
>[X] Try to improve your disarms
It would be nice if we could reliably disarm a human while we're in power armour without having to worry about breaking them in half.

>>26472993
>[X] Other

Marksmanship, small arms. Practice with our plasma pistol.

>>26472993
>[X] Try to improve your disarms

>>26472993
I think spending time learning some more advanced stuff would do us god.

>>26473044
You call down to the armory and ask about anti-personnel mines that could be attached to the front of someone's armor or helmet.
Mr. Nxesi sighs. "Give me five minutes."
Four minutes later you get a call back. "We have ten of them left. The Heavy team took most of them on their mission and all of the others were destroyed aboard the EX-K. Yes they can be attached to your power armor, you just have to remove the backing from your armor afterwards."

"Thanks Mr. Nxesi!"

>>26473071
>It would be nice if we could reliably disarm a human while we're in power armour without having to worry about breaking them in half.
You've got that down. (Mostly.) This is for unarmed stuff.

>>26473176
So, sort of two people for practicing more disarms, 1 for research, 2 for Other

>>26473224
Which means we need one more vote for research, and then it's time for another thread of House & Survey!

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>>26473301
I can hope not.

>>26473103
>Practice with our plasma pistol.
It'll catch up when you reach the Pandora cluster. The Marines had it.

In all the excitement of the past few weeks you belatedly realise you missed your birthday. You turned twenty and didn't even get a chance to celebrate it! Your mood is not improved by the realisation that your new ship won't be finished for another month. (They work fast but not THAT fast.)

Do you plan to buy yourself anything once the big bonus comes through for all that ship salvage?

>>26473224
>on someone's helmet
dear god why would you do that and fuck up your neck!?

For (Mostly) unarmed stuff, we should learn short-blade fighting [for when we're attacked in a kitchen or have to use a holdout blade], throwing knives/weapons [would a HF knife work if thrown?], polearm/staff fighting [for when you absolutely must tear a pipe section off a bulkhead for a weapon], and javelin throwing [for when we have to throw that pipe through 5 people]

>>26473445
>Do you plan to buy yourself anything once the big bonus comes through for all that ship salvage?

A miniature model kit for every type of ship we have salvaged. That should help with our PTSD.

>>26473445
Not sure what to buy to tell the truth though this >>26473492 reminds me of our little plan to build the "Sonia War Museum" (Name a work in progress).

>>26473445
>>26473224
A Second Jacuzzi?

>>26472993
I'd hazzard we should go for more advanced techniques. But lets not forget what we will be fighting here. Neeran. Which means a way to cloud our mind from their detection and probing so we can sabotage their faux precog fighting style.

And considering that we are going to get some more Fusion guns i do not intend to fight another power armour knight hand to hand, but with fusion gun.

Sonia is not after all of the school of fair fights, but of the school of death and war fights. Meaning overkill, initiative, surprise, deceit and most of all convenience. A fusion gun is more convenient than trying to go against a Zweihander Sword armed Heavy power armour knight in hand to hand


Also i dislike the idea of mines to the power armor. The blast will surely damage it. Better to give it some king of reactive armor attachments and perhaps some mandible mounted one use flame or wrist mounted Anti tank one shot options.

>>26473564
This was me and if I remember correctly the land we have back home is kinda remote correct? Lots of trees and what not.

>>26473564
You mean the "Sonia Reynard Museum of Salvage History, Torpedo Discount Bazaar, and Sharktorium"?

>>26473445

Actually, I believe there was an idea thrown around at one point to possibly see about getting part of our 'bonus' converted to some of the ships we captured. The chance to get a head start on a shipping or salvage business is tempting, if we've earned enough.

Also, find out if anyone in the crew is having a birthday coming up. We can hold a celebration for everyone as a crew on that day.

And then we'll take lots of pictures of the event and have them sent home. Remember to get some people with shaving cream or whipped cream 'pies' using coffee filters or other such soft products

>>26473587
That actually a pretty good name.

I approve.

>>26473581
Claymores are fuck all to us indeed since we give fuck all about groups once we are amongst them or have a shotgun or a flame thrower. We should instead increase survivability without compromising our stealth and speed. Anything else we can increase our arsenal options by reducing ammunition usage to it, in one use packages, attached to various weapons or parts of our anatomy.


Now if we were to have a repulsor launched anti tank mine with a magnetic homing and attachment mechanism that will seal itself on tanks, doors or other power armor and detonate on timer or command, now that would be useful. Halfmoons everywhere!

Halfmoon breach mine hostages!
Halfmoon breaches created from cover while under heavy crossfire for a speedy exit and from a safe distance!
Halfmoon cornershot to a tank!

>>26473590
We did get offered to head that salvaging operation once we are done with the war so we could funnel money into that. We also have our crazy R&D ideas to think about so maybe look into hiring people and constructing a headquarters of some kind.

>>26473491
>throwing knives/weapons [would a HF knife work if thrown?]
It would if it was the right shape/weight. Most would not as they're not balanced for it.

>>26473581
>I'd hazzard we should go for more advanced techniques.
1 for research
>And considering that we are going to get some more Fusion guns i do not intend to fight another power armour knight hand to hand, but with fusion gun.
>Sonia is not after all of the school of fair fights, but of the school of death and war fights. Meaning overkill, initiative, surprise, deceit and most of all convenience.
Noted
>Better to give it some king of reactive armor attachments and perhaps some mandible mounted one use flame or wrist mounted Anti tank one shot options.
Reactive armor has this nasty tendency to wreck infantry standing near the object when it's struck. Still its worth keeping in mind.

>>26473671
>We should instead increase survivability without compromising our stealth and speed. Anything else we can increase our arsenal options by reducing ammunition usage to it, in one use packages, attached to various weapons or parts of our anatomy.

Well there's the micro-RPG launcher you've got now for the X-ray laser. You can have the RPG's change course mid flight.

>>26473585
>if I remember correctly the land we have back home is kinda remote correct? Lots of trees and what not.
Correct.

>>26473590
>Actually, I believe there was an idea thrown around at one point to possibly see about getting part of our 'bonus' converted to some of the ships we captured.
I suggested that as an option.

>The chance to get a head start on a shipping or salvage business is tempting, if we've earned enough.
Would depend on what you're trying to get hold of and how combat worthy it is. Transports are cheap but are in high demand.

So, looks like I'll be putting up a survey in a bit. Might as well try for 1 last question before I put it up. One sec.

>>26473671
the reason I proposed the claymore idea is that we should be able to to remove them from the armor at will to use as traps, distractions or kill zones.

Actually, some demolitions training probably wouldn't go wrong for Sonia. We're an infiltration specialist when we're in armor, carrying a bit of kit specifically to cause a wake of destruction as we move onto other targets seems sensible.

And we'll get to do goofy shit like knock on doors and detonate an explosive when it is answered.

>>26473986
Can we increase the data storage capacitiy on our power armor? Just in case we'd ever have to secure lots of data.

>>26473986
I'm personally for investments that our investment adviser thinks will do well and give us increased political clout. I find it hard to believe that we can outperform the combined factions R&D effort.

>>26474021
Then I propose we divorce from the idea of such a notion as bolted mines to a Power armor and go for a stealth cargo drone, to follow us in our ways, and stay out of fights, and to come to our position when called for.

This way we can increase our capacity for cloak explosives, ammo and general nasty shit.

>>26474069
This sounds reasonable. Maybe that way we can climb the social ladder high enough to have influence over what the house spends money on.

>>26474316
I was of the impression they would be magnetic mines or something, not bolted on.

It would just happen that we could trigger them as a defensive act if it were needed.

>>26474021
>And we'll get to do goofy shit like knock on doors and detonate an explosive when it is answered.
There's been nothing stopping you from doing that before. Halfmoon breaching charges do have a short timer.

>>26474052
Sure. It should be ready before you reach the Pandora Cluster.

Getting back to your quarters you see that Alex has left a message saying he'd like to talk. After a short delay you get him on the line.

"I've been reading reports and people are saying the Shallans have already used half their SP torpedo stockpile. Black market prices have spiked and the Terrans have doubled the guard on torpedo shipments as a result. We might be able to offload some torpedoes once we reach the Pandora Cluster or Shallan space for a serious profit margin."

"Would it make a difference where we sold them?"

"In theory it should be easy to find merchants or black market dealers in the Pandora Cluster."

You're sure Dad mentioned a thing or two about that when you were younger but it was boring grown up talk at the time.

"What about Shallan Space?"

Alex grimaces. "You'd be selling directly to planetary governments or parts of the local navy. The upside is that we could get a lot more money for the Torps since they'll be desperate. The problem is... they might just try to take them from us, or worse we could run into a navy hardliner who could report us to fleet com."

[ ] Sell in Pandora Cluster
[ ] Sell in Shallan Space
[ ] Not a chance, we're going to need them
[ ] Other
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/93PT27Q

>>26474542
"Better a poor survivor than a rich corpse" springs to mind...

I have this strange feeling that we might be encountering allies offing allied survivors to loot SP torps from wrecks.

>>26474542
Great! Thank you.

>>26474884
Meant to greentext this
>Sure. It should be ready before you reach the Pandora Cluster.

>>26474542
Better to have the SPs and not use them all than Have a limited amount of SP's and need more.

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So I was thinking about the design of our brand-new ship and I figured we could use a unit patch.

You tell Alex you're not certain about the torpedoes yet but that you'll think about it some more. "See if you can find any buyers just in case."

After trying to get in a few more hours of sleep you head forward to the bridge to have a look at the situation. Even with just a skeleton crew on shift at the moment there's just as many people present as the EX-K's maximum. Mind you most of them are gunners, but a few of them are also training on sensors and ship operations.

"How are things up here?" You ask Kavos when she takes a break from instructing one of the gunners.
"Good and bad. The training is going well and the Wing is well prepared. The War, not going so good. Neeran ground troops are able to storm planetary positions very quickly from the reports. They don't use many LST's, just many small shuttles or HLV's built on the same frame as their corvettes."

"So their big landers are smaller than ours?" you ask. The Heavy Lift Vehicles used by the Factions are the size of Frigates and with shields to match. Just one of them could land an armored division.

"They do not have the option for FTL on their HLVs I think."

Kavos calls up an image of a roughly spherical ship descending towards the surface of a planet. Once down it deploys three cargo doors that must cover a good portion of the exterior. Sitting on the inside of each door is an eight wheeled vehicle that rolls out the moment it's level. It's curved shape makes it look a bit like a bug and there are multiple small weapon emplacements along its spine. You glance back and forth between the wheeled tank and the HLV and notice much smaller vehicles leaving the lander.
"Hold on, how big are those doors? How big is that thing?"

"Eighty meters. It has shields and two forward facing plasma weapons to break obstacles."

>>26471166
Just have to say, you sir are an amazing person! I've been reading since the first and love the depth of this world you've created... I haven't been able to post in the past few months but I will continue to follow the wiki and archives.

As you watch the tank turns and uses its main weapon to take out a half of a Shallan tank squadron that are trying to use reverse slope defense. The survivors soon flee towards a planetary defense position that's retracted its shields to cover the ground forces still protecting the site.

The Neeran tank which is soon followed by its support vehicles charges ahead, having little trouble with the slightly hilly terrain. Local defenders open up with as many point defense weapons as they can bring to bear but the heavier anti-ship weapons are pointed towards space not the ground. When the tank reaches the defense shield it slows to a crawl until it can force its way through at lower speeds like most ground vehicles.

"The Terrans are supposed to been working on an anti-repulsor weapon that would cause trouble for fighters and tanks using repulsors to pull same trick. Would not work on that."

Resuming its run the tank smashes through the outer defensive walls around the shield generator complex before running headlong into the side of the building. It backs up out of the hole long enough to trade fire with the other defenders then a side hatch between one of the sets of wheels opens and troops pour out. Even you can tell that they're not Neeran, though their armor looks visually very similar.
While vaguely humanoid their backs jut outwards oddly as though comprised of a half dozen joints.

"Who are they?"

"Nobody knows. Not from our part of the universe. They are good shots though. Look."

Two Neeran solders in similar but heavier armor to the one you fought are the last ones out of the tank before it drives off the engage the other defenders."

The image cuts out replaced by the words:
>Orbital imaging network failure
>Please contact maintenance

>>26476473
Thanks.

>>26476599
"The Shallans want to use nukes on enemy ground forces but havent because they want to retake the planets once the Faction fleets arrive."

>What say?

>>26476720
With the way the Neeran fight, nukes might be their only option.

>>26476720
That's understandable. It's not like using nukes would be any sort of permanent solution anyway, since the Neeran can just keep dropping troops until they own the planet. Alternately, they could decide it's not worth the trouble and just level everything.

But why exactly are they invading planets at all, if their objective is to find and destroy the splinter faction? Are they taking worlds only to use as support bases?

>>26476720

"We'll likely all regret that they didn't irradiate those worlds when they had the chance."

>>26476885
It isn't an invasion, it is an extermination.

>>26476885
Maybe the regaining of the splinter faction is only a means to an end for their generals to fight an expansionary war and gain prestige, medals, and resources. (Or they could be having resource problems and want to relocate)

>>26477241
If that was true, there would be no need for them to drop ground forces.

"But why exactly are they invading planets at all, if their objective is to find and destroy the splinter faction? Are they taking worlds only to use as support bases?"

"Would make sense. They're dropping ten percent of what they could. We know Republic lets no one within their space if they can stop, so it fighting there will be heavy. What if this is practice? Learn our tactics and defenses?"

You frown. "We'll likely all regret that they didn't irradiate those worlds when they had the chance. Is this an invasion, or is it extermination?"

Kavos shakes her head. "Not extermination. Yet. Cities are not being bombed to glass. They call for planetary or local government to surrender and warn that they face destruction if they resist. Shallans place all orbital defenses just outside cities should they be nuked, but have very strong evacuation bunkers. Protect the cities without making them bigger targets."

"They haven't destroyed any cities or planets outright yet?"

"No, but resistance is light. That will change when our fleets arrive."

"Right. What's our latest intel on Neeran ships?"

Kavos calls up some images on the panoramic display.

"Starfighters, two models of the same type. One has a canopy and larger cockpit for Neeran, the rest are like the Terran Needle fighter. No canopy, fully enclosed with internal displays, we think.
They have normal shuttles similar to ours but also small ones to fast drop single squad of four Neeran soldiers. Shallans say it's like calling in a heavy weapons team, they arrive within minutes and their pod is hard to shoot down."

The Neeran drop pod looks a bit like an egg with markings on the underside where four hatches open for the troops to drop out. The intel file shows one of the drops with four Neeran being released from the small craft at a height of more than fifteen meters. Kavos points to a few small protrusions on the pod itself.
"Tractor beams on the underside to slow descent of the troops once away."

>>26477610
so we are fighting something equivalent to space marines with their hunchbacked guardsmen acting as cannon fodder and probably piloting the smaller fighters. We need to take the Neeran extremely seriously and fight them as if they're squads of knights in medium power armor but with telepathy.

>>26477610
"Corvettes and HLV's are built on the same frame but that is the only similarity. You may want one of these, big bounty for capturing one intact."

"How big?" you ask.

"Ten million. The corvette has one sublight drive bank but many thrust vectoring systems. It is hard to hit. Main plasma weapon is protected by an armored dome when not in combat."

From the file images you can see the dome retract to show a concave dish shape surrounding the emitter.
"They are not as powerful as Republic plasma weapons but are more versatile. They can also draw fusion plasma from their main drive if they run out of heavier preheated elements."

"So they dont really run out of ammo like Republic ones do, they just have less punch?"

"Yes. Most are carried into battle by Carriers and Super Heavy Cruisers. Shallans say they've seen some deployed with FTL systems attached but they're less maneuverable. No point defense seen so far on any of them."

>>26477965
>The corvette has one sublight drive bank but many thrust vectoring systems. It is hard to hit.

How do they handle incoming nuclear missiles?

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>>26477965
Just realised that image didn't have the dish showing up on the cross section view.

>>26478024
>How do they handle incoming nuclear missiles?
Unless there's a ton of nukes they just shield tank them.

>>26478086

Any intel on how their shields hold up?

>>26477965
>Bounty of 10 million to capture one

Sounds like a job for the salvage master.

>>26478086
How difficult would it be to get a tractor lock on a corvette and hold it down long enough to beat it to death with phase weapons? Alternately, how difficult would it be to ram one with a frigate or larger vessel?

>>26478209
space is huge. Ramming is not normally a viable tactic.

>>26478173

depends how intact they want it.

10 million is a fairly shitty bounty for the guys that have to board a fully operational one of those, and more so for the people that then have to protect that boarding attempt during a battle when those bastards are deployed like fighters from massive ships.

>>26478238
Not normally, but in House and Dominion, it certainly is.

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>>26478086
And the second one I uploaded somehow has the names missing off the different ships.

"Neeran Battlecruisers. Only a few of them have been seen and they all run when spotted. They have two plasma weapon turrets. I do not think they will run out of ammunition as easily. Very fast, they would match any of our ships except for those with afterburners. The larger ships all have phase cannon as well but placement of turret can vary."

"What is that?" You point to the bow of the ship.

"Ah. We've seen them on their battleships too, a ramming prow."

"B-but space is huge! Ramming is not normally a viable tactic."

Kavos gives you a look. "Knight Reynard how many times have we rammed other ships?"

"A few." You admit.

"If they want to waste resources that means less ships for us to face. Or that's what the Shallans keep saying. Bounty, seventy million intact, fourty million if salvageable. Mercenaries are being offered bonuses for each ship they kill though those are much smaller.

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>>26478374
"The Battleship has four plasma weapon turrets making it much more dangerous. It also has very tough shields and armor. Most carry between six and twenty Phase cannons. Intel thinks ones with more guns have less armor. They try to get into close combat as much as possible and will ram. One got close enough to cut a Lance class Medium cruiser almost in half yesterday.
There is supposed to be a new update soon for tractor and repulsor systems to make it harder for their ships to grapple which would make it more dangerous for them to ram."

"But not more dangerous for us?"

"No, we would be finished either way if were were struck by one. Some battleships may carry fighters like the Gungnir. This is not confirmed yet. Also since these ships are seen more than the battlecruisers the bounty is the same."

"Kavos, it's twice as dangerous. Look at that thing."

"These are what is being offered."

>>26478587
At least they aren't boarding ships.

>>26478716
Small comfort, since there is nothing left for them to board after they ram something.

>>26478587

"Almost?"

"What is the tactical situation on these battles that are going on? Are isolated Faction forces in the fight or is this all from Shallan forces?"

I wonder if the rams are armored or some sort of odd short-ranged energy weapon that cuts into the target ship?

>Shoehorning "Quest" into the title doesn't seem to fit that well but we'll just have to give it a try.
Eh, we're only doing this as a courtesy. So call the chapter whatever you want and just add "(Quest)" at the end.

>Ramming is not normally a viable tactic.
It depends on the relative velocity. Two ships impacting head on will be blasted to dust, unless they are shielded in which case they will probably just bounce off. But we have managed to pull off a spess pitt manoeuvre before and there is a lot you can do with repulsor shenanigans.

>>26478587
Looks like we've got some...

eggs to smash.

YAY H&D IS BACK!

>>26478173
>Sounds like a job for the salvage master.
I agree.

>>26478259
>10 million is a fairly shitty bounty
I also agree, but only because I want to shoot them with their own ships. Screw their bounties, we call dibs. Their corvettes would make excellent upgrades for the ones in our Wing.

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>>26478802
"Almost?"
"It was an upgraded Lance so the hull armor was thick enough to prevent it from being completely cut in half. Still those ships are very weak hulled."

>What is the tactical situation on these battles that are going on? Are isolated Faction forces in the fight or is this all from Shallan forces?
Faction forces stationed in the Pandora cluster and nearby nav relays have already made their way to Shallan space along with some mercenary units. The Terrans, who have shit everywhere but as a result has it less well defended, were able to get ships there first. The fastest ships from each of the Factions that were in the South Reach Cluster are now arriving in Shallan space.
At the moment things are fairly spread out and disorganised, with a few larger battles happening around fleet rally points and small units actions taking place everywhere else.

The TCS Odyssey and TCS Trident were able to lead a counter attack and retook the orbital space of ten systems before they ran out of torpedoes and were forced off with heavy damage.

>>26478587
"Their Carriers are the important part of the smaller Neeran fleets. They can deploy shuttles, fighters, corvettes and HLV's which means they do not need to mount FTL systems on corvettes. They have strong shields and some armor but only a few phase cannon to defend themselves.
Intel believes some may carry long range cloaking fields and Electronic warfare systems.
Bounty is forty million to capture intact, or one hundred million for one with cloaking field."

"...what if we recovered just the cloaking field?" you ask.

"I'm certain we could get sixty million for it."

>>26478937

Assuming we can repair/resupply them and the house doesn't just sell them to the highest bidder.

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>>26479096
>Assuming we can repair/resupply them and the house doesn't just sell them to the highest bidder.
>Assuming we can repair/resupply
>resupply
Oh man, they're like Kadeshi swarmers. Why did I never see that parallel before now?

>>26479075
Maaaan we better be careful. It feels like everyone is prepared to go in for salvage and sweet loot, but the conflict will be long and bloody.

>>26479075

How are the larger ship classes fairing against the plasma weaponry, or are their redundant shield layers stopping the penetrations fairly well?

>>26479193
>Kadeshi swarmers

Well shit...this is going to be interesting to deal with.

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>>26479450
Sez you

>>26479261
All we need to do is capture one of those things even somewhat intact. Then we can rip it apart, figure out how it works and how to shoot it better. Once we got that info, we'll be able to start showing them what their own medicine tastes like.

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>how have Combat Walkers fared against Neeran forces?
So far there havent been any reports in on them. Shallan ground forces are normally very light and mobile. They've upgraded older Kavarian IFV's with modern armor and engines making them fast yet tough enough to go up against most Factions Tanks.

Larger Neeran ships sighted so far include a Heavy Cruiser class and the more familiar Super Heavy Cruiser/Carrier.

Their Heavy Cruiser is sitting somewhere around the 8km mark and is armed with well upwards of thirty plasma weapons in addition to phase cannons. Some versions have more plasma weapons than others.

The Super Heavies sighted so far have all been acting in a support role, either deploying or recovering corvettes, Landing craft and starfighters. They're still armed with enough plasma weaponry to drive off one or possibly even two of the upgraded Mega class Supers that are considered to be the benchmark among the Factions. It's anticipated that it will take as many as five of those used by the Kavarians and the Warlords to force off one of these beasts.
Twelve of them have been crippled or destroyed so far by Veckron Torpedo attacks, but as it takes multiple hits to kill one the Shallans are nervous about overdoing it for fear their star systems will be cut off from FTL travel within a decade or two.

>>26479301
>How are the larger ship classes fairing against the plasma weaponry, or are their redundant shield layers stopping the penetrations fairly well?
So far only one of the Shallan's fifteen Supers have been lost and that was because a second enemy fleet jumped in almost on top of them and cut off its escape. So far their shielding is sufficient to weather to worst of the fire from any warships if they're supported well enough to keep the corvettes off them. If the corvettes are given free reign of the battlefield it doesn't take long before even the toughest Faction ship is forced off the field.

>>26479561
The problem seems to be taking one even somewhat intact. Mr Wizard mentioned that the corvettes have 1, maybe a handful of crew. They deploy in swarms of at least 16, meaning 16 plasma cannons.

...

We need to get our pilots, ship crews, fighter squadrons, and marines together at a station or cargo bay before we hit combat and take some group pictures.

I fear we'll have a lot of replacements.

>>26479696
What they're having a hard time with though is that a single Faction Super cant crack the shields on a Neeran one by itself.

Kavos shakes her head. "Their shields seem resistant to SP torpedo fire on the larger vessels. It is like they're detonating between layers of a multilayer shield, but that should not be possible."

Looking at the scans there's a flash when the torpedoes detonate but they're most certainly outside the ship's hull. Checking again you can see the impact on the shield where they hit and started to go through, and the blast isn't on the outside of it. You forward the scans to your quarters to look at later.

The faster Faction Medium and Heavy Cruisers seem to be doing well. They can engage a fair number of smaller ships then break off then their shields begin to get low. They also tend to have enough armor to take some hits when fire gets through.

>>26479920
Perhaps they can use presser beams to prematurely detonate torpedoes. Enough pressure from a reversed tractor beam might hit a warhead just like striking a solid surface.

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>>26479696
>Twelve of them have been crippled or destroyed so far by Veckron Torpedo attacks, but as it takes multiple hits to kill one the Shallans are nervous about overdoing it for fear their star systems will be cut off from FTL travel within a decade or two.
>by Veckron Torpedo attacks, but as it takes multiple hits to kill one
>multiple hits to kill one
>multiple hits

They what!?

"That's all of the information we have on them right now. I hope they don't find a way to make those shields work on smaller ships."

You wave away Kavos concerns."I'm sure they're just using repulsors to fool the torpedoes or something tricky like that. We'll figure it out."

Heading back to your quarters you try not to panic at the news that two of the major tech advantages the Terrans were offering might soon be off the table.

[ ] Keep calm, carry on
[ ] Panic
[ ] Other

>>26480291

[x] Other: Panic, Calm down and review footage

I bet they're using some kind of array of stasis fields between their 1st and 2nd shields. If they got the timing correct, they should be able to 'grab' at the SP torp behind the portion that breaks the shield [and may disrupt stasis, I wonder if that has been tested].

That it requires massive levels of power for such a thing to work may explain how only the largest ships have it.

The question would really be how many 'sections' of stasis fields they have, you might be able to focus SP fire onto a single generator's area of effect and overwhelm it.

... I wonder if R&D has come up with that theory...

>>26480291
[X] Other: Panic, and then calm down.

>>26480291
Mild panic. Slight excitement. Resolve to stay alive, as the amount of "New" tech and salvage that come out of this war's likely to be huge.

>>26480997
Panic at what we are about to face which is then quickly taken over by the excitement by the prospect of salvage? I can dig it.

>>26480555
>>26480741
With the door to your quarters closed you proceed to PANIC for several minutes until you can at last calm down. Thankfully your quarters are still much larger on this ship so there is room to run around a little bit.

With that over you start making notes on possible ideas for how that new shield might work. Stasis fields seem to be the order of the day as it's all you can think of that might work.

Going through your messages you find one that you've been waiting for.

To: Knight Captain Sonia Reynard
From: Factions Alliance Recruitment

Dear Captain Reynard,
With an invasion by the Neeran now taking place in full, the top military commanders of the various Factions Expeditionary fleets are have taken it upon themselves to revitalise the concept of the Factions Alliance. In accordance with the Governments of the Factions now involved a charter has been drawn up stating that a new Alliance military will exist to protect signatories from external threats.
At the moment this means stopping the invasion.

Enlistees who are currently serving in the military of one of the signatory Factions can request transfer to the Alliance. When serving as a member of the Alliance you would effectively be on loan, but would hold a rank within the Alliance separate of that in your home military. The length of active deployment would not exceed 6 months time per standard year.
We are aware that you have been on an extended tour of deployment already.

It is the hope of the Factions Alliance that the best possible equipment, training, resources and personnel from all of the Factions combined will be enough to help turn back this invasion and future threats. This offer does not need an immediate response and will likely remain open regardless of future political situations in your homeland.

Included is an infonet address for any questions you might have.

[ ] Investigate (What do you want to know?)
[ ] Put off for now
[ ] Rush in and sign up
[ ] Other

>>26481099
>[ ] Investigate (What do you want to know?)
Would it just be us and our ship, or would we be permitted to bring the 3rd Attack Wing?

>>26481099

[x] I'd like to know more

Would we transfer to their service with our current vessel/crew/unit?

Duration of enlistment. Are we free to return to our house in the event that we feel our duty to it exceeds the Alliance?

Have we been chosen for this due to past actions, or it is a blanket offer to all forces en route to the Neeran Front?

Why should we join this Alliance when it may be more inclined to ask us to throw away our lives as part of a Forlorn Hope than our House?

>>26481099
Discuss with Winifred. She is our superior, after all, and she might have received one of these messages herself.

>>26481099
[X] Query: Is it possible to bring others under our command along....say...an entire attack wing?

I'm getting the "We want the best and brightest" vibe from this letter.

>>26481099
>[X]Investigate

- Who are the Signatory Factions? (Specifically, is the SRL now a 'signatory')
- Consulte House (Crew, Wing, Commander Winifred)
- What sort of Group and Deployment changes would Transfering entail? (Anything we'd have to leave behind/take on? eg: our Salvaging M.O)

- What's the pay change?

If they do have the best equipment, training, and what not this is also one of the best opportunities to get "contacts" with people who supply the best equipment etc.

>>26481637

I imagine that the House will not be willing to allow the entire wing to go with us, though.

The question is likely if we are willing to leave the wing. We'd be a fairly valuable asset to the Alliance with our inter-faction experiences and it would be oddly in character.

Does anyone have the
>Desire to know more intensifies.jpg
lying around?

>>26481339
>Would it just be us and our ship, or would we be permitted to bring the 3rd Attack Wing?
>[X] Query: Is it possible to bring others under our command along....say...an entire attack wing?
At the moment, with the Alliance still in its early stages the entire unit or just part of it could be put on temporary loan for a short while. (The House would receive some compensation as well.)
>Are we free to return to our house in the event that we feel our duty to it exceeds the Alliance?
The downside is that if the House recalled the Wing, anyone who had not signed on with the Alliance would be obliged to do so. People who have signed on with the Alliance cant be recalled by their Faction until they've completed their term of service or unless they've been given permission to.
You could also request reassignment, though that might take time, or resign but it would be difficult to ever get back in.

The upside to joining the Alliance is that you (may) get an increased priority for SP torpedo shipments and there's a good chance of reinforcements. Those reinforcements would most likely be Alliance personnel unless your House sent you more ships specifically.

If the Alliance gives you torpedoes and they're not used on deployment you have to give them back before returning to your Faction at the end of a tour. Those weapons can be given to someone else who is going to be fighting.
At the same time, they cant take stuff away from you that you've brought along with you from your House.

>Who are the Signatory Factions
Dominion, Terrans, Rovinar, Krath, Republic, Shallan Fed, and the PCCG. (sort of)
The South Reach League is also sort of a signatory. Its a special case since they're being employed as mercenaries and need more oversight.

>Cont.

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>>26481960
[Desire to know more intensifies]

>>26481960
Before everything stops for the night I just wanted to say it's good to have you back TSTG.

>>26482083
thanks.

>>26482433
Good to be back, I just wish things had been a bit less chaotic lately to allow this to be better prepared.

>>26481360
>Would we transfer to their service with our current vessel/crew/unit?
Vessel and crew yes. Unit at the moment is mostly yes.
>Have we been chosen for this due to past actions, or it is a blanket offer to all forces en route to the Neeran Front?
They're trying to get hold of elite units, equip them with the best of the best and throw them at problems that need solving.

>>26481531
>I'm getting the "We want the best and brightest" vibe from this letter.
That's the idea.

>Why should we join this Alliance when it may be more inclined to ask us to throw away our lives as part of a Forlorn Hope than our House?
Increase in pay, prestige, notoriety. Access to better weapons ships and equipment eventually. Contacts with Alliance R&D.
Also the Dominion has requested demanded that they be put in charge of the uniforms.

>What's the pay change?
You'll be getting your usual pay as a Knight of the House in addition to combat pay from the Alliance.

>>26481960
The whole take stuff away sounds kind of bad. If they decide they like our x Ray gun, cruisers, or some of our tech there's nothing we can do to prevent them from pillaging it. If we manage to salvage some of the Neeran ships they can take without bounty and we can't r&d the stuff ourselves if we find cloaking tech that would jumpstart our own r&d. Also if our house had a crisis and needs ships we can't respond because we are stuck in a contact.

Upside is we don't have to scavenge for sp, get access to cool tech, rub elbows with other factions, and kick ass. I'm torn between having all the loot to ourselves and having the tools too easily secure the loot.

>>26482551
Just remembered, what's the range on the xray gun? Is it outside the telepathy field of the neeran? We might want to switch to longer range sniping to deal with those guys since our melta weaponry is able to be dodged when we get closer.

Also, dominion demanding control of uniforms is awesome! It might be worth joining the alliance just to get the swag to wear at balls one this is over

>>26482530
>Dominion in charge of uniforms

I can already see what they have contributed to the alliance.

Basically I would sign up without a second's notice, but I would like to set up some sort of meeting with everyone in our wing to try and get everyone to sign up so we don't have to worry about them being called back.

How I see it Better equipment = Better Salvage=More tech for the BEST R&D people around.

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>>26482551
>The whole take stuff away sounds kind of bad. If they decide they like our x Ray gun, cruisers, or some of our tech there's nothing we can do to prevent them from pillaging it.
They can take back stuff that they gave you for free. They cant take stuff that you or your House payed for, it belongs to you.
>If we manage to salvage some of the Neeran ships they can take without bounty
Bounty is valid for everybody.
>and we can't r&d the stuff ourselves if we find cloaking tech that would jumpstart our own r&d.
This however you're quite right about. Alliance tech cant be given to your House.

>>26482530
You contact the Commander to see how she's doing and ask about the Factions Alliance military.
She shakes her head when asked if she's received a message. "No. At the moment the upper echelons are nearing capacity and I will be too busy looking after House assets and my own territory back in the South Reach cluster soon. They need rank and file or officers to fight at the front right now. I take it they've contacted you then?"

"Yes sir. I'm trying to find out my options. I would want your permission before signing on."

The older woman laughs. "That you actually considered to ask me first should be reason enough. But be warned, the Alliance might promise you tempting gifts in return for your service but you will be on the front lines.
We arrive in the Pandora cluster tomorrow. I can keep the House fleet in action for three months. Four at most. If you do decided to join the Alliance I can approve the use of your Wing for that length of time, but salvage claims or not those ships belong to the House not to you. If you take greater than fifty percent casualties I'll have no choice but to recall your ships. All of them. The Alliance can find you another one.

Should you decide to wait and not join the Alliance your orders are much the same. Minimise your losses, salvage what you can and try to do as much damage to the enemy as possible."

>>26482716
Maybe we can get in but have a few people from the wing not in it. If we can salvage something big they lay salvage claim so the house keeps the stuff like cloaking tech and then we use it for level 1 tech so we can apply our stolen cloaking tech to it.

>>26482663

>Better equipment = Better Salvage=More tech for the BEST R&D people around.

the only problem with that is that we're enriching friend and foe for the wars after this, the House doesn't really benefit.

That said, I dislike the idea of not joining. Sonia has worked with members of nearly every faction, joining the Alliance is sort of the next logical step.

We should be against anyone from the Wing coming with us, though. We've got a capable set of leadership within the Wing, and breaking that leadership up too much isn't a good idea. We also want to avoid the Wing being put into the meat grinder of the Alliance so that we can preserve the House's strength.

If we take the Wing with us, the House will get compensated for pennies on the dollar of the Wing's intact worth, and our House will have difficulty replacing those losses.

and to the Commander: "Glad to see I can still get a reaction out of you. It seems so long ago that you did a double-take after noticing the Bittenfeld while addressing the entire House force."

>>26482983
I'm going to have to agree with you on going in alone though it's going to be strange being away from everyone.

>inb4 we tell everyone we are going in alone and they sign up with us

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>>26482983
"That was rather unexpected wasn't it?"


>>26482890
See? I knew you guys would find a loophole in no time.

Looking through birthday lists of the crew you hold a small party with them and a few others who have had birthdays while in transit for this jump. Its not a big thing and with nowhere to buy gifts its more about having some cake and enjoying some off duty time.

In preparation for arrival in the Pandora cluster you have people looking for potential buyers for your SP torpedoes. Really there's little chance you'll part with them what with impending combat, but it would be nice to see just how much you could get.

A few hours spent on the firing range with as many different weapons as you can get your hands on fills out the rest of the day. No fusion gun practice unfortunately as you're not using armor and would rather not get set on fire. Even in Marine armor you'd be hesitant to fire it indoors.


>>26483071
>inb4 we tell everyone we are going in alone and they sign up with us
>All of Rogue Squadron resigns to go fight in the Bacta War


You guys can argue over joining the Alliance or not and/or how to potentially find ways to loot the most stuff. I'll resume briefly in the morning then be back some time after 3pm EST. I've got a bunch of stuff going on with lawyers banks and real estate agents this week so there may be interruptions.

>>26483071
"If any of you are thinking about signing up because I am, I'm ordering you to stay in this unit and come save my ass in the last 15 minutes of the movie."

I can't help but think that we should make it perfectly clear what we're about to do to our ship's crew and let anyone that wishes to opt out of going with us.

>>26483196
The sad thing is I bet half the wing would jump us for trying to leave them. Remember Mike when we first debated the knights errant? Multiply that by 10 for each of our flight leaders and named friends.

Still I like the idea of us going alone and letting the wing run itself and try to be our surprise backup when things go south.

Only thing is... who will be best to lead the wing in our absence?

>>26483283
we could bring everyone and only have us sign up, the rest could be 'support', that way, they can get all the salvage and whatnot, and we still get the advantages of the deal

>>26483376
So we basically designate one group "Sonia's salvagers and them them take some of the good claimed.

>>26483283
Daska is the obvious choice. Alex might be another option, but I think Daska is a bit more balanced tactically.

And she/he/it survived having a certain Knight as a squadron leader. Damned pilot must be touched by fate.

>>26483376
>>26483445

And we'd be taking the wing into front-line Alliance missions. They're not going to equip the whole wing with the alliance priority goodies when they're 'support' and strangely getting all the salvage. [at least after the first mission]

We also risk getting -every- ship recalled, including the guard cruiser we're using if the wing joins us as a loaner and takes 50% casualties.

If we're going the Alliance route, the wing needs to stay away from the meatgrinders we'll be thrown at to preserve what strength the House has.

It's definitely an interesting offer, I think we should put it off for now. We are long due for some rest time so we won't be at the front for very long. In that time we can get as much intel on the enemy as possible and have a look at how the Alliance conducts it's operations.

>>26483817

My only worry is that if we delay entry into the Alliance, we basically shoot ourselves in the foot with the benefits it brings.

They're going to identify their first-wave rising stars and focus supply on them, along with their R&D focus. If we get in now, we'll be a veteran of the Alliance later. If we join later, we're a replacement.

>>26484035
Since it's still in the early forming stage if we get in with the first wave we could not only have what you just mentioned,but we might also be able to help nudge the alliance in a certain direction in the political sense.

After this invasion force is dealt with we will need the Alliance will need to stay active to be prepared for another invasion, but why stop there? It could be expanded with part of it keeping a lookout for invasion while another part is kept in a peacekeeping/police line of work except it applies to everyone.

Of course this would be a long ways off and would require us making a lot of connections with people in the alliance.

>>26483134
Has the enemy been observed to have any kind of Veckron weaponry?

>>26484333
Wait, another invasion? From where? I'd say we push these wanna be force users back to their home world and set the core of their planets on fire so the molten remains of their works serve as a warning to ask would be assailants. We are going to channel the dirty of the ancient terran sci-fi books about a race called mandalorians as we rip this neeran empire apart for salvage.

Or at least vekron the fuck out of their area so they can't leave at anything faster than sublight

>>26484842
There doesn't "have" to be another invasion we just have to make the case that it would be better to have the alliance stay together just in case and that it would increase relations between all the factions as they work together.

>>26484035
Or it's entirely possible that everyone in the first wave dies horribly!

Since our commander okayed the "lease" of our squadron for 3 months and the the letter mentioned that Alliance service would not exceed 6 months (meaning it can be shorter). We may be able to sign up for just the 3 months, or an even shorter period as a trial run more than anything. We can use the fact that we have already been on extended deployment as leverage.

This gets us in on the ground floor and access to Alliance support. And since the entire wing is working with us we are less likely to be paired up with people we don't know and can't rely on. As an added bonus 3rd wings salvage claim is much larger than ours (wink wink). Depending on how our first tour goes we can decide what to do in the future, perhaps integrating more heavily with the Alliance or doing something else altogether.

Oh and when are we getting an update on our research and other projects?

>>26485151
Psycho Sonia, salvage master, stealth specialist, r&d master mind, and now politician and peace keeper. I like it!

>>26485363
Don't forget discount torpedo saleswoman!

THIS IS CRAAAAAZY HAS-ANNE'S DISCOUNT TORPEDO EMPORIUM. OUR PRICES ARE SO LOW, SO INSANE THAT WE'LL BE JUST GIVING THEM AWAY UNLESS YOU SURRENDER SOON.

SO ACT NOW... WHILE SUPPLIES LAST.

>>26485492
What's funny is that I can imagine us taking up the salvage job and the saleswoman job at the same time for when we have free time.

>When asked what we do for fun?
We have a salvaging operation and run CRAAAAAZY HAS-ANNE'S DISCOUNT TORPEDO EMPORIUM.

Though we might widen our selection of items.

>>26485567
Craaaazy Has-Anne has just got in new shipments! Act fast as our supplies of Neeran bionic body armor, cloaking devices, and plasma weaponry is in short supply and moving quickly! If you order within the next 30 minutes we will throw in a years supply of cloned hunchbacked cannon fodder for all your planetary assault needs!

And remember, Crazy Has-Anne has financing options that are so great you won't want to miss a single payment or else we will deliver additional Torpedo's at NO COST!

The only way we can safely 'lease' the wing to the alliance to help out would be if the Wing's new leader [Daska?] had a clause that let them quit the field should the situation exceed reasonable risk to the House's limited resources.
[A 'NOPE' clause, if you will]

We should also see how salvage works. The Alliance may have completely different salvage rules, and we may not be put as a unit commander and thus not able to give the wing all salvage claims.

Or even worse, the Alliance may automatically get claim to and then divide up the salvage of a battle if they have a certain % of ships/forces in a battle. [including 'leased' forces]

>>26484797
>Has the enemy been observed to have any kind of Veckron weaponry?
No.

>>26485349
>Oh and when are we getting an update on our research and other projects?
I was going to wait to see if you guys were going to stay out of the Alliance, join up, or hold off for a bit.

Before you can make a decision you arrive in the Pandora Cluster, known as the crossroads of the Universe. It's home to the PCCG along with the bulk of the mercenary and trade guilds. Most of the Factions maintain outposts of some kind or another here but they only have control of a few colonies. Corporations have more power here than governments, though traditionally the larger ones have attracted the attention of pirates.

For most of the fleet elements this is just another stepping stone on the way towards Shallan space. However there are now requests from the Factions Alliance for fast fleet elements to chase down smaller enemy ship groups that have broken through the lines. After the initial week of fighting in Shallan space the Guild Nav stations began to detect drive flares from unregistered starships headed towards the nearest Relay and from there on to the Pandora cluster. The Terran DS13 Colony Zone, AKA NAV TAC 13 have also been detecting enemy ships in their area.

The Factions Alliance wants any enemy forces that could potentially harass supply lines or track fleet movements destroyed as soon as possible.

Ships with the fastest and longest range FTL have already arrived in Shallan space and are busy fighting there. So far you've been traveling with the main group which needs another week at best to get there. Reports from the front show that the fighting is still intensiflying and more ships are needed.

[ ] Continue on to Shallan space
[ ] Hunt down the harasser units

>>26487879
>[X] Hunt down the harasser units

This looks like something our wing has just right ships for.

>>26487879
This looks like a good opportunity to learn more about the enemy through small engagements before we throw all our eggs into one basket in Shallan space.

>[X] Hunt down the harasser units

>>26487879
[X] Hunt down the harasser units

This is likely a good chance to isolate lone ships and take them relatively intact, as they're unlikely to have massive support numbers nearby.

They could be rigged for self-destruction, though. We should be careful.

>>26487879
Hunt down these harasser units!

>>26487879
[ ] Hunt down the harasser units

Hey now, that's OUR job. Let's show these wannabes how REAL raiders operate.

>>26486518
Replace cloned hunchback cannon fodder with Mercenary troops for all problems and it would be golden.

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Additional IRL nonsense has come up that I'll have to deal with. Will be back in a couple of hours I hope.


>unanimous agreement
Wow.

Intel sends you some data on the harasser units which are deploying in two different types of groups.
The most commonly detected ones are believed to be composed of two ships, a Carrier and a Battleship. Most of these are staying out of combat and are trying to move as quickly as possible, deeper into Faction space. These ones pose a more long term threat as there are numerous hiding places where they might not be so easily found.

The other type of group are the ones conducting most of the raids, striking sensor and com stations. Reports are that each consists of two carriers and three battleships, though some make use of battlecruisers. These may be a diversion to draw attention away from the smaller units but they will need to be dealt with.

Intel has no way of knowing how many corvettes or starfighters either type of group might carry.

You currently have 5 volleys of Shield Piercing Torpedoes available to your ships and fighters. Ships in reserve have not had a chance to catch up yet.

Which type of Group(s) will you be going after and in what strength?
Time to intercept many of the faster moving ones is limited and there are a lot of them. Allied units are also attempting intercepts but even working together you're not going to stop all of them.

>>26491691
Go for the faster smaller groups. We're perfectly suited for this.

>>26491691
Go for the faster smaller group as the last thing we need is to have a whole bunch of them get through and regroup behind our lines.

>>26491691

If we let the small groups through, they go to ground and cause trouble deep in the lines.

If we let the attack forces take out our com and sensor stations, we're going to be hamstrung strategically.

I'm thinking we split into 3 forces.

Force 1: Knight Rah'ne in command
1st Squadron, 4th Squadron, 1st Flight from 6th Squadron, Blackbird and 1 Escort Carrier [transfer an LST to carrier]

Force 2: Daska in Command
2nd Squadron, 5th Squadron, 2nd Flight from 6th Squadron, [other ECM ship] and 1 Escort Carrier [transfer an LST]

Force 3: Sonia in Command
Sonia, 3rd Squadron, Escort Carrier and L-CAR.

Forces 1 and 2 are to hunt down small enemy groups attempting to penetrate the lines. If they get the chance to capture something, take it, but destruction of the enemy forces is the main concern. We don't want our House's rear units hit during transit.

Force 3 will link up with friendly forces and combat the larger enemy groups, or respond to friendly forces that require more support.

>>26492220
I approve of this course of action.

>>26487879
I think we should hold up on joining just a little bit, since we might capture one thing othe other for house R&D in this shitwad, and lets see how things solidify at home, for if it goes to somewhat shit, due to the cease fire ending for the pirates, in the letter if not in spirit, and other houses fuck our shit up or other nobles move in we might want to go home and manage our shit. But if we can do something like revers in loco parentis with out father or family or someone trustworthy so they can at least manage some of the shit, then we can go for a tour in a month or so, when our SP stocks run out.

>>26492220
>>26492413
>>26492173
>>26491691
Indeed, lets eliminate any log term shenanigan scout and raider shit that would fuck up our supply timetable for SP torps, personnel or war materiel.

>>26491691
>unanimous agreement
>Wow.

I just hate competition. We should be raiding THEIR lines. It'd be a pain if they did the same to us.

>>26492220
I'm a bit worried about splitting up the Wing without first hand knowledge of what our new targets are capable of, but this seems like a solid plan.

Also we should reserve SP torp usage. No sense on wasting them on commerce raiders, unless they're absolutely needed.

>>26492519
I don't think we have to worry about the other houses at the moment, as the Ruling House never declared an end to the ceasefire even though that conflict is over. The Fleet was pretty much redeployed straight from the last battle with the pirates, so unless the Dominion decides to say "fuck fighting the Neraan, you're on your own" and withdraw the Fleet, our House should be safe from its rivals for the time being.

If that does happen, though, hopefully by then our space shark will be ready. Then we can temporarily take a leave from duty, and join the Alliance with our own ship and crew.

>>26493067
>splitting the wing

I tried to keep knowledge of their ships in mind with the split.

Their small units with a battlecruiser and carrier means 16 corvettes + battlecruiser + carrier. Each of our strike teams will have 27 ships + carrier + ECM.

Assuming that either the enemy carrier or the battlecruiser is hauling ECM gear to mask themselves, they should be detectable and prone to taking a massive volley of torpedos before their corvettes are effectively deployed.

Our knights are more than capable of deciding if SP torps are called for on their own.

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Making sure the wing is refueled and rearmed is the first thing to take care of after arrival. Secondary support platforms have been deployed near the local nav station to help restock warships, either in preparation to head across the cluster or for their flight on into Shallan space. You're good for ammo, though one of the dock hands surreptitiously sends a message asking if you want to buy any SP torpedoes off the blackmarket.

Alex sends you a note a minute later saying one of his Marines did a quick check to find out if they're also buying. For Mark 43 SP's buy price is four hundred thousand and they're selling between 600-750k. If Pirates newly arrived from South Reach decide to offload some of their captured surplus before heading on the prices might drop in the next few days.

You'll find out if you need to keep what you already have in a short while. Contacting your Knights you go over your plan to split up the Wing into three groups.

"Rah'ne, Daska, you'll be going after some of those smaller units with the bulk of the Wing. Arthur, you're with me. We'll try to find some support and hit a larger one. Try to capture some of those ships but I want everyone back alive."

A chorus of "Yes sir!" answers you back.

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After disengaging from the fuel station your people head out to a safe distance and begin to split up into the new squads.

"Final systems check all ships, all fighters." you order.

"All ships show green and ready to move out." Says Kavos.
"Carriers report their fighters are prepped for immediate launch." Adds Coms. "Attack Bombers are carrying mixed loadout."

You look over to Linda.
"Coordinates locked in for an area that's been reporting raids. We may have to scout around once we get there."

"I'm trying to get data from the local networks near attack sites but there's a lot of traffic making it difficult." reports Arron. "I'll try to get some more data mid transit."

"Fine. Reynard to Force 3, we're jumping in five."

Your smaller section of the unit jumps to FTL, increasing in speed until you reach J20. Faster than normal, but not so much so that it'll drain excess power from combat systems at this distance.

Roll 1d100

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Rolled 30

>>26495016
Once again, to war!

Rolled 100

>>26495016
Once more into the breach!

>>26495060
Well...that just happened.

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>>26495060
That's a good way to open the ball.

>>26495060
Amen.

>>26495060
I was about to make a reminder that one anon won a free 100 on a d100 roll but it looks like that won't be necessary.

"Detecting a distress signal coming from a coms array in the general area of our target zone."

Linda shifts the course of the squadron in mid transit since you're still a ways out.

You were worried you might have a hard time finding one of the enemy units or some allies to help take them on. Oh boy did that turn out to be unnecessary. Third squadron jumps in near the edge of a battle being fought between one of the raiding units and what must have been a full Dominion corvette Wing. They got here several minutes before you and wreckage from their corvettes the area.

Twenty Neeran corvettes are in the middle of a swirling dogfight with two squadrons of attack corvettes and mostly two squadrons of standard corvettes. One of the Neeran battleships are trading long range fire with a station which has been armed with a hodgepodge mix of fusion cannons and phase weaponry. Two other battleships are using their plasma weapons to snipe Dominion corvettes that stray outside the main fight.
The enemy carriers are pulling back and recovering a few damaged ships.

Your orders?

>>26495247

Are the enemy carriers in a position that allows us to make a run on them without being in the attack range of the rest?

I'd say have our fighters deploy to drop a torpedo volley into the ass of one of those battleships.

>>26495247
Does it look like the House Corvette squads will die in the next few seconds? If they can keep holding their own or stay in a stalemate with the Neeran corvettes then we can Alpha strike either the carrier or battleships.

Since the smaller ships have no FTL drive we may want to drop the carrier, however, the carrier is just a shield tank with light weaponry. I say we move in with all guns splitting one or both of the battleships in half then redirect to the carrier so we can try and salvage it. The lower number of weapons on it mean we may be able to tank it's hits while finding a way to secure it. Once we have some of the tech we can inspect it to know how to easily salvage the other ships.

>>26495247
Launch fighters to assist the Corvette wing. Third squadron jump on those carriers before they realize we're here. Maybe that will cause the battleships to panic and turn towards us? Ether way carriers should be priority target.

>>26495247
Fighters to help out the Corvette wing and lets hit the carrier before they realize that they are about to have a very bad day.

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"Reinforcements, finally! Our Attack Corvettes could punch through the shields on those Battleships but we need to combine fire to do it. Their corvettes won't give us a chance. Whatever you do, do it fast."

>Are the enemy carriers in a position that allows us to make a run on them without being in the attack range of the rest?
Hope this helps.

>>26495398
>Does it look like the House Corvette squads will die in the next few seconds?
They've got a few more minutes in them. Maybe.

You launch fighters. Will they be going after the corvettes or the battleships?

>>26495499
hmm, fighters to tango with the corvettes. We proceed to dance with those battleships with all weaponry set to kill. I don't think the carriers will go jumping out of the system without any corvettes to help support them, but if they do then they are a minimum threat.

>>26495499
Send them to the corvettes while we try to cause a panic and hit the carriers.

Hopefully this will draw the battleships to us and force them to try and withdrawn their corvettes as well.

>>26495499

Squadron to knock out those Carriers.

Fighters into the dogfight, show those little bastards the business end of torpedoes.

>>26495499
corvettes, after all they have no PD

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>>26495699
>>26495651
>>26495619
>>26495687
Okay, the fighter situation is decided at least.
2 want to go after the Carriers using your starships, 1 wants to go after the battleships

Hitting the Carriers then.

Roll 5d20

Rolled 4, 11, 16, 17, 3 = 51

>>26495784

>>26495784
awwh, the carriers have minimal weaponry and will need to wait for the corvettes to return before they jump out. Why aren't we splitting the battleships which have a lot more powerful weaponry?

rolling anyways

Rolled 10, 6, 3, 2, 16 = 37

>>26495914
bleh, mistakes were made... correcting estimated trajectory... target locked Email field is going down.

Rolled 6, 14, 1, 13, 16 = 50

>>26495784

"We're the cavalry, folks. Show these bastards why we're elites."

>>26495914
Who says they need to wait for the corvettes? They could just bug out and then come back for the corvettes later. We pull the exact same trick with our carriers. With the carriers knocked out, the corvettes won't be going anywhere, and hopefully it'll draw the battleships away from what they're doing.

>>26495996
Well if they bugger off and leave the corvettes whose to say we don't split them all in half and leave the carriers the space dust?

The battleships can all retreat once the battle turns against them. They can then preform hit and run attacks on our logistic lines and comm relays. While the carrier can retreat without the corvette squadrons in it the damage it can inflict is allot less than these battleships.

Since we are already committed to the carriers I say the second we cripple them we redirect to prevent the battleship escape. Even if our friendly corvette are having problems the priority target should be the battleships. It may be hard to stop the battleship escape since we are not in a gravity well though...

"Fighters away. Withdrawing to safe distance." Says the lead carrier captain.

You throttle up and take a parallel course to the carriers until you're certain the corvettes won't be able to block the squadron.
Starfighters head in armed and ready, launching torpedoes as soon as they're within range.

"Detecting missile launches from the Carriers... no wait they're starfighters, Interceptors, and they're moving fast."

"How many?" you ask.
"An even match for ours. I dont get how they launched so quickly though..."

"Launch tubes?" offers Kaz.
"Find out later." Suggests Kavos.

Glancing at the dogfight you see a trio of attack corvettes focus their fire on one of the ball shaped craft, twin linked phase cannons tearing through shields and then the hull armor on one side. The Neeran ships spins out of control for a moment, it's side venting drive plasma but only for a second or two. The damaged ship retreats towards the carriers at max speed, the Battleships putting down suppressing fire to let it escape.

Then you see the far battleship that had been engaging the station break off, moving behind cover of the other two towards the Carriers.

"This is going to be close."

Third squadron opens up on the closest Carrier which fires back with a few phase cannon of its own. More of a distraction than a real threat.

"They're trying to scramble our torpedoes with ECM. We're too close for it to work well though."

This is one time where you're glad for the extra firepower afforded by your Guard cruiser. The EX-K's phase cannons were more than adequate, but having eight spinal mount cannons plus a number of turrets are just so much handier when trying to batter down the shields of a tough opponent.

Five of the damaged corvettes launch from either carrier and open fire with First Flight taking most of the damage. You change course slightly, blasting one of the damaged smaller ships several times until its shields collapse. A four cannon burst cuts through its main gun and back into the reactor causing it to explode.

Reversing engines before you can overshoot, you pull back to resume putting fire into the Carrier. These bastards have tough shields you admit but when they fail they're just as vulnerable to weapons fire as any equivalent ship the Factions build. Cannon fire chews apart the drive sections and the fuel stores light off, propelling the forward 3/4ths of the vessel forwards.

The Second Carrier jumps before you can even scratch it.

"Incoming!"

All three battleships and some of the more damaged corvettes have opened up on you and are closing fast.

Roll 4d20 for evasion

Rolled 20, 6, 19, 14 = 59

>>26496468

Rolled 12, 7, 13, 1 = 33

>>26496468
First rule: Don't get rammed.

Rolled 18, 20, 8, 12 = 58

>>26496468

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The battleships rapid fire their plasma weapons, making evasion difficult though not impossible. Its harder for you with a heavier ship, but more engine power and secondary shields kicking in are enough to see you through the storm of plasma weapon fire. Most of the others suffer glancing blows.

"First rule: Don't get rammed."

The Battleships try for tractor beam locks but cant quite seem to nail down any of your cruisers. They're largely ignoring the Frigates thankfully. Using emergency thrusters as much as anything, you and the other ships in Fourth Flight dodge out of the way of the Battleships. The squadron scatters as the battleships charge through, leaving you more vulnerable individually but it means there's more targets to draw fire now.

One of the battleships spin back to face you all, continuing to pump out fire. The other two meanwhile tractor the damaged Carrier. Moving in above and below the larger vessels sandwich the one you worked so hard to crippled between then then begin to accelerate for an FTL jump. The corvettes are disengaging and headed towards you with the Dominion ships in pursuit.

"We'll be taking fire from both directions in a sec." Warns Arthur.

Your orders?

>>26497040

SP torpedo volley into the ass ends of those two battleships.

Focus fire on the pair, dodge the one facing us and micro-jump out after our attack run if we don't score mission kills.

We'll jump back in on the flank of the corvettes or battleships, depending on what the situation is.

Inform the Dominion ships of our intent to jump out so they can pull back until we mic

>>26497040
Donut formation. Spread out into a ring, so that the single battleship ahead of us is in the hollow space. Then continue advancing toward the carrier, raking the battleship with as much fire as we can as we try to pass around it. Focus on disabling the engines of the retreating battleships if possible, or their tractor emitters if that would more practically force them to stop towing the carrier.

>>26497190
>>26497227
You guys want to combine these plans?
And if so use an SP torp volley?

>>26497401
As the donut guy, I'm fine with this.

Roll 4d20

Be advised that while none of it is severe your ships ARE taking damage. Kavos warns you that the Emergency thrusters are approaching overheat levels.

>>26497401
Sounds fine.

Rolled 5, 18, 8, 13 = 44

>>26497529

Rolled 9

>>26497529
Rolling!

>1

Rolled 14

>>26497599
>2

Rolled 20, 7, 9, 6 = 42

>>26497529
It's a very good thing two out of three battleships are attempting to leave, then.

Maybe we've gotten too used to fighting pirates. The Neeran have a proper military force.

Rolled 5

>>26497612
>3^

Rolled 11

>>26497621
>4

Rolled 8, 9, 10, 8 = 35

>>26497401
Combine & SP torp volley [originally the guy suggesting the volley]

>>26497529
Rolling to Fuck shit up

You order the others to make a ring formation around the battleship facing you and to launch SP's into the two others trying to escape with the wounded carrier.

"Corvette wing, be advised we're going to micro out in a second. We'll be back as soon as we can turn around."

"Understood. Just don't leave us for too long."
The corvettes are having a hard time as the Neeran corvettes keep turning and firing while on the move.


You fire your torpedoes along with the others and nine Torps flash out to strike the drive section of the Battleship you're targeting. You fail to see how much damage is done as two of the larger ball turrets roll to fire beams of plasma at you.

"Hits are good, both are crippled." report Arron.

You wish the same could be said for their weapons systems which are still a potent threat. Cannon fire from ahead and behind cuts two of the wings off the Vengeance type in Third Flight and cripples a pair of your frigates.
The Cruiser pilot responds by putting the ship into a spin to make up for the loss of so many engines on the one side. You think it's a controlled spin, but they won't be able to jump like that.


[ ] Tell the crews to abandon ship
[ ] Tractor them and help them jump out
[ ] Tractor just the Cruiser
[ ] Other

>>26498068
>[X] Tractor them and help them jump out

Tractor them for the microjump then head back in. Maybe blind them with a missile barrage on the way out.

Now that we have them disabled we need a plan to disarm them that doesn't involve SPing them into swiss cheese.

>>26498068

Frigates are to go dead in the water if they haven't already and get out via emergency teleporters/shuttles

[x] Tractor just the Cruiser
[x] Cruiser's crew is to report to teleporter locations ASAP

We'll try to save her, but that crew needs to be ready to punch out 5 seconds ago.

What is the status of our carriers and fighters?

When we micro out, we can hopefully leave the damaged cruiser to transmit combat data on the ships to the House and get word to the Commander that we've blown the engines of two battleships and possibly a carrier. This location is going to need SAR for our allies, but we may need more marines as well.

Rolled 20, 15 = 35

>>26498277
>What is the status of our carriers and fighters?
The carriers have stayed out of range and the fighters are now rearming. Interceptors are still out battling fighters.

Roll 1d20 to get the cruiser out.

Rolled 11

>>26498399

Assist roll

Rolled 14

>>26498399
Rolling.

Rolled 18

>>26498399
Let the cruiser deal with calling into hq while we jump back to try and support the corvette and continue to cripple the weapon system on the battleships. Or we may run boarding activities

>>26498399
You change course while ordering the cruiser crew to prepare to abandon ship. The Frigates meanwhile play dead and likewise attempt to abandon ship.
Kavos locks tractor beams and you come in a bit faster than you'd like but its this or face being hit by even more weapons fire.

"Get ready to halt your roll... now!"

The Vengeance fires its maneuvering thrusters, stopping its spin as you swing in on its damaged side. Kavos uses some of the repulsors to reduce the rate of closure enough to be surviveable for the other crew.
You've had worse impacts but not with this ship and you dont have time to shape it off before shield indicators turn red.

"Linda?"

"Working." Says the other woman even as she pushes the throttle forward for the drive systems.

The jump isn't immediate as she's still trying to extend the drive field around the other ship rather than trying to match fields which would take too long. When the drive system does kick in for real it feels more like a sharp *POP* than jumps usually do.

Linda winces. "I think I broke something. On the ship I mean. Give me five minutes to talk to engineering."

Kavos points out the damage readouts. "Three emergency thrusters failed. Dorsal armor damage along spine of the ship. Partial damage to one turret. Shield restart in progress." You watch the displays as the shields go back up to full. Or mostly.
"Main shield only returning to 90%." Kavos hits some buttons trying to figure out what's wrong.

"It'll do." You tell her. "I want to jump back in as soon as possible."

"Avoid damage to the top of the ship. It may not survive another hit."

>>26498966
Dammit. Sorry a bit too late.

On jumping back in you see that your starfighters are lining up for attack runs on the crippled battleships to deal with their weapon emplacements. The corvettes have moved beyond the wreckage and along with the rest of your ships are forcing the Neeran ships to continue their withdrawal. While damaged the remaining Neeran ships are slowly beginning to leave the other ships behind.

The third battleship is nowhere to be seen. An update from the carriers show that it jumped out shortly after you did. Enemy starfighters have been mopped up by your interceptors already. It seems that their pilots weren't of the same caliber as those seen fighting in Shallan Space.

"Any idea where the carrier and battleship went?"

Arron shrugs after looking at the data. "They may try to jump back in to recover more of the corvettes once they have enough of a lead."

You can either have your ships continue pursuit in the hopes of catching the Carrier when it jumps back in, or have friendly forces pull back to support rescue and boarding efforts.

The starfighters have begin their run on the battleship whose weapons begin to charge up. A ball of plasma begins to form in front of the weapon's aperture before it's launched towards the fighters. Your smaller craft dodge out of the way and the ball explodes, the blast knocking a few out of control.

Eventually they're able to launch enough torpedoes to both knock down the shields and disable the guns on one side. Do you want to send over teams in shuttles or LSTs now or wait until the rest of the weapon systems are disabled?

Not all there atm. The two questions in the same post thing rarely works out so I'll put them up here differently.


1) Continue pursuit or break off and begin SAR?

2) Begin boarding operations for the Battleships or Carrier now while there's still a few weapons systems on the ships or wait until all the guns have been silenced.

3) Shuttles or LST(s)


I might be stopping here for the night. We'll see how coherent I am once people decide on their course of action.

>>26499575
1: Both. Have the heaviest ships with the least damage continue pursuit. The rest, begin SAR.

2: Wait for the guns to die.

3: LSTs.

>>26499472

We should get on top of those corvettes and wipe them out before they can be recovered.

Maybe we should knock out all the guns on the more damaged battleship and board the other.

Can the station detect where the two ships jumped off to and if they're going to micro-jump back in?

>>26499722
samefag here.

We need to get squadrons of SP-torp armed fighters on CAP around the three ships we've disabled. We don't want that other battleship deciding to jump in and destroy them to prevent capture.

We should also avoid using LSTs for boarding to prevent counter-boarding with intent to FTL escape [with their own ship self-destructing]

Most importantly, we need to call in heavier support to help us secure these ships. We're going to need forces here to deter enemy raids to destroy these vessels and more marines with heavy weapons if we're to take these ships and get them to the R&D people.

>>26499702
I am good with this one.

Archived the thread as: House and Dominion: Neeran War 1
Left out the "For" in the title. Not a good week.

>>26499702
>>26499722
>We should get on top of those corvettes and wipe them out before they can be recovered.
They're starting to out pace your people at sublight. You could have your guys pull back then try to micro jump, recover fighters and jump ahead of them, risk using SP's while their still in range, or find another solution.
>1: Both.
Kavos points out that you might not have enough firepower to do both if the battleship were to return. Unless you broke out the remaining SP's at that point.

>Maybe we should knock out all the guns on the more damaged battleship and board the other.
certainly an option.
>Can the station detect where the two ships jumped off to and if they're going to micro-jump back in?
That station's long range sensor and com arrays are destroyed, though they still have short range coms and sensors. The only thing of value still on it are the weapons systems that have survived and the operations crew.

>We need to get squadrons of SP-torp armed fighters on CAP around the three ships we've disabled.
You have the carriers launch a squadron of attack bombers equipped with SPs to patrol the area just in case.

>We should also avoid using LSTs for boarding to prevent counter-boarding with intent to FTL escape [with their own ship self-destructing]
Most of your LST's don't have FTL systems of their own as it means less room for shields, engines and troop space.

>>26499575
Sar. If they double back we can take them now rather than chase them into a hidden corner so they can potentially screw us later.

Take out one side but leave some of their guns so we can better research active weapons instead of scrap. Make sure not to fly into their range of fire. Board with shuttles when we have confirmed heavy support is incoming but until then just make sure they can't escape and stay on guard for their support. Once we know a time frame for our support weekend we begin to board by establishing a secure beach head on their vessels. If they are running a light neeran crew with their support race being the majority of the crew then we can push into engineering and hold the ship.

Speaking of which, can we ask Gandalf how quickly his race breeds so we know if his race well be swarmingtheir ships or if they use vassal races to crew the ships with the neeran commanding. Seeing the tasks with all the vassal guys abs the handful of neeran made me think they may do that with their ships.

>>26500665
I've got a huge phone screen, but only a small section is used for the reply and I keep finding spelling errors from auto correct... captcha takes up more space than the entire reply field
Weekend is we can
Tasks is tank

1) Without the entire wing it's unlikely that we can overwhelm the other enemy ships, we should just deal with what we have and do SAR now.

2) Pick whichever ship looks the most damaged and destroy all it's weapons. Use our ships to tractor the second one and keep the side with weapons pointed away from the fleet.

3) LSTs of course, use the shuttles for SAR.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SFTWRY9

Will resume tomorrow after 4pm EST.

>>26500665
>speaking of which, can we ask Gandalf how quickly his race breeds so we know if his race well be swarmingtheir ships or if they use vassal races to crew the ships with the neeran commanding. Seeing the tasks with all the vassal guys abs the handful of neeran made me think they may do that with their ships.
You exchange some text messages over the course of a few hours.
"If they reach 300 without having children they become a wizard."
"Really?"
"No. Not really. That would make no sense. Gestation can take two of your years. We restrict population growth rate to match expansion of our city ships. Without those there is know way of knowing the current population."

>>26501522
Once we get a good look at their planets or worldships or wherever they live back home we should be able to make an estimate. But until then all we have is wild guesses.

>>26501522
We shouldn't have asked him really, we should have immediately asked him why he hasn't had little cute telekinetic babies yet.

Might be worth joining boarding parties to get an estimate on if the whole ship is run by neeran crew or not. boarding operations may change if we are facing an entire crew of them. Cramped spaces and an enemy that can sense your moves may be very hard to salvage these ships in piece unless we can force them to evacuate.

>>26501522
>Mr Wizard
I hope they started making more of themselves since they saw this shit coming.

>>26500419
>Station is only good for weapons and crew
Well, looks like we have a fixed point to tractor the ships we strip of their weapons toward. The station isn't much, but every little bit against these bastards will help if that battleship comes back to finish off the ones they can't take.

Bump.

Back in a little bit I hope. Bumping just in case.

>>26501522
Speaking of Wizards, is there any other tricks they can do that we haven't seen yet?

>>26512418
I imagine we have to find out on the wrong end of a plasma cannon

>>26503163
It also might be worth joining them so we can try to keep any casualties to a minimum.

>>26512776
>>26512794
You know what? Lets just redo this all.


>>26512418
>is there any other tricks they can do that we haven't seen yet?
That would be telling.


"Tell all ships to break off pursuit and pull back. Signal the corvettes as well, we dont want them to get wiped out."

Your contacted seconds later by the Corvette Wing's CO, who is not the person you were speaking to earlier.
"This is Knight Mef'tanghe of House Aurlum to House Jerik-Dremine forces, do you have more SP torpedoes? We can finish off this lot now and be done with them."

With the possibility of salvaging some of the Neeran ships while rescuing stranded crews, you're disinclined to maintain the pursuit and tell them as much.
The other Knight is not happy about this.
"A lot of my people died today, a respected superior was among them. I want -no- I demand vengeance."

>What say/do?

>>26512882
"I understand your position, Knight Mef'tanghe, but we need to capture as many of these ships intact as possible. With them to study, we'll be able to figure out how they work and how to defeat them. I do not wish to deny you your vengeance, but the information we gain here will give you the tools you'll need to inflict your full wrath on them.

Help us secure these ships, and I'll do whatever I can to assist you in your revenge."

We're pretty low on SP torps by now, aren't we?

Also, we should send one of the more damaged frigates to the station, to re-establish contact with them and see what their situation is. As >>26506071 pointed out, it'll at least be a good rally point for this system.

>>26512882

"I understand the feeling. We've managed to cripple three of their largest vessels fairly intact. If we move to finish off the fleeing forces, we allow the third battleship to jump in and destroy the ships that may help us turn the tide in this war.

We carry the dead with us until we die, but our duty is first and foremost to ensure that someone survives this war to remember us all."

>>26512882
>"A lot of my people died today, a respected superior was among them. I want -no- I demand vengeance."

He'll get his vengence sooner or later, but right now we should focus on keeping the number of people he'll have to avenge as low as possible. With the damage we've caused, the hostile ships shouldn't be able to escape permanently any way.

>>26512973
>>26513033
The other knight listens to your words and takes long enough to respond you were almost starting to think the channel had been cut off.

"You're right of course Captain. We will take up position near the wreckage and deploy what shuttles we have to rescue survivors. Some day not so long from now I will see these Neeran burn even if I must do it with their own weapons."

"But not today." You add hopefully.

"Not today, unless they come back for a second round."

Closing the channel you see to the situation with the battleships. They're still firing, alternating between the exploding balls of plasma and wider beams in attempts to take out some of the fighters. You're lost a few so far and more have had to return to the carriers because of damage.

"Starfighters keep it up but try to leave one of those plasma weapons intact. If you need fire support from the starships tell us where you want it so that we don't screw up your attack runs."

"Understood sir."

Switching Channels you have Arthur use his least damaged ships to drag the more heavily crippled battleship towards the station. It should be easier to keep an eye on there and could be used to block fire if the other one somehow gets a shot off.

>>26513436

"Knight Mef'tanghe, If I may. What was their name?"

Taking a corvette wing against that Neeran force... shit, we're drinking to that.

Is that 3/4ths of a carrier still managing to power any weapons it has?

And did our frigates manage to play dead and survive after being abandoned?

Next you contact the Commander.
"Captain, are you contacting me with bad news or worse news? I've had enough of both come across my desk for one day."

"Sir, we've crippled two Neeran Battleships and a Carrier and are preparing to board them. We'll try to hold them for our R&D people to look at."

Winifred sighs. "Captain, all of our salvage assets are still in the South Reach Cluster. It will be more than a week before they catch up and even then they'll only be available in limited numbers."

She looks through a few screens off to the side then turns back to you. "I have a ship headed to your location with technicians aboard to study the wreckage. Hopefully they'll learn something of value. I'll wait several hours then report the wreck to the Factions Alliance as they'll be in a better position to recover the remains with their expending list of contacts."

Next you tell her about the allied Corvettes and your damaged ships.

"Blast. I'll have logistics find transports than can help them to a nearby shipyard. That or you can try to help them limp there yourselves. It might be a day or two for the transports to arrive because of security concerns."

[ ] Wait for the transports, you have to secure the enemy ships anyways
[ ] Help the damaged ships get to a shipyard yourselves
[ ] Other

>>26513798
Wait for the transports.

>>26513798

[X] Wait for the transports, you have to secure the enemy ships anyways.

We should have invested in whatever company the Commander's pain meds are produced by with the number of headaches we must cause her.

Is the Commander sending additional marines with those techs? I'd rather have too many than too few for these boarding actions.

... and she did mention a while back that the House needed more cash. These ships should fetch quite a bit of that or some supplies to help the force.

>>26513798
>[ ] Other

I'm sure we can spare a few of our ships to get some of the damaged vessels to the shipyard. However, I'd suggest keeping the majority of our wing at its current location.

>>26513798
I have a question: Can we our our house sell shares in our salvage rights for money? It sorta seems the thing to do given that logistics wants to murder us and our track record means someone would probably be interested.

>And did our frigates manage to play dead and survive after being abandoned?
Yes, but their engines and part of the structure were destroyed.

>>26514034
>Is the Commander sending additional marines with those techs? I'd rather have too many than too few for these boarding actions.
There are a trio of Frigates headed to your location. They have Marines aboard in addition to the Technicians.

>>26514099
>Can we our our house sell shares in our salvage rights for money?
Giving you (personally) ships from salvage rather than your cut of the pay for their capture is one way for them to save money.

They're looking at repairing most of the ships and then selling some to other Houses to pay for the repairs and upgrades of the rest. The same goes for negotiations for the captured Super. The House will be getting a lot of money from much larger and better off Houses. These things take time though.

With the other ships largely disabled except for one battleship which retains a single turret, its time to begin boarding operations. The LST's are ready to put troops aboard and a some of your people are in position to blind the battleship sensors with a few well placed nukes if necessary.

Some people were suggesting Sonia go aboard with them. Do so?

>>26514276
>Do so?
We haven't had a boarding action in awhile, and we should be leading our marines against an unknown enemy. Plus, it'll give us a first hand look at our enemy.

>>26514276

>Sonia boarding

I'm still paranoid about a second enemy attack on the station or to destroy their crippled ships, and feel Sonia needs to stay in the Captain's chair for this one.

So we should send our 'twin' to support the marines. Ensure she is well aware of their little telepathy trick and that she herself is more important to us than the power armor. After all, if she is that close to our body shape and size we can probably swap clothing and shoes.

>>26514442
I voted for boarding, but if I get outvoted then we should at least personally inspect the battleship after it's secured.

>>26514442
>Clothing implications
As a guy who wears a lot of cheap one-size-fits-all clothing I can honestly say this didn't occur to me, though it certainly should have.

So, Sonia boarding action?
>Yes
>No

>>26514442
>>26514427
Looks like there may only be two of us right now, so for the same of gameflow I'm changing my vote to not boarding.

>>26514626
I vote Yes to boarding

>>26514626
Whats this? A chance to actually board a ship again?

Yes, yes, and god yes

>>26514626
we're the only person with experience fighting these guys. We need to continue to hone our ability. However, I've got a sneaky feeling that these guys are going to scuttle their ship the second our landing shuttles disembark so they can kill us.

File: 1376008795558.jpg-(103 KB, 900x576, mjsmru19qH1s6z5xzo1_1280.jpg)

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"I'm going over. Arron take the helm, I know Kavos doesn't want to be punching out roll and direction commands on the fly if those other ships come back."

"Yes sir!"

As you walk into the armory Cpl Rufaro salutes you. "Looking for some more action sir?"

"I cant let you have all the fun." you reply.

Glancing through the available weapons you're starting to miss your plasma pistol and the rest of the heavy strike team who will be catching up any day now.

Choose your weapons loadout!

>Secondary Melee weapon
Second HF blade
Monoblade
Republic bayonet
Repulsor gauntlet

>Ranged
Fusion Gun
X-ray Laser (+MicroRPG launcher)
Mass driver rifle
Shotgun (Grenades, AP Slug, Flechettes, Incendiaries, other)
Phase rifle (Has stun setting)
Silenced Carbine* (+Splinter rounds)

Forearm MicroRPG launcher
Republic SMG*
Forearm SMG*
Submachine pistol*
Pulse Pistol (Has stun setting)
* = silenced weapon option

>Grenades
High explosives
Frag grenades
Stun grenades
Flashbangs
Half moon (Breaching charge)
Claymore mines
Other/Special (Specify)

>Heavy
Anti tank plasma gun
Anti tank RPG

>>26515147
>Secondary Melee weapon
Monoblade

>Ranged
Fusion Gun

>Grenades
Half moon (Breaching charge)

>Heavy
Anti tank plasma gun

>>26515147
>Secondary Melee weapon
Monoblade
>Ranged
Fusion Gun
>Grenades
Half moon
>Heavy
Anti tank plasma gun

On the flight over to the Carrier with the nearest LST you see Shuttles and the occasional fighter fly past on recovery operations. After docking you and a few of the Marines with Power cell armor from your ship transfer over and take your jump seats.

"Welcome aboard sir." Says one of the officers. "Ready to see what these guys are made of?"

"Ready to see if they all take weapons fire the same way." you reply, double checking your anti-tank gun.
You've got two fuel cells for it plus one in the weapon giving you a grand total of fifteen shots. Each one is rather bulky though. Meanwhile you've got twelve smaller fuel cells for your Shallan Fusion Gun strapped to various parts of your armor, and the halfmoon charges on the front of your grenade harness.

"LST's on approach." Announces of the pilot as the small ship begins to shake.

The battleship crew obviously haven't given up. Linking into the ships sensors via your HUD you see the vessel vent plasma from the remaining turret to help initiate a roll. Nukes begin to go off, their fireballs blocking areas from view.

Roll 1d100

I look forward to seeing how these Neeran vessels are crewed, how wide spread the use of Neeran Armor is, and to what capacity Neeran can use their shape-shifting abilities for Close, and potentially ranged, combat.

Hopefully they have nice human-sized ventilation shafts leading everywhere.

also, since we took down the last guy with a Massdriver rifle, maybe we can pull off an SG-1 and use kinetic wea-

Nvm, auto update, a Shallan Fusion gun it is.

Rolled 41

>>26515576

Rolled 64

>>26515576

>>26515576

It will soon have been 3 months since we left Peusen and the Vieona, yea? can't wait for them to contact us.

Rolled 31

>>26515751
>>26515626

File: 1376013348413.gif-(9 KB, 1008x678, NBoarding.gif)

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Turbulence starts to bounce you around a bit more and you can feel the hum of the ships engines increasing to maximum output.

"Brace." Says the LST's captain over the intercom in a much calmer voice than you would have expected given the situation. A blast throws everyone against their restraints but only a couple of the marines seem at all bothered by this.

"Grappling in three seconds at mark. Mark."

The next impact is more solid, bouncing you upwards in your seat but, overall not as long lasting. The LST is down on the hull. It takes a half a minute to cut through the section of hull you're on top of, with Marines gathering nearby, ready to storm the breach. A Power cell team with Republic tac shields initially take point.

"Clear!" they report. "There's some hull damage nearby and this section is vented."

Stepping through you land in a corridor easily fifteen feet high with a slight curve to the walls where most Factions would have sharper corners. Gravity is set very low, to conserve power you wonder? Doing a quick check the marines point out door controls. There are sets low enough for someone of your height, midway up the wall possibly for Neeran, and another that would work if you were walking on the ceiling.

"These wall panels all have condits behind them." Says one of the Marine engineers

"Makes sense." Replies a team leader. "We put them under the deck plating, these guys might not have as much room between each floor."

>>26516243
"Unnamed Guard to boarding team, your status?" Asks Arthur.

"We're inside." You reply.

"Be advised we're showing additional energy spikes."

"Copy that."

The team intrusion expert is still trying to make sense of the controls and wont be able to bypass them like usual to prevent detection. You turn on your camo and one of the marines hits the door control.
The door splits into four and retracts without any problem except for a warning about low atmosphere pressure. You have translation software for the language but not for how the systems work.

You scout ahead finding the corridors all deserted. Emergency lighting is on in a few places and the doors still act as airlocks but that's it. This section is dead.

Pressing forward you start to feel a weird buzzing ringing sensation passing through the ship's structure. It intensifies for a moment making it feel like your teeth are rattling then subsides.

You get a signal relayed via the marines.
"Sir this is Arron, detecting what looks like emergency teleporter activation."
"Its not the same as ours." Says Kavos over the same channel.
"No, but its very similar. Woah, increase in energy output from the remaining turret!"

>What do?

>>26516425

Shit! They're blowing the ship.

Shoot the gun, we'll have to capture an intact one later.

>>26515147
Wasn't the xray gun suggested too us for use with camo since it can't be seen or was silence? I can't remember. Also we know these guys can sense us when we are close so why did we go with a melta shotgun if they can just move an arm to block our head shots?

Plus the xray has the cool rpg seeking weaponry on it...

Low gravity and the door controls near the ceiling could mean they have the repulsor armor and could turn gravity off on us so they can fly around easily while we try to swim in 0g's. Be careful.

>>26516425
I'd guess they all just bugged out and are going to blow the ship. We need to evac immediately.

Meanwhile, contact anyone who is likely to know, and ask what would happen if one of our friendly vessels destroyed the battleship's last gun, which is presumably overloading.

>>26516425
It probably is best to retreat back to the shuttle, just incase they are scuttling it. If not, then we can board later.

>>26516597
Also, why is the logistic train so far behind? Did they not expect to need them for the first few weeks of fighting? Were they not flying through friendly space? What happens to the advanced forces who are now in shallan space without logistical support when they run out of munitions or take damage? We are a whole cluster behind shallan, but our logistics is still behind us and can't support us? Who dropped this ball?

Update: guess we have to damage the turret since its going to overload and plasma ball the while ship. Sucks but at least we will still have a ship to inspect and know the layout inside for future boarding activities.

>>26514034
The commander probably has a pain med auto-injector that activates whenever she facepalms.

>>26516425
Whelp, time to NOPE the fuck out of there. Have our ships destroy the turret before it goes critical, we can salvage weapons another time.

In the future we could try to cut one of the turrets off of the ship entirely or do enough damage that the ship loses power. That's a tall order though.

>>26516597
>Wasn't the xray gun suggested too us for use with camo since it can't be seen or was silence?
Yes. Its why the spec ops team with Recon armor from the Ruling House used them back on Gesuar.

>Shoot the gun, we'll have to capture an intact one later.
>Meanwhile, contact anyone who is likely to know, and ask what would happen if one of our friendly vessels destroyed the battleship's last gun, which is presumably overloading.

You're not sure you'll be able to reach someone in time who can tell whether this is a good or bad idea.

[ ] Shoot the turret, run like hell (Roll 2d100)
[ ] Don't shoot the turret, run like hell (roll 1d100)

Rolled 48, 47 = 95

>>26516737

[x] Shoot the turret, run like hell

>>26516737
We probably don't have time for this now but we could check the battle footage to see if we happened to disable one of their guns while it was charging/charged.

Right now how about blasting the shit out of that turret with our bass drivers? Kinetic impacts might be able to break the magnetic containment without slagging the whole thing.

Rolled 71, 1 = 72

>>26516737
>[X] Don't shoot the turret, run like hell (roll 1d100)

Rolled 71, 96 = 167

>>26516737
edward esedaw

>>26516954
Huh, I typed the capatcha in the field for some reason. Can't argue with the roll though.

You turn and sprint back towards the LST.
"Back, everyone back! Reynard to any ship, blast that turret!"

"Firing!" You hear Arthur respond.

Around the same time you notice that the ship's intercom in this section is active saying something which is being translated by your suit after a short delay.

Translation reads: Intruder alert. All hands in section brace for vent action in ten sec-
The delay in translation means you didnt quite finish reading it before the doors in front of you open and the force of several atmospheres hurls you down the corridor towards the LST.

All of your effort is put into trying not to impact the edges of cross corridors that would break bones if you hit an edge at your current speeds. The LST must have already disengaged from the hull and you put all power to your suit repulsors to dampen the blow when you reach the end of the hallway and the wind takes a pair of ninety degree turns. The first isnt so bad, you mostly land legs first then roll to the side as you're dragged ten meters to the side towards the hole your people cut into the hull.

Roll 1d20 dexterity

>>26517343

Rolled 4

>>26517382
Lets try that again.

Rolled 15

>>26517343

Rolled 18

>>26517343

>>26516737
Now that we've had training in it I say the xray becomes our default and the heavy team can use the shallan fusion guns. That xray punched through medium armor when the camo guy used it

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Rolling with the winds that are dragging you towards the breach at increasingly dangerous speeds you try to get a grip on something, anything. The floor and walls are too smooth though. Instead you grab the anti-tank gun with hands at either end and hold it out in front of you. When you're thrown across the gap of the breach the gun slams against the edge of the opposite wall. You follow it a fraction of a second later but the weapon and your suit flexing take the brunt of the impact saving you from any broken limbs or ribs.

Then you're thrown clear, tumbling off into space. On every rotation you get farther and farther away from the battleship which is itself spinning, bleeding off plasma into space from the destroyed turret.

Suit diagnostic and vitals shows mostly green except for damage to your legs and knees. Looking around you eventually spot a few of your marines and the LST maneuvering to grab everyone with tractor beams.

"Did everyone make it out?" You ask, once you're certain that there's no way the Battleship could still pose a threat.

"We've got a few Marines unconscious sir, but everyone made it out alive. We'll have you picked up in another minute."