Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[icekatze]

hi hi

Perhaps that is part of the reason why Stillstorm has her personal shuttle retrofitted for carrying cargo. The idea being that the fleet is re-supplied as quickly a possible, freeing up the supply convoy to return to base and prepare to re-supply someone else. Meanwhile, if there does turn out to be a need to re-arrange the supplies in fleet, they can swap the necessary supplies with their small craft while they are en-route to their next jump point.

[Sweforce]

sweforce: you can't really stop that kind of thing, not really...and on the front lines what would you prefer, good food or maybe enough bullets, pick one.

Moldy bread isn't really good for morale. That was my point, it happen in system where supplies doesn't really have a preset destination and stuff are just shuffled towards the front and troops along the way help themselves to what they need.

[dragoongfa]

sweforce: you can't really stop that kind of thing, not really...and on the front lines what would you prefer, good food or maybe enough bullets, pick one.

Moldy bread isn't really good for morale. That was my point, it happen in system where supplies doesn't really have a preset destination and stuff are just shuffled towards the front and troops along the way help themselves to what they need.

That's with the assumption that the Loroi just ship things willy nilly at the front as they become available, something that for the time being has not become readily apparent. From a logistical POV a convoy system is easy and efficient provided that the routes from and to the various supply hubs are clear.

Production quotas are easy to predict and schedule accordingly, as such a convoy that carries what is needed for the successful resupply of a raid group can carry everything that the raid group needs. One can keep such a raid group fully resupplied and reinforced for an extended period until the ships and crew are in need of proper port facilities, by planning around the average predictions of spent weaponry, battle damage and battle casualties.

The only way for a convoy system to fail is by suffering frequent attacks by the space ship equivalent of submarine wolfpacks and the Loroi farsense made that impossible until now.

[Sweforce]

That's with the assumption that the Loroi just ship things willy nilly at the front as they become available, something that for the time being has not become readily apparent. From a logistical POV a convoy system is easy and efficient provided that the routes from and to the various supply hubs are clear.

I assume that they have figured it out but historically, not everyone have and suffered the consequences. But the loroi supply not only their interdiction fleet they also have system defence fleets and that huge reserve they are building up for a coming counter offensive. One of the reasons that Stillstorms strike group are under strength is that resources are held in reserve for the planned offensive. Reminds me of WWI and the endless preparations for the next offensive meant to make a breakthrough. This could become bloody.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Another consideration is that interdiction fleets might not always be able to request the exact supplies that they need and expect them to arrive on time. Since they don't have any real means of communicating faster than light, except maybe a farseer noticing that the fleet is pulling away from the front lines, resupply convoys might need to do some guesswork about what supplies are actually needed. Things like food and fuel are likely to be known quantities, but things like ammunition and spare parts are likely less certain. Resupply convoys might end up being dispatched with estimated supplies, only to find that some number of ships didn't expend any munitions, leaving them with extras.

(Otherwise, the interdiction fleets would have to go all the way back to base in order to both get supplies and relay a clear message about what supplies they actually need.)

[JQBogus]

Actually, convoys were less efficient than ships operating independently. Assembly of the convoy takes time, with many ships waiting around for the rest to be ready to go. Then, once moving, the convoy moves at the speed of its slowest ship. Finally, when arriving at its destination, many of the ships have to wait around to be unloaded, since there are probably insufficient port facilities for all the ships in the convoy to unload simultaneously.

In WWI and WWII at least, convoys were used because they were far easier to guard against attack, not because they were in any other way efficient.

The Loroi don't seem to have to worry about attacks on their shipping anywhere except maybe right at the front lines, so I don't think they'd be operating convoys, at least not for the classic reasons.

[Grayhome]

Arioch, what do the Loroi think of genetic , cybernetic and surgical modification? Modification of themselves, other races, plants and animals.

[Absalom]

In WWI and WWII at least, convoys were used because they were far easier to guard against attack, not because they were in any other way efficient.

The Loroi don't seem to have to worry about attacks on their shipping anywhere except maybe right at the front lines, so I don't think they'd be operating convoys, at least not for the classic reasons.

Loroi do have a reason to operate convoys, though: the supply ships need to actually travel out to the patrol fleets, so unless you're moving something special enough to deserve it's own farseer and escort, multiple ships are going to need to hit a single meeting-spot at almost the same time. You don't necessarily have to form convoys for this, but you're likely to discover that a convoy-like system forms even if you don't try to create one (in my opinion, most cargo ships making supply runs will not be common civilian freighters, but lightly armed military freighters, and since there will be fewer production contracts they will tend to be much closer to each other specs-wise than civilian vehicles: transport between near-front bases and production centers is much more likely to be dominated by civilians, but much less likely in both convenience and utility to call for convoys).

[icekatze]

hi hi

I don't think a single ship is going to be very useful for re-supplying a fleet. I suspect the bottleneck is going to end up being on the raiding party's side. There'll be a bunch of ships waiting for the chance to go, and then once the raiders break away from the front lines, the whole bunch will end up going at once, and they'll probably want to pick a single point to intercept each other just to save on propellant, rather than making a different intercept for each supply ship.

[JQBogus]

Multiple ships can travel independently and still arrive at a single destination at the same time. This doesn't make them a convoy.

Even if multiple ships are leaving from the same supply depot and arriving at the same rendezvous, staggering their departure is more efficient, unless your supply depot is has such an excess of docking facilities and stevedores that it can load all of the resupply ships simultaneously, and all your supply ships have exactly the same handling characteristics.

You load the slowest ship first, and send it on its way, such that it will arrive at the rendezvous point at the appointed time. Then you load your next slowest ship, which is a bit faster than the previous one, and send it off. Since it is a bit faster, it will make the rendezvous at the appointed time also, even though it left later. And so on.

If you want to get really fancy, you work out times required on the other end too. If it takes 18 hours to transfer stores to a large ship like the Tempest, but only 6 hours to do so for a smaller ship, then you can have some of your supply ships show up 12 hours later than others without delaying the combat fleet, which (for military reasons) has to operates as a unit.

Basically, and cargo ship that is not loading, unloading, or moving is being used less efficiently than it could be. Waiting for a convoy to form (so escorts can be used efficiently) to keep from gettng blown up is an acceptable reason to be inactive. Sitting around doing nothing because the logistics officer doesn't want to deal with the tedious and meticulous details of transit times, synchronized arrivals, loading & unloading times...not so much.

[icekatze]

hi hi

This is not an issue of calculation, this is an issue of physics.

If you send a vessel out before it is needed, then it will still end up wasting a lot of time hanging around some other place where it is not being useful. And perhaps, as the situation changes across multiple systems with no faster than light means of communication, they might end up having to waste resources back tracking later to get to where they need to be. Because transit times and engagement periods are measured in days and weeks, it is quite possible that cargo ships have already been loaded prior to getting the signal that they are required to move out.

The people at the base don't know which ships are still intact, they don't know which ships are depleted and by how much. The may know that a fleet is generally giving off a smaller signal via farseer, but that is not a detailed technical readout. They may not even know exactly which route the strike group is going to take ahead of time.

The ships in the Outsider universe are not traveling across an ocean. They are traveling between stars from where they cannot communicate with each other. There is a maximum safe system transit speed that pretty much any military vessel can achieve. However, if resupply vessels are arriving far apart from each other, then the fleet will end up having to stop and go repeatedly.

[discord]

sweforce: as icekatze pointed out, exact requests for things could be difficult to say the least without near instant communication since it takes WEEKS for the request to get there and more weeks to get the supplies where you want it, and just for kicks how much has the stores been depleted by more engagements by then?

the answer is forward supply depots(or just points where the supply ships wait although a simple station would probably be a much better solution since the cargo ships would not go back half full then) that have 'stuff' where the raiding groups pick up supplies the depot requests the materiel it needs.... saves weeks on the round trip or the war ships(needed for fuel if nothing else) just the right way to do it.

although supply ships could work, large mobile storehouse/shipyard/tug things, a mobile station so to speak.

[Suederwind]

They speak of a supply column that SG 51 is meeting. So we can expect that to be more than one ship and not some kind of death star siced mobile supplybase.
I assume those columns are directet by farseers to various SGs and return to their base to resupply, when their stocks are empty. That could mean that the one who can pick first might get the cool stuff, like blisters/fancy food/new personal/etc... and the others might only get some rations and plaster.
The hierachy on who can pick first, will for sure have something to do with their rank, influence and reputation. Like, for example, the german 6th army in Stalingrad: There was way too little supplies, but the important and influential officers still managed to hold up a decent lifestile with coffee, fresh food and choclate, while the lower food soldiers and officers had to be happy to get a slice of bread.
The situation for the Loroi is not as dire, as in that example, but I am sure there is a lot of rivalry about supplies in general, too.

[dragoongfa]

Everyone should bear in mind that the front lines have been static for years, the most basic strategem for resupplying the raider groups would be to establish forward supply outpost that would be directly supplied from Citadel systems. The outposts would then organize the resupply convoys that would meet the raider groups.

This whole system would work with farsense provided that the raider groups are able to stop deep strike fleets from attacking the outposts in force.

[Krulle]

IF the opponent ever finds out where your supply bases are....

You can also just drop the supplies on camouflaged stores in the outer rim of more-or-less safe systems (undisputed, but not free from occasional attacks).
Your people know, if needed they come and pick up the drifting stuff, and get back to fighting. No need to have an exposed supply ship waiting.
Empty return stuff can be "stored" that way too.

Easy to do with programming into the nav-computer too. The needed data can be stored encoded during a refitting at a major base, and when the commander needs stuff, he she can enter a code in the system, and the system will tell him her where something for her group should be. Different codes for different supplies are possible that way.
If the ship is damaged beyond the point where the supplies would be usable, the data can be deleted, and thus no chance of the opponent of learning where you store your stuff.

This is especially practical for weaponry/missile blisters.

The better predictable supplies for the living meat can be done by supply ships, but hidden weapon caches for fast resupplies can make nasty surprises too.

You can set the data in the memory with a "wipe" function, in case the stuff has not been requested before a certain date.

Yet, it is still better to have a supply ship hanging back with the major supplies, and resupply from there after each battle, until the supply ship is empty. Then that flies home to refill, while the battle group finishes another mission or two and comes back itself for refitting/repairs.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Citadels are basically semi-mobile supply depots. They are the forward supply depots.

The front lines may be static, but the role of the interdiction fleets is not simply to destroy Umiak incursions before they reach the main Loroi line, but to weaken them. The interdiction fleets are very effective, but the Umiak incursions still sometimes manage to break through and reach the bulk of the Loroi defensive line.

A supply base is not going to be easy to hide. Without something convenient like a protoplanetary disk to hide in, there is essentially no realistic way to hide in space. If even a handful of Umiak ships reach the system where the forward supply depot is orbiting, said depot is not likely to survive.

The distance between their current supply depots and the interdiction fleets is by design. They laid waste to the steppes so that they'd have enough time to interdict Umiak fleets before they reached a system with anything valuable in it.

[Arioch]

If the loroi doesn't bother much with centrally planned logistics and instead just shuffle supplies towards frontlines things can get ugly. With a first come first served system, those at the front will constantly suffer shortages of spare parts and eat the worst food and be short of ammo. And if Black razor suck up those cool Blisters, the others may end up without making it easier to win the next wager as well.

There are two basic types of supply shipping: merchant shipping within Loroi territory (movement of goods and parts between Union colonies, and movement of supplies and materiel between production locations and frontline bases), and military supply convoys that take supplies and materiel from frontline bases to units in the field. The former is mostly done by alien shipping and a Loroi merchant marine that is technically civilian (though it is among the higher-prestige civilian groups), and JQBogus is right that these ships will mostly operate independently, as they have no need for convoy protection. The latter is done mostly by military transports and usually operate in convoys, as they do sometimes venture into contested territory and must resupply whole fleets at a time. Resupply of a fleet in the field can save a week or more (as opposed to the fleet having to return to base), even if the rendezvous is only one or two jumps from base. Coordination of strike groups and resupply convoys can be challenging without FTL comm, but the Farseers at base can see the fleets coming and send a convoy (with supplies and new orders) to intercept them, and the Farseer(s) with the fleet can see the approaching convoy.

Supplies will be allocated to specific fleets by central logistics (it's not a free-for-all), but because of the dynamic nature of battle beyond range of communication, supply must be somewhat ad-hoc. Need of remote units cannot always be accurately anticipated (SG51 doesn't have the same number of ships as it did when it was last in communication with base), and many times available supply will be insufficient to meet all requests. Of course there will be quotas on critical supplies that must be divided evenly (one ship will not be allowed to take all the food or fuel, for example), but when it comes to much-coveted but optional items that are in short supply like torpedoes, there often won't be enough to go around. Distribution is normally up to the fleet commander, and evidently Stillstorm allows her subordinates to compete for first pick of certain items. But even just being the first to take on the normal allocation of supplies can be important if things suddenly and unexpectedly get ugly.

Perhaps that is part of the reason why Stillstorm has her personal shuttle retrofitted for carrying cargo. The idea being that the fleet is re-supplied as quickly a possible, freeing up the supply convoy to return to base and prepare to re-supply someone else. Meanwhile, if there does turn out to be a need to re-arrange the supplies in fleet, they can swap the necessary supplies with their small craft while they are en-route to their next jump point.

Yeah, supply is crucial for a raider fleet, and Stillstorm has little need to ferry VIP's around.

Citadels are basically semi-mobile supply depots. They are the forward supply depots.

That's right. The frontline fleet bases are also supply depots. They get hit by Umiak assault regularly, and so must be able to defend themselves. These bases (such as Azimol) are where the sector fleets are based, but it also helps if there is defensive infrastructure, hence the citadels.

You can also just drop the supplies on camouflaged stores in the outer rim of more-or-less safe systems (undisputed, but not free from occasional attacks). Your people know, if needed they come and pick up the drifting stuff, and get back to fighting. No need to have an exposed supply ship waiting. Empty return stuff can be "stored" that way too.

This strikes me as a dangerous practice; the Umiak are notorious scavengers. I'm not sure how you'd hide such a pick-up location (sooner or later, your ships will be observed visiting them), and even if you booby-trap the stores, there's not much a bored Umiak crew likes better than a puzzle to solve.

Arioch, what do the Loroi think of genetic , cybernetic and surgical modification? Modification of themselves, other races, plants and animals.

Loroi medical technology is sophisticated enough so that they know that they themselves and the other Soia-Liron organisms have already been genetically modified (at the very least). So while they don't have a philosophical or religious revulsion to the idea of genetic engineering, they also don't see much need for doing more of it, as they and their domesticated organisms already have very good adaptations.

Genetic engineering is very useful in pharmaceutical research and production, which the Loroi take full advantage of. They have made limited experiments in trying to increase Loroi psi occurrence and power through genetic modification, mostly without success.

Most Loroi do have a revulsion to cybernetic or surgical modification, seeing it as mutilation. Loroi medical technology is sophisticated enough that they can repair most bodily damage with tissues instead of mechanical devices, so they don't have much need for cybernetic alteration -- with a few notable exceptions.

[Hālian]

What are some (non-spoilerific) notable exceptions to the loroi revulsion to cybernetic modification?

Also, why is the bima (64 sn = 69.81... s) fallen into relative disuse?

[Arioch]

What are some (non-spoilerific) notable exceptions to the loroi revulsion to cybernetic modification?

The one that comes readily to mind is rather spoilerific.

Also, why is the bima (64 sn = 69.81... s) fallen into relative disuse?

It hasn't, as far as I'm aware.

[Hālian]

Also, why is the bima (64 sn = 69.81... s) fallen into relative disuse?

It hasn't, as far as I'm aware.

These are the Loroi units that I have in my notes:
1 solon “beat”: one heartbeat, 1.092 seconds. The average rest heartbeat for a female Loroi is approx. 55 beats per minute.
1 bima “moment” = 1 dinosolon = 64 solon (70 seconds). Infrequently used unit between beat and cycle.
1 digel “cycle” 1 danzosolon = 1 dinobima = 64 bima = 8 nestasolon = 4096 solon = 4473 seconds (1.25 hours)
1 tibos “day” = 21 digel = 26.09 Earth hours
1 nanapi “transit”= 241.92 hours (10.08 Earth days)
1 mannal “pace” = 0.776 m
1 malir solon “radiance beat”~= 1.1 light second, 327,373 km.
1 Deinar sina “Deinar gravity” or “standard gravity”: 9.216 m/s^2, ~= 0.94G
1 nasitosdal sina “shipboard gravity” = 7/8 (0.875) standard gravity = 0.82G
1 Deinar tozon = one Deinar year, similar to one Earth year
1 nistil tozon = “standard year;” (22,195,037 seconds, 256.887 Earth days, .7033 Earth years)

(emphasis mine)