Mr. Arioch, have you by any chance heard of this?

[Mr.Sandstorm]

There is a sci-fi series called Honor Harrington, made by David Weber. I havent the slightest experience with it, and the story behind what I'm going to present to you is rather long but, in short:

This is a sort of worldbuilding tool for designing an astromilitary with a rock-solid foundation based on fundamental assumptions rather than "ad hoc" theorycrafting from the author:



Assuming you havent heard about it until now, I believe this would be very usefull for maturing your ideas on the astromilitaries of the Outsider universe. It would add some concrete to the design of the Umiak and Loroi militaries, and maybe even expose some new ideas you could use.
It was designed in part by Christopher Weuve, who works as a naval analyst on the US Department of Defense. It's more or less the most down-to-earth worldbuilding tool I've found so far for creating a sci-fi battlefleet.

The illustration on it's own is rather vague, since it's just the sinthesys of multiple discussions and articles made by David and Weuve. This page, however, contains a "brief" explanation of what it calls the "Space Navy Design System", as well as the rundown of two example astromilitaries created with the system.

If you have heard about it (and might even be using it) already, I apologize for being redundant. I just tought it would be helpfull for you to know about it.

[Arioch]

I haven't read any of the Honor Harrington books, and I hadn't heard of this particular Honorverse companion book, though I am familiar with Attack Vector: Tactical and I know that it has an Honorverse adaptation, and I know that Weber was involved to some degree with the Starfire game. The Starfire New Empires game rules had a significant impact on my thinking about how strategic systems work in Outsider, and I used the Attack Vector rules to help simulate Outsider tactical battles. Given Weber's similar interests to mine in game systems, I should probably do him the courtesy of reading one of his books. I do have Weber's Starfire novels in a box somewhere, but never got around to reading them... I should probably make an effort to find those.

Taking a look at the examples posted in the Atomic Rockets article, I think that all the interesting questions that I see already have existing answers in Outsider, at least to the extent that would be relevant to the story. Do you have the actual source book (House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion), or are you going off the article?

[Mr.Sandstorm]

Well, I'm coming from the article. I have to admit I've been metaphorically living under a rock on the topic of literacy on sci-fi. If you know about Attack Vector and already visit the Atomic Rockets website you know at least as much as me about this thing.

If you havent used strictly this system for your past schemings, I still recommend you give a quick run trough it for the Loroi and Umiak, just food for tought.
Sci-fi can focus a lot on future tactics and strategies, but an equaly important facet of it all is the logistics of future war. This system asks questions specificaly about that.

[RedDwarfIV]

The first book of the series, On Basilisk Station, is the best one if you plan on reading any Honorverse novels.

[Arioch]

While waiting for laundry earlier today I finally read the first ~50 pages of Basilisk Station (the first Honor Harrington novel), and I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed so far. The writing itself is so-so (kind of standard in SF, unfortunately), the characters other than the protagonist all seem dimwitted and have the emotional maturity of 13-year-olds (also regrettably standard in a lot of SF). But of most concern is that the tactics (which I'm guessing are a huge part of the series) don't seem to have been very well thought out. In the very first tactical engagement, the protagonist is presented with a supposed tactical dilemma which has an incredibly obvious solution that is apparent as soon as the impeller/sidewall/weapon interaction is described (which is, in a nutshell, that the long tube-like ships are invulnerable on the top and bottom and can avoid all damage simply by rolling 90 degrees), and yet the use of this obvious solution has apparently never been tried in the 600 years that this technology has been used. I actually stopped reading and preferred to stare at the wall for 30 minutes while my laundry finished.

Does it get better?

[discord]

Somewhat better with time, yes.
to be honest though, the first Honor book is one of the weakest books he has written and does not stand well on it's own imho, but as back story to a series it works well enough.
The 'perfect soldier' can be a bit annoying but after a while it is shown there actually is a person beneath the officer image.
and tactics are not a huge part of the series since it dabbles in strategy, logistics, diplomacy and grand Realpolitik as well.... somewhere amongst that is some character development too. oh right, some romance pops up I think the first is in book three.
Average one to two naval engagements per book if I remember correctly.

for me though the honorverse is not so much about honor as it is seeing the world unfold(mostly through her eyes admittedly) but the Cachat/Zilwicki duo are probably my favorite characters of the 'verse even if Harkness is just so cute.

And I did just notice there was actually a series I do not remember reading, 'starfire', I have enjoyed everything else he has written though.

redDwarf: basilisk station the best book? chronologically and for spoilers back stgory and such I suppose it is a good place to start, but it is not the best book by a long shot, I would say 'In enemy hands'[7] and 'Echoes of Honor'[8] are personal favorites.

[RedDwarfIV]

In the very first tactical engagement, the protagonist is presented with a supposed tactical dilemma which has an incredibly obvious solution that is apparent as soon as the impeller/sidewall/weapon interaction is described (which is, in a nutshell, that the long tube-like ships are invulnerable on the top and bottom and can avoid all damage simply by rolling 90 degrees), and yet the use of this obvious solution has apparently never been tried in the 600 years that this technology has been used.

I believe the point was that, aside from using missiles, if the enemy can't hit you, then you can't hit the enemy. In order to damage the enemy, you must expose yourself to return fire. Perhaps the answer would be to make all vessels missile ships with only minimal graser weaponry... which I suppose is exactly what Manticore does, though only because of the invention of missile pods (along with the Time Lord bigger-on-the-inside tech that lets the ships carry so many of them.)

Whether or not that is a sufficient explanation or not, I don't know.

redDwarf: basilisk station the best book? chronologically and for spoilers back stgory and such I suppose it is a good place to start, but it is not the best book by a long shot, I would say 'In enemy hands'[7] and 'Echoes of Honor'[8] are personal favorites.

I liked Echoes of Honour too. Don't remember what happened in In Enemy Hands except the part where Honor's flag cruiser gets captured, though.

[discord]

red: It is the low point of her career and I would say it is basically a split arc, the first being how everything goes to hell and the second the rather up slope battle to claw herself out of hell.

[Chekist_Felix]

...
And I did just notice there was actually a series I do not remember reading, 'starfire', I have enjoyed everything else he has written though...

David Weber and Steve White "Starfire"? Have them on my shelf right now. I like them a lot actually, in some aspect more then "Honor Harrington", but it still military fiction with all the ensuing. Hm... Then i think about it... i like Outsider probably because it reminds me of that series in some aspects.