Butterfly Note: I see the Marsden Coup and the following revolt, came and were settled early.
Yeah, there have been a few butterflies thus far. The conquest of Rasalhague was delayed a couple years by Smegish deciding to make sure his convoys ran less often but had better protection(though conversely, that did make sure that the Rasalhaguers didn't even attempt to attack his ships), and of course the unification of the CC was moved up and the combat at Taurus moved back due to logistical concerns IRL. The Lyran coup was moved up because of Angler giving Marsden her tacit support - the head of the navy is a powerful ally in a coup, and it'll make his position much more secure, which lets him move sooner.
It didn't affect much in gameplay terms - I'd probably have given you the same budget either way, despite the extra couple years to settle things. I don't want players to feel forced to dive into the poorly-documented history of the setting so that they can write metagame-aware fluff to maximize their budget. But it seemed like a meaningful change from canon, and one worth reflecting in the outcomes at least a little.
Nice.
Yeah, I hoped you'd like that one. It seemed like great riff of the optimism in your fluff, and a good reflection of Etien's downward spiral.
The review is clear, the Phalanx Corvettes were being misused. Evidence has shown that the Phalanx-class was structurally misused by both their captains and several superior officers.
These incompetents have been removed from service, but additional measures will be taken. The Phalanx will be taken out of production and the remaining ships will be pooled together into one independent retaliatory group. They will receive tested captains who have shown that they can operate them as intended.
OOC, do you feel that I've been misusing them? It seemed reasonable enough to have the captain try to actually use his ship once it was stranded, instead of merely await potential repair while stuck in hostile space, but I have noticed that I've tended to beat up the escorts quite a bit thus far. In the case of Lurgatan, I was originally expecting to strand a Galahad instead, but I decided to be fair and roll for it, and the Phalanx was the victim of the drive failure instead. Lady Luck took you to the cleaners on that operation overall - the Capellan plan actually had so many gaping holes(mountains of unprotected JumpShips, launching an invasion with naval
inferiority, etc.) that the commanding officer of the operation was named Admiral Oh Ver Luk in my notes, but they had a perfect luck roll to your near-minimal one, and it saved their asses.
Dumb Random Question: Whats it cost to -move- a shipyard? As in dissassemble and reassmble elsewhere?
I hadn't considered the possibility. Not cheap, certainly. Don't take this as an official ruling, but my first thought is that it would cost as much to move a yard to a new system as it'd cost to build a new one from scratch in a system with a discount(so $5B to move a level 1, $5+10=15B to move a level 2, etc.). Too much of the infrastructure is hard to move - the building happens in stations, which aren't easily KF-mobile, and the supporting factories planetside and work force can't just be dragged a couple hundred light years on a whim either.
Look on the bright side - your best yard complex is way back from the front lines, even if New Kyoto is a bit exposed.
Also - really loved the writing, espc the writing of the Taurian/FS conflict. I think the choice to have it happen early, before the accumulatio of Taurian Forts make it impossible, was a good one - and I really enjoyed the ‘look she already died please go home’ bit.
Also - as Davionista from the days of Battletech 2nd Edition, it is still nice to see them on occasion act like a bullying feudal state rather than ‘the bestest good guys, that ever was’, on occasion.
That wasn't where the timing came from, at least in this case. I look for decent fights when it's practical(also, because even idiot commanders can usually try to avoid fights they're sure to lose), but on this the Feddies moved in pretty quickly once they put two and two together in canon, and the forts simply wouldn't have time to be built. The half-built forts did good things for the Taurians even so, because a lot of the pressure on the Feddies came from them - the fighters couldn't have done it solo. If you look at it, there's actually a lot of things that have happened based on build speeds in the turns. For example, that's why the Marians didn't get their event until 2374, because an AMS design takes two and a half years to build plus time to work up, get loaded, and travel.
The "
Stop, she's already dead!" moment was actually a response to the natural problem of these fights, which is trying to figure out good reasons for fights to stop. I don't want every battle to be fought to annihilation(a few, but not all), but there has to be a reason for the side with the upper hand to not finish the job. That's honestly the aspect of my writing that I'm most worried about exhausting over time, but I do like it when I get some inspiration on that topic. I'd written the battle most of the way through without figuring out how to end it, and then that came to me as a neat wrapping-up of the established plot. I seem to have a pretty good instinct for leaving myself enough dangling plot hooks to write what needs writing, at least thus far.
Re Victor Meredith Susan Steiner-Davion, I tend to set the ethics of the state based on the ruler. The Davions get some good ones later on, but this is kind of a dark era for them. Paul's current reign isn't bad, but Reynard was kind of amoral, and Etien and his spawn are simply awful.
