The Battle of New Adasta: The Air

[Valen Pelora]

@Insalius

We do have one slight issue. For future reference, yes the Corvettes do move slower than stated (60 MGLT = approximately 8 km/s). However, by posting you have confirmed what is in my post (because I did not have a chance to edit).

The Corvettes crossed that distance as stated in my post, meaning one last volley likely would not be released. Your PC still likely escapes the explosion. Please edit the last volley out, I will not contest your PC getting to safety.

Similarly, please confirm the Battle cruiser is inoperable and the Star Destroy has been knocked from the fight. I believe that is what I gathered from your post, but I want to be sure.

 

[Insalius]

According to your last post you never stated what speed your corvette was moving in, only that it and the others were moving in to engage. Engagement speed would be less than full speed as at that point you are too fast to attack or do anything except try to escape. Then you stated the one corvette raced towards my destroyer which implies you had it speed up from it's previous speed, so while my destroyer isn't nimble enough to dodge hence me taking the hit I would have had enough time to fire off my last full volley and get to safety before the explosion. As for the battlecruiser, despite taking some hull damage and it's shields being nearly down, it is still ablet o fire and is still operable. I stated that it's shields were concentrated to the front in full hence my saying it's only about to fall unlike how you stated on your ship that they were spread equally around the ship, which under my similar barrage of fire would put them at failing in a moment under the increased assault. The Destroyer being knocked out is something I believe I already stated but if I did not then I can alter that, but I don't believe the Battlecruiser is out of the fight yet. @Valen Pelora

 

[Dmitri]

@Insalius @Valen Pelora

The battle is currently on pause. Valen's previous post was in the process of being edited due some issues that arose and required editing. Both sides please cease posting in the battle thread until this matter is resolved. This was in the process already prior to Insalius' last post, and should have been communicated to opposite side. Let's try to communicate better in the future. Thanks!

 

[Valen Pelora]

@Insalius @Valen Pelora

The battle is currently on pause. Valen's previous post was in the process of being edited due some issues that arose and required editing. Both sides please cease posting in the battle thread until this matter is resolved. This was in the process already prior to Insalius' last post, and should have been communicated to opposite side. Let's try to communicate better in the future. Thanks!

Well now I'm confused.

 

[Arcangel]

@Insalius post stands, as @Valen Pelora was asked to edit his post by administration due to an incorrect portrayal of ship speeds. As the IC post doesn't partiticularly note how fast the corvettes were thought to be going, only the OOC note in the post, I will be voiding that OOC comment. This should bring the post in line with more reasonable speeds.

 

[Valen Pelora]

@Insalius post stands, as @Valen Pelora was asked to edit his post by administration due to an incorrect portrayal of ship speeds. As the IC post doesn't partiticularly note how fast the corvettes were thought to be going, only the OOC note in the post, I will be voiding that OOC comment. This should bring the post in line with more reasonable speeds.

I literally had no idea this was under official review or was under any sort of time constraints to make edits. I was requested to mke edit at about 11:45PM EST last night, which I had planned on making. I'm very confused on how this all went down. Typically, the other participant of the thread has to request edits or report the post.

For the future, the OOC comments are used (and at least some of us have found helpful) to clarify our IC actions during tacticals.

 

[Arcangel]

I literally had no idea this was under official review or was under any sort of time constraints to make edits. I was requested to mke edit at about 11:45PM EST last night, which I had planned on making. I'm very confused on how this all went down. Typically, the other participant of the thread has to request edits or report the post.

For the future, the OOC comments are used (and at least some of us have found helpful) to clarify our IC actions during tacticals.

Next time please inform your opponent that you were asked to edit by Administration.

Additionally, OOC notes are meant to be more of spark notes for the post, not to add in extra specifications to the post. In the future please refrain from adding important IC information through OOC notes.

 

[Insalius]

I apologize if I sound blunt with this but I just want to give out facts. From what I read there are two main points to your post that prevent me from having destroyed your bridge with you on it. Those being: That I didn't know where the bridge was so I had to take time to find it, and that your corvettes and fighters were in the way to soak up some of the damage so your bridge didn't get the full brunt of the attack. Allow me to argue both of those points.

1. Ship design hasn't changed in years from what I read, so any prepared Commander would already know where the bridge of your ship would be. Especially if they were training constantly for defense and had prepared a specific tactic involving said bridge. It would also have been easy to find it via sensors and cameras looking over the ship for targets and vulnerable points, which a properly programmed targeting suite being used by a competent officer would do. So, I would have already known where the bridge was and it would have taken only how long a computer can process a command to switch targets, which to quantify may have taken half a second.

2. In your last post you said your corvettes were moving to engage my battlecruiser while the frigate was attacking my corvettes, and your fighters had moved to engage my ships and my own fighters. Specifically, you said that the corvettes were firing at my cruiser from both above and below, meaning the center was clear.

After the explosion, the Corvettes and 2 fighter wings would engage the battlecruiser, firing from above and below. They would be careful to employ their shields to protect from the blast. The frigates would continue to fire away at the Imperial Corvettes to dissuade engagement.

This would have been where my attacks would have gone through to get to your flagship, meaning the field of fire was clear. I also never stated I stopped moving my corvettes to get them in range, so they were firing while movng closer from a couple of posts ago. The ones on the right side, that may have been at the edge of their range a post ago, should be well within range now. Their hits would still have taken a toll on your shields, especially since you hadn't concentrated the shields in one direction as I had, they should have been on the verge of falling. If on the off chance that some stray fighters or such wandered into the field of fire, there would still be a significant amount of fire coming at you. According to the tech page, let me put the counts here taking into account a few possible misses and such.

7 Heavy Turbolasers
4 Medium Turbolasers
19 Turbolasers
21 Laser cannons
5 Heavy Ion Cannons
7 Ion cannons
3 Capitol ship-grade Proton Torpedos
3 Assault Concussion Missiles

And this was just what was launched at the beginning of my last post, and again this takes into account possible misses of some of the weaponry to be fair. The missiles would travel slower than the lasers so it would take a few more seconds for them to arrive but even if it took all the heavy turbolasers to break through your shields, you still have all those others hitting your bridge in a matter of seconds. The ion cannons would wipe out electronics on the bridge and surrounding area, preventing doors or lifts from working and possibly affecting life boats. Of which you would have at most 3-5 seconds to get to and launch. Of which then the missiles and torpedos would hit and the resulting explosive force from those, which are filled with enough payload to crack a capitol ship in two, would take out the lifeboat before it could get away.

Another note about the corvettes, if you wanted to move them into the path of the fire, it would take more than a few seconds to do that. They wouldn't be able to just move laterally up or down, their thrusters would only allow them to turn to move into the path of the fire by arcing around while moving forward. It's the same reason a fighter jet IRL and naval ships IRL can't just dodge sideways from missiles and torpedos. They are fairly nimble according to the tech page so they could move and get in the way eventually, but it would take 10 or more seconds at best to even arc around which by then the bridge would have taken a couple more volleys of fire. Even with the Destroyer disabled and some of the battlecruiser's weapons failing due to the fire, the remaining turbolasers, lasers, and ion cannons would still be able to fire from the corvettes as needed.

With all of these arguments, that would mean you would have at best 3-5 seconds to react before your bridge was completely destroyed. Your character should be dead. @Valen Pelora

 

[Valen Pelora]

I apologize if I sound blunt with this but I just want to give out facts. From what I read there are two main points to your post that prevent me from having destroyed your bridge with you on it. Those being: That I didn't know where the bridge was so I had to take time to find it, and that your corvettes and fighters were in the way to soak up some of the damage so your bridge didn't get the full brunt of the attack. Allow me to argue both of those points.

1. Ship design hasn't changed in years from what I read, so any prepared Commander would already know where the bridge of your ship would be. Especially if they were training constantly for defense and had prepared a specific tactic involving said bridge. It would also have been easy to find it via sensors and cameras looking over the ship for targets and vulnerable points, which a properly programmed targeting suite being used by a competent officer would do. So, I would have already known where the bridge was and it would have taken only how long a computer can process a command to switch targets, which to quantify may have taken half a second.

2. In your last post you said your corvettes were moving to engage my battlecruiser while the frigate was attacking my corvettes, and your fighters had moved to engage my ships and my own fighters. Specifically, you said that the corvettes were firing at my cruiser from both above and below, meaning the center was clear.



This would have been where my attacks would have gone through to get to your flagship, meaning the field of fire was clear. I also never stated I stopped moving my corvettes to get them in range, so they were firing while movng closer from a couple of posts ago. The ones on the right side, that may have been at the edge of their range a post ago, should be well within range now. Their hits would still have taken a toll on your shields, especially since you hadn't concentrated the shields in one direction as I had, they should have been on the verge of falling. If on the off chance that some stray fighters or such wandered into the field of fire, there would still be a significant amount of fire coming at you. According to the tech page, let me put the counts here taking into account a few possible misses and such.

7 Heavy Turbolasers
4 Medium Turbolasers
19 Turbolasers
21 Laser cannons
5 Heavy Ion Cannons
7 Ion cannons
3 Capitol ship-grade Proton Torpedos
3 Assault Concussion Missiles

And this was just what was launched at the beginning of my last post, and again this takes into account possible misses of some of the weaponry to be fair. The missiles would travel slower than the lasers so it would take a few more seconds for them to arrive but even if it took all the heavy turbolasers to break through your shields, you still have all those others hitting your bridge in a matter of seconds. The ion cannons would wipe out electronics on the bridge and surrounding area, preventing doors or lifts from working and possibly affecting life boats. Of which you would have at most 3-5 seconds to get to and launch. Of which then the missiles and torpedos would hit and the resulting explosive force from those, which are filled with enough payload to crack a capitol ship in two, would take out the lifeboat before it could get away.

Another note about the corvettes, if you wanted to move them into the path of the fire, it would take more than a few seconds to do that. They wouldn't be able to just move laterally up or down, their thrusters would only allow them to turn to move into the path of the fire by arcing around while moving forward. It's the same reason a fighter jet IRL and naval ships IRL can't just dodge sideways from missiles and torpedos. They are fairly nimble according to the tech page so they could move and get in the way eventually, but it would take 10 or more seconds at best to even arc around which by then the bridge would have taken a couple more volleys of fire. Even with the Destroyer disabled and some of the battlecruiser's weapons failing due to the fire, the remaining turbolasers, lasers, and ion cannons would still be able to fire from the corvettes as needed.

With all of these arguments, that would mean you would have at best 3-5 seconds to react before your bridge was completely destroyed. Your character should be dead. @Valen Pelora

I find it unlikely we are going to agree on this point based on your attempt to kill my character in one fell swoop (a maneuver that is almost always impossible in a PVP setting without any type of preparation). I would like to point out that we have been communicating via discord previously.

• Timing: Blaster bolts (including things like Turbolasers) are slow moving. They are slower than bullets and fairly slow when we consider projectiles. For example, a wrist mounted rocket likely moves faster than a blaster bolt. The same applies to missiles fired from a ship. The missiles are likely moving faster than the bolts and would be picked up by sensors. I find your timing off in general. The distance and slow moving nature of blaster technology means this likely doesn't happen as quickly as you are contending.
• Unit Location: Nowhere did I ever indicate the frigates ever left their location. They were firing at the Corvettes but did not move away from the Aurora. Only 2 squadron of fighters left with the Corvettes. 3 fighter squadrons remained around the the Aurora. The Corvettes I would contend are still located in such a manner to obscure firing, especially with the fighter squadrons flying with them. The distance between the ships would further decrease the efficacy of what was fired. The tech rules indicate maximum firing range to be somewhere between 80km to 90kms. The Aurura is around 75kms to 80kms away from the Battle cruiser and SD, farther away from 2 Corvettes, and closer to 2 Corvettes.
• Defender-class: This particular type of vessel has only existed since the time-skip, so likely somewhere between 6 months to a year IC. They have never been used in an engagement with the Empire. As far as I know, there have been no threads IC capturing the plans or scouting the ships. There is nothing in any of your posts to indicate your character or fleet has the location of the bridge. This indicates to me, that they would have to discern the location during the current engagement. I believe this assessment to be correct.
• The Maneuver: The maneuver overall has issues. There is literally nothing IC to note that the bridge is being accurately targeted and the factors I noted are being accounted for. Simply stating in an early post that you are preparing a certain maneuver, and then making no further IC preparations does not adequately prepare that maneuver. There has to be some IC action besides saying the name and giving the command. There is no mention that targeting is occurring, or accounting for the above factors. Simply put, that is not how PVP works on the site. The ships do have to target IC and there has to be mention of it. For example, I mention the Corvette being slaved on my first post, getting it into position in my second post, and launching the attack in my third post. I believe it is critical to note that there has been no IC targeting or preparation of the maneuver written, only that some type of maneuver was being prepared (without any follow up) and the order given.
• Shielding: Shields work as I described in my post. They disburse the damage across the entire structure. The ship had been taking damage for only 1 IC post, a matter of seconds. A Capital ships shields would not be significantly damaged in that amount of time. Similarly, the damage could be appropriately disbursed across the shields. As indicated, this would put stress on the shields and they would be significantly depleted (which I also noted). If an attack like you described was plausible, it would occur in every single fleet battle across the Star Wars universe. We would never see prolonged engagements because it would just be a rush to try and blow up the bridge. The way shields work is designed to prevent that from occurring. Furthermore, the bridge would likely have additional protections against such a maneuver (being the hub of the ship).
• Overall: The combination of the timing (I would contend much slower than you have indicated), the information the Empire would have on the Defender-class, the failure to mention any type of preparation for the attack besides a single word in the OP and the order, the location of units, how shielding works on the site, and how we have seen Canon Fleet engagements, I believe my defense is plausible and your attack is not as effective as designed

As always, I am open to compromise. If you are not, I believe a report will be necessary.

Edit: Really, if as indicated above, I have 3-5 seconds to react that's likely enough to simply avoid the attack. 1-2 seconds to identify the attack, less than a second to give the order to move, and 2-3 seconds to move what would only need to be a very small distance. Just enough to move the bridge out of the targeted area. In reality it's more that 3-5 seconds. The accepted travel rate of a blaster bolt is 34 m/s. Assuming this type of artillery moves faster (lets say even 10 meters per second), that would be plenty of time to respond as the weaponry travels nearly 80 kilometers.

 

[Clayton]

Ok, so. Turbolasers move faster than ships can move. Otherwise you'd be running into your own weaponry, which is ludicrous. We also don't have an established MGLT to km/s. At any rate, modern spacecraft tend to travel under 5km/s. Reaching 40km/s is kinda unrealistic except for hyperspace travel. I don't even think interceptors could reach that; it would be far beyond any human perception and reaction time. Unless you are suggesting that warships at full speed move at ~9m/s which is also silly and also invalidates the corvette ramming.

As for the bridge, plenty of information exists for the layout of modern ships. Nor has basic ship layout changed in the thousands of years that we've seen in Legends or canon. It is not unreasonable to imagine that, even if Insalius' character had not been part of the construction of the Defender, a publication similar to Jane's would exist. Historically, and (more importantly) canonically, the bridge has been one of the more exposed parts of a ship because commanders in SW for some reason enjoy taking in the battlefield visually. If the Defender had a concealed or recessed bridge, that should have been mentioned in the profile. (Hell, I identified the bridge within a few seconds of looking at the supplied image).

At any rate, in order to properly block Insalius' formation's firing, the vettes would have needed to determine that the sole target had shifted to one ship's bridge. And in order to sacrifice themselves, they would need to be closer to the target than the more spread-out fleet. We have seen that even with the more modern shielding system, there is bleed-through of damage at even half-strength. You should note that Anakin commanded a Republic warship to execute a similar maneuver in TCW, it worked because the Republic Cruiser was far closer to its own formation, and the enemy fire, father away, would have to focus on a smaller relative area. The reason we don't see Insalius' tactic often is because it leaves ships vulnerable instead of returning fire at ships attacking them. The positioning in this specific instance allowed it. Nor would any frigate be able to throw itself in front of a barrage unless they had already been moving in that direction. Even KES' barrel roll frigates couldn't do that. The only example I can think of that would be beneficial to Valen is during Rogue One, and by my count, the Rebel fleet actually outnumbered the Empire at Scarif until reinforcements arrived.

I have also said that in an equal, one ship on one ship engagement, it wouldn't take more than a couple posts for shields to drop. This situation is shields already under fire are now being subjected to the concentrated fire of a whole fleet. We've also seen front and rear deflector shields be a thing.

Insalius' command ship would be unable to avoid the speedier corvette, but he has executed the equivalent of sacrificing his Queen to obtain a checkmate.

So, Insalius' Battlecruiser is in the process of breaking up. Weaponry is faster than ships, so he can respond faster than the corvette can reach his ship, which means Valen's bridge is under tremendous assault with already weakening shields, very likely failing this post. If Valen were to escape with his life, he'd somehow have to discern the tactic, flee the very second fire starts hitting his ship, and throw the rest of his crew under the bus. Which seems...unlikely, bordering meta, and not very commander-like.

 

[Valen Pelora]

Ok, so. Turbolasers move faster than ships can move. Otherwise you'd be running into your own weaponry, which is ludicrous. We also don't have an established MGLT to km/s. At any rate, modern spacecraft tend to travel under 5km/s. Reaching 40km/s is kinda unrealistic except for hyperspace travel. I don't even think interceptors could reach that; it would be far beyond any human perception and reaction time. Unless you are suggesting that warships at full speed move at ~9m/s which is also silly and also invalidates the corvette ramming.

As for the bridge, plenty of information exists for the layout of modern ships. Nor has basic ship layout changed in the thousands of years that we've seen in Legends or canon. It is not unreasonable to imagine that, even if Insalius' character had not been part of the construction of the Defender, a publication similar to Jane's would exist. Historically, and (more importantly) canonically, the bridge has been one of the more exposed parts of a ship because commanders in SW for some reason enjoy taking in the battlefield visually. If the Defender had a concealed or recessed bridge, that should have been mentioned in the profile. (Hell, I identified the bridge within a few seconds of looking at the supplied image).

At any rate, in order to properly block Insalius' formation's firing, the vettes would have needed to determine that the sole target had shifted to one ship's bridge. And in order to sacrifice themselves, they would need to be closer to the target than the more spread-out fleet. We have seen that even with the more modern shielding system, there is bleed-through of damage at even half-strength. You should note that Anakin commanded a Republic warship to execute a similar maneuver in TCW, it worked because the Republic Cruiser was far closer to its own formation, and the enemy fire, father away, would have to focus on a smaller relative area. The reason we don't see Insalius' tactic often is because it leaves ships vulnerable instead of returning fire at ships attacking them. The positioning in this specific instance allowed it. Nor would any frigate be able to throw itself in front of a barrage unless they had already been moving in that direction. Even KES' barrel roll frigates couldn't do that. The only example I can think of that would be beneficial to Valen is during Rogue One, and by my count, the Rebel fleet actually outnumbered the Empire at Scarif until reinforcements arrived.

I have also said that in an equal, one ship on one ship engagement, it wouldn't take more than a couple posts for shields to drop. This situation is shields already under fire are now being subjected to the concentrated fire of a whole fleet. We've also seen front and rear deflector shields be a thing.

Insalius' command ship would be unable to avoid the speedier corvette, but he has executed the equivalent of sacrificing his Queen to obtain a checkmate.

So, Insalius' Battlecruiser is in the process of breaking up. Weaponry is faster than ships, so he can respond faster than the corvette can reach his ship, which means Valen's bridge is under tremendous assault with already weakening shields, very likely failing this post. If Valen were to escape with his life, he'd somehow have to discern the tactic, flee the very second fire starts hitting his ship, and throw the rest of his crew under the bus. Which seems...unlikely, bordering meta, and not very commander-like.

I have no issue sacrificing the crew. I need some kind of idea of how long it would take the assault to reach the bridge given all the varying distances.

 

[Clayton]

I have no issue sacrificing the crew. I need some kind of idea of how long it would take the assault to reach the bridge given all the varying distances.

I may or may not have overlooked ion fire. Which would either shut down the shields even more quickly or render the lifts inoperable, trapping Valen and subjecting him to secondary explosions (dead next posting). Additionally, the heavier assault ordinance (torpedoes) would be fatal to the ship as a whole without shields. The staff have been conferring on this quite actively and unfortunately none of us see Valen escaping.

 

[Valen Pelora]

I may or may not have overlooked ion fire. Which would either shut down the shields even more quickly or render the lifts inoperable, trapping Valen and subjecting him to secondary explosions (dead next posting). Additionally, the heavier assault ordinance (torpedoes) would be fatal to the ship as a whole without shields. The staff have been conferring on this quite actively and unfortunately none of us see Valen escaping.

Well you may not see a plausible way out, I'm still allowed an attempt to edit if my prior defense is rulled invalid.

I am specifically asking for the time it would take for the attacks from the 2 corvettes to the left (lasers, missiles, whatever) to reach the ship, the time it would take for the attacks of the two corvettes to the right (lasers, missiles, whatever) to reach the ship, and the attacks from the SD and BC (laser, missiles, whatever) to reach the ship.

 

[Clayton]

Well you may not see a plausible way out, I'm still allowed an attempt to edit if my prior defense is rulled invalid.

I am specifically asking for the time it would take for the attacks from the 2 corvettes to the left (lasers, missiles, whatever) to reach the ship, the time it would take for the attacks of the two corvettes to the right (lasers, missiles, whatever) to reach the ship, and the attacks from the SD and BC (laser, missiles, whatever) to reach the ship.

Well, no. The report asked for a ruling on the survivability of the situation, same concept with Bee smashing her ship into the ground. Otherwise everyone would get a whole bunch of re-dos. With everything Valen's ship is facing, the other battle admins and I don't believe it is at all. So, Valen is dead. Ships wouldn't be able to throw themselves in front of the fire in time anyway.

 

[Valen Pelora]

Well, no. The report asked for a ruling on the survivability of the situation, same concept with Bee smashing her ship into the ground. Otherwise everyone would get a whole bunch of re-dos. With everything Valen's ship is facing, the other battle admins and I don't believe it is at all. So, Valen is dead. Ships wouldn't be able to throw themselves in front of the fire in time anyway.

I felt like I have always treated everyone with professionalism on the site and have never had any complaints. To be treated in the manner I have in the last few weeks is incredibly disappointing. We can't control the activity of the other factions, only our own. Frankly it has felt like we have been punished for that.

 

[Clayton]

I felt like I have always treated everyone with professionalism on the site and have never had any complaints. To be treated in the manner I have in the last few weeks is incredibly disappointing. We can't control the activity of the other factions, only our own. Frankly it has felt like we have been punished for that.

You've been treated fine. In this particular instance, you were outplayed tactically. You can be down in chess and still fall into a well-laid trap.