I'm not certain that's what Alex meant... I think Alex was in charge of defending a system in the wargame, but instead of waiting until the enemy attacked, he started out by launching an attack against their rallying point before they were ready.

In Commander Mazey's defense, he MIGHT have a valid complaint with how Alex handled the wargame.

There are two basic reasons to run a professional level wargame.

Reason 1 is what people are most familiar with: To practice fighting a full-scale battle. In this type of wargame, you do everything you can to win, because you're testing whether or not people know how to do their jobs, make decisions, work together, and are able to actually Win. You're also testing the worst case scenarios for what the enemy might do, so the 'enemy' forces are supposed to try and win too.

So, in a 'Reason 1' Wargame, Alex should do everything possible to win.


However there is also Reason 2 for running a wargame: To answer questions

If you're running a wargame to answer a specific list of questions, you have to make certain starting assumptions, and the 'enemy' player has to abide by them.

If the 'question' for a given wargame is "how much damage can we inflict on a superior enemies solar system, assuming we catch them completely by suprise", then the Officer playing the superior enemy needs to ALLOW himself to be suprised. Otherwise, the wargame can't answer the question it was created for.

If Alex was told: "We already know a enemy main battle fleet can destroy earth's entire navy if they shoot first. The purpose of the exercise is to find out if we have a chance if we catch them completely by suprise.... and You're going to play the enemy." ...

Then, after Alex recieved those instructions, if Alex ordered his entire fleet to battle stations at the beginning of the exercise, even then he don't have an 'In-character' reason for doing that yet, Commander Mazey might have a legitimate complaint with how Alex handled things.

Long story short, Alex may be guilty of metagaming. The dastard.

If they put him in a Kobayashi Maru senario,. he might have just out thought them in different ways.

he may have out maneuvered them with unorthodox maneuvers, Mazy may have been trying to trick Alex but he just didn't play ball and instead used Mazy's maneuver against him?
can't wait to see what actually did happen, im Hamilton will ask Alex, who will be only too happy to tell

Alex following in the footsteps of Miracle Yang? (anime: Legend of the Galactic Heroes)

Well it usually are the small but well planned moves that prove to be the most decisive in a battle.
If you pull at the right time where the enemy pushes, you can lead him into the perfect ambush.


Anyhow, i was reading back a few pages, and decided to join the forum discussions to show that there 'Are' still people out there who follow outsider but have not made them selves known.

Hi,
Got a Darn good comic here, have been following it since page 37.
Keep it up!

A good point- Humans do not have the benefit of Loroi abilities; so they may actually be superior at "reading" someone compared to a Loroi who is denied mental contact with the target.

After all, you can still get tone of voice, phrasing, and some body posture info from a video feed.

This is ignoring the fact that humans have had barely any contact with aliens, while the Loroi have had centuries. If the Loroi are awkward in this by overly relying on their extranatural abilities, then humans will have trouble through inexperience in examining alien motives.

I'm guessing the look on Alex's face means that the Cap'n just gave him a job offer.

thus starting one hell of a story,

i hope this mean good things on coming soon (ish)

hi hi

Sounds like a job offer, or at least an unexpected compliment.

(Also: I wasn't really referring to the Loroi's telepathy. What I meant was that humans have the opportunity to look at the situation without pre-existing biases, which is something the Loroi seem to have a cultural difficulty doing.)

Well, the weapons may be antiquated, the armor may be weak, the shields may be non-existent, but it looks like the America-class can receive Loroi drives with little to no trouble! Mostly because it looks like the ones it has were added as an after-thought. If the Loroi eventually need a few planetary bombardment platforms, it shouldn't be too hard.

Also, I like the detail.

WOW

that heavy cruises look VERY good, pls tell me were getting a scouts shoot next

man Arioch, I can see why you updated the heavy cruiser file in the insider guide, although I do see a hint of the Taidan heavy cruiser in the terra one. coincidence ?

Sexy like a WWII battleship.

Also, I don't know if it's intentional, but I'm loving the Taiidani-esque vibes I'm getting.

Love it.

Too bad the old design is gone. I loved the huge-ass gun on it.

hi hi

Its still got a huge spinal railgun in the new artwork though... maybe its a unique addition?

All in all, very sweet design. if I'm reading this right, those two openings on the side are the torpedo launchers, the upward facing grate is the anti-missile launcher, the boxy turrets are the heavy lasers and the pointy turrets are the heavy mass drivers. Which makes me think that the ship is largely designed around keeping its dorsal side facing the enemy while in combat.

It's not deliberate, but there are definitely similarities. The Terran CA is basically a blockier, sized-up version of the Scout, and it turns out that looks a lot like the Taiidan CA. And, of course, there is often plenty of Homeworld sensibility to many of my ship designs. The Taiidan CA in particular is a very sensible design, I think... a simple wedge body and "wings" that allow for plenty of turret locations.


Yes, it still has the huge particle beam cannon underneath, it just looks different. It's a modular upgrade (called the "Mjolnir"); at the time of this flashback, ECS-062 America is the only ship that has it.

(And no, the name isn't a reference to our esteemed fellow forumgoer of the same name; Mjolnir is Thor's hammer.)


The torpedo tubes are the rectangular doors in the main "hump." The two nozzles at the front of the strakes are retro engines. I just noticed that the grille thing obstructs the tube doors, so whatever it is must be retractable.

Someone asked a while back about the Colonial Fleet color scheme, and I promised to do a real-color version of this panel, so here's a look:

Oh this coming fro the mighty Arioch, webmaster of homeworld ship yards . . . your too modest. The America looks very nice, can' wait to see it in comic.



well why not, on one hand: a mighty, powerfully first or second generation particle cannon, on the other: a great and mighty forum poster with much technical wisdom and knowledge in large format forum post, I think it's fitting in a good way. both aswome and powerful, in thier own respects.

Mmm spaceships. I love 'em.

EDIT: Does that gun count as spinal? Wouldn't you say it's ventral?

hi hi

I dig the color scheme, its largely utilitarian with just a little flair of color.

My bad on mis-remembering the big gun. I don't know why I was thinking it was a rail gun instead of a particle beam. I wonder how it stacks up against the particle beams the Loroi or the Umiak field, the level of sophistication probably would seem quaint to them.

In this context, spinal is a term for a weapon that fires down the long axis of the ship and cannot rotate, so I guess if they can rotate the big gun somehow, it wouldn't classify as a spinal weapon.

Do the torpedo launchers shoot the torpedos out of the launcher at high speed? They could launch the weapons at an angle away from the ship, something they might consider doing even if there isn't an object in their way. If a warship is maneuvering defensively, you'd probably want to give them at least a little bit of a kick out the door so that the warship doesn't evasively maneuver right into them a second after they're launched.

My immediate thoughts when I saw the ship were: "I am not here to look pretty, I am not here to impress anyone. I am here to do one thing and one thing only. I am here to kill everyone."

It has a functional, no nonsense attitude that I am sure the Loroi and Umiak will underestimate. "How can their ships be so deadly!? They look like flying rocks!."

The Torpedoes would probably be shot out at an angle and then reoriented on target so that when they light off their engines the launching ship doesn't get damaged by the exhaust.

There, now you have an explanation for the obstruction.

Humans have particle a particle beam cannon?

See:

That may be an odd thing to focus on, but something about the greebles in front of the ship strongly reminds me of something else.
But what.