Archive through March 28, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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Gorn vs Paravian Blockade Campaign:
Archive through March 28, 2004
For inclusion in Y1R, I'm thinking of trying to work up a campaign (not a mini-campaign) covering the imposition of the Paravian Blockade by the Gorn.
This is an early years campaign. I realize there are mixed views on the speed of the blockade, but in order to make it interesting, I'm going to make it a fairly long action as the Gorn slowly strangle and force back the Paravians. The basic idea is that the Gorn start by blockading the entire system and then slowly fight their way inward, planet by planet until they can establish a close blockade around the homeworld itself.
I'm going to use this topic to put up notes and ideas to get feedback and suggestions. While this will be somewhat of a joint project, I intend to retain full creative control (until/unless SPP/SVC tell me otherwise, of course). One thing I'll particularly be looking for is historical verification (ie make sure I'm not "violating" something already published somewhere).
To start with, here are some broad outlines of where I'm thinking of going.
The campaing will play out with 4 turns per year (ie 2 turns per F&E turn) with the possibility of multiple battles per turn. My hope/plan is that turns will have one major battle (ie large fleet) and some number of squadron and single ship battles, with all being important to both players.
The first turn would be fall (turn 4) of Y85 and represent the first turn the Gorn establish a more or less complete blockade. The campaign would play out until the Paravian homeworld is reduced to pre-spaceflight (with a special Paravian victory of eliminating the blockade). The win/loss would depend on how long it takes the Gorn to achieve the result (and the cost in ships). I'm thinking that the Gorn should be able to achieve the final blockade in 10 to 12 turns (ie 2.5 to 3 years, or sometime in Y87).
Do people think this will work (ie the Paravians aren't likely to truely win the campaign)?
I'm planning on using a "map" of the Paravian homeworld system. This would basically be a "list" of planets in orbit order (each with its important moons). It would include a number of "boxes"/"locations" for other important activities. The goal being it would act to track strategic force locations (on one photocopiable page).
Gary is there any information in GPD (especially in MPB) on the organization of the Paravian home solar system? If not, I'll probably define it here.
Fleet/ship building notes:
I'm currently thinking that the Paravians will have significant excess ship production facility beyond the income from their home system. This represents the fact they've been depending on raiding for decades. This also means there are plenty of targets for the Gorn to hit and the first few won't be disasterous to the Paravians.
I'm currently thinking of having 6 Paravian YDK for ship building. 3 would be on the surface of the homeworld. One in orbit about the homeworld. One on the surface of the Homeworld's major moon and the last in orbit about the moon. Each dockyard would have 2 slips. The first would be a DD slip (although capable of building an FF if desired). The second would be either a CA or CL slip (the CA slips could build a CL, if desired). A YDN (if allowed) could only be built by using both slips of the YDK in orbit about the planet. I'm thinking the YDK in orbit around the homeworld and one YDK on the HW would be able to build YCA, the other 4 would only be able to do YCL.
Paravian ships will take time to build. I'm thinking 2 turns for the YDD, 3 turns (? maybe 4) for the YCL and 4 turns for the YCA. Part of the construction costs would be paid each turn (it would be the same amount each turn, but might be different for the different hulls). The YDN would use a system like for the B10 in F&E.
This gives the Paravians an effective build schedule (on an F&E basis) of something like:
YCA, 2xYCL, 6xYDD per (6 month) F&E turn.
(with one turn receiving an extra YCL, due to the 9 month build time).
This looks DD heavy (given the Paravians seem to have considered their YCL the prime ship at this point). I may upgrade the second slot on one or two YDK to YCL slots (the differenece is partly the faster YDD build time).
The other source of Paravian ships would be random returning raiders each turn (number currently unknown/undecided). They would have to run the Gorn blockade (probably one or more single ship duels). The raiders would also be carrying economic resources in their cargo space (meaning a successful return gives not just another ship hull, but also some actual economic points to spend).
Gorn ships will come on a fairly regular schedule (with the Gorn player allows a little bit of flexibility, maybe?).
Yeah, I've got a little of that done already. 
PARAVIAN HOME SYSTEM
Hex 5001. Binary system, Sparse Oort cloud.
Star #1
Star Class: G0 yellow main sequence star, 1.06 Stellar Masses, Luminosity 1.28.
Planets (in order from primary)
P1: Class-I Hot Rock, no moons. 1,600 mi diameter, orbits at 0.74AU
P2: Class-M (Paravian homeworld), one Class-D moon (1500 km diameter). 7,950 mi diameter, 1.14AU
P3: Class-E super-terrestrial planet (1.7G) with an argon atmosphere. 14,400 mi diameter, 1.54AU
P4: Class-B Cold gas giant with one large Class-R moon and several small Class-D moonlets. 23,100 mi diameter, 2.34AU
Pa: Carbonaceous asteroid belt. 3.16-4.73AU
P5: Class-B cold gas giant with 4 large and 3 small Class-D moons, plus many moonlets. 18,500 mi diameter, 7.14AU
P6: Class-S Methane world, two small Class-P moons. 2,400 mi diameter, 13.54AU
P7: Class-Q Cometary world (captured Kuiper Belt Object) no moons. 800 mi diameter, 23.7-29.0AU.
Star #2
Star Class: M4 red dwarf, 0.29 Stellar Masses, Luminosity 0.02.
Distance from Star #1: 165AU.
One Class-D airless world at 0.4AU, 1600 mi diameter. No moons.
PLANETARY SURVEY: PARAVIA
BASIC INFORMATION
Status: Home and capital planet of the Paravians
Mass: 4.7056 x10^22 Metric Tons (0.8 Earth)
Diameter: 12,790 km (7950 miles)
Surface Area: 513,915,000 sq km (40% ocean, 10% swamp/marsh)
Surface Gravity: 0.8 G
Surface Temperature: 32 C (90 F)
Surface Pressure: 1.33 Atmospheres
Atmospheric Composition: 70% Nitrogen, 25% Oxygen, 3% CO2, 2% Trace gases
Day: 20 hours
Year: 1.19 standard years (520 Paravian days)
Population in Y70: Homeworld 1.7 billion, Colonies and other offworld (total): 3.2 million
COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
Paravia is a small Class-M planet orbiting a bright yellow star. Their homeworld is unremarkable except for its low gravity (0.8 G) and dense atmosphere (20 PSI at sea level, about 1.3 times that of Earth) which undoubtedly contributed to a flying species achieving sentience. The low gravity also affected the terrain; while Earth is mostly flat with some hills and mountains, on Paravia hills, crags, cliffs, and mountains are the norm. Flatland that large grazers and predators could thrive on is mostly absent. Paravia has far less water than Earth. Perhaps 40% of the surface is covered with water; only half of that is in seas and oceans, the rest is in hundreds of large scattered lakes. Another 10% of the surface is covered by swamps and marshes. Rainfall commonly happens daily a few hours after sunset.
As all Paravian ships to date are capable of planetary landing, I've been assming that all SC 3 and 4 shipyards are on the homeworld's surface.
As the YDN is just entering service in Y85, and I cannot imagine how you'd add a third wing to a bird-shaped spacecraft, I'm also assuming that they have one (1) SC2 shipyard, and it is in orbit because the YDN is incapable of surface landings.
Re the Gorns, keep in mind that the Second Gorn-Romulan War has just ended, and the Gorns won. That means that a lot of the ships that have been fighting the Romulans have just been made available to fight the Paravians.
The Paravians are going to be outnumbered in the extreme, not to mention that the Gorns ships will all have combat veteran crews (Regular and a few Elite crews) while the Paravian ships will be mostly Green. Not good news for the Paravians, I'm afraid.
I'm going to say in MPB (assuming SVC doesn't edit it out) that the Paravians were able to complete and launch just one YDN before the Blockade closed, and that it followed Paravian doctrine of acting as a raider. Many small battles against supply lines until a Gorn YCC finally killed it (which would make a nice stand-alone scenario, IMHO).
Thanks Gary, Where can I find a reference to the planet definition you're using? Some are obvious (M, B, S, and I), but I'm not sure the difference between the various moons.
David. My impressions of the Paravians are of are of far smaller scale. My "guess" would have been 1 CL and 2 DD per F&E turn plus 1 CA per year. The Paravian ships have the huge advantage of having internal cargo, allowing them to operate for extended periods without refueling/resupplying. Also, since the Paravians raid and don't colonize, they wouldn't have to have a big fleet for standard patrols.
The Gorns, OTOH, do colonize and have to worry about protecting all of their worlds from Paravian attack. My impression was that this is where the majority of the fleet would be (here and chasing down Paravian raiders).
Anyway, that's just my take YMMV.
You'll note that most of the shipyards are on the surface. I decided on two orbital ones to give the Gorn some targets to hit in early capital raids (ie they don't have to fight all the way to the surface to do damage).
I wasn't going to give them a SC2 shipyard per-se. Instead I was going to let them convert the orbital one over their homeworld to an ad-hoc SC2 shipyard (and pay the price in terms of a variable construction cost--I'm thinking roll one die per turn until the total reaches 36: minimum 6 turns, average 11 turns).
<Edit> Reply to Andy:
First, the construction slots are also going to be needed for repairs and refits (in particular the W->Y refit and, if published, the YDH upgrade).
My thought is that their home system economy will allow something like 6 ships (maybe 8 if all DD) per year and given the need for repairs I'd see them instead usually doing 4 or 5 ships. With additional income from raiding/exploiting, they might be able to double this (although never in the campaign). Their maximum rate is something like triple this, but it won't be possible in the context of the campaign.
So I think we're in agreement.
GURPS KLINGONS page 67. Which you don't have?
M is terrestrial. I is like Mercury, D like Luna, E earthlike but much larger, B Jupiter, S Hydran homeworld, Q Pluto.
SC3-to-SC2 yard conversion doesn't contradict anything I've written. I do agree that the Gorns will take it out in the first volley!
David: I'm trying to finish off the Paravian Racial Profile by tomorrow night.
Give me a couple of days and I'll be happy to compare notes in detail, once I find out what the Steves redline. 
Gary: Isn't waiting 9 years for the G-YCC to be built a bit extreme for the long surviving P-YDN? [Y94 is both YIS for the G-YCC and the Paravians getting the unwanted visit by a sunsnake.] Plus the G-YCC would need 2 G-YDDs in support to even have a balanced fight against the P-YDN. Frankly, the Y85 Gorn fleet is so small and slow that the Paravian YCA has the relative ability you are looking for.
As far as the campaign game goes, I think the Paravians are given a remarkable advantage. Each turn, the Paravians pump out about 600 BPV of ships. Can the Y85 Gorn fleet match the BPV force? Unless there have been some radical reevaluations of the Gorns, a maximum effort fleet of all WBI falls under 540 BPV. Close to suicidal to attack enemies possessing both a BPV advantage and support by various fixed positions.
I had visualized the blockade as a sequence of scenarios wherein Paravian insysten forces sortie to try escort damaged and low on supply W series raiders through the Gorn blockaders. If the Paravians get enough ships through and proceed to upgrade them, driving off the Gorns would prove trivial. Paravians would have very limited builds and limited warships; the Paravians would have to make a choice between upgrading various smaller system defense craft and creating auxilaries out of insystem merchants or conserving their improved technology for enhancing warships.
I don't know how to make a blockade work in SFB. In practise, the Paravians could preserve their strength within the defenses and build up ground bases and never fall. Changing the Paravian history slightly might help. If the Paravians had to get some amount of cargo boxes out of system every turn (to supply theoretical out of system bases), the Paravians could be forced to squander their strengths. If in turn, successful Paravian breakouts lead to stronger returning Paravian forces, the Gorns would be forced to challenge each breakout attempt and not just wait until the Nests are exposed.
Quote:Each turn, the Paravians pump out about 600 BPV of ships. Can the Y85 Gorn fleet match the BPV force? Unless there have been some radical reevaluations of the Gorns, a maximum effort fleet of all WBI falls under 540 BPV. Close to suicidal to attack enemies possessing both a BPV advantage and support by various fixed positions.
I'm not sure where you get the 600 BPV per turn figure from. My intention is for the Paravians to be doing well if they manage 150 BPV per turn (2 ships, 1 a YCA) and they're probably going to be under 100 BPV most turns. If they get all their ships home undamaged a given turn, they might manage 300 BPV (although that would actually be spread over two or three turns).
I'm currently thinking the Gorn should get something like 2xWCI + WDI per turn with a WCI replaced by a WBI once per year (twice?).
Part of making the blockade work is going to be giving the Paravians more targets than they can really defend. Also, I'm thinking of starting them with only WCA, YCL, WCL for command hulls for the entire system (and the WCL is probably going to be forced in combat on the first turn). With a CR of only 4, even a YDD force is going to have problems (the WCI has a CR of 8). And I'm not thinking of many YDD to start (most of the W->Y conversions were used on departing raiders).
The Gorn ship that killed the Paravian YDN should be a WBB with escorts, not a YCC. My error.
The key to understanding how the Gorns could blockade the Paravian homeworld is in SFB rule P2.412 as it takes time to get into space. Turn one is spent launching from the surface, turn two is spent climbing through the atmosphere, and only in turn three can the ships taking off leave the atmosphere and operate normally.
This means that the Gorns have two full turns to kill the ship in the atmosphere, and still have a chance on the third turn. Plenty of time to launch atomic missles and other nasties.
Actually, the Gorn ships of the blockade are the "I" series (WBI, WCI and WDI in CL #21). They have plasma bolts and phasers (the latter being their heavy weapons).
The WBB (and presumably the WBI as well) usually operated in groups of 4. So a maxed out fleet would be something like 8xWBI + WDI. A more standard full fleet would be 4xWBI + 2xWCI + 3xWDI
Gary: If the Gorns are staying withing 5 hexes of the planet, then ground based Paravian fire with drive them away (both bases and ships). If the Gorns start off at a further remove, the launch sequence should look like this:
Late turn #1, Paravian launch QWT before taking off.
Gorns head in to achieve firing position for turn #2
Early turn #2, Paravian launches more QWT and transfers control to ground bases.
While still mired in atmosphere, Paravian launches WW.
How much damage can the Gorn do with Plasma bolts at a +2 or +3 shift against Paravians able to put up hefty reinforcement?
Turn 3, Paravian can kick speed up to 10 which matches the sustained combat speed for a WBI unless the Gorn decides to skip ECCM and the chances of scoring any damage.
If the Paravian ship is not stopped on Turn 3, the Paravians have probably gotten away.
David Kass: I got the 600 BPV from your suggested build schedule of YCA, 2xYCL, 6xYDD. Summed together that comes real close to 600. If the Paravians can keep what is building on the planet safe from Gorn attack until complete, the Paravians could launch an escape with ease. If the Gorns can readily kill incomplete Paravians on the planet, you don't have much of a campaign.
RWW. The Gorns should be able to relatively painlesslessly remove any Paravian ground fire threat. Those WBIs can take a lot of damage.
T1. Fleet of WBIs launch a WW each (range 21 from planet)
T1-T5. WBIs move speed 4 or less toward planet
T6. WBIs open up on ground defenses with, at worst, a 2 shift. After fire, launch more WW and head away.
T?. Come back and do it again. Eventually, they'll be so few defenses left, they can stay and duke it out. Even a YNST can't take R3 fire from 8 WBIs and the NST can't disable more than one WBI a turn at R3-5.
Andy: That implies only 1 Nest by itself. And I certainly hope 540 BPV can destroy 200 BPV. But again, if the bases that would be used to build Paravian ships are destroyed, no ships can attempt to break blockade heading out and no scenarios need to be gamed out.
I expect, for the context of the camaign, a nest would be backed up by some number of ground bases and possibly ships. At range 3, the entire Gorn force would do about 88 points against the nest (figuring on +2 shift and atmosphere effects). If the nest has 2 power modules attached, that would mean the Gorns would just about penetrate the armor (60 box shields and 18 Batteries). Meanwhile, the nest would cripple 1 WBI and then a second on the following turn. The WBIs will need 3 more turns to destroy the nest during which time the nest should knock out an additional WBI plus whatever ground bases and ships do. If the Paravians have 6 phaser-1 bases and a couple of ships, 2 or 3 more WBIs could be destroyed before the nest dies. Sacrificing 6 out of 9 WBI will render the blockade ineffective until replacements can be brought in.
The Paravians can do more by killing WWs at range with phasers and ship launched QWTs. The nest can kill 2 WW a turn out to range 25; closer WWs can be killed with paired QWT. Thus, the Paravians may be able to disable another 2 or 3 WBI if they continue on a slow approach after their WWs are killed off. Blockade is busted open.
Well, regardless, based upon Y1: "Y85. The Gorns succeed in blockading the Paravian homeworld (destroying all orbitting and space-related facilities) and begin hunting down the surviving Paravian raiders."
This tells me that there was a short series of battles to take out the facilities and then the job (at least at the Paravian homeworld) was done. I don't get a sense of a lengthy effort to stop Paravian ships from leaving the planet; returning, perhaps.
The issue at hand was the campaign presented up topic. Hopefully, I have shown that the proposed write up will be too difficult for the Gorns available at the time of the campaign.
I have my own concept of how the historical Paravians were conquered but that would make a poor scenario since the Paravians need to be so weak. It could be played but the only real contest would be how few BPV the Gorn player needs to win.
RWW. I agree with you that the proposed write up is unwinnable by the Gorns. I presented the "best practice" tactic of the Gorns of the era which, as you pointed out, won't succeed against more than a single YNST firepower.
Sorry about not getting back sooner. The core of the campaign will be fighting over the outer part of the Paravian system.
My assumption was that the blockade was established (initially) around the entire solar system. It will slowly contract as the Gorn push the Paravians back towards the homeworld. I realize the text is ambiguous, but IMHO, this is going to be necessary to make the campaign interesting and fun.
By the time the Gorn get to the homeworld, the Paravians will be lucky to produce one ship per turn (60 EPV/turn). And returning raiders will be facing 3 or 4 ship squadrons trying to run the blockade.
I expect it will take the Gorn a significant number of attacks to win the HW battle. Ships on the ground will be difficult to destroy, but will have to traverse one or more open space battles to make it out of the system. The homeworld itself is looking to have 1 NST in orbit and 3 NST on the surface, plus other defenses. If this turns out to be too much, I can reduce the size of the initial defenses. I'm setting it up so the Gorn can chop the HW economy in half by just killing 6 GMS.
The Gorn player will also be able to control the tempo of the HW battle so can wait until reinforcements increase his combat strength sufficiently to take it out.
Richard, you missed my line about the Paravians having excess build capacity. Their schedule may be 600 BPV, but their economy will only support 200 or so. Think F&E Hydrans with only the HW here (but worse). Their facilities are sized for 2/3 of their income to come from returning raiders.
Blockade Operation:
Blockade divided into 6 sectors each with 6 patrol zones (36 total). Gorn deploy units to each patrol zone as desired (can be anything from 0 to a full fleet).
Each returning raider rolls 2 dice to see what it encounters (1 die selects the sector where it arrives, the other the patrol zone in that sector). Breakout raids use the same system (but obviously do not have any cargo aboard and can select the sector to leave through).
As the Gorn penetrate deeper, the number of patrol zones per sector is decreased (reaching 1 when only the HW is left).
There is also the blockade enforcement fleet. This is intended to prevent any major breakouts. The Gorn can instead use this fleet to stop any one raider.
If the Paravian wins two (?) major breakout battles (limits on force replacements for both sides between rounds), they can attack the Gorn
YBS supporting the blockade. Loss of the YBS results in an immediate Paravian victory.
Ships breaking out (either as raiders or through a major breakout) can attack supply lines. This is a convoy attack (1-2 random ships (reinforcements), 1 WDD (escort), 4 freighters). Victory reduces Gorn COI & local repairs next turn.
There will be from 0 to 4 returning raiders per turn.
I'm currently working on the returning raider ship selection and the actual blockade scenario.