Topic: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

Certain commonalities run throughout the capital vessels of the titanium cluster.  All are Hull 20 (though I also address a 'light capital' class at hull 16).  All have Engines 2 and Shields 5.  All are Armor Plated.  Almost all have Fire Control and Countermeasures.  None mount Hyperdrives, and almost all have 8-12 Marines and half that number of transporters to deliver them.

As a result, these ships are obviously designed, and intended, to play together as parts of a single setting, rather than 'at large' in the SM:AE universe.  Interestingly, the capital vessels are more similar, at least in terms of speed, size, and defenses than has classically been the real world scenario.  The primary differences appear in their armament, as if all the races were building from the same 'blueprint', but applying different daughter technologies.  One wonders if we are looking at a semi-dark-ages 'after collapse of empire' style setting.

In any event, on to the ships!

Okhani Northern Union Ooshookhan Dreadnought:
The Heavy Particle Lances are potentially horrifying.  With 2 Impact Rolls for 2 damage each, each one double damage extra hull damage, a single weapon can expect to generate 12 Hull damage, if it hits and both impact rolls penetrate.  However, the anticipated damage, especially at long range, is about the same in Pulse mode, given the greater accuracy (and discounting the impact of AOE against multiple targets).  The Rail Cannon will actually serve the big beast better against its cousins, and the Okhani Northern Union will probably want to close to Range 12 with other capital vessels, while using the Heavy Particle Arrays in either lance mode, to remove medium-sized vessels in one or two shots, or in Pulse mode to wipe out the swarms of fighters and torpedos that are endemic to the setting.  The Rail Cannons will open up their cousins sheilds.
The Sentinel Defense Turrets will serve in the anti-fighter role, but the Ooshookhan really relies on escorting vessels, or in judicious use of pulse mode at long ranges (before fighters can escape the ponderous vessels limited arc) to cut down the number of incoming fighters/seekers/etc.

Khirokh Central Empire Peirimal Class Dreadnought:
The Grav Lance Replaces the Heavy Particle Arrays 'Lance' Mode as a long range ship killer.  The three Grav Lances, especially with the 'piercing' mod, will allow the Perimal to out-shoot the Ooshookhan in the longer range bands.  The anti-fighter role of 'pulse mode' is taken over by the Heavy-Mass Fusion Cannons.  Though they lack the massive ROF of the Pulse Mode Arrays above, their much greater numbers (7 v. 2) and wider coverage offsets this.  The double-damage 'Mass' Mode makes a decent secondary armament.  Close in defense, with the Grav mines, should be hiedously effective.. the vessel can cover alot of close-in space with ROF 5 AOE.  Coupled with the AOE Fusions and the slow, shielded, accurate, ROF3 Chalrus SuperInterceptors, the Khirokh DN is self-escorting (and the Chalrus will be relatively mean, due to piercing, in an anti-ship role).  Its weakness, inasmuch as it has one, seems to be in dealing with multiple middle-weight opponents.  The limited arc of hte Grav Lance, coupled with the short range of the Grav Mines, means that the Perimal really depends on its 2 fighter groups and Fusion Cannons against agile, well armed light cruisers, and could get in trouble alone against them.  Still, on the whole, superior to the first DN discussed, though the lack of countermeasures means that it will suffer some accuracy disadvantage at longer ranges against its more-common Fire Control+Countermeasures opponents.

Multi-State Alliance Shokhalath System Control Ship
Something of the bastard child of a DN and a CV (still over 1200 points without its fighters), the Shokalath is elegant.  Its Gatling Cannons, with their limited cross-bore coverage (6 guns, 1 arc each) provide little effective point defense.  However, a total of 40 ROF 3 Fighters -do- provide effective point defense.  The Heavy Ion/Mass Driver is interesting.  Piercing in both modes, a definite plus in this universe of max-shielded ships, it seems to rely on the Ion Mode to produce buckets O damage to cripple enemy capships, and Mass Mode either to finish the target off or to shoot lighter vessels.  On the whole, the two modes seem a bit too similar to really get the juice out of dual mode weapons.
Self-Escorting, due to its fighters, and with at least some response against any likely opponent, the Shokhalath is really only let down by its 2000 point price tag.  Also, 640 of its BV is tied up in highly powerful, but relatively fragile, fighters that will, if care is not used, quickly fall prey to the plethora of AOE anti-fighter options found in the cluster.

Nexus Allied Powers Mahkhogran Class Dreadnought
Stock systems, size, and speed, here.  Point Defense attempts to make up for the lack of on-board fighters or anti-fighter weapons.  Although the Bolt Mode of the Nexus Beams suggests additional anti-fighter use, the very ppor arcs, coupled with the 3 IMP, 2 DMG, and Double-Damage make it clear that Bolt Mode is meant to break up concentrations of mid-to-large ships (anything smaller will stay out of arc).
The lack of range modifiers, coupled with the good accuracy of the Pulse Mode, suggests another vessel best suited to long range combat... a suggestion that the lack of any close-in weapons or real anti-fighter defenses supports.  Excellent at its role, but very, very vulnerable, the Mahkhogran should never be allowed out on its own, the Nexus Player will have to make very sure he keeps the support ships for the Mahkhorgran alive long enough to capitalize on its 16 to-hit, 48 Impact, 96 Damage dice of range 15 no-range-modifiers misery, and thus ensure that the Mahkhogran does not end up unsupported.  The lack of piercing on its primary guns may be problematic against other capital vessels, however...

Khonilka-Yan Imperium Khalakhor Heavy Battleship
Winning the award for 'Best Designed Dual Purpose Weapon in the Cluster', the Heavy Laser/Pulse Cannon has a highly effective anti-fighter flavor (though the 2 impact is a bit wasted, everythign shouldnt have to be perfect, and will make it a fairly decent weapon against strikeboats), and a Piercing, Double Damage, No-Range-Modifiers anti-ship mode that is a well balanced capship killer.   The three Nexus Cannons cover short and mid-range dual-purpose duties, being decent in the anti-fighter and anti-strikeboat role.
Better alone than some ships, the Khalakhor will still suffer from a serious vuneraiblity to fighter swarms, as fighters should have little trouble evading the A-B arcs, and the Nexus Cannons just cannot swat down enough.

I'Ter'Kor Alliance No-Khantai Dreadnought
Take a Khalakhor.  Rip off the Nexus Cannon, and downgrade the Lasers.  Add some mines and 200 points worth of very strange, highly innacurate, piercing, AOE??? fighters.   Likely to perform reasonably well, and flies better solo than the Khalakhor due to the wider coverage on its primary weapons, but will have trouble focusing firepower on point-targets at range, and (like many capships in the cluster) will be very vulnerable to firepower destruction due to the very small number of weapons... especially with the 'double' damage' weapons prevalent, one die roll could easily strip half of a capships firepower.
On the whole, feels like a variant of hte Khalakhor hull.. how closely are those two empires related?


Conclusion:
Interesting.  Id like to put them on a table to see how differently they play from one another... whether the subtle enginnering differences create interesting, subtle but meaningful tactical differenecs (I give you the Kzin, Klingon, and Black Shark Tourney Cruisers of SFB.  Phasers, Disruptors, Drones... and yet, they play differently in very important ways, especially against each other).  My expectation is those subtle differences could make for good play against each other, but from the standpoint of an 'outsider' race, they will all seem like clones.

Enjoyable, and I pity that I lack the time and energy to write up the rest of the navy!</t>

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

Wow, very detailed descriptions!  Where are the stats for these ships posted?

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

http://mj12games.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1434

I just addressed the capships, and not even all of them.
I had hoped to capture the race 'flavor' in doing so, but alot of those races have alot of their flavor invested in their fighters and strikers... there are some just-bloody-mean torpedoes, among other things.

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

Marcus Smythe wrote:

Certain commonalities run throughout the capital vessels of the titanium cluster.  All are Hull 20 (though I also address a 'light capital' class at hull 16).  All have Engines 2 and Shields 5.  All are Armor Plated.  Almost all have Fire Control and Countermeasures.  None mount Hyperdrives, and almost all have 8-12 Marines and half that number of transporters to deliver them.

I noticed that was the case when I was looking at the new posts.  I'm also curious if the difference in weapons and fighters make for a different feel since all cap ships are high shielded lumbering things. 

In looking at the ship designs, I wondered if any of the 'races' have ever tinkered with the engines of the large cap ships.  It would be interesting to see a race that has a 20 hull ship with a speed of 4. Perhaps there is an external reason for the lumbering ships...

Nice post
-Bren

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

Yeah, me. Im not very well-versed in designing fast ships (although the s'Taal Korai do have some fast ships)

Also, the races grew out of a brainbug that I had with regards to an unusual setting. You could call it a fall-of-empires scenario...

Essentially, the Titanium Cluster was the first stage, but I decided that since I  had the rules with me, and the map, I might as well design the second stage of the universe as well.

The eight races here are essentially the result of an experiment by the Khonilka, a race that existed up to 99.000 years ago. They had had troubles with other races, particularly as they hadn't encountered alien races for a very long time, and wanted to see how early space-age first contacts could happen, and whether races that contacted others early in their history were better or worse off for it. They used a pretty isolated area of space to conduct their massive experiment in, and created the Nexus network which enabled younger races to contact each other once they got in space. However, 100.000 years ago, the Khonilka were able to remove a section of space from the universe at large (the Titanium Cluster), re-organise the systems to their choosing, accelerate the time inside the pocket universe*, and then create a vastly superior Nexus network. The focus of this was to bring two planetary bodies together and tie them together with several Nexus points and encourage both evolution and, when sentient life came around, the creation of a cross-planetary civilisation.

However, 99.000 years ago, the Khonilka went to war and almost all were lost, apart from a small enclave on Khonilka-Yan, which quickly lost their available technology when supplies didn't come.

Then five hundred years before the current date, the resurgent Khonilka-Yan discovered the system that was acting as the powerplant keeping the Titanium Cluster in its pocket universe, just as the Okhani-Khirokh were about to travel through the Nexus point to an asteroid out in the system. With the de-activation of the powerplant, the Titanium Cluster 'snapped' back into the universe.

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

Heck, I might design another setting in a few weeks.

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

Impressive stats on interesting ships.  I noted that there are no weapons that shoot farther than 15.  Given that ranges can to up 24 and 30, most of the larger, but slow ships are vulnerable to faster ships carrying weapons of range 24 and 30.  Perhaps each of the bigships should have a long range weapon(s).  If not, they are vulnerable to ships such as my USS Mississippi design:

USS Mississippi, CR=980; Hull=14, Engines=6, Shields=4
Main Battery is 14 Inch Plasma Guns;
Range=30, ROF=1, Acc=3+, Imp=1, Dmg=2 w/ Piercing;
Battery X = 6x[GHIJK]
Battery Y = 6x[HIJKL];
Special = Hyperdrive + Armor Plating + AF batteries + etc...

Just like the WW2 Battleship USS Mississippi, but not a complex design
My fleet also has DDGs that carry strikers and will have a ship or two with an Area-Of-Effect weapon. I will call them the volcano class.


This is not ment as a criticism, but is an attempt to be helpful. 8)

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

I agree up to a point with Bewoulf.  A low speed, coupled with less than maximum range weaponry, is begging for trouble.

But in defense of the Titanium Cluster:
1.)  Its a setting piece.  Nothing in the setting has a range >15.  That in part may be what allows these things to wallow about like solid-iron battlepigs that they are.
2.)  One of the setting bits seems to be TL=0.  TL=0 means you can be, at most, 2 of 3:  Well Armed, Tough, or Fast.  For DNs, they chose Well Armed and Tough.  I cant question that.
3.)  Weapons over range 18 are an optional rule.  Despite the fact that this is a points-balanced game, and a very well points-balanced game, the use of custom-designed maximum-win optional-rule enabled craft against flavor-designed maximum-setting-appropriate core-rule craft MAY somewhat void the warranty on balance. 

In short, yes, your fleet would likely annihiliate its points, or more than its points, in Titanium Cluster ships while taking moderate casulties at best.  Thats not necessarily a 'flaw' on the part of the Titanium Cluster (unless they are meant to be entered in a 'King of the Hill' fleet tourney), or even a 'flaw' with your U.S.S. Navy Fleet.  Heck, I like building 'Faster, Battleship, Kill!  Kill!' fleets as much as the next guy.

I just dont expect them to play even with flavor fleets.. which most book fleets are.

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

I understand what Marcus is saying. 
I have never played against "book ships", and would not really enjoy playing someone else's designs; I like playing my own designs.
The Starmada games I play up here in Jacksonville, and down in S. Florida all have long range weapons on the players' ships that would devistate most the book ships.  The same situation usually happened in BattleTech.  My home-built 'mechs usually devistated the "book mechs". :shock:
Since my ships were designed using official Starmada rules, etc, I consider them book ships too... 8)

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

Remind me to introduce you to the Panzermech sometime.   :twisted:

Re: Capital Vessels of the Titanium Cluster

Beowulf, I've got a tourney format that I think you'd hate...

It would be eminently suitable for Starmada.

I'll post it in another thread.