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Leave S-T to the IC and strip down the destroyers. They are of limited use in a sustained engagement anyway, as we have just seen demonstrated.
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Jun 20, 2017 10:57
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Give Special Branch the Destroyers. They would be useful but I imagine the intel might be better for Mars as a whole in the long run. As for S-T as much as I wish we could liberated it, unless we have a lot of marines right here we need to pull back and see what happens. Plus if all out war has broken out and those IC civi vessels report the nukes going off then its likely that the IC will realize we are out here, and that we are likely part of the Neptune Fleet. If that is the case they might try to attack Neptune while we are away. We should make good speed back to Neptune to ensure we can defend our holdings there.
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Jun 20, 2017 13:58
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Captured ships Repair them and bring them to our service. We are in a shooting war, and every additional ship we have on strength only improves our situation. Besides, who knows, they might be better optimised for enemy weapons systems than our own equipment currently is. I'd rather give them a go and see how they work on hostiles before we hand them over. If the SB gets a hand on them, I'd rather their testing not be too destructive, I really do think that having a few of their ships in our fleets will be a useful asset. Wasn't there a disabled Bill Gates BC from last time too? Quinntan fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 14:10
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Quinntan posted:Wasn't there a disabled Bill Gates BC from last time too? Every Bill Gates we have faced we have left as a flaming wreak. Its disabled in the sense that there is still a hunk of metal floating around somewhere, but there is nothing systemwise thats intact with either of them. I generally think that 2 ships is not going to make a large difference in battles to come, but the intel we gain might. Besides, its not like after Special Branch has their fill pouring over everything that Mars Command cant outfit them and press them into service later.
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Jun 20, 2017 14:57
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 Intel: Coffeehitler posted:Question for Intel/Foreign Ministry: Veloxyll posted:And yeah, how's Terra responding to the IC invading an independant colony and threatening Pluto? And can we get salvagers out to rip up that cruiser? Are they at risk from IC naval reprisal at all? Terra is quite unhappy but for now is staying out of it as long as the  There are two salvage vessels at Triton, you can deploy them however you wish but they are vulnerable to attack as they are civilian vessels. Crazycryodude posted:Question for intel Mars has large interplanetary missiles, as does Earth. The normal models do not have enough range to reach Jupiter by themselves but engineers are hard at work modifying them as we speak! However at the massive ranges involved active guidance is almost impossible so they must be fired and then will launch self-seeking submunitions. However the issue is that these will generally home in on the closest EM/Thermal source which will be civilian populations which means outside of MAD/Maximum war crimes they will generally stay in their silos unless enemy ships come within active sensor range of the missile base. It’s possible to make some custom self-seeking long range missiles and fire them off at long range targeted on the harvesters but this has a non-zero chance of poo poo going horrifically wrong if the missiles retarget. Quinntan posted:Wasn't there a disabled Bill Gates BC from last time too? The Bill gates class 9 CruDiv faced was thoroughly wasted by missile fire and the remnants are currently laid out in pieces across a Martian shipyard as the wreck was successfully salvaged under the watchful gaze of third fleet.  Special Branch has come to the realisation that they cant actually haul the Missile destroyers away themselves due to a lack of ships to tow them with so are more than happy to part with them after they finish going over them for intel. They are however requisitioning the captured IC tanker due to yet another diversion brought upon by what was described as 'crazy stories and rumors' about Pluto the interrogated IC prisoners all had. They plan on heading outsystem to investigate and if possible secure the Pluto site. The commander finished with an invitation to send an escort along for the ride. Contact has been made with the S-T civilian admin, the situation seems stable for now and they are obviously against any attempt to dig out the IC troops with orbital fire. One bright wag in Ops suggested towing a crippled IC missile destroyer to S-T and leaving it behind with a few missile reloads from the Endurance and a skeleton crew to maintain a blockade over S-T. Only FSV Endurance has a tractor beam anyway so only one ship can be towed at a time.  Option Gibraltar has won, the mobile yard will depart posthaste. Task force Goofy at S-T needs orders and the same goes for the Triton Defense/Dumbo and the Marine ships and landing craft at Triton. There is no sign of incoming ships or launches from Saturn yet but now war is declared we can expect the situation to heat up rapidly. I need decisions on the following. If people want to submit detailed plans to vote on that's good but otherwise I can just go with thread consensus: -Detach craft from TF Dumbo to escort Special branch? -Return Dumbo towards Triton? -Send more ships or troops to Swift-Tuttle to free the colony? Your asset list is here and you also have a number of civilian drive troopships and mobile infantry at Triton fleet base should you wish to summon them outsystem to liberate S-T. Saros fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 15:20
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o we think the IC has interplanetary missiles (or other similarly ranged weapons) that could retaliate if we shot a few of our own interplanetary missiles at them? Obviously we don't want to scourge the outer planets clean in a torrent of nuclear hellfire, but popping a couple big gas mining platforms or something would be a suitable response.
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Split off a couple of light ships to escort Special Branch to Pluto, say, an Endurance and a Schiaparelli. Less in case Special Branch needs some fire support, more so they can crack down on any daft ideas that might piss off Earth. Speaking of, please tell Special Branch not to piss off Earth. Hold position at Swift-Tuttle while reinforcements come. Send a salvager, as many troopships as necessary and a couple of warships as escorts from Triton to S-T to loot, liberate the station and tow that other crippled destroyer home. Friend Commuter fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 17:35
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Operation Whistleblower Detach two destroyers as escorts for the SB. Tow one of the captured missile destroyers next to S-T to set up a blockade and rearm it with Martian missiles just in case. - Ask the SB if they can hook us up with IC communications info or a transponder code or compliant prisoners or whatever the hell else we'd need to make everyone back on Saturn think that destroyer is still under IC control, even if just for a little while - If they can pull that off, attempt to destroy or disable long-range transmitters on S-T (burn them away with CIWS, land a SB spec-ops team, whatever it is be very delicate, definitely don't bombard the colony). The end goal here is to make the IC think that their attack succeeded, if just barely. Feed them some bullshit about a Martian counterattack that they barely managed to repel, at the expense of everyone but the damaged missile destroyer. No, sorry, you can't talk to the colony, S-T's long range transmitters were destroyed in the fighting. We can pass along a message, though. Keep up the charade as long as possible, even if it probably won't last forever. Send the rest of TF Dumbo back to Triton for repair and rearm, preferably with the other missile destroyer in tow. The Marine task force is to form up with a brigade of assault troops from Triton and one salvager as TF Serpico. TF Serpico is to proceed to S-T and attempt a liberation of the colony and salvage of nearby wrecks. If they encounter enemy fleet elements on the way, whether to fight their way through or abort is left to the discretion of the TF commander. UPDATE: Merged with Pash's plan Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 18:20
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Saros posted:
I assume you mean the salvagers are civilian-grade vessels (i.e. not armed or armored) in military service and not that the IC is going to target non-combatants. Because if not then things are going to get nasty.
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Jun 20, 2017 18:57
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Friend Commuter posted:Split off a couple of light ships to escort Special Branch to Pluto, say, an Endurance and a Schiaparelli. Less in case Special Branch needs some fire support, more so they can crack down on any daft ideas that might piss off Earth. Speaking of, please tell Special Branch not to piss off Earth. I would modify this, I dont think its safe to bring the Repair ship to S-T, we are unlikely to keep this underwraps much longer and there is no point in putting it in harms way or letting them know we brought it out here. Send it a long way around to Triton, I suggest: Operation Cautious Rabbit: Send the repair yard the long way around to Triton, being as safe as it can. Don't bring it near the S-T battle zone. Split off a couple light ships (say the previously mentioned Endurance and Schiaparelli) to escort Special Branch. Send the injured ships home, towing the damaged missile ships we stole. Send a fleet scout toward the nearest IC holdings we expect any response to come from so we get a warning whats coming. Send up a few of the faster marine battalions to try to take S-T back. Finally if we detect an IC response that looks threatening to what we still have on station at S-T retreat back to Triton, no use risking our forces while the bigger ships need repairs. Pash fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 19:15
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That is correct, in Aurora civilian/military ships is basically a ship design thing which means the difference between the ship having to be maintained or not. Any shipping you have direct control of even 'civilian' tagged ships like large troop transports, or salvagers will be a legitimate 'military' target. To confuse things further there are civilian shipping lines which operate their own vessels associated with a side. These ships can be targeted but are not under direct player/ai control and do their own thing like moving colonists or infrastructure. These can be ID'd by the name, it's always [company name] Small/Med/large freighter.
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Jun 20, 2017 19:17
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Pash posted:I would modify this, I dont think its safe to bring the Repair ship to S-T, we are unlikely to keep this underwraps much longer and there is no point in putting it in harms way or letting them know we brought it out here. Send it a long way around to Triton, Yeah, on closer inspection going direct from Mars to S-T means getting awfully close to Jupiter. Gonna edit my vote.
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Jun 20, 2017 20:05
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Voting Cautious Rabbit
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Jun 20, 2017 20:26
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A couple of destroyers for SB escort, sure. But we don't need to send a cruiser, even a draper CL is way overkill and they are going to be needed elsewhere.
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Jun 20, 2017 20:52
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Yeah looking at their specs it's way overkill, I removed it from mine.
Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 20:55
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Pharnakes posted:A couple of destroyers for SB escort, sure. But we don't need to send a cruiser, even a draper CL is way overkill and they are going to be needed elsewhere. Good point, I will leave that up to voters. If we go with Operation Cautious Rabbit please specify whether you want just destoryer or if you think a draper is worth sending. I'm cool either way.
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Jun 20, 2017 20:56
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Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits
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Jun 21, 2017 03:54
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A reminder: We sent TF Goofy over to eyeball the nearest IC fleet base at Titania, and it saw two cruisers and two DDGs sitting around. I'm fairly certain that those weren't with the convoy we blew up, so plans to do things like drop marines at ST should probably include a strong enough escort to deal with them if they sortie.
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Jun 21, 2017 06:23
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Crazycryodude posted:Operation Whistleblower SB has some hardware that can produce convincing simulations of captured IC officers and we have a lot of captured codes from the destroyers so this can be attempted but impersonating an officer of a foreign fleet is going to be tricky. Out of box thinking is encouraged however! Do you want to transfer some missiles to the captured destroyer we are leaving behind? The tender has some and it should be fairly easy to reload them into the IC's box launchers as they are smaller than the usual missiles. Pash posted:I would modify this, I dont think its safe to bring the Repair ship to S-T, we are unlikely to keep this underwraps much longer and there is no point in putting it in harms way or letting them know we brought it out here. Send it a long way around to Triton, Looks good, only two points here: -Only the fleet support vessels have tractor beams so only one ship in Dumbo can tow. -We have zero marine battalions. There are 8 independent companies of Marines in the Marine detachment at Triton but their combined strength on the attack is only slightly higher than the mobile infantry battalion at S-T so using them would be a bloody and difficult affair, Marines get bonuses at assaulting Ships and PDC but are otherwise not significantly stronger than normal mobile infantry. However there are two brigades (5 battalions each) of mixed Mobile infantry/Assault troops at Triton with associated transports, the caveat being their transports are much slower ~1800-2000kps than the Marines
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Jun 21, 2017 10:43
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Do we have any intelligence on the other non-aligned colonies out there?
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Jun 21, 2017 11:21
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Saros posted:
Let's send the MI brigades and see what happens. If IC responds in force, we can always just turn around and return to base. If nothing else, it will keep IC busy while we complete salvage ops and whatever the SB is up to. I'm thinking we should avoid major space action until the mobile yard arrives and we can get our BC fixed up.
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Jun 21, 2017 11:39
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Saros posted:Do you want to transfer some missiles to the captured destroyer we are leaving behind? Yes, thanks for reminding me. Edited that in for clarity. Also, Pash, the only real difference between our plans at this point is that yours has a fleet scout picketing Titania and an explicit provision to keep the repair yard safe, while mine has the scheme with the captured destroyer. I'm fine with both of your differences, if you're ok with mine do you want to just merge them into Operation Whistleblowing Rabbit or whatever? Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 12:53
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Crazycryodude posted:Yes, thanks for reminding me. Edited that in for clarity. Sounds good to me. And ya, lets use the mobile infantry and save our marines. If we can only tow one missile destoryer than might as well load up the other and leave it sitting around S-T with a skeleton crew. Trying communication hijinks is fun too.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:07
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Battle Plan: Happy Mice Battle Map:  Task Force Mickey (Red Arrow) Main Objectives: Escort SB Force to Pluto Secondary Objectives: Neutralize IC assets if found Units: SB vessel Two gun destroyers (Endurance Class) Plan: The two gun destroyers escort the SB vessel to Pluto to do their thing, keeping the SB vessel safe from harm. If when travelling to Pluto they encounter any unguarded IC shipping and it is doable they cna move off to engage and destroy IC shipping as long as it doesn't leave the SB vessel in danger. Task Force Miney {Yellow Arrow) Main Objectives: Recover IC disabled assets and return them to Neptune Units: Battle Cruiser Light carrier Three Gun Destroyers. One Fleet Scout One Brawler Cruiser One Anti-Fighter Cruiser Two Anti-missile Light Cruisers, One of each type One Fleet support tender One disabled IC destroyer under tow Plan: Immediately have all fleet elements take up guard position around the Fleet support tender and escort the tender and the captured destroyer back to Neptune avoiding all and any IC contacts. The other destroyer is to be self destructed I doubt we could get the other tender out here to recover it and it isn't worth leaving it behind to be recovered by the IC. We also could probably liberate but not hold Swift Tuttle thus we must for the time being leave them to the IC. The Task Force should return to Neptune and repair and rearm for future missions. Task Force Jerry (Dark Red Arrow) Main Objectives: Scout IC presence at Saturn Units: One Fleet Scout One Fleet Support Tender (If required) Plan: The Fleet Scout takes a long circular route away from Neptune and circles around the outside of the system and makes its way towards Saturn. This is a pure recon run only so contact with IC vessels is to be avoided at all times, the Fleet Scout is to safely identify what it can of IC assets at Saturn before returning to base. If required the remaining Fleet tender is to go with the Fleet Scout if it will require a refuel to carry out its mission.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:19
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Fray posted:Let's send the MI brigades and see what happens. If IC responds in force, we can always just turn around and return to base. If nothing else, it will keep IC busy while we complete salvage ops and whatever the SB is up to. I'm thinking we should avoid major space action until the mobile yard arrives and we can get our BC fixed up. I don't think we should risk throwing away something that is even rarer out here at the rear end end of the Outer Planets, our ground pounders. If we're going to send in the marines or infantry, they're going to need serious support (at least distraction or suppression of defenses) for any surface action which means its not going to be "Let's give this a try" it'll be "Assault Transports + a decent amount of escorts".
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Jun 21, 2017 15:05
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The liberation task force is gonna be have orders to turn around and run for home if they see anything they can't handle. If they get to S-T unopposed or with light resistance they can brush off, great, we liberated our friends. If they have to turn around, oh well, at least we tried instead of sitting on our hands. Even just making the effort shows all our other indie friends that we're actually committed to them. Nobody's expecting us to sail into suicidal odds and pray, just try.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:17
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Crazycryodude posted:The liberation task force is gonna be have orders to turn around and run for home if they see anything they can't handle. If they get to S-T unopposed or with light resistance they can brush off, great, we liberated our friends. If they have to turn around, oh well, at least we tried instead of sitting on our hands. Even just making the effort show all our other indie friends that we're actually committed to them. Nobody's expecting us to sail into suicidal odds and pray, just try. What happens if the IC arrive in the middle of the operation though? Also does anyone have any plans for how to hold the colony after we liberate it?
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Jun 21, 2017 15:19
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koolkevz666 posted:What happens if the IC arrive in the middle of the operation though? Also does anyone have any plans for how to hold the colony after we liberate it? I don't know if we care about holding it. The main point is to liberate it, then celebrate the PR victory of protecting the sovereignty of independent colonies. The IC's only purpose in taking S-T was as a base between them and Pluto. We stopped them from making it to Pluto and now we have a full out war on, so they would have to pull resources from that if they want to take another shot at Pluto, which accomplishes one of our mission objectives anyway, pulling IC forces away from the inner system. Besides, we could leave one of our captured IC missile destoryer that we can't tug back here loaded with missiles as a token defense if we want.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:23
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We can see people coming from literally a week away as long as the fleet scout is watching Titania, they're not gonna catch us with our pants down on S-T. And even if they do, through taking the long way around or bullshit tech or whatever, the Marine TF has sensors decent enough to see anyone they can't handle coming with enough time to reload the troops and bug out. Re: Holding it, I agree with Pash. The IC would have to divert resources to it again, which they're less likely to do now that their first convoy was destroyed in detail and we're beating them to Pluto. On top of that, the reason S-T fell so quickly was because they weren't expecting an attack, I imagine the next time the IC is in the neighborhood the locals will be a hell of a lot less welcoming. Plus, if we leave the captured missile destroyer in orbit, it's actually a pretty decent PDC knockoff. It won't be able to weather any return fire, but a 50 missile alpha strike is gonna vaporize at least a cruiser, which I say is a fair enough trade if they really want S-T back.
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Jun 21, 2017 15:36
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Not really worth risking our marines for a PR boost. And what if the enemy sneaks through past our spotters? Those 1-shot missile ships would love a shot at our marines. That'd seriously curtail our ability to operate.
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Jun 22, 2017 04:32
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Before I forget, here are the captured ships and ground units from the Pluto convoy. 1092kps max for the cargo ships, the Transports can make about 1600kps.  TF Dumbo can make 2068kps towing the crippled destroyer.  And finally the operations vessel and her escort gettting ready to depart for Pluto.
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Jun 22, 2017 12:34
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Veloxyll posted:Not really worth risking our marines for a PR boost. I specifically changed my idea from using the marines to using the regular infantry from Neptune, as we have a lot more of it and its less valuable.
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Jun 22, 2017 13:43
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This far out, even the regulars are valuable. Its not like we can raise another battalion in a week, so it'd be at least the better part of a month to get replacements out here. So retaking S-T would have to be a serious endeavor, so we should wait on it until we're better prepared (mobile repair dock at Triton, Pluto expedition escorts back, etc).
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Jun 22, 2017 15:51
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The thing is one of our major objectives is to draw IC forces out from the inner system. Putting pressure on them by retaking S-T and giving them that objective to take against helps this.
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Jun 22, 2017 16:02
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Did we find anything damning in the holds of those captured freighters? The fact that we captured both a construction brigade and combat engineers pretty much confirms my suspicions that they were hauling PDC's to Pluto, but by some miracle were there not PDC's in the holds? Or if there were, was there anything else?
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Jun 22, 2017 16:03
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Space Dwarf me! Also we're better off if we can have the IC believe S-T is at all important! Spending the minimal amount of effort to keep their attention on this stupid rock is imperative. That keeps fleetbase Triton secure, lets us keep the initiative!
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Jun 22, 2017 16:05
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Crazycryodude posted:Did we find anything damning in the holds of those captured freighters? The fact that we captured both a construction brigade and combat engineers pretty much confirms my suspicions that they were hauling PDC's to Pluto, but by some miracle were there not PDC's in the holds? Or if there were, was there anything else? Haha, if there are PDC's in the holds we could totally set one up on S-T (with their permission) after we take it back. That might be funny.
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Jun 22, 2017 16:37
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No, install the PDC then liberate S-T. Further proof that the perfidious Outers can't be trusted.
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Jun 22, 2017 16:42
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Coffeehitler posted:No, install the PDC then liberate S-T. Further proof that the perfidious Outers can't be trusted. Now thats taking the propaganda to the next level.
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Jun 22, 2017 17:05
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I hope they did give us a free PDC or two, that'd be a great way to neatly sidestep the whole "how do we hold S-T if they want it back" conundrum.
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Jun 22, 2017 17:11
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We don't want or need ST. It's important to remember this! We use this worthless rock as bait and nothing else!
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Jun 22, 2017 17:22
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