SPOILER end of the MA

Annachie wrote:Hence LAC's and missiles pods.

Cheap, better than anything they've seen, and can be made not actually SOTA. (Pre Grayson compensators, no bucklers, etc)

And visibly what the SEM are using for lesser systems in Talbot.

OK, the SEM are using SOTA, but the idea is still there.

Set up yards in Talbot and it's a good little economy boost.


Yes there are trade offs. Difficulty with stuff beyond the limit.
But for old verge worlds, it's a feasable soloution.

As RFC posted, LACs and pods are best at defending fixed positions. Hypercapable units are best at defending large volumes of space because they can micro jump accross the system if need be. Against pirates, any warship works to scare them off. They aren't in the business of taking damage.

Against conquistadores, however, they do need a competitive advantage. That's where local/regional defense alliances come in. Such alliances can chip in to buy those GA designed export models. Even models that redesign RoH units with 1900's RMN hardware to enable heavy automation. They won't be nearly as automated as current RMN designs, but they will be much more effective than SLN designs. As Kzt mentions, this will take time. Not so much time that the yards in Silesia and the RTU can't begin to make a dent in the porjected demand with their current designs. This doesn't even begin include the RoH yards (outside of Bolthole). I recall that those yards were limited to lighter units.

Existing design from Silesian, Quadrant and RoH yards can fill immediate needs. Decommissioned RoH units can help as well. Better designs will be ready when those regional alliances are ready to purchase units.

PeterZ wrote:

Annachie wrote:Hence LAC's and missiles pods.

Cheap, better than anything they've seen, and can be made not actually SOTA. (Pre Grayson compensators, no bucklers, etc)

And visibly what the SEM are using for lesser systems in Talbot.

OK, the SEM are using SOTA, but the idea is still there.

Set up yards in Talbot and it's a good little economy boost.


Yes there are trade offs. Difficulty with stuff beyond the limit.
But for old verge worlds, it's a feasable soloution.

As RFC posted, LACs and pods are best at defending fixed positions. Hypercapable units are best at defending large volumes of space because they can micro jump accross the system if need be. Against pirates, any warship works to scare them off. They aren't in the business of taking damage.

Against conquistadores, however, they do need a competitive advantage. That's where local/regional defense alliances come in. Such alliances can chip in to buy those GA designed export models. Even models that redesign RoH units with 1900's RMN hardware to enable heavy automation. They won't be nearly as automated as current RMN designs, but they will be much more effective than SLN designs. As Kzt mentions, this will take time. Not so much time that the yards in Silesia and the RTU can't begin to make a dent in the porjected demand with their current designs. This doesn't even begin include the RoH yards (outside of Bolthole). I recall that those yards were limited to lighter units.

Existing design from Silesian, Quadrant and RoH yards can fill immediate needs. Decommissioned RoH units can help as well. Better designs will be ready when those regional alliances are ready to purchase units.

It would make sense to come up with specific defenses against pirates rather than simply look for defense. Pirates generally go for their prey a reasonable distance from planets particularly if there are defenses around. The last thing they want is a real fight. Losing means death for all of them and a badly damaged ship can be more easily tracked and destroyed.

More Hermes buoys, more versatile ones, might be around. If a ship turned up and was picked up on one of them and a planet knows something might be wrong, some LACs could be sent up in a passive mode.

ldwechsler wrote:It would make sense to come up with specific defenses against pirates rather than simply look for defense. Pirates generally go for their prey a reasonable distance from planets particularly if there are defenses around. The last thing they want is a real fight. Losing means death for all of them and a badly damaged ship can be more easily tracked and destroyed.

More Hermes buoys, more versatile ones, might be around. If a ship turned up and was picked up on one of them and a planet knows something might be wrong, some LACs could be sent up in a passive mode.

That might work or the pirate might move the LACs out of position, then microjump to their original target. Deploying enough LACs might be more expensive than deploying few hyper capable ships.

Effective anti pirate-defenses are likely to have 1-2 DDs or a CL backed up by LACs and pods. That's a lot on money for a Verge system. That may well be manageable for an ex-protectorate that has an export product to the Core and enough Transtellar financed infrastructure. Verge worlds without any deep space industry can make do with LACs and pods to defend their orbitals.

95% of a pirates targets will be within the limit.

It's the nature of the target.

Merchies don't generally trundle through normal space when they are outside the limits, they jump.
Those places where you do see merchies in normal space outside the limit are already beyond the basic defense type anyway. Or you have bulk ore carriers and they rarely get attacked.

Take it up with RFC.

Annachie wrote:95% of a pirates targets will be within the limit.

It's the nature of the target.

Merchies don't generally trundle through normal space when they are outside the limits, they jump.
Those places where you do see merchies in normal space outside the limit are already beyond the basic defense type anyway. Or you have bulk ore carriers and they rarely get attacked.

Annachie wrote:95% of a pirates targets will be within the limit.

It's the nature of the target.

Merchies don't generally trundle through normal space when they are outside the limits, they jump.
Those places where you do see merchies in normal space outside the limit are already beyond the basic defense type anyway. Or you have bulk ore carriers and they rarely get attacked.

Anna, I do not believe that is what RFC said.

Annachie wrote:95% of a pirates targets will be within the limit.

It's the nature of the target.

Merchies don't generally trundle through normal space when they are outside the limits, they jump.
Those places where you do see merchies in normal space outside the limit are already beyond the basic defense type anyway. Or you have bulk ore carriers and they rarely get attacked.

Merchants are not generally noted for their astonishing feats of astrogation that land then within half a light minute of the limit but not inside the limit.

ywing14 wrote:

Sigs wrote:
So they send a representative requesting GA protection for a certain date. Plenty of options were available to them. Hell voting against the Mandarins was there as well.

And a quarter of the delegates voted against the Mandarins too.

It's not black and white, if a potential system asks for military assistance before a internal systemwide vote they risk nullifying the results, if they don't ask they risk getting a visit from the SLN.

Whats more important is that they have little reason to trust the GA as well, most of them would have wanted nothing more then to be left alone, they didn't want to align with the GA and they didn't want to side with the League it's the proverbial rock and a hard place.

PeterZ wrote:

kzt wrote:Not in the verge. You don't get a vote.

And if say 1600 systems all petition for protection, spread out over a volume of 50 million cubic light years, you'd accommodate them how? Keep in mind some of these systems are 200 light years from the nearest worm hole and >800 light years from the nearest of Haven, Manticore and Potsdam.

Give me some idea of how many ships you think Manticore or the AIN are willing to build, crew and dedicate to keeping peace in the galaxy without any recompense. Also keep in mind that you need 3 ships dedicated to the mission to keep one deployed all the time.

Or re you suggesting they pay the true cost of this in some sort of fee? kind of just like they paid the SL for the protection of Frontier Fleet?

Which brings us back to financing those verge and ex-protectorates systems own self defense. There is simply no other way to keep pirates out. Offer them export model warships and financing. Core Worlds that wish to join the GA can bear some of the increased responsibility for providing coverage for developing systems the GA membership believes ought to be accepted for various reasons.

Also, Core worlds that want to do business with verge systems will have to do so on fair terms with GA oversight which should further help fund the industrial expansion of many of those systems.

ywing14 wrote:
I'm not sure how viable financing will be for them given the debt Manticore is running because of the Yawata strike. They've already stated in the books it'll take 20-30 years to pay it off. Throw in what happened to Beowulf and Grayson. I'm not sure how much debt they'll want to put themselves in. I know trade will be reopening now that the war is over but...

In terms of debt I don't think it is too much of a problem, it might take 20-30 years or it might take 100 years but at the end of the day if the GA improves the verge and thus opens all sorts of new markets and sources of revenue with them it might very well be worth it 100 years down the road and with prolong they can take the long view safely. Carrying national debt for good reasons is fine, carrying national debt for stupid reasons not so much.