Archive through September 18, 2020
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB General Discussions:
Archive through September 18, 2020
A good question, Shawn. Admittedly, I'm no expert, but it's been my understanding that at the moment in time you're curious about, the whole Omega Octant was at a point near collapse. According to the Omega Master Rulebook, "Y202.... On the eve of total victory over the remaining empires of the Omega Octant, the Andromedan attacks suddenly drop off." This suggests to me that the Omega powers still surviving were only just barely hanging on and were, as a general rule, far weaker than their Alpha Octant neighbors.
Similarly, the LMC powers had long been reduced to scurrying like rats in an Andromedan dominated star cluster. As such, I would think that various powers in the Alpha Octant would likely be the folks occupying any sort of list you might want to make.
In Module Omega #5 and in the 2011 version of the Omega Master Rulebook, a brief overview is given for the state of play across the Omega Octant as of Y205.
By that time, the region was catching its breath after not one but two full-scale invasions. The Souldra had been defeated in Y198, but the scars they left behind ran deep. While the success of Operation Unity had put the Andromedans in Omega on the back foot, it was not until Operation Concerted Strike in Y204 - when a ragtag armada of Omega ships defeated the Andromedan forces holding out in the Ryn Nebula, at the cost of almost nine-tenths of the combined forces involved - before that invasion was brought to an end.
Not counting the Loriyill, who once again stand apart from the other Omega empires, the Mæsrons have perhaps the strongest (or rather, the least weakest) economy in the Omega Octant. But in military terms, they are quite weak following the success of Operation Concerted Strike.
Many of the other empires have been driven back to the regions surrounding their home systems; some, but not necessarily all, of those have also suffered heavy losses due to their own participation in Operation Concerted Strike.
But other powers are beginning to stir in this era. The wolf-like Vulpa, isolated from their former Mæsron comrades, are in the process of staking out an independent Vulpa Confederacy. The mysterious Echarri Dynasty, claiming to have fled from an Andromedan invasion of a more distant galactic region (possibly Sigma?), are shipping huge convoys into what was once Branthodon-held space. While the Paravians of Omega, who have long-term ambitions of their own, are once again expanding from their core territories.
Regarding monitors (more specifically, their pallets); I could see an "Early Warning" pallet such as Jim Davies and Shawn Gordon discussed on Sunday. The purpose wouldn't be electronic warfare*, but to provide advanced warning of incoming attacks. Not only would this help with the monitor's weapon status, it would allow the monitor to call for help earlier, thus improving the likelihood of the monitor being able to hold off the attackers until friendly reinforcements arrive.
Terry O'Carroll remarked that this early warning could be supplied by ground bases with special sensors. But in the early days of establishing the colony, those Ground Warning Stations might not be set up yet. A monitor with a sensor pallet could be very useful for protecting the new colony during that initial period.
*Even though those special sensors aren't primarily for EW support during a battle, they might occasionally be useful, especially for monitors with multi-turn-arming heavy weapons. Consider a hypothetical Federation Monitor with Sensor Pallet, defending against attacking Klingons. It fired its photon torpedoes last turn and is rearming this turn. Using the special sensors for ECM might help the monitor survive long enough to get the torpedoes rearmed for next turn. This would mean it could only use its phaser-1s as phaser-3s during the rearming turn. But it's not out of the question that the additional ECM would be of more benefit that turn than the additional phaser firepower.
But in any case, that's a situational, secondary consideration. The main purpose would be adequate early warning for the monitor.
For Early Warning, wouldn't a Sensor Mine developed just to report ship movements do that job....
If the Monitor is guarding a planet, won’t two special sensor bases or pallets be needed?
Planets block special sensors, so just using one means a blind spot.
Perfect approach for an enemy attack.
The monitor orbits the planet so no blind spots. He would make it around fast enough to detect a fast raider a day away. But there are other And better ways to provide raid warnings.
Cost benefit analysis says you are not going to fit a monitor with a special sensor.
The point is that a monitor is NOT going to be assigned to a colony that is not worth the cost of defending, and such a colony is going to have other defenses, including at least one planetary defense battalion, which provides the special sensors.
You just are not going to find monitors protecting planets with only a dozen "back to nature" farmers (or even a million farmers, or a self sufficient colony or what have you).
Monitors are fairly rare [Federation & Empire shows only six (6) in the Federation Order of Battle, and that is twice any other empire, i.e., the Klingons have only three (3)].
So, yes, there are lots and lots of planets with minor colonies, but they are not worth the deployment of a monitor and the later construction of a base.
That being said, special circumstances can result in a monitor being assigned to a planet that was not worthy of defenses, but has suddenly become valuable. Example, it is found that an asteroid strike on the planet in the distant past gifted it with a concentrated supply of Dilithium crystals that was missed by planetary survey (concentrated in one area where the ancient impact occurred), and the rich strike (to coin a phrase) warrants defenses. A monitor is sent while the Star Fleet scrambles to find a planetary defense battalion (or three) to send to the planet.
But the average small colony does not warrant a monitor (or a base) to defend it.
Those annoying accountants are always in the way of good ideas. lol
That said, there is the possibility that a monitor could be travelling with a convoy to another planet deemed as needing a monitor. Thus the monitor could be "re-provisioning" in the system in question when an unexpected raiding force hits the "unguarded" system in question.
One would think that a Monitor would be ideal for establishing new supply grid nodes in newly captured territory.
Infact, that is very close to the stated mission of providing defense until more permanent forces can arrive and be stood up for duty.
Not a case where a slow monitor can be intercepted by the enemy... the position will already have been taken from enemy control.
Heck, if a tug (acting as a supply point) or a military convoy (same function) are already there, the monitor should certainly be able to reach a position serviced by tugs or convoys.
I think that would tend to result in the loss of an expensive Monitor, as such nodes don't usually have much in the way of local defense, no ground bases or fighters and such.
Exactly.
The point is, for the offensive to grind on, bases that act as part of the expanded supply grid are necessary.
And it’s not just Monitors.
Mobile bases, FRD, military convoys, tugs acting in a supply role are all necessary.
Not to mention Defense battalions . Lots of them, needed to provide the necessary defense strength to resist enemy raids.
In order to reach an enemy capital, fast raiders just are not able to complete such a mission.
An empire has to build a supply grid able to support the combat forces as they assault the enemy capital, while at the same time, defend the supply lines.
Going cheap on an invasion just invites an enemy to attack the flanks with the idea of cutting off supply to the invasion force.
Jeff Wile:
And the Monitor used in that fashion becomes the signal to the enemy that an offensive is going to be launched in a relatively narrow sector. And the offensive is going to be delayed as the monitor slowly moves up the supply grid to defend, and you are going to have to wait on it, while the enemy gathers reserves to oppose, or counter-attack, your drive.
In F&E, if monitors were free to move around operationally, their slow speed would hamper their effectiveness, as would their inability to use normal retreat procedures. They have to retreat using slow unit retreat rules which essentially means they will die if they retreat. This sets aside the question of whether they're even allowed to retreat, as F&E only allows it in hopeless situations.
That being said, if they didn't have the limits they do, I use a strategy in F&E where I tend to stack a lot of Coalition aux carriers in 1403, where I put a Coalition base. In such a hex, a MON would make some sense, as I would intend to defend that hex strongly at all times, so might as well have a MON there if I could.
That's about it though.
Speaking of monitors, I once noted over in the F&E Andro War thread that it would be interesting to work out how the Andromedans deployed their Concretor and Immobilator monitors.
Given the limitations - and opportunities - provided by the RTN, my thinking is that they would fly in a baseline Conquistador or Intruder hull to the node in question and then somehow perform the monitor conversion on-site. A construction battle station would presumably be able to build the MWPs required, as might the active Desecrator; unless the Mothership brought its own MWPs in its hangar bay, "launched" them prior to the conversion, and then docked them externally once the conversion was complete.
But would an Andromedan support Mothership variant, such as an Infestor or Missionary, also be required?
Gary Carney:
See (U6.2135) in Captain's Log #30.
Oddball question I have regarding Monitors (as if I have any other kind of question? 
) is with regards to how quickly Monitors might be assigned new models of fighters.
I mean, with the Federation, the F-18 went though quite the series of improvements; better speed with the F-18B in Y177, the added Type-III Drone Rails with the F-18B+ in Y180, and the upgraded rails (Type VI to Type I) with the F-18C in Y183.
Where in the list of priority do Monitors sit for getting more modern fighters? I know the "Glamor" carriers, the CVAs and CVSes are at the top of the list for the newest fighters, but where do the other carriers sit?
I'd suspect the next in line would be carriers built on CW hulls, followed by those on DW hulls, but what about Patrol and/or Interdiction Carriers? For that matter, where do auxiliary carriers fit in on that list? Will a Monitor get up-to-date fighters before a light auxiliary carrier? What about a heavy auxiliary carrier?
This isn't anything critical, it's just something I've been curious about, and I think the only time it MIGHT be really noteworthy is if there were a scenario where a Monitor with a Carrier pallet were defending a world against an enemy CVS raid.
R1.22E2 says:
Quote:Fighter Pallet (M-FP), which carries a squadron of fighters. These will be class-II fighters appropriate to the year, and usually not the best available.
Sounds to me like they're fairly low priority.
In Alpha the Jindarians didn't change their ship designs from Y1 (and presumably much farther back, Y-100,000 is possible) until Y169 with the adoption of fighters (then carriers and aegis). In Y181 they adopted interceptors, followed by PFs and all the technology and support infrastructure attendant to PFs. Starting in Y182 they achieved X-tech.
That's a period of (minimum) 169 years of no new ship technology, followed by a burst of advancement through copycat observation, at which point they seem to be keeping pace with the Alpha empires.
This had me thinking, we know there are Jindarians in Omega (they must be quite a bit different in that they have a permanent state of some description in the form of the Jindarian Freehold), and there are Jindarians in the LMC (who have made the most consequential contribution to SFU lore of all the Jindarians in their sharing of asteroid shipyard tech to the Cloud guerillas). If it took 169 years (at least) for Alpha to come up with something the Jindarians decided was worth copying, is there anything in all of Omega and the LMC worth copying?
In other words, would the Jindarians of Omega, and the Jindarians of the LMC still be using their year-in-service-Y1 ships exclusively, or would they have some local variants that copied concepts from their neighbours, similar to how the Alpha Jindarians copied attrition units and X-tech from the residents of the Alpha Octant?
SPP:
Thank you for the above clarification.
Shawn Gordon:
It's noted in Module C5 that the LMC-Jindarians never deployed fighters or PFs. It also stated that they hadn't deployed X-ships either, but that has since been adjusted by a note in Module X1R stating that they did in fact deploy X-technology in the wake of Operation Unity.
Perhaps a would-be "Module C5R" could go into more detail on exactly what the LMC-Jindarians might have deployed (or not). But I might suggest that C5R, were it to one day exist, ought to wait until after Module X2 is printed, so that the "post-Unity" history of the Cloud can be more fully developed.
As for the Jindarians of Omega, there is a discussion thread which, among other things, considers what the Freehold itself might look like, and what kind of unique developments the Jindarians of the Omega Octant at large might pursue.
For my part, I could well imagine the Omega-Jindarians acquiring fighters and "volatile warp" fast patrol ships at some point, as well as "Mæsron-type" first-generation X-ships (should we ever find out what those look like).
Thanks Gary!
I've read through the links Gary posted, and I think I've come to a somewhat boring conclusion.
The Jindarians haven't copied anyone's specific technologies, which is to say that Jindarians exposed to Feds don't start using photons, and Jindarians exposed to Lyrans don't start using ESGs. X-tech seems the exception at first, but it isn't really. X-tech isn't one specific thing, it's a set of overall improved technologies that made their way onto raiders, and those raiders look different for each empire. Correct me if I'm wrong.
What they've done is copied the major doctrines of the empires they're near. In Alpha this means 'war' classes, attrition units, first fighters, then heavy fighters, interceptors, and PFs, as well as X-tech.
The LMC produced nothing worth copying. They produced war classes, and attrition units, but we already know the Jindarians didn't copy these concepts there. What does that leave in the LMC? Their shields are different, but they don't seem worth the transition cost, especially since Jindarian asteroid ships don't really rely on their shields, they rely on their enormous armour banks, which are a consequence of them being asteroids. Maybe their metal-hulled ships could do with an LMC-shield version? I'm not sure it's necessary though. I think the LMC Jindarians just keep using their Y1 ships until Unity.
The Omega Octant though is a different story. You have all the same doctrinal shifts present as Alpha, 'war' classes, attrition units, and X-tech, and they do it a different way than Alpha does it. I can see the Jindarians there having different fighters and different PFs, but I can also see them settling on the same designs as Alpha. It would be more interesting to have Jindarian gunboats that are of a different type than Alpha's (the volatile warp engines make for a different type of Jindarian PF flotilla than a WBP-equipped one for instance). This isn't necessary really, but it would be neat. The real divergence depends on what happens with Omega X-tech, which as you point out in those linked posts, isn't yet set in stone.
I think from a design perspective answering these questions depends on X2 (like so much else). Let me explain:
X2, whatever it looks like, will be the convergence of several new techs. Like the Dreadnought (the real life battleship), whatever X2 is will be the culmination of several technological and design trends in a new built-to-purpose body that will make all that came before obsolete.
Imagine every X-technology as a specific attribute. Better batteries might be "A" and better engines might be "B" with X-phasers being "C" etc.
X1 in the Alpha Octant might be ships with these attributes:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G
And X2 might have the following attributes everywhere in the galaxy:
B, C, D, F, G, H, I, J, L
And once X2 exists, X1 in Omega could be back-engineered to have a selection of attributes that made it into X2 but were missing from Alpha X1, be missing some of the pieces of X1 in Alpha, and might have some unique stop-gap techs that get dropped since X2 is better at those things. So, it might look like:
B, C, F, H, J, K, M
And then, the Jindarian X1-ships from Omega would have those Omega X1 attributes, whatever they are. Knowing what the destination looks like would make drawing the path there a lot easier.
(To make my X2 tangent even more clear, imagine X2 ships have [1: range 6 tractor beams], [2: strength 5 batteries], [3: improved phasers], [4: improved heavy weapons], [5: integrity fields], and [6: built-in ECCM bonuses]. Alpha X1 ships have [7: strength 3 batteries], [3: improved phasers], [4: improved heavy weapons], and [6: built-in ECCM bonuses], but are missing [2: strength 5 batteries], [5: integrity fields] and [1: range 6 tractor beams]. Omega X1 ships might have [1: range 6 tractor beams], [2: strength 5 batteries], and [4: improved heavy weapons], but are missing the [3: improved phasers] and [6: built-in ECCM bonuses] from Alpha X1 ships, and X1 ships nowhere have [5: integrity fields].)
Which is to say, the Jindarians of the LMC probably are just boring vanilla 100 millennia old Jindarians, and the Jindarians of Omega, might have, but don't necessarily need to have, unique attributes (we'll need to wait and see).
I recall SPP saying something like the Jindarians may be hiding from something and have all those capabilities before the other powers do, but don't use them so as not to stick out (until those capabilities are in general use by the empires around them).
YMMV.
Yes, IIRC it's canon that the Jindarians are hiding from something (we don't know what, and the Jindarians aren't telling). Even if they had x-tech 1,000 years ago, they may well not have used it simply because it's expensive and not needed to deal with planet-based empires, given the Jindarians' natural advantages in an asteroid field. The enemy, whatever it is, is probably so overwhelmingly powerful that hiding and spreading out over a vast area of space is the only way to be sure that it doesn't kill all the Jindarians.
The problem is that Omega is no longer isolated from Alpha, neither is the Magellanic Cloud isolated from Alpha.
Once Unity arrived in the Magellanic Cloud, it only made sense to transfer technology for X ships to keep the Andromedans at bay. The Magellanic Cloud is seriously disrupted and going to take a lot of effort to rebuild, but Alpha needs to rebuild also. So you need to strengthen the Cloud to resist any attempt by the Andromendans to re-impose themselves on the weakened forces there, and you cannot leave a large Alpha octant garrison.
Once Alpha followed the RTN link to Omega, well Omega seems to be undergoing a new invasion. Providing X tech to the FRA will provide it to the Mæsron, and so on.
Oh interesting.
Does this mean that Omega will be using Alpha-type X1 tech, and not some indigenously developed alternative?