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Growing Horizons: Inner Sphere - Quest

While this weapon system was going to be extremely dangerous and likely able to destroy vessels under a certain side with a single hit, the downside of these weapons was that they were unable to deliver any Smart Dust. To get around this problem, the two main auto cannons of the Belisarius were to be replaced by a pair of Hypervelocity Macron Accelerators, a weapon system capable of accelerating 10 micron sized carbon-nanolattice spheres up to 20.000 km/s in an accelerator ring. With a constant stream of these 'Macrons' directed at a target, with an effect not unlike a sand blaster directed at a piece of masonry on an armored target.
Jesus Christ. We have Beast Ion Beams from Homeworld Cataclysm. Yeah. Anyone of ill intent from the IS is fucked, they just don't know it yet.
 
So a futuristic version of the Metal Storm system? Like the railgun is a futuristic version of the Electro-Thermal Chemical gun?
Not as such. As far as I can tell, its a particle beam like weapon system that fires larger particulates of several micron size. Much like an actual sand blaster.

EDIT:

Project over the next few days, clear up that SVG map into proper layers and see what can be done with it...
 
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To get around this problem, the two main auto cannons of the Belisarius were to be replaced by a pair of Hypervelocity Macron Accelerators, a weapon system capable of accelerating 10 micron sized carbon-nanolattice spheres up to 20.000 km/s in an accelerator ring. With a constant stream of these 'Macrons' directed at a target, with an effect not unlike a sand blaster directed at a piece of masonry on an armored target.
Given/assuming that the other ships will be doing evasive manoeuvres within its travel path, and that the fastest effect of this weapon on a still target will be by concentrating on a single point and blasting the micron particulate into that point, the effective results will be equivalent to whipping the enemy ship as it junks into and out of the micron particulate beam. There will be welts of lacerations across the surface of the enemy ship, crisscrossing across armour and bulkheads, slicing of antenna and blinding the odd unlucky surface instrument.
Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if the recipients of this weapon will call it a particle whip or something, since it will look like the back of a particular unruly slave; their ship will have had had twenty lashes squared.
If our predictive targeting algorithms are good enough, or the enemy ship is closer, the welts will be crescent and circular around the target point, stochastically digging deeper in a conic progression reminiscent of a coarse drill.
If this messes enough with the armour, I'd expect the landfall capability of any DropShip to be seriously hampered.
Before the end of Spring, the Reasonable Excuse commanded by an ASI named Bill, and the Not Invented Here, which in turn was commanded by an ASI named Ted. Each was equipped with four Mining drone craft, and prepared for their maiden voyages by traveling to Hannover and Solidarność, where they began with the construction os several Raytan Jump Pointe Defense Stations, to improve the defense of the system, as well as setting up some interplanetary infrastructure to help both worlds in that regard.
raytans.png
[] Project Cerulean Hammock:
The work on Project Byzantium has progressed far enough that it would be a good idea for a Project Team to evaluate the uses of such big spacecraft and whether or not they are a White Elephant compared to WCDC Bombardment type vessels, or if they might be a good idea to make use of outside of operating as Mobile Forwards Operation Bases.
Time: 3 turns, Chance of success: 50%, Reward: IS scale warships have a future
Do I get this right, if the rolls succeed our conclusion will be that IS scale warships will have a future, and if the rolls fail then we will conclude that warships of that size are economically/strategically inefficient in relation to their advantages?
Sheesh, looking at it, that's a beast. I love how the principle can effectively be turned into beamed propulsion.
Huh, I have to revise my previous assumption on welts as the effect. These would only occur if the macrons arrive sufficiently close together so their individual impact craters overlap. If they don't the enemy's armouring might look more like the face of a teenager with vicious acne.
 
Yes. Those new weapons Belisarius is giving are exactly what I was hoping would get unlocked. Tortuga is acceptable. Piracy is stomped on. The worlds are being occupied and uplifted hopefully. Even with trap possible ruined what surviving pirates know is they have no safe place in the region and probable not the numbers or cohesion to try for a third pirate world so hopefully will flee. So they reached Atreus? This should be a very interesting and informative visit. Unless something goes horrible wrong like the League trying to impress the ships for military service. And survey is a mixed bag.

And Eutin continues to be a shit show. Was comstar prodding locals to keep us locked down as long as they could? As is comstar is all but openly dicking with us and the Lyrans holding up message traffic. Probable best to avoid system in future. Riva is part of Kell Hounds. A "mercenary" unit that is basically a independent lyran troubleshooter formation with its leaders the Kell brothers being pretty close relations to the ruling Steiners. Riva marries a Kell to so her being here is pretty useful and show that we have official attention.

Marian diplo expedition on its way. Good luck. And nueman is done... with Bill and Ted? See what you did there but yeah let them start building and self replicating. Compound interest is a beautiful thing. Jumpships is good to with great spread. Get those built and once Lyrans get here to see them joygasms and trade deals will be had.

Robot awake?... Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The hell gerbails have had 200+ years to build? Fuck. Ok they must be distracted or something otherwise they would have invaded IS by now. Given robot is here that means the freaks are probable somewhere to our west so we need better defense grids and detection nets up fraking now. If lucky maybe star league genocided them and they are just now building back up to threat levels. Oh and we get robot design? Maybe we can turn that into a new species to be part of us?

Holy crap crit success on comms that will be really really useful and something to keep black boxed for our selves. I don't know why comstar is helping us and the fedcom by keeping the league locked in grinding self defeating civil war but sure like Napoleon said don't stop a enemy from making mistakes. And that is a very lovely map that I will need to study and yes to permeant survey ships of exploration duty.

Ok Selections. Many things I want but many things are backlogged to hell and just need to be done so: Yes to jump bases to finally have. Yes to star trek style survey. Build the tech because we need to actually get this instead of keep putting it off even though it keeps getting votes. If not for need for more germanium would go for weapons as well but next time slot is free we can get that. HFEG jump because its long and if it works will greatly simplify our ships and even if fails should get something. Hyperwave because with comms done we should have excellent chance to break into whole new tech tree. Or it might be a blind corner. Who knows but we need to so we can plan.

[X] Improved System Defense & Forward Operation Base:
While the Raytan Jump Point Defense Stations do their job for system defense, there are ideas how to improve on the system, giving it FTL capabilities, so that they can be emplaced in systems without existing interplanetary infrastructure. Additionally, such a station could potentially act as a mobile Forward Operation Base for offensive operations. Together with the Caldran Ansible, it would also allow the operations command and staff to remain protected bhind the potential front lines. Potentially, such a design might be equipped with the new Jump Drive.
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 45%, Reward: New FTL cpable Defensive Station

[X] DSSIN Survey Squadron:
PErhaps it would be a good idea to put some dedicated survey squadron under the command of the DSSINOO to help them with some survey work in the area surroiunding FOB Pine Gap
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 60%, Reward: 1d4 Survey squadrons for the DSSINOO, +1d6 on DSSINOO survey operations

[X] Build the Technology:
With mechs been taken apart, it might be a possibility that parts for them could be replicated and sold on the open market in the future. Especially Myomer bundles are interesting in thie regard, though WCDC technology allows to make motive materials that are more compact compared to IS Myomer.
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 60%, Reward: Ability to build IS mech components, Options to upgrade IS Mech components, Possibility to sell Mech components

[X] Mining Town:
With the possibility of future construction of jump ships in large amounts, the situation with germanium might become problematic and more sources have to be found within the systems of the WCDC and mines constructed to exploit any finds.
Time: 4 turns, Chance of success: 55%, Reward: Germanium Mines

[X] HFEG Jump:
In the wake of the success with the Jump Drive and the HFEG working in parallel, there have been some signs that it might be possible to combine both systems into a single drive system.
Time: 12 turns, Chance of success: 25%, Reward: HF Jump Drive

[X] Hyperwave Reflection Research:
During the work on the Superlimunal Wave Detector, there were apparently some reflections happening of hyperwaves in some form or another. Research should be done into what caused these reflections.
Time: 5 turns, Chance of success: 50%, Reward: ?
 
[X] Operation Green Granite:
[X] Project Cerulean Hammock:
[X] Mining Town:
[X] Heavy Combat Space Craft:
[X] Hyperwave Local Area Mesh Network:
[X] Compact Hyperwave Transceiver:
 
Irinai Hegemony
Oh fuck it is the Hell Hamsters?!
331st Battlemech Division
Oh god. The Wolverines are fighting those fuckers probably right now.

...

The Irinai are Biotech Gods and like to optimize everything along eugenic specializations and caste lines...

Nicky and the Thrashborn had an obsession with genetics, eugenics and caste systems...

The Clans...

The exile of the Wolverines...

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!! 🤯

@Blade4
Nickolas Kerensky is/was an Irinai plant! The Clans are secretly controlled by the Science Caste Conspiracy/Society and the Dark Caste, which are designated Irinai handlers.

This explains the desperation of the Emperor and Adam to contact the few willing Warden Clans.

@Blade? Now with VN builders ready, we must start Eco-Whoring like crazy if I may use FAF Supreme Commander term. Right, the fuck now! So we can start churning out thousands of automated AI combat craft, defense weapon platforms, surface combat drones, and such shit, like Forerunners-lite.

I am now suddenly super happy that I didn't torpedo the idea to get surface combat drones (those infantry drones) as I wanted originally. Shit. We need to go full Supreme Commander/Total Annihilation Von Neumann Machines of Doom now!
 
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Just plausible enough we cant discount it. In either case we need to begin really building up or economies and militaries because one hell of a war is coming either way.
 
@Warringer
Would you consider something like an Anti-Little Boy Nanotech Disassembler to be something like the final tech level epic tier project for this quest?
Nanotech on that level at all would be end tech I presume. But given we are unlikely to see it used unless someone can break the quarantine don't will be that big a project. Though nanotech would be fun to break into. Healing, construction, warfare? That new gun we are getting for cap ships that shoots smart dust and sand blaster streams? Imagine it shooting black nano that rips and tears and corrupts everything it touches until breaks down. Beast corruption beam might not be that far off from there.
 
[X] Operation Green Granite:
[X] Project Cerulean Hammock:
[X] Mining Town:
[X] Heavy Combat Space Craft:
[X] Hyperwave Local Area Mesh Network:
[X] Compact Hyperwave Transceiver:

Welp.

Fuck. Lets see what we shall see then
 
Oh fuck it is the Hell Hamsters?!

Oh god. The Wolverines are fighting those fuckers probably right now.

...

The Irinai are Biotech Gods and like to optimize everything along eugenic specializations and caste lines...

Nicky and the Thrashborn had an obsession with genetics, eugenics and caste systems...

The Clans...

The exile of the Wolverines...

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!! 🤯

@Blade4
Nickolas Kerensky is/was an Irinai plant! The Clans are secretly controlled by the Science Caste Conspiracy/Society and the Dark Caste, which are designated Irinai handlers.

This explains the desperation of the Emperor and Adam to contact the few willing Warden Clans.

@Blade? Now with VN builders ready, we must start Eco-Whoring like crazy if I may use FAF Supreme Commander term. Right, the fuck now! So we can start churning out thousands of automated AI combat craft, defense weapon platforms, surface combat drones, and such shit, like Forerunners-lite.

I am now suddenly super happy that I didn't torpedo the idea to get surface combat drones (those infantry drones) as I wanted originally. Shit. We need to go full Supreme Commander/Total Annihilation Von Neumann Machines of Doom now!
I would like to note that ol' Nicky has had absolutely no connection to the Irinai. That the Irinai even know about the Inner Sphere, is largely thanks to another party known to have fucked everyone up. They might know the Clans exist, but they are not involved with them either way.

Also, they are contained. For now. And their existance has been hinted at previously.
@Warringer
Would you consider something like an Anti-Little Boy Nanotech Disassembler to be something like the final tech level epic tier project for this quest?
No, because actual, working nanotech, past Smart Dust, makes things uninteresting from a narrative stand point. It would an instant 'I win button' and that is far from satisfying.

At most, we see slightly better fabricators for working nanotech, but that is taking a 3D printer and mate it to an atomic force microscope and use it to build materials on an atomic level.
 
Contained? Good but contained can mean many things. Amaris being Amaris perhaps? With league managing to contain somehow? Find out soon enough I guess.

Building by atom on a 3d printer probable be the next great tech up for industry but doubt get any time soon though would be interesting doing open research into such or seeing what we can glean about IS industry for interesting tidbits or inspirations.
 
Options and Arguments:

Military x1

[] Project Byzantium: active (3 turns)

[1] Improved System Defense & Forward Operation Base:
I know I keep harping about this, but pretty please with sugar on top? Also, I feel I need to point out that we'll likely will at best get little bonuses here (+5 to all military R&D, maybe +5 to space weapon development), so there's at best even odds of success.

[2] Extended Anti-Piracy Patrols:
We might do this, given the small failure we had with Tortuga Down. The advantages are sizeable. Doing this concurrently with FTL Raytan though… well, one of the arguments for FTL Raytan development is the ease of deployment in industrially insufficient systems to protect against pirates. Thus extending Anti-Piracy Patrols might be redundant, if we go with a purely "protect mine" approach. That said, the VNs will enable local production, if we get the local's permission. On the other hand, doing this option will effectively establish us a powerful enough polity, able to protect and project that protection past its own systems and instead into a more diffuse claimed volume of space. So I guess I support this option.

[3] Project Black Light:
Again, below even odds of success, but we might get +5 or +10 bonuses, evening it out a bit. If we get a useable prototype, I expect we'll get new actions for ground combat equipment.

[4] Project Cerulean Hammock:
Still not sure if failure and success here translate to choosing a developmental/technological path that may not be unchosen for a certain amount of years.

DSSIN

Here I'm not terribly vested in either option.
[] HumInt: (5 turns)
[] Network Extension: (3 turns)
[1] DSSIN Survey Squadron:
Well, this is a rather easy choice. I'm practically always for getting more bonuses. Though I doubt the bonuses we get here will be applicable for Green Granite, but at the same time I'm fairly sure they'll apply for Network Extension.
[2] Operation Green Granite:
This is also very sensible, since we seem to be on the early path to becoming information brokers (seeding surveillance wherever we go, privacy is a thing of the past, …).

Economy x2

[2] Heavy Combat Space Craft:
[5] Industrial Export: ANZAC
[3] Build the Weapons:
[4] Build the Technology:
[6] New Settlement Initiative
[1] Mining Town

So, if we want to export Jump Trader, and get a leg up on JumpShip production, we need germanium, and thus mining town; it's the difference between providing the IS with a trickle or a flood of new jump ships. We keep dragging Heavy Combat Space Craft with us like a mill stone, so that's also pretty much necessary. Incidentally, we may want to provide the first contracts to our backwater neighbour ANZAC, since their polity will make good use of these and relies on the jump ships. If I remember correctly, they only had jump ships with the primitive jump drives equipped, so they may very well welcome this offer with open arms, and if they're hesitant then that's because of other reasons, not because they don't have a need for new jump ships. Especially civilian grade jump ships.
As usual I want to settle systems, and new systems tend to grow exponentially, at least until they hit capacity or obstacles, so in a way we should want to settle early on (think video game Civ again, where spamming settler early on is a viable and necessary tactic to expand quickly until you stumble over your neighbours).
Build the Tech/Weapons makes sense, at least in the regard of not just shipping empty jump ships into the IS, but stacking their cargo with mechs and weapons and selling them along the way.
@Warringer, incidentally, how the heck are we going to be paid? Precious stones? It's not like we have a currency exchange or something established. Heck, it might make sense to be paid in raw material that we could refine further, if it wasn't so damn inefficient to transport compared to manufactured products.

Science x2

[2] Project Heavy Mysterious Mustard:
[4] HFEG Jump:
[5] Hyperwave Reflection Research:
[1] Hyperwave Local Area Mesh Network:
[3] Compact Hyperwave Transceiver:

[2] Project Heavy Mysterious Mustard:
We keep putting this off. I kinda want better Jump Drives. Especially if we can hopefully integrate these into the jump trader as another sale argument.

[4] HFEG Jump:
The long shot option. I kinda want to give this a shot, but the 30% overall chance of success… it doesn't look good.

[5] Hyperwave Reflection Research:
If this is the hyperspace fracture that's been bandied about, that may extend the jump rage by a factor of 10 or more, then that's very interesting. But not pressing.

[1] Hyperwave Local Area Mesh Network:
This looks delicious. It could for practical purposes replace local ansible networks; the 100,000c transmission speed translates to a ping of ~5 ms within a .25 light second bubble.

[3] Compact Hyperwave Transceiver:
This looks like something that's nice to have, and with a lot of technological knock-on effects, but not too urgent.
————

Economy
[X] Mining Town
[X] Build the Technology:
Military
[X] Improved System Defense & Forward Operation Base:
Science
[X] Hyperwave Local Area Mesh Network:
[X] Project Heavy Mysterious Mustard:
DSSINOO
[X] DSSIN Survey Squadron:

PS: Blade4 raised a made a good point for foregoing Heavy Combat Space Craft until Belisarius is done.
 
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Building by atom on a 3d printer probable be the next great tech up for industry but doubt get any time soon though would be interesting doing open research into such or seeing what we can glean about IS industry for interesting tidbits or inspirations.
That is already what fabricators are doing, build something atom by atom. They are able to produce perfect copies, though most materials they do build a procedually generated. And they take longer than coventional production methods.
 
@Warringer, incidentally, how the heck are we going to be paid? Precious stones? It's not like we have a currency exchange or something established. Heck, it might make sense to be paid in raw material that we could refine further, if it wasn't so damn inefficient to transport compared to manufactured products.

That is something for the diplomatic missions to figure out. Likely local money to be used and abused in some way. C-Bills are out however, as Comstar is likely to just 'loose' our money.
 
Well looks like got my wish. This looks to be one of the more interesting turns with everyone with their own plan practically.
That is already what fabricators are doing, build something atom by atom. They are able to produce perfect copies, though most materials they do build a procedually generated. And they take longer than coventional production methods.
*SIGH*And I knew that and still wrote it. Was thinking improving on it even more..
That is something for the diplomatic missions to figure out. Likely local money to be used and abused in some way. C-Bills are out however, as Comstar is likely to just 'loose' our money.
Probable end up with our own exchange cutting c bills out completely. We should have our own over all money system that can be exchanged through out the WCDC so we use that and exchange between it and house bills. Them playing games with the currency hurts them to so should be sort of safe.
Gold,palladium, ahem Germanium :
Valued metal is useful starter at least. Germanium might actually be pretty big because then we turn around and make more ships that they can then buy.

Edit: @Schreiben do be warned if we do heavy combat ships now we might be doing them again anyway. Right now they are our heavies. In ten turns they might be our lightest. That will greatly effect loadout and purpose.
 
Edit: @Schreiben do be warned if we do heavy combat ships now we might be doing them again anyway. Right now they are our heavies. In ten turns they might be our lightest. That will greatly effect loadout and purpose.
Ten turns are two and a half years. Do you mean to wait with the Heavy Combat Space Craft until after Belisarius is fully researched? I'd expect a new option to pop up after successfully researching Heavies which would update our space warfare doctrine. In fact, given our pace of progression, those should be revisited every five years regardless. Though… five years sounds like it's on the short end of the scale, while every twenty rounds is about right, again considering our pace.
Belisarius is finished in three turns, so I am willing to postpone the Heavy Combat. All other trade/economy options are ≥4 turns, so there won't be any 'wasted' turns in that regard. We could go for build the weapons instead. But at the same time there's some issue with Military's Cerulean Hammock, which looks into the feasibility of Belisarius scale ships as FOBs versus overall resource drain.

Economy x2
[4] Heavy Combat Space Craft (Wildredlifer, Eliar, Durabys, beast_regards)
[9] Mining Town (Blade4, Wildredlifer, Eliar, Schreiben, Letsparty, Alias, t-dugong, Durabys, beast_regards)
[5] Build the Technology (Blade4, Schreiben, Letsparty, Alias, t-dugong)
Military x1
[2] Project Cerulean Hammock (Wildredlifer, Eliar)
[6] Improved System Defense & Forward Operation Base (Blade4, Schreiben, Alias, t-dugong, Durabys, beast_regards)
[1] Project Blacklight (Letsparty)
DSSIN x1
[6] DSSIN Survey Squadron (Blade4, Schreiben, Alias, t-dugong, Durabys, beast_regards)
[3] Operation Green Granite (Wildredlifer, Eliar, Letsparty)
Science x2
[5] HFEG Jump (Blade4, Alias, t-dugong, Durabys, beast_regards)
[6] Hyperwave Reflection Research (Blade4, Letsparty, Alias, t-dugong, Durabys, beast_regards)
[4] Hyperwave Local Area Mesh Network (Wildredlifer, Eliar, Schreiben, Letsparty)
[2] Compact Hyperwave Transceiver (Wildredlifer, Eliar)
[1] Project Heavy Mysterious Mustard (Schreiben)
Looks like the only thing we all seem to agree on is Mining Town.
Updated.

@Warringer, how do the Belisarius and Raytans (and possible FTL Raytans) stack up against each other in volume and mass?
I ask because the Jump Drive makes up a sizeable fraction of the mass of Jump Ships, which might be better spent with armaments, ammunitions, etc. In fact I expect equal era STL warships ships to outperform their FTL counterparts in most cases.
 
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@Warringer, how do the Belisarius and Raytans (and possible FTL Raytans) stack up against each other in volume and mass?
I ask because the Jump Drive makes up a sizeable fraction of the mass of Jump Ships, which might be better spent with armaments, ammunitions, etc. In fact I expect equal era STL warships ships to outperform their FTL counterparts in most cases.
As far as it is, the Belisarius can crush any of our jump point defenses with ease. The Raytans have been developed with the goal f defensing a system against jumpships (so lightly armed that they might as well be unarmed) and dropships, armed with our 'subcapital' weaponry. But additionally, since they follow a Kalpana design, they are secondarily used to keep the crews of the deefense squadrons happy, so there are a good number of civilians that call the stations their home. If equipped with HFEG, they would still be largely stationary, since they lack any STL propulsion safe for a Minimag sail to keep them as stationary above a stars pole. As such, they can be moved from jump point to jump point, bu cannot be used for offensive operations, only as purely defensive units.

As for volume and mass, A Raytan has a diameter of 250m ad a width of 250m with a mass of about 250 to 500 ktonnes. The Belisarius is 1400m long and masses 1.5 Mtonnes
 
Military:
[] Project Black Light:

DSSINOO:
[] Operation Green Granite:

Economy:
[] Build the Technology:
[] Mining Town:

Science:
[] Hyperwave Reflection Research:
[] Hyperwave Local Area Mesh Network:

Looking into probable enemy weaponry to gauge their capabilities should be undertaken.
Project cerulean hammock should start after project Byzantium completes.

Op Green Granite will help with both diplomacy and trade.

Build the technology will allow us not only to have additional trade goods to offer to Tharkad but will allow us to benefit from that technology ourselves, for example industrial mechs being available for new colony work.
Mining town to prevent probable future shortfalls of germanium that would result from our plans to sell jumpships to IS powers.

Hyperwave reflection to further our understanding of hyperwaves.
Hyperwave LAMN should be completed before we try to miniaturize the tech so that we have a firm grasp on the capabilities the final units will need.
 
Ten turns are two and a half years. Do you mean to wait with the Heavy Combat Space Craft until after Belisarius is fully researched? I'd expect a new option to pop up after successfully researching Heavies which would update our space warfare doctrine. In fact, given our pace of progression, those should be revisited every five years regardless. Though… five years sounds like it's on the short end of the scale, while every twenty rounds is about right, again considering our pace.
Belisarius is finished in three turns, so I am willing to postpone the Heavy Combat. All other trade/economy options are ≥4 turns, so there won't be any 'wasted' turns in that regard. We could go for build the weapons instead. But at the same time there's some issue with Military's Cerulean Hammock, which looks into the feasibility of Belisarius scale ships as FOBs versus overall resource drain.
Honestly heavy is just one more thing we should have got to sooner but did not. It might still be worth doing now to see what it gives but if things go the way I think then the platforms entire role is about to be changed anyway so would need to be redesigned from scratch. And yeah after this we probable will need to revisit space doctrine as we reorganize and things shake out.

And going by what Warringer is saying we need to redesign our defense stations because they are going to be to light for what is to come and the idea of civilians on what should be ultimately a expendable first line of defense rather horrifying.
 
So looking at the IS WarShip classifications, Belisarius as a Texas class is a battleship. It's on the higher end of WarShips, falling a bit short of the apparently defining McKenna class of warships.

@Blade4, I kind of disagree with the need for redesign the Raytans. As is they're well equipped for the forces we're dealing with (pirates) and as such are sufficient to the task, as well as well placed for trade stations into and out of any system; everything else has to be justified. We are a defence council, after all. Unless and until we have reason to suspect a threat of such a degree that we would need to build battle stations of that size, I doubt we'll get the option.
And in my opinion the existence of these ship sizes is insufficient reason. Furthermore we don't know how well we'd fare against these IS capital ships (arbitrary 1,000,000 tons and above). Our heaviest combat vehicle seems to be the Drashy class at 25,000 tons, which we categorised as Medium Combat Craft. The Walsingham class, our recon crafts, are 11,000 tons. Sleipnir and Im-Umi classes are light combat crafts at 1,200 and 8,500 tons respectively.
Given all that, I expect our heavy combat craft to land somewhere in the 40,000 tons range, and we still wouldn't know how well any of our fleet compositions would do in a direct engagement. We simply don't have the data, and I don't expect pirates to be on the same level as these dedicated warships as they're fielded by a military force.

Frankly, our current long range diplomacy mission into the Lyran Commonwealth might be the shot in the arm we'll need for your desired capital ship manufacture. I expect the Unexpected Oversupply Of Gravitas will return with a treasure trove of historical data beyond hearsay (videos, blueprints, etc), maybe even the odd sight seeing tour of old battlefields with remnants and detritus of destroyed ships from which our intelligence agencies could draw conclusions. Heck, since they keep a constant FTL comms connection by daisy-chaining ansible buoys we might even be sending them the Superluminal Wave Detector blueprints, if their 3D manufacturing capability allows for building that module and attaching it to the ship. I assume the Unexpected Oversupply Of Gravitas has at least a maintenance grade manufacturer, but that is probably not good enough.
 
@Schreiben What worries me is we might need them and not have them because the threat just ain't there till suddenly it is. The houses are decades away from building warships worth the name. Hell they will probable try to sources ships or at least parts from us because even as of 3050 in canon they still could not make proper warship grade stl drives until comstar gave them the tech. As it stands the houses are not real threats to us because they cannot concentrate the forces to fight us and by time FedCom is in position we should be allies and still to much trouble to fight. Thing is if I am right a proper force of star league warships will fuck up our current defenses. A single army of the twenty of the old league could crush us. A warship task force could jump in and if not outrange our defenses probable practically one shot our Raytans if I understand them right. They might be able to hurt the warships by saturation fire but probable not kill them before dying. Our current spaceships can crush light forces but a proper McKenna with it attendant fleet escorts probable would be beyond their ability to stop without overwhelming numbers.

Which is a big problem when at least some clans, who can field decent numbers of warships if with shit doctrine, know we are here and very interested in us and we know there is at least one unknown xeno threat out there. Thankfully distant threats but threats none the least.
 
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