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Questions about Anti-FTL and Link Device Technology
- Thread starter Toshiro
- Start date
A
ArsenicJohn
If my ship can't use graviton beams to restrain ships then that definitely limits our options a bit. It's disturbing that two people can interpret the rules so differently. Good rules have only one interpretation and I'm not sure which is right in this case. o.x
Zack
Inactive Member
A graviton beam being used to stop FTL is just an interdiction beam.
A graviton beam pointed out in all directions is just an interdiction field.
Is there any way to lessen the effects of a graviton beam shutting down your FTL? If so, that just means Anti-interdiction tech is back.
A graviton beam pointed out in all directions is just an interdiction field.
Is there any way to lessen the effects of a graviton beam shutting down your FTL? If so, that just means Anti-interdiction tech is back.
FrostJaeger
Banned Member
I think the gist of it is that your Hayai-class Gunboat can no longer press a button to shut down FTL travel for anything it wants, but you can still have your science dude use his magic science station to delay an enemy's FTL capability somehow with a graviton beam.
That's just how I'm understanding what was already explained and believe it pre-resolves your specific follow-ups, though.
FrostJaeger
Banned Member
We...don't? When hit with a graviton beam, the defending ship can...
- Science its way out by "counteracting" the graviton beam with the power of SCIENCE.
- Shoot its way out by blowing up whatever's projecting the graviton beam.
- Manuever its way out by "shearing" the graviton beam off.
- Creativity its way out by placing an object between itself and the graviton beam.
Syaoran
Retired Staff
I think the big difference between a gravity beam and interdiction is. Interdiction means you interrupt their FTL with a field or some kinda system. The gravity beam, unless you're Scotty and shooting a bullet with anotehr bullet while blindfold and riding on the back of a horse, is being used to prevent form from entering FTL in the first place. So one is pulling them out and ambushing, the other is simply not letting them run.
A
ArsenicJohn
Yeah, the question became to me because of my new plot. In the case of my plot, we're privateers so it's very useful to keep our target ship from running. I imagine there are many ways to get out of a graviton beam.
Legix
Inactive Member
Frost pointed out just 4. There's definitely ways, but this is also a thing to point out a very common tactic in other settings to compensate for interdiction-slipping.
Swarm Tactics
Rather than have one ship, most pirates would use multiple smaller ships. In the case of graviton beams, it means that you can interdict the target from multiple directions as well as harass them. It also tends to be more cost effective having 3 smaller ships rather than 1 large ship, since you can often sacrifice one to save the other two if a job goes wrong instead of potentially lose your ship/suffer extreme damage trying to escape.
A
ArsenicJohn
Yeah, eventually we may have more ships. Right now we have a pretty good-sized Freespacer ship designed specifically for privateering tbh. If we make enough bank and enough interest we'll start our own little fiefdom out in the southeast.
Syaoran
Retired Staff
It also makes sense for a gravity beam to effect you before you enter FTL but not once you're already in it. I don't know the exact ways, but physics does say that once an object is moving at (or in this case past) the speed of light, gravity effects it differently. So we don't even have to put any restrictions on gravity beams, just say that once you're actually FTL, they can't cause enough interference to actually stop the FTL.
Also one really good way to get out of a gravity beam is just fire on the opposing ship. If you can't figure out how to get out of a gravity beam, then maybe this'll be a good thing for you, you can broaden your tactical thinking this way.
Also one really good way to get out of a gravity beam is just fire on the opposing ship. If you can't figure out how to get out of a gravity beam, then maybe this'll be a good thing for you, you can broaden your tactical thinking this way.
Charmaylarg Dufrain
🎖️ Game Master
Figures this thread is appropriate instead of starting a new one being on the topic of interdiction and anti-FTL~
Friends! For the kuvexian war im attempting a kind of "Armed toll road" in the kikyo sector. A desperate admiral with limited resources and NAM personnel on hand and just barely enough marines to entrench and hold their ground are seeking to halt a kuvexian battlegroup in the space between the Colonial expanse and volatile spacer....space..
(image is at this time an example and does not represent the scale, size, names, or anything of the free range yet. All are subject to change.)
The point of this is to create a barrier of worlds with anti-ship ground batteries and natural hazards like minefields, Ambushing 3rd AF ships, Asteroid fields, And natural phenomina to slow down and hold kuvexian ships and forces from circumventing nepleslia's defences to assault the northern lorath territories or the vulnerable north of the colonial expanse.
onto the point of posting all this in this thread:
To avoid the kuvexians simply... Jumping through this blockade and defences i was planning on messing with their FTL somehow and would like to know the best and non-troublesome course to accomplish this without breaking interdiction bans.
My original plan was:
Using either gates or satellites and stations to channel the natural interference of the Huge black hole to a series of stations made to detect oncoming ships in FTL and force them out of FTL the same way such ships would likely have countermeasures to ensure they dont fly into a sun or black hole in their way. And then using these same means to keep them from jumping out of the free range by confusing their instruments that if they did jump it would be a random and blind jump that could end them anywhere nearby (Like in the volatile and hazardous spacer territory, the nearby black hole, or a nearby nebula). Forcing them to travel naturally through the free range and its systems to track down and destroy these installations (Some of them planetside) so if they wish to continue they must take a costly toll in time to either find their way out of the free range naturally or take on well defended sites by the NSN and NSMC to create avenues of egress.
My plan here isnt to bring back interdiction for nepleslia or create a new standard of neps messing with anti-FTL. But a one time use of this narrative for the sake of the war and a leaderless fleet trying to scrape together ships and resources to hold back a numerically and technologically superior enemy by what means they can.
Is this possible without breaking anti-FTL stances (this isnt for faction building power creep or PVP reasons and isnt a permanent fixture in the territory and would end with the end of the war or the rest of the 3rd AF arriving to hold the line) and would it possibly be allowed if it isnt for the sake of the war, @Wes . It isnt super advanced tech or anything unique. Just throwing interference into an area to stall an inevitable push until reinforcements can arrive.
And if not and im not allowed to can someone offer some kind of alternative since any ship in setting can literally just jump outside the core of nepleslia, even an entire fleet, and overwhelm any defence before they can get reinforcements with no way to stop them?
Friends! For the kuvexian war im attempting a kind of "Armed toll road" in the kikyo sector. A desperate admiral with limited resources and NAM personnel on hand and just barely enough marines to entrench and hold their ground are seeking to halt a kuvexian battlegroup in the space between the Colonial expanse and volatile spacer....space..
(image is at this time an example and does not represent the scale, size, names, or anything of the free range yet. All are subject to change.)
The point of this is to create a barrier of worlds with anti-ship ground batteries and natural hazards like minefields, Ambushing 3rd AF ships, Asteroid fields, And natural phenomina to slow down and hold kuvexian ships and forces from circumventing nepleslia's defences to assault the northern lorath territories or the vulnerable north of the colonial expanse.
onto the point of posting all this in this thread:
To avoid the kuvexians simply... Jumping through this blockade and defences i was planning on messing with their FTL somehow and would like to know the best and non-troublesome course to accomplish this without breaking interdiction bans.
My original plan was:
Using either gates or satellites and stations to channel the natural interference of the Huge black hole to a series of stations made to detect oncoming ships in FTL and force them out of FTL the same way such ships would likely have countermeasures to ensure they dont fly into a sun or black hole in their way. And then using these same means to keep them from jumping out of the free range by confusing their instruments that if they did jump it would be a random and blind jump that could end them anywhere nearby (Like in the volatile and hazardous spacer territory, the nearby black hole, or a nearby nebula). Forcing them to travel naturally through the free range and its systems to track down and destroy these installations (Some of them planetside) so if they wish to continue they must take a costly toll in time to either find their way out of the free range naturally or take on well defended sites by the NSN and NSMC to create avenues of egress.
My plan here isnt to bring back interdiction for nepleslia or create a new standard of neps messing with anti-FTL. But a one time use of this narrative for the sake of the war and a leaderless fleet trying to scrape together ships and resources to hold back a numerically and technologically superior enemy by what means they can.
Is this possible without breaking anti-FTL stances (this isnt for faction building power creep or PVP reasons and isnt a permanent fixture in the territory and would end with the end of the war or the rest of the 3rd AF arriving to hold the line) and would it possibly be allowed if it isnt for the sake of the war, @Wes . It isnt super advanced tech or anything unique. Just throwing interference into an area to stall an inevitable push until reinforcements can arrive.
And if not and im not allowed to can someone offer some kind of alternative since any ship in setting can literally just jump outside the core of nepleslia, even an entire fleet, and overwhelm any defence before they can get reinforcements with no way to stop them?
Toshiro
Inactive Member
I know that wormholes inside the gravitational influence of a star are not allowed because I tried to get a modernized Link Device for power generation purposes passed. Wes rejected it and all permutations of the technology soundly for violating the modern rules. Using wormholes to 'bleed' a black hole's gravitational influence on demand into a system would fail for the very same reasons.
I also fail to see why the Kuvexians would attack this area of dead space instead of going around the whole thing. A 'toll road' doesn't really work in open space. It would be interesting from a narrative perspective, but interstellar entrenchments like this seem outright incompatible with space warfare.
The rules have changed, and with them so must the tactics employed. That's what I'm working on figuring out for Yamatai. There is no more "line" as drawn on the maps, those are now solely for expansion rights and treaty details, but the defensible 'line' is the edge of the star system. While nebulae have mass and gravity, and could thus be giant FTL dead zones if dense enough to simulate a star system's gravity, they work for your guys just as well and fail in being blockades if they lack 100% coverage, as shown by the conquest of the KMS.
One obvious thing you can do to make it costly for the Kuvexians is to employ FTL ramming tactics with small, obsolesced vessels or FTL-laden shuttles rigged to blow on impact, and place them at points allowing them to respond to inbounds that may be potentially faster in top speed. Enemy approaches, try to FTL ram them. Not a 100% sure thing, but enough to be risky for the enemy and deny them freedom of movement. Huge fleets like the ones Kuvexians employ would find this particularly problematic, as would slower vessels like the opportunists following them.
It's just no longer possible to 'cordon off' an area of interstellar space. War has to change accordingly...and hey, the Kuvexians will have the same problems once we go on the offensive~
I also fail to see why the Kuvexians would attack this area of dead space instead of going around the whole thing. A 'toll road' doesn't really work in open space. It would be interesting from a narrative perspective, but interstellar entrenchments like this seem outright incompatible with space warfare.
The rules have changed, and with them so must the tactics employed. That's what I'm working on figuring out for Yamatai. There is no more "line" as drawn on the maps, those are now solely for expansion rights and treaty details, but the defensible 'line' is the edge of the star system. While nebulae have mass and gravity, and could thus be giant FTL dead zones if dense enough to simulate a star system's gravity, they work for your guys just as well and fail in being blockades if they lack 100% coverage, as shown by the conquest of the KMS.
One obvious thing you can do to make it costly for the Kuvexians is to employ FTL ramming tactics with small, obsolesced vessels or FTL-laden shuttles rigged to blow on impact, and place them at points allowing them to respond to inbounds that may be potentially faster in top speed. Enemy approaches, try to FTL ram them. Not a 100% sure thing, but enough to be risky for the enemy and deny them freedom of movement. Huge fleets like the ones Kuvexians employ would find this particularly problematic, as would slower vessels like the opportunists following them.
It's just no longer possible to 'cordon off' an area of interstellar space. War has to change accordingly...and hey, the Kuvexians will have the same problems once we go on the offensive~
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