For those who are wondering which one is the story topic- it's the other one, lol. This topic is where I'll be placing any and all strategic information as well as fatalities, squadron position, over-all plot movement: whatev. All things that effect everyone or no-one, I'll be placing here at the discretion of myself as well as the squadron command staffs. If you folks feel you've contributed something to the story that alters the path of the story on a whole, or perhaps a section of the battle, and I didn't catch it- lemme know about it. As of right now, I'm going to run through precisely what the aim of the capitol ships are as well as some objectives that people can take if they so choose.
Also- all information or references are made from the final post on this page: http://comnet.imperialnetwork.com/topic/8659/
The map is of primary interest here but I give some good info in the post overall.
Now- this is a pretty massive chunk of information: it might be best if you just ignore the capitol ship mumbo-jumbo and move-on to the headings below it if you're not a commander. If you're a commander: I think it might be wise for you to read it and come to me with any questions you have: I know it's huge, but it really is important that you know how things are working and spinning about. Not only is it important in the context of the story, but it's really a lot of interesting information as far as capitol ship battle goes. For those who are just interested and want to have a really good grasp of the situation- check it out. Either way, the first post is up and people can begin immediately if they know what's going on and where and how they're placed- I'm looking to the commanders to really get their butts in gear and get things moving. So- without further ado: the Battle over Hast!
Capitol Ship Movement
Essentially, we have three main ships right now: the Imperial ISDs
Coruscant and
Viceroy. Line Captain Shazam is currently commanding a wing from the bridge of the
Viceroy, as to whether or not that wing will remain Phoenix- that's up to how our Commanders want to separate their folks amongst ships: I can guide a different group if that's what folks need. Anywho, the
Viceroy, as you'll note, is just beyond the engine compartment of the enemy ISD
Emancipator, our third crucial ship. Since the majority of an ISD's heaviest guns are on their port (left) and starboard (right) sides, with little or no firepower on their rear-ends, the
Viceroy and
Emancipator can't effectively fire on eachother. Also, the
Emancipator lost it's engines in the initial attack by the IC Fleet sent by our army buddy Fury. For those of you who are new to space battle, when a ship loses its engines: it doesn't stop moving. Rather, the ship continues to turn or move in whatever direction it was going when it lost it's ability to thrust in different directions. In the case of the
Emancipator, it's turning in it's position, not moving backward or forward, simply twirling about it's axis. Thus, at the beginning of this battle, it's starboard side is tilted slightly above the horizon while it's port side is slightly below; since the guns can't shoot below that horizon, it'll take a short while before they can really start to do any damage on our ships. Note that, eventually, the
Emancipator will have not only passed our ships with it's first set of guns, but it's second on the port side, at which point the ship will be upside down.
Okay- the
Coruscant is a bit out of range for any really effective shots just yet, but it is in fairly good line with the
Emancipator and is also just waiting to close distance and time as the enemy ISD is. So, what we have here, is a kind of waiting period where all the ships are getting into position. Note the Victory II Destroyer
Rishi- it appears to be heading straight for the
Emancipator, but it would get pummeled by the ISD's guns once they came into line with it, so the
Rishi is going to dive itself below the horizon and then come back up sharply beneath the belly of the
Emancipator, where it can go to town on it. The only problem with this is that the
Emancipator has two support ships- the Sacheen
Runthar and Neb-B (we'll simply call these class of ships EF76's from now on)
Dissonance. The first thing that the
Runthar is going to try to do is aim it's nose straight at the side, and perhaps in time, the back-end of the
Rishi, where it can do the most damage without being heavilly engaged itself. This will keep the
Rishi from pulling the same thing on the
Emancipator, and, rather, face of it's gun sides at the
Emancipator while training the other side on the
Runthar. Again, the Sacheen has the ability to try and move toward the belly of the Victory II, forcing it to spin just as the
Emancipator is doing now. So, essentially- we have a turning battle between capitol ships, lol- there will always be a fight to keep the most guns trained on each other while keeping the least amount trained on yourself. Since ship position is dependent upon the placement of guns on those capitol ships, if you're going to attempt to talk about ship movement or even engaging those ships, it might be wise to look at the map we've provided or look up that class of ship on wookieepeida.com . Note that we haven't forgotten about fighters- the enemy ship
Dissonance will probably have placed itself below the
Emancipator to draw off some the fire from the
Rishi as well put itself in a better position for taking out fighters, as the
Emancipator has little guns to take on star fighters on its belly. One final note for the ships in this particular stage of space- the carrack cruiser
Civesu will probably try to face off with the
Runthar- the
Runthar has just slightly more fire-power, but the
Civesu has tractor beam projectors to help force the Sacheen where it wants.
Okay- back to the ISD
Viceroy- I've already stated that I would make it my goal to equalize this battle a bit, primarily by making the
Viceroy non-operational. So anyone putting themselves on that ship- be prepared for catastrophe. Know that we'll be taking out the MC-90
Freedom before that ever happens though and possibly some of its support ships. So let's talk position here- you'd think they're too far away to be very effective with eachother: wrong. While the Golan II defense platform that is currently functioning is to the far right of this map (just beyond the nose of the
Viceroy), it doesn't have much of an attack advantage because of its previously sustained injuries on it's belly- so the guns that are effective are on it's top surface, currently tilted away from the
Viceroy- they're correcting that though. Thus- the main fight is between the
Viceroy and
Freedom. At close range, our ships fire could really mess up the
Freedom, but at long range, we only have so many guns we can use on them because only one side is pointed to them, plus we're kind of out-of-range. When we say out of range, we don't mean that the bolts can't get that far, but that they are not accurate beyond a certain distance. In this case, the ISD has poor accuracy at the initial distance we suggest on our map. However, the key ingredient in why the MC-90 is so important is its targetting capabilities: it can hit us from that distance and pretty hard.
Thus, it is the objective of the
Viceroy to get itself pointed toward the
Freedom, giving them as little area to fire at us with as possible and giving us the ability to barricade our shielding in one area. This also gives us the opportunity to use more guns on them, and we'll be able to close distance, where our big guns will be able to do the most damage (the quad-turbolasers and dual-turbolasers in particular). Remember that the Golan II is twisting to engage us, so it's also important that we try and get out of range of their guns as well. Since there's no guarentee we'll be able to get out of the way before they start blasting us, the ships supporting the
Viceroy, the
Wainright (the lowest in terms of depth and also the furthest left in terms of the map but posterior in terms of relative position to the
Viceroy as it shows on the map), the
Lonoec (closest to the belly of the ISD and in the middle of our trio, near the center of the ISD), and the
Exile (closest to the nose of the ISD and somewhere between the two depths of its companion ships underneath the belly of the ISD). Either way- they're being shielded from the Golan by the ISD while protecting the belly- the most strategically barren area of the
Viceroy. While the
Viceroy attempts to straighten out with the
Freedom, it's also going to try and guide itself to the MC-90's starboard side, or the far right, outside of the map, so that it can encircle the battle. It won't be moving to the inside or port side of the MC-90 because there will be so little space in which to maneuver in the case that the
Emancipator's horizon of fire comes across them- they'd just have to take the heat. Again- you don't want to have to spread your shields to thin though: the more precise a point you can push them into, the better of you are.
So, and this would just be the thought process for the future, once the
Viceroy had passed and/or destroyed the
Freedom, it'd have tried to move in behind the
Andoan Dawn and the
Tranquility. As of now- those two ships aren't important because they are strategically out of position to fight. The
Tranquility will be moving toward the far left side of the map, near the Golan II to use it as cover as well as engage some of our incoming ships and take pot-shots at our Escort-carriers from a distance. As for the
Andoan Dawn, it's role is, pretty strickly, as fleet operator- it's the command center of the NR fleet for the moment. If we close in on the shipyard, it'll begin to function as a capitol ship, but for now it's only offering support in terms of fighters and moving about to pressure our ships into moving certain other ways. As for our command ship- that's the
Coruscant. It'll be pretty heavily engaged most of the time.
As for our other Victory II- the
Ozyra, that'll be trying to take out the Golan II on the far left side of the map (not shown of course, and neither is the other), but that particular Golan is out of commission but trying to come back up on-line. I have a plan for what's going to happen between those two, but just know that it's going to be there and possibly facing off with the
Tranquility in due time. The
Arkwarve will be trying to push above the battle and help support our fighters. The
Doashim, which is not currently shown on the map, is to replace the Assault Frigate
Reichiz in the upper-left hand corner of the map and will be pushing forward to help support either the
Coruscant or the
Ozyra.
Fighter and other small Craft
Most craft will be launching, not from the Escort-carriers, but from our ships on the front-lines. Just because we have this many squadrons doesn't mean they'll all be fighting at once: fighter groups are sent in response to eachother- not placed in a blob and sent, hoping for the best, to their deaths. Regardless, we should be able to have a great deal of fighters in the fight on the front lines. We want those fighters sent by the ships on the front lines also so that they can return if they begin to run low on fuel. If additional squadrons are needed- they can be sent from the Escort carriers, which will probably be moving closer to the front lines as we progress. Note that any fighters launched from a ship usually remain attached to that ship- protecting it or following orders from it. I suppose that if there's an extreme case, you can have your pilot land elsewhere for repair or switching of fighters.
Shields
All Imperial craft are fully shielded in the beginning of the battle, the
Emancipator has about 75%, the
Harmony (which we haven't spoke much of because it's fairly out of range for now and has no engines, but is still fully loaded with weaponry and can pot-shot folks), has about 25% and is very injured. The
Runthar is running at about 87% as is the
Dissonance and the
Freedom. The
Marquis is at 70% and the
Andoan Dawn is at about 55% but will have raised significantly by the time we reach it. If I didn't mention a ship's shields: assume they're at 100 percent or very close it. If someone mentions a shield figure, I'd like it sent to me so I can mention it here as they battle changes.
Objectives
Between the
Coruscant (3 squadrons),
Rishi (2 squadrons) and the
Civesu (5 personal fighters), we have just over five squadrons on our side in that little battle. The enemy has the
Emancipator (we'll say 2 squadrons remaining), the
Runthar (they've still got most of their squadron, but approximate figures can be suggested by the folks who write the situation out), and the
Dissonance (roughly 2 fighters- give or take fivish- again, up to the discretion of the writers, but let us know what you come up with), we have roughly five squadrons. Note that just because we equal out number wise, fighter choice will be a biggy, and this isn't just a big blob either, fighters stay next to the ships they were sent from, so we really only need to worry about fighters in general areas as opposed to the group as a whole. The objective, of course, will be to eliminate this fighter base while staying away from the guns of the enemy ships:
Emancipator (some sixty lights and another sixty ions as well as 3 triple medium turbolasers than can fry groups of fighters),
Runthar (eight laser cannons and eight ions), and the
Dissonance (12 laser cannons). Note that once the shields are down on enemy ships (to which you can contribute to in passing or as a group effort- whatev), you can try and take out these guns are do further structural damage in groups by selecting weak spots in the infrastructure- all things you can plan out with your flights. If you need to know some weakspots: check with your commanders or even ask myself and I can probably help you out.
With the
Viceroy, same info as the
Coruscant with the same guns as the
Emancipator (though that should technically be missing a few). The MC-90
Freedom has only four of it's six squadrons remaining and has some 70ish turbolasers that you won't want to get in the way of as well as another 30 ions. The
Marquis is relatively the same as the
Dissonance as is the
Zephyr to the
Runthar. As of right now, that's really all anyone should be too worried about because that's where the immediate threats are. The CC-7700 is not only beat up and out-of-range, but is also way too lightly armed or complimented to make a difference at this stage. You can note that it seems to be far away, though, as it will play a part later on. Similar objectives apply between the first group and this last group.
Creativity
Though I've given you the numbers and basically told you exactly what's happening, you still have an immense amount of liberty in terms of what it is you want to do in this battle. Not only do you get to decide what group you'll be flying with (at the discretion of your Squadron Command), but you'll get to choose the fighters, your targets, the way in which you overcome obstacles and complete objectives, as there will be an onslaught of irregular ones coming up very shortly, and atmosphere in which you're working- how people are going to be re-acting in a fairly chaotic situation. There are also bound to be random catastrophes, where entire groups are eliminated due to some unforeseen circumstance, so keep that in mind while writing without using it too often. This means to be responsible with the number of fighters you have to deal with and be realistic in your flying and tactics. I know there's a lot of fighters out there and you wanna shoot 'em all down, but don't worry about it: I'll take care of 'em. As for characters on board enemy or allied ships- even though I'll be telling you what they'll be trying to do, you can create the reasoning why or the circumstances for why those things happen. For instance- Kaph has an enemy commander they've encountered before that is out to kick their butts: he could do something with his ship that, though I've already said was going to happen, will be happening for another purpose other than the strategical one I've suggested. In fact, if you want to tell the majority of your story from another character's standpoint- I'm not totally against it and as long as your commanders are okay with it, you can mention what your character is doing in passing while developing a separate plot aboard another ship with separate characters. This is a pretty big story with thousands upon thousands of people involved- there's bound to be something going on. Just make sure it's cool with your commanders and that any major strategical moves are brought up with myself. Note that flights or small groups should be working independently of each other, but the people within those groups should be working with each other. Thus, three or four people write on a storyline of their own without any interference from another group- that's how separate the place and times of these story lines are. If you want to combine with a group due to conflicts from within your own- bring it up with the command staff and I'm sure we can work something out. Again- the idea is to keep the number of posts you need to read at an absolute minimum so that we can prevent any unnecessary confusion or wasting of time.
What I need from you folks
Besides giving me the information detailed above when you decide to make some kind of important move or change in information, I need to know where it is your groups will be launching from, how you will be grouped and what names and places they will be under. (Say someone from kaph has a flight that appears as the third flight of 'BLAH' Squadron, which is in 'Kickin-Butt' Wing attached to the
Coruscant.) That's the type of thing I need to know so that, not only can I keep things semi-organized, but so that I can include you if my character should be dealing with you.
If anyone has any questions about the information I've given here or are confused with what you can or cannot do- hit me and I'll try and get you an answer back as quickly as possible.
So... With all that in mind... LEZ ROCK!
