General Fleet Upgrade IV
The General Fleet Upgrade IV was originally developed by Borderland Protectorate Scientists under the governance of Kach Thorton early in his term but offered to the remainder of the Imperial fleet as an optional upgrade package. The General Fleet Upgrade IV since then has become almost universal across the Imperial Fleet.Laser Communications Module
Under heavy jamming, fleet communication and therefore cohesion can be completely lost, resulting in an almost certain defeat to better organized foes. Even allied jamming, which ruins enemy as well as friendly jamming, can be disastrous, as it reduces fleet engagements to nothing but uncoordinated brawls, leaving victory to nothing but luck and incurring heavy losses in the process.
To ensure the communication of Imperial forces even within the thickest jamming the Imperial Laser Communications Module (ILCM) was developed. A basic application of laser technology, the ILCM uses Infrared Lasers to provide reliable line-of sight communication between ships.
Due to this item's basic simplicity it can be massed produced on any planet with basic optical manufacturing facilities. Therefore it is expected that the fleet will be fully equipped with these items in a matter of weeks.
Two Layer particle shields
Once installed, it allows commanders to have the option of deploying their shields in a manner that is resistant to missile strikes. For two-layer particle shields the shield projectors project two layers of shielding. The first layer of particle shields is granted only 1/5th their usual power allotment. The second layer of particle shields, which receives 3/5ths the usual allotment of power (leaving dual-layer particle shields 20% weaker overall than single layer), is the layer of shields that enemy missiles will detonate against, believing they’ve hit the hull. Ray shields are projected millimeters beneath the lower particle shields.
Due to the large costs of equipping this to every ship in the Imperial fleet, high command has decided that this modification will only be placed on ships in the class of Heavy Cruiser or larger.
Strategic Sensor Suite
To support her in her mission of engaging and defeating all manners and sorts of enemy ships and weapons, Imperial ships will be upgraded with the new Strategic Sensor Suite, an upgraded version of the Tactical Sensor Suite pioneered on the Tiburon CPE-F and Cayman CPE-C vessels. This expanded package gives the ship far greater capabilities when it comes to detection and engagement of enemies, including stealthed vessels, which have become far more common across that galaxy in recent times.
The core of the package is a trio of sensors originally designed for the mapping and exploration of dangerous galactic phenomena including asteroid fields, black hole clusters, electrically charged Nebulas, and Supernova. Used to detect, measure and map forms of energy usually ignored by standard sensor packages, in a military use, however, the system makes a potent stealth detection system. Designed to detect anomalies in the interaction of the Zero Point, Magnetic and Ion fields and matter, the core of the strategic sensor suite can detect and point out these anomalies, identifying stealthed threats and giving ships ample time to react to their unexpected company.
Due to the large costs of equipping this to every ship in the Imperial fleet, high command has decided that this modification will only be placed on ships in the class of Heavy Cruiser or larger.
(see thread for further details on this item, particularly at the bottom)
Datalink
Another software upgrade. To provide gunnery crews with the best sensory and targeting information available Imperial ships will be upgraded with a that transfers sensor data between all capital ships and fighters in the immediate vicinity. Due to the highly sensitive nature of these transmissions, they are encoded in a cipher within a code based on the sums of 200 digit prime numbers, an encryption so complex Imperial Intelligence confidently claims no existing computer can solve it before the big crunch and the end of the universe. By spreading the data collected by an entire fleet in this manner, gun crews have better targeting data, fighter pilots have the advantage of data from more powerful capital ship sensors, and commanders have a better idea of the situation on the battlefield.
Tech Thread: http://therebelfaction.com/forums/showthread.php?p=166528#post166528
Comments
#29 12:56am 29/01/09
Well the gravitron could in theory be on every ship. But that would be a bit ridiculous. That being said, most of our R&Ds DO have it incorporated on them. I was more saying that the idea that every single capital ship would have the gravitron would be a bit un-realistic/unfair.
#28 12:20am 29/01/09
I will hopefully be writing the R&D threat in a few hours.
I was unaware until your post, Jan, that the graviton scanner took extra time to build. I never realized, also, that it was not very widely used. I’ve noticed it on a number of GC R&Ds. In addition, someone’s earlier comment about this only going in certain classes of ships has begun to appeal to me and I’ve decided to modify the R&D so that the sensor package only goes into larger vessels – Heavy Cruisers and larger unless R&Ded. This will significantly reduce the number of ships this must be applied to. In addition, I am going to do the same thing for the two layer shields.
The precision of the targeting with the sensors will depend on the range. At ranges of several thousand kilometers down to several times turbolaser range stealthed enemies will be undetectable. Within 3-4x turbolaser maximum range down to about half of turbolaser maximum (which is the beginning of effective range) we will have a general idea where you are but not a precise location. If we want to fire at you we will have to fire at a general area of space containing a ship. From this point the precision of the detection will get better as a stealthed threat gets closer. At close ranges we will have a very precise location on you, close enough that cloaked shuttles and fighters can be precisely targeted. This package will not be infallible. Massive bursts of electromagnetic radiation (not magnapulse big, think small solar flare) or large, sudden bursts of gravity would be able to fowl it.
#27 11:35pm 28/01/09
[QUOTE]
On to stealth detection. Personally, I don't like the idea of every capital ship under a faction's command having a stealth detection suite (because I think it cheapens the value of both stealth ships and stealth detection), but the Coalition does it and has apparently been doing it for a while now
[/QUOTE] This isn't exactly correct. Back when the gravitron was made, we had a ship building system where you made 100 meter of ship per day per shipyard (and there was a limit on how many shipyards you could have depending on planets and time spent to build them, etc). Back then the gravitron took 5 extra days to put on a ship, unless it was included in the R&D of that ship. To the best of my knowledge no ships, or at most very few ships, where ever given the gravitron in this manner, people just R&Ded ships with the gravitron included. That being said I'm sure that its realistic to say some of our ships that don't include the gravitron have had it added to them (same as its realistic to say that not all of our ships would have it).
Anyway, we all know that this upgrade is going to go into effect, but I've got to ask this. Do you view this as infallible or what? Also, how accurate are you seeing this as? Is this mostly going to be used for detection? Or detection + mild targeting? Or detection + pinpoint accuracy?
#26 2:25am 28/01/09
[QUOTE=Omnae]
Wilkar.. it's Christmas!![/QUOTE]
I know! I love comparing dick sizes!
#25 2:16am 28/01/09
Ahh Beff, let them argue.....
Wilkar.. it's Christmas!!
#24 1:59am 28/01/09
Are you talking about the Osiris?
#23 1:52am 28/01/09
[quote]I've never heard of missiles designed to penetrate particle shields, but even if they were, i'm sure they'd be designed to "keep penetrating" until they ran into something that made them blow up (like the hull of a ship).[/quote]
Ion torpedoes and Magnetic Pulse torpedoes are designed to penetrate particle shields and detonate against the hull of a ship, but that's a little different that a normal metal shell missile.
[quote]Personally, I don't like the idea of every capital ship under a faction's command having a stealth detection suite (because I think it cheapens the value of both stealth ships and stealth detection),[/quote]
Well (although this is being frowned upon) I would like to make a RL example to compare to the SciFi example. Take submarines versus surface ships. Just about every ship between the size of a cruiser and a corvette carriers a sonar suite aboard for detecting submarines. It's not very applicable to put sonar onboard a command ship, carrier, or something very small that wouldn't be able to conduct a proper ASW job.
I could see vessels from say, 50 meters to 1000 meters carrying stealth detection gear. Anything smaller would probably be too small to deal with said cloaked vessel, and anything larger probably wouldn't need to worry about a cloaked vessel. It's the job of the escorts to worry about a cloaked vessel.
So, not every capital ship, but a lot of them.
As for what the Empire's ships would be losing in order to advance the gain...
#1: If the Empire wants it's ships to immediatly be upgraded, then the ships would go into dockyards, and not be avialable for offensive/defensive operations.
#2: When those ships go into the dockyards, the dockyards won't be able to handle new construction while upgrading these ships.
#3: Obviously the old systems that the new ones will be replacing will be ripped out and sold for scrap. So it's not like the vessels are running out of space.
#4: A flaw in the design? A new way to counter the system? Something Kach didn't think of? It could entirely be the upgrade will be a waste of time or worse.
And on a final note for this post, Kach, I already have multi-layer shielding on several of my designs, you could have just taken that and announced that it would be applied to all of the vessels of the fleet instead of coming up with something entirely new that's the same concept.
#22 1:18am 28/01/09
For the record: I went the "science geek" route with my response because Kach went the same route in writing his R&D. If the R&D had been based in canon/IC stuff, and I had a problem with it, I would argue my position based on canon/IC information.
Yeah, so I should have calmed down my first post a good bit, but I was bored, and it was late, and Jan was mad because you refitted the entire Imperial Fleet with about four hundred words of effort, and . . . other things. So here we go again:
The Datalink thing. I don't know what I was thinking, honestly. No more complaints from me on this point.
The particle shields still don't make sense to me. A missile isn't going to explode of its own accord until it hits something solid, something that explodes it. I've never heard of missiles designed to penetrate particle shields, but even if they were, i'm sure they'd be designed to "keep penetrating" until they ran into something that made them blow up (like the hull of a ship). I've seen different references showing particle shields working both as you described them and as Corise has, but in both cases the missiles detonated when they reached an obstruction they could not penetrate, not when they "thought" they were touching the ship's hull. Missiles are too dumb to be tricked; they either run into something and explode, or they don't.
On to stealth detection. Personally, I don't like the idea of every capital ship under a faction's command having a stealth detection suite (because I think it cheapens the value of both stealth ships and stealth detection), but the Coalition does it and has apparently been doing it for a while now. Stealth detection in general does not seem to be infallible, however, and I think there are a sufficient number of variables in play across all of your detection methods to "realistically" explain that fallibility. Creating a perfect, precision stealth detection method readily available to every ship that makes friendly faces at you would make stealth technology altogether meaningless, and where's the fun in that? Only a notable degree of fallibility within all stealth detection systems will keep stealth technology alive both as R&D and RP elements. What use is an invisible ship that everyone can see, which has also been forced to sacrifice something in the way of shields/weapons/speed in order to be invisible in the first place?
Window dressings, perchance?
Edit: I missed like four posts while writing this
#21 12:47am 28/01/09
Cool. At which point, assuming your work avoids breaking any actual rules, you can consider this over and done. If you, Corise, Smarts and whomever else want to continue to debate the finer points go ahead just know that it's pointless. Any flaws they wish to exploit will have to be handled In Character and before anyone dusts off that old chesnut; "But what about when we fight IC and have all the same arguments?"
See Vos Vs Lucerne, Pike presiding - Judgement; parties shall remain separated until such time as they learn to play nice (under the Grade-School Playground Act of 2007) under threat of Ban.
#20 12:42am 28/01/09
The story is pending. If I don't have school tomorrow (likely, with the current weather outlook) then it probably will be up by 3 EST.
#19 12:35am 28/01/09
I love to see the spirit of the Math Faction still lives on, even if it has become totally useless. There exists no current precident which establishes any of the above point/counter-point has any value for application. Why? Because none of the above has been substantiated by an In Character/Battlegrounds contribution (aka thread) which explains any of the above material (as pertains to the R&D itself).
And on another note; you're welcome, as mentioned, to debate until the cows come home. And on that note, note; Corise/Smarts - you can postulate whatever you like but there is no "approval" process and as such Kach is not required to defend any of his ideas here. He is however required to provide exposition in the form of the aforementioned story which is also required alongside any R&D to validate its use.
If this is an attempt to, by way of open discussion, smooth out any lumps and bumps that Kach feels will aid him in his creative process, then by all means have at it. If this is, on the part of any member, an attempt to debunk Kach's ideas you might as well quit it now until such time as Kach provides a [I]complete[/I] R&D document.
And also note; you may be a science geek or you may be university student who thinks he knows everything about anything because his/her professors say it is so but do not presume that your belief provides you any advantage over your fellow members. This is a lesson Gue embiggens so don't go thinking that's going to change.
#18 10:54pm 27/01/09
[QUOTE]This is the problem, as per the above quote from EGWT: standard particle shields are [I]in/on[/I] the hull. Particle shields are not seperate energy fields which provide any protection by themselves. What they do is strengthen existing material. If there is no material to strengthen (which there probably is not much of in a vacuum), then they won't be providing much or any protection to the ship at hand. How are the particle shields protecting the ship if they're located above the hull? I'm unsure how'd they fool a missile either. Missiles don't tend to be fooled until they hit something, or something hits them...
[/QUOTE]
I've never heard that. I, like probably every one else except you (and almost certainly supported by some parts of canon) assume they are fields that form around a ship as a physical barrier. Torpedoes would be designed to penetrate this first barrier and detonate against the hull. An outer weaker and inner stronger barrier would duplicate this.
[QUOTE]
I have no problems with my starfighters being able to be detected. They can be by the naked eye in the right circumstances, and they have been seen and shot up before without any problems from me. Particularly when Telan shot them up when TNO first encountered them before Hunters & Gatherers. But if one is going to try and completely take away an advantage from a well-written technology, one better have a good and decent explanation for it that holds up to the same standards in which the first technology is written. For the record, stealth fighters are no longer the Confederation's main fighters, S16s are, and they aren't stealth fighters...[/QUOTE]
I actually looked at your R&D for the S16 the other day and noticed that. You did an excellent job writing your stealth technology and RPing it. Now I've written a counter-stealth system for the Empire, on that is entirely feasible. (One might say it is more feasible than GC's, in fact, since we don't even know that Gravitons exist. There's just a theory - a part of the unproved Superstring theory - that they do). We are hardly the first faction to have one.
[QUOTE]First off, TNO and its fleets were smaller in that time, and R&D rules and practices were different. Second, part of that R&D states that vessels will be scrapped if they cannot be updated, so its rather selective. On top that of...[/QUOTE]
Per capita our fleet strength would remain constant, and the vast majority of vessels were upgraded. Older vessels were scrapped, but they were replaced by newer vessels, which is more expensive than any upgrade, actually undermining your mention of that.
[QUOTE]I have no issue with the datalink, for the record. That should probably be standard equipment on most starships if it isn't already. The X-wings of Rogue & Wraith Squadron had pretty much the same thing already. Saying that it's completely uncrackable is somewhat debatable for any number of reasons, but there is little doubt that it would difficult to crack for most ships[/QUOTE].
I figured I'd be on the safe side and R&D the link, since no device of the sort ever showed up in canon except (apparently) in these X wings, which existed in a pair of series I never read.
[QUOTE]It's not so much the cost of each individual part as it is the scale on which they are being produced. A $1 can of chili by itself, for example, is cheap. But 1,000 cans of chili are not, even at that bargain price. Considering the size of TNO's fleets typically, this is going to be a very large credit crunch. Ships are probably going to need multiple lasers and recievers to communicate, in addition, because they are restricted by line of sight by their nature.[/QUOTE]
And completely building a fleet from the ground up for the Confederation with stealth fighters and 6,000m command ships and expensive tech wasn't an expensive undertaking? You bought a lot of cans of chili there, way more than the Empire will be buying here.
[QUOTE]
Or for Wes' case, the Ares-class Heavy Tank is quite literally a Command & Conquer Mammoth Tank down to the gun caliber. R&D itself and its background rather than trying to beat some certain R&D that someone else made. There is however, with some added Star Wars technology and a Confederation background that the C&C tank didn't have for obvious reasons. Sometimes people feel threatened and make R&Ds to counter it. That makes sense, to a point, but if all one's R&Ds are based on that sort of one-upmanship, there are going to be issues...[/QUOTE]
This R&D was not created for recent one-upmanship. It was created 18 months ago just before I left and was never posted, having rotted away on my hard drive in the meantime.
#17 10:25pm 27/01/09
[QUOTE][I]Thus, if it's not on the hull, what are the particle shields strengthening? The vacuum and any chance particles that happen to be in the immediate area around the ship? [/I]
Obviously. I was not explicit enough in my explanation for this system. Apologies. The shields would not be projected on or near the hull but above them. The lower layer would be in the standard position while the first layer would be a distance above them equal to the distance between a standard shield and a vessel's hull. They will not strengthen the hull. The layering will fool missiles into detonating prematurely, preventing them from damaging the ship.[/QUOTE]
This is the problem, as per the above quote from EGWT: standard particle shields are [I]in/on[/I] the hull. Particle shields are not seperate energy fields which provide any protection by themselves. What they do is strengthen existing material. If there is no material to strengthen (which there probably is not much of in a vacuum), then they won't be providing much or any protection to the ship at hand. How are the particle shields protecting the ship if they're located above the hull? I'm unsure how'd they fool a missile either. Missiles don't tend to be fooled until they hit something, or something hits them...
[QUOTE][I]As per the idea of energy[ray] shields being used to absorb damage, I'm rather curious as to how that would work? Ray shields work against turbolasers, laser cannons, and perhaps energy torpedoes, but they do not absorb/protect against other radiation. This means that energy shields don't protect against explosives, or rather the thermal damage from a proton or concussion missile which hits it.[/I]
My understanding is that the energy of an explosion could be absorbed but if this is wrong that's fine. I think I got the impression from one of Heir's R&Ds that had some sort of missile detonation field and the shields projected below it. I won't RP it as absorbing any damage.[/QUOTE]
Are you perhaps thinking of his Lightning Field Generator or his Electro-pulse Shields? Or perhaps his Field-Class Shield Array? This is a good example of part of the problems of having so many different advanced subsystems...in any case, most of the systems relied upon detonating the missile before its blast radius would be too near to the ship in question.
[QUOTE][I]Just a general comment/idea applicable to all factions, but perhaps there need to be tradeoffs for all of these special systems. Realistically, one does not get everything for nothing, and a higher price is not a remotely good excuse especially if the project is going to be applied to nearly all the vessels of an entire faction. This should be some performance tradeoff. I would like to suggest reliability issues for things like the sensors mentioned here. [/I]
You know people have been playing with high tech for a long time. GC has had it's graviton scanners and whatnot, BDE has always been high tech, and you've posted a number of neat little do-dads too. TNO has not been so active in posting lots of tech. We've got a few things - such as Multi-track and Reactive shields, but we've never bothered to create a stealth sensor or a lot of high tech stuff. Now I got to create a sensor that could possibly (gasp) detect your little fighters and all of a sudden you're talking about performance trade offs? [/QUOTE]
High technology has always been used by BDE and others, but it's created a lot of problems and issues, particularly Heir's (regardless if it is his fault or not). Or perhaps even KDI's in the Battle of Metalorn if you would like another example. We have done it yes, but that does not make it necessary right. Tradition is not always right, like racism, for example.
I have no problems with my starfighters being able to be detected. They can be by the naked eye in the right circumstances, and they have been seen and shot up before without any problems from me. Particularly when Telan shot them up when TNO first encountered them before Hunters & Gatherers. But if one is going to try and completely take away an advantage from a well-written technology, one better have a good and decent explanation for it that holds up to the same standards in which the first technology is written. For the record, stealth fighters are no longer the Confederation's main fighters, S16s are, and they aren't stealth fighters...
[QUOTE]This would not be our first general fleet upgrade (I know of one for certain, and I believe there was a second.), and definitely not the biggest. It's very doable. Look at this: [url]http://www.therebelfaction.com/foru...read.php?t=6026[/url]. That's the first general fleet upgrade, which involved giving nearly every star destroyer in the fleet a total overhaul. GFU IV would be nowhere near that level of expensive or difficulty. These would just go on when a ship's in for maintenance. [/QUOTE]
First off, TNO and its fleets were smaller in that time, and R&D rules and practices were different. Second, part of that R&D states that vessels will be scrapped if they cannot be updated, so its rather selective. On top that of...
[QUOTE]Yes, it's expensive. ~Drayson[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]These are very basic things, not a complete overhaul of every star destroyer's engines or a reactor upgrade for every ship in the fleet. We already equip every ship with sensors. This would just be a slightly upgraded package. A datalink is a basic software upgrade that simply transmits data between ships so all vessels have access to other ship's sensor and targeting data. Right now the US military uses these between tanks and F-15 fighters. Why can't the Empire have one too? The lasers are very simple devices that can be constructed on any planet with basic optical facilities. The only thing iffy here when it comes to simplicity is the particle shields, which may actually require a hardware upgrade now that I think about it, but every ship has particle shields - it's not like they're some exotic tech. It would take at most a second set of projectors (not generators, projectors) for every ship, a minor upgrade.
Think realistically about the scale of these upgrades and realize they're not very huge. [/QUOTE]
I have no issue with the datalink, for the record. That should probably be standard equipment on most starships if it isn't already. The X-wings of Rogue & Wraith Squadron had pretty much the same thing already. Saying that it's completely uncrackable is somewhat debatable for any number of reasons, but there is little doubt that it would difficult to crack for most ships.
It's not so much the cost of each individual part as it is the scale on which they are being produced. A $1 can of chili by itself, for example, is cheap. But 1,000 cans of chili are not, even at that bargain price. Considering the size of TNO's fleets typically, this is going to be a very large credit crunch. Ships are probably going to need multiple lasers and recievers to communicate, in addition, because they are restricted by line of sight by their nature.
[QUOTE]Quote:
[I]Otherwise, there is going to be essentially an arms race between special systems, which means lots of (pseudo)-science based R&Ds. And frankly, that will lead to more debates, arguments, etc. Something to think about.[/I]
The last arms race I recall was between you and Wes.[/QUOTE]
More an arms long-jump if you ask me. :P
Most of my R&Ds are actually conversions or translations of units from different universes and games. This is partly because then they will be impartially balanced for the most part, and partly because the focus is then on the R&D itself, rather than trying to beat someone else's R&D. Want a real obvious example? The Wing Commander [URL=http://www.wcnews.com/ships2/p2kalrechi.shtml]Kalrechi[/URL] and the Alliance's [URL=http://www.therebelfaction.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11608]Kalrechi[/URL]...
Or for Wes' case, the Ares-class Heavy Tank is quite literally a Command & Conquer Mammoth Tank down to the gun caliber. R&D itself and its background rather than trying to beat some certain R&D that someone else made. There is however, with some added Star Wars technology and a Confederation background that the C&C tank didn't have for obvious reasons. Sometimes people feel threatened and make R&Ds to counter it. That makes sense, to a point, but if all one's R&Ds are based on that sort of one-upmanship, there are going to be issues...
I generally don't respond to R&Ding specifically to counter other people's R&Ds, simply because that shouldn't be the point of R&Ds in my opinion. For me, R&Ds are a place to create a technological background that completes and complements a given culture. Yes, there needs to be some emphasis on performance or fulfilling a certain need/role in a faction, but that should not be only goal of the R&D in and of itself.
EDIT:
Jan, the reduction idea with percentages would be good in my opinion too.
#16 8:11pm 27/01/09
I hadn't seen your point about the power being divided (my bad). If that's the case, then that gets rid of that complaint.
#15 8:10pm 27/01/09
Also, the "general fleet upgrade" you referenced, wasn't installing any new ideas or really giving any real advantage to TNO. It was simply making 40 year old Star Destroyers the equivalent of present day warships. Drayson wasn't trying to make his ships have extra shields, or be able to detect stealthed ships, he was just making his fleet up to date. That being said, that R&D seemed to have many arguments against it and I don't know if it was ever implemented, so that's a bad example to use.
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