Commonwealth v. Ares, Who Would Win?

[robotarozum]

Ares
Name - weapon, weapon, ...; shield and armor (values given vs. particle); speed and thrust

Sandstorm - 16 ion @ 3.7; 0 and 215 HP; .2 and 300
Tundra - 16 ion @ 3.7, 19.5 thermo @ 1.5 (WMD 3); 100 and 3640 HP; .2 and 500
Chasm - 18 positron @ 3.7; 100 and 3640 HP; .2 and 500
Cometfall - 16 ion @ 3.7 omni, 13 thermo @ 1.5 (WMD 7); 100 and 3640 HP; .1 and 4000
Deimos - 16 ion @ 20 max (estimate as 5), 60 thermo @ 1.5 (WMD 5); 318 and 22,000 HP; .12 and 8000
Phobos - 300 plasma @ 0.8 (WMD 7), 32 ion @ 20 max (estimate as 5); 1,067 and 125,125 HP; .16 and 10,000

For full scale engagement ignore Sentry, Polar, Polar II (and shield regeneration rates).

Commonwealth Fleet
defensive values given vs. ion, this gives the best case for the Fleet as thermo+ are meaner.

Centurion - 18 particle @ 3.7; 132 and 135 HP; .2 and 1250
Centurion X - 13 ion @ 5; 210 and 188 HP; .22 and 2000
Britannia - 13 ion @ 5, 75 thermo @ 2 (WMD 7); 220? and 188 HP; .22 and 1250
Aquila - 26 ion @ 5, *; 494 and 333 HP; .16 and 5000
CSC - 56 particle @ 3.7; 0 and 1334 HP; .02 and ?

.

Centurion vs. Sandstorm looks a lot like the traditional X-wing vs. TIE Fighter battle, pretty evenly matched. In a reversal of that tradition, the shielded fighter (Centurion) is useless against larger ships while the unshielded can get some halfway decent licks in. Firing at the same rate, consider that it takes 84 Sandstorm shots to sink a CSC vs. 6,952 Centurion shots to sink a Phobos (in each case ignoring non-critical, as each is equally useless there).
Conclusion: 0-0.

Centurion X vs. Tundra is a clash of styles: fighter vs. bomber. It is very plausible that a single X would obliterate a single Tundra, as we would expect given traditional fighter vs. bomber engagements. Using ion weapons changes the Tundra's defensive values to 90 and 211, add in greater maneuverability and it's no contest. However, the Tundra's WMD value makes it relevant against bases/criticals/swarms, whereas the X's strength is in dogfights rather than pitched battles. Again to give the Fleet the best possible assessment, call it a wash.
Conclusion: 0-0.

Chasm stands alone as a third fighter, and with a positron (and shieldbusting!) weapon this strikes me as a glaring weakness for the Fleet. Outside of the CSC their ships are heavily reliant on shields, and a higher level weapon further exacerbates the tech level disparity.
Conclusion: 1-0 Ares.

Britannia vs. Cometfall is like X/Tundra but not to the same degree; they're both fighter/bombers, Britannia is a little more fighter and Cometfall is a little more bomber. Again like the X/Tundra, the use of higher level tech (ion/thermo) and maneuverability gives Britannia a strong (probably insurmountable) edge in one on one dogfights, but this is not interesting in a full scale engagement. Still, the Britannia's WMD armament makes this a wash.
Conclusion: 1-0 Ares.

Aquila vs. Deimos is hard to quantify because it's hard to tell just what missiles the Aquila uses with its NAMI Heavy. In an ironic twist, the Deimos shield is actually stronger vs. ion than particle, and while the same can't be said for the armor it can still withstand 967 points of ion damage. The Deimos' WMD rounds are of course non-fragmenting, so the Aquila could have an edge in attacking a swarm, but the Deimos' dramatically superior durability (and omni ions) makes Ares supremacy an easy call. (The player might have an unduly high opinion of Aquila given that its only appearance in vanilla involves a pack assault vs. a CSC, but we'll get to the CSC's foibles shortly.)
Conclusion: 2-0 Ares.

CSC vs. Phobos is a bloodbath, and even the Ares might quail at the slaughter inflicted on the Terrans. This is on the one hand obvious, because a (spacecraft/aircraft) carrier's projectile armament could never stand up to a dreadnought's (3-0 Ares), but there's a lot going on here.

1. Terran history moved towards aircraft carriers because of concepts like force projection and superior tech level, but in Transcendence force projection has no meaning and aircraft carry inferior weaponry. The Fleet tops out at thermo, the Ares go to eleven in the form of plasma and positron.

2. In game terms, friendly ships can't be too well armed or else stray collateral damage will obliterate the player ship. I can stand in between a CSC-Gaian slap fight all day at end game, but standing in front of a Phobos at any point is a one way ticket to Reload-ville. Or: constricting CSCs to low tech and limited spawns is necessary so the player doesn't have to choose between Commonwealth Outlaw and Commonwealth Burial.

3. In game terms, friendly ships aren't meant to challenge the player. Naturally enemy ships are given more consideration for hardiness, lethality, etc.

4. By the same token, pitched battles are irrelevant when we as players command one fighter.

5. By the same token, there is some resonance in the idea that the CSC would hire a commando/mercenary while the Ares would meet any such pilot with vigorous destruction: surely the winning side has no need for our scum.

6. While there is a war between Ares and Commonwealth, it's not clear what the motivation is. One irrefutable truth about space is that there is A LOT of it, quarantine or no: no shortage of resources, no shortage of habitable planets, no shortage of targets for raids. Who is invading whom? While there's no question each side could be motivated by echos of Earth v. Mars, the battleground is Ungoverned Space, a hundred years and uncountable light-years from the past. Does either faction even want to conquer the other? Or even defeat the other? It's hard to predict future economies, but each could have adopted the Roman strategy: soldiers are expensive, corpses are free, conquest is a windfall, war brings solidarity. Thus, create a scenario where each side continually conquers the other only on the frontier. One side being at an inarguable disadvantage is relevant only if the goal is domination. If the goal is an intentionally endless war, the Fleet can keep using TeV 9 blasters with impunity.

.

Still, I think a third gunship is in order for the Fleet. We know they are experimenting with antimatter, what about an analogue to the Chasm?

Name: Leo (follows from Britain's zodiac symbol of the Lion)
weapon: 4d12 (26) antimatter @ 1.5 (WMD 5) (rough mix of the Ares positron and Hecates designs)
shield: R9 deflector 494 v. ion
armor: P150 hexphase (I'd really want to go higher, but I feel constrained by the Britannia)
engine: .25 c and ? thrust (in keeping with the Fleet theme of hitting hard and fast)

As a Fleet ship, it would be difficult for players to farm, and nothing there is too spectacular anyway. It would make the Point Juno battle a little less pathetic on the part of the fleet to have a squadron of these babies that could conceivably take on a squadron of Cometfalls, and it would make the general Fleet/Ares math a little less onesided.

[sun1404]

Are the Ares ships' armaments really that better? Ares armors and shields doesn't seems too strong to me, except the orange nightmare of course. Maybe it is because you ignore shield regeneration. That does mean a lot in full scale battles. In battles where ships are limited, the repairability of those ships are very important, all the better with the regenerating shields. Considering the Fleet ships have more speed and maneuverability, they can use hit and run tactics in many groups, going in one after another. This would give minimum damage to the Fleet ships, zero if they can keep the damages on their shield. I've once use a squadron of six Britannias to destroy an Ares Commune before. I myself, (with Iocrym-worthy ship of course) did not join the fight. Using break and attack command and then calling them back just before the bombardment gets into a brawl, the Britannias can make quick work of the Sandstorms. The Deimoses can be taken down by targeting them and order a focused attack. Just the Lucifers can damage it from afar, and then combine that with Star cannons. Tundras and Chasms are just like Sandstorms, the only catch is that you must destroy the Tundra quickly, or all your ships are space dust. Don't underestimate the power of Area Effect. Of course if that was a shipyard it would be another story.

Still, the outcome, IMHO, would still be the same, because even if you overestimate the Ares's defenses, you underestimate their weaponries. ANY of the Fleet's fighters cannot stand up to the Tundra, if both comes in a squadron. Even the Britannia will fall in front of three Nukes, one if you're (un)lucky. If both sides comes in a squadron of six, for example, the Britannias will all be space dust before they could crack the Tundras' shields. Except in the fortunate event that they incidentally shot down all the nukes. Trust me, I've lost Point Juno just because one Tundra was left in the brawl, and the Centurians can't hit it, and it keeps spewing shockwaves of doom, and I can't hit it through all those useless guards, and in the end Point Juno sacrificed herself to end all those fightings.

Also, you shouldn't compare them one-on-one. Some of the ships are multi-role, and all of them can pick a fight with any other ships. Suddenly the Ares has an even bigger advantage. Just one Phobos alone can take down an entire division of the Fleet. Yet, the Aquila would fare great against a large amount of Ares fighters. But the Tundra will just demolish the CSCs and the Aquilas. And no fighters can really stand against the Chasm.

Still, this is maybe because the Commonwealth is pushing too far into the Ares's territory. Considering all the battles between the two happens in systems with Ares stations, and a Commonwealth Carrier, I'd say the Commonwealth is actually the side gaining the advantage. They've pushed the Ares out from their territory, the New Beyond, all the way across the Ungoverned Territories, and into the Outer Realm. I guess their resources are being spread too far. If the Ares would take the chance to strike the Commonwealth's Capitol now, I guess even their largest fleet would be dwindled to nothing along the way. Even if the Commonwealth themselves aren't too strong, their ally the Corporate have many stations that can easily destroy a bunch of Ares, even a Deimos or two. Still, if the Ares can somehow teleport a Phobos to St. Kat's, the Commonwealth would be headless and hopeless. Except if they have an elite unit inside the Arcology.

Lastly, two questions. One, why do you classify the Cometfall as a fighter/bomber? Considering it's pathetic speed and maneuverability, and that it's only weapons are an Ares launcher, and an omnidirectional lightning cannon, it can't be really be a fighter IMO. Two, once more, do we really need thousands of particle damage to take down a Tundra? And twenty thousands for a Deimos? I know they're resistance to the damage type, but those numbers.... If the Fleet ever knows about this, they'd get a depression. Or maybe breakdown and cry.

[EditorRUS]

Well, i think phobos-rush can easily overtake the ENTIRE commonwealth's fleet.
125K HP is the most powerful stuff i even seen, even iocrym command ship can't even with that.
Also, phobos is powerful enough to common ship, except special ones which are equipped with ion-reflection and an antimissile system. But even these ships will have to fire for at least ten minutes in order to exit from a battle undamaged.

One time i've seen SIX phobos ships at once, goddammit, they cleaned the system by themselves, even without my help.

[robotarozum]

If we look back through at shield regen, we see...

0 - Sandstorm
8 - Cydonian (Tundra/Chasm/Cometfall)
6 - Cydonian heavy (Deimos)
6 - Kaidun (Phobos)

4 - R1 (Centurion)
6 - R5 (Centurion X)
6.7 - R5-B (Britannia)
10 - R9 (Aquila)
0 - CSC

I think the only comp it could change is giving the Aquila a better case against the Deimos, but the armor advantage is still too overwhelming.

.

I call the Cometfall a fighter/bomber because while the ship is lumbering and hard to maneuver, it's omnidirectional ion blaster is not. At 65 ion damage a second, I calculate 5 seconds to shred a Centurion. The Centurion can run away, but it can't do so without taking damage or not doing damage, either way the Cometfall can defend itself without the need for a fighter escort.

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I think I miscalculated the damage needed by double-counting the level effect, but even so the Phobos takes 10k+ points of particle damage (plus critical effects) and the Tundra clocks in at 910. Particle is just rubbish.

[Aury]

Based purely on gameplay observations:
Phobii can kill just about any human ship in the stock game with minimal effort. (Player not counted)
The Ares shipyards can produce a phobos, in real-life 10-15 minutes (Depending on the rate at which you kill their ships), based on my experience farming them for fun - the Commonwealth never produces any CSCs in-game.

From this it would seem like the Ares would have no problem steamrolling the commonwealth, even if the only tactic they used was spamming phobii for a couple real-time hours.

Lore-wise, there was a stalemate between the commonwealth and the ares, but recently the Ares gained the upper hand by designing the Phobos Dreadnought which easily deals with the largely dated commonwealth fleet.

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

Let's not forget the Aurochs minelayer- although in gameplay terms it is ineffective, I think that lorewise it is regarded as highly effective at deploying mines, which the Ares don't use and don't really have counter to.

Also, Ares static defenses seem to be much better than Commonwealth, with the possible exception of Point Juno; Ares stations are heavily armored and are frequently guarded by the excellent positron sentinels.

Wolfy, you clearly have access to deeper lore sources than some of us. Is there considered to be much military interaction between Ares and commonwealth irregulars, civilians, corporate entities, and loose affiliates? There are a lot of armed ships out there that are not part of the Fleet per se, and the Commonwealth seems to be reliant on the corporate hierarchy for supply to some extent.

Can you comment on the relative strengths and sizes of the fleets in both absolute terms and deployable forces? My impression was that the CW fleet is much larger than the Ares fleet but that it is partly tied up suppressing unrest at home and has major problems with getting combat units to the front and keeping them supplied.

[george moromisato]

On lore, both Wolfy and Atarlost have been helping me to flesh out the forces of both Commonwealth and Ares. It's all a work in progress, but there are a few data points that may or may not help:

1. As Wolfy said, the Phobos really changed the game about 25 years ago and they've been terrorizing the Fleet ever since. The Cometfalls are also relatively new (40 years old) and may have had an even bigger impact, particularly on slow or fixed targets.

2. In response, the Commonwealth developed the Aquila (10-20 years ago), signalling a potential move away from CSCs and towards cruisers. Per point of damage inflicted, Aquilas are probably cheaper than Phoboses.

3. The Britannia's are also a recent development (last few years) and I can imagine that their capabilities will improve over time (imagine Britannia's packing Lamplighters). But even as they are, I think their missiles are pretty formidable. A squadron of them, launching missiles at extreme range could easily take out a Deimos (and maybe a previously damaged Phobos).

4. Of course, the Lamplighter is also meant to even the odds. The first version might not be suitable for mass deployment. But even equipping every CSC with one would make a tactical difference.

Lastly, I ran TransData to see what it thought. I used the /shiptable /balance switch to output its evaluation of combat power for each ship class:

Code: Select all

level	name						          pwr	att	def
 7	Sandstorm-class gunship		      41	  60	 42
 9	Ares sentry					         63	 127	 23
 6	Centurion-class heavy gunship	   76	  51	202
 8	Tundra-class heavy gunship		  102	  90	228
 9	Cometfall-class missileship		 132	 167	195
 9	Chasm-class heavy gunship		   158	 203	228
 7	Britannia-class heavy gunship	  180	 195	330
 7	Centurion/X-class heavy gunship	186	 195	355
 9	Deimos-class destroyer			   312	 439	370
10	Phobos-class dreadnought		    400	 507	587
10	Commonwealth Star Carrier		   415	1215	444
 9	Aquila-class cruiser		        452	 742	323

Attack strength (att) is roughly proportional to the amount of damage done, adjusting for damage type, etc.
Defense strength (def) is roughly proportional to the total amount of damage required to destroy the ship, adjusting for maneuverability, shield (regen), hull, etc.
Power (pwr) is a combination of the two, to roughly determine how strong the ship is in combat.

These are not perfect values (I think it is under-estimating the Phobos and over-estimating the Aquila), but they are still an interesting data points.

[Aeon Blaze]

In my experience, i have never seen a CSC defeat a phobos. well except CSC Terra. Even if CSCs have much higher attack but they are kept down by their tev9s, particle is outdated in the Ares space.
Ares plasma archcannon makes a short work of the CSCs and well anything.
CSCs can be upgraded with katana star cannons and Terra can use lamplighter..

[sun1404]

That wouldn't be too good for yourself, seeing that you're aboard the Phobos and all...

[Aeon Blaze]

That wouldn't be too good for yourself, seeing that you're aboard the Phobos and all...

Then I think that would be a great time for me to jump ship. Wonder if there are any job vacancies on CSCs.

[greatchicken]

The CSCs have no money to hire you. They haven't even paid the Ringers for their Brittanias yet. (The Ringers use them, the CSCs don't for some reason...)

You'll end up like Volkov. <_<'

[Ultimate Chicken]

...and I accidentally forgot my username and posted with the sock account again.

[Atarlost]

1 on 1 an optimally piloted Aquila should be able to kill an optimally piloted Phobos. They can generate tangential velocity to dodge the archcannon while still having a Katana bear on the Phobos and are faster and should therefore be able to keep between 81 and 120 light seconds away.

The games AI is not that good, but light capital ships with long range turreted weapons are just better than larger, slower ships with shorter ranged turrets and spinal guns.

Additionally, the Commonwealth probably has at least one super-heavy combat design available but not yet implemented in game. Anton Nasser's ship is proof that CW aligned corporations have the shipyard capacity. It probably didn't come from the same yards as the CSCs either since they're EI and it's Makayev.

[Song]

Hmm. The Fleet feels tired. The Aquila is rare as heck, the carriers aren't being replaced when they're destroyed, and their run-of-the-mill gunships aren't very good (and before anyone mentions how terrible the Sandstorm is compared with the centurion, remember that it's designed as a swarmer. Centurions are supposedly advanced and survivable spacecraft). They've got some really nice equipment here and there though.

Ultimately, I think the Ares would win because their leadership is fully behind the war. The Fleet is hamstrung by politics and the fact that it's largely cut-off from the rest of the commonwealth. They have their shipyards churning out new dreadnoughts and gunships while the commonwealth won't even authorise the start of construction. Even with the best tactics in the world, it's hard to beat a numerical advantage indefinitely.

[Aury]

Does /shiptable /balance take into account the ship interiors?