>>55508629I love hearing that my exploration of this alternative approach has helped further justify your design philosophy! I think its cool to have different approaches to this stuff as the differences in approach elevate each other by comparison: Long operational range and deep incursions are no longer the norm, they are now a defining characteristic that makes a faction recognizable!
I was actually thinking about the Daemons a lot while writing this, using them as a sort of "soft foil" for the Frames.
>DronesReally, the idea for the "subversion" came from the idea of a mother bird protecting her nest with her wings, and for the petals from strikingly colourful petals floating in the wind. If you think about it, the flower is often the most aggressive part of a plant, while the primary purpose of feathers is to insulate, and protect.
>Saturation BombardmentEssentially, yes. In this context specifically using proximity fuses on explosive shells and missiles. However, I would not describe saturation bombardment as "filling the space with enough lead you can't dodge it", instead choosing "firing so much stuff into space you are probably going to hit something, even if you cant aim at the target".
I thought that Mechas would likely have maneuverability and adaptability as their primary advantage over other forms of combat craft, so I assumed directly aiming at them to be more or less unfeasible, except on either very close range (where the mecha does not realistically have time to react, like would be the case for mecha vs mecha combat) or extremely long range (where you aren't targeting individual units, but entire formations). Saturation bombardment belongs to the latter idea, you are not aiming at any specific unit but the loose formation of the approaching enemy mecha swarm.
Saturation bombardment as a doctrine also changes the approach the enemy has to take. Since dodging the aim is no longer plausible as a strategy (no one is aiming at "you", they are aiming everywhere around you in the space you just happen to occupy), the best strategy for the receiving side of the bombardment becomes to avoid areas of bombardment and/or getting out of the area as quickly as possible. This in turn either denies them certain approach directions, or makes them more predictable. In a tactical sense, it is giving the enemy the choice between becoming predictable or forcing them to take casualties due to the sheer probability of one of the tens of thousands of shells hitting someone (likely multiple someones) by pure chance. Since the fire is not aimed, it is also arguably much more likely to damage and wound the targets rather than destroy them.
Basically, refer to
https://youtu.be/H8zPNMqVi2E?t=660 , but scale it up.
>FightersThe name chosen is a sort of conlang thing (con-etymology?), inspired by how the name for "Destroyers" in modern navies has evolved over time, but here instead its a class of ships that were named "Space Fighters" at some point, probably due to how their role resembled that of fighter aircraft. Later on the "space" part was dropped.
The ship class probably started out as what one would assume fighter spacecraft to stereotypically be, until the Mecha overtook that role from them. This in turn caused that ship class to specialize for different roles on the battlefield, which led to them becoming larger and better armed until we hit the point where we are now. The idea for them was sort of inspired by
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_fighterReally, Fighters are similar to Frames in the sense that both follow the same "Strike hard and fast, and then retreat to resupply" philosophy
although, with support craft the Frames have much more staying power than Fighters do. It is much more unfeasible to resupply fighters on the battlefield, since their size means that any ship capable of tending to them in significant numbers would be large enough to need Screen protection, aka, be a capital ship.. Fighters are just less maneuverable, less adaptable, but on paper harder hitting Frames. Naturally, their crews area also considerably larger.
I imagine there may be some tension between Frame squadron leaders and Fighter Commanders
they do not get the "captain" rank, since they often accompany each other on the battlefield, and are on paper vying for similar roles. Both sides are probably overly prideful about their impact on the battlefield, while belittling the impact of the other.
>Frame sizeSmallest are probably around 8m tall. Light (Combat) Frames start at 16m, with the average size for the typical frontline combatant Frames being around 24m. Medium Frames in turn are around 32m to 56m. Large ones may be around the 80m mark. Note that "light" Frames are the norm, not the "medium" ones. Think of the "medium" as the "heavy" and the "large" as the "superheavy" classifications.
>>55510635Amazing! Thanks poembot anon for this! Its very cool!
